The Snow Man Poetry Response

I actually kind of like this poem. It took me a couple times reading it to understand what it was trying to say. What i got from this poem is more of a negative outlook on winter - not necessarily negative, but a darker feeling of winter. I believe that at the begining, it starts by saying that one must really know the cold and have been cold a long time to look at all the frozen plants and trees, the "distant" glitter, and all the frost, and not to think of misery. the author is clearly saying that how could you not think of winter as associated with misery? especially when hearing the sound of the few leaves being blown by a full wind. yet the full wind is being blown through a bare land. it is very interesting. there is a deep sense of imagery - i get a complete picture in my mind of white and grey and frost and the cold. The author does  not include any associations to warmth or happiness. the only word of feeling she says is misery, and all the nature she describes results in desolation. she definitely creates a darker sober feeling for the poem. Also, the poem is named the Snow Man. The author definitely uses personification by acting as if this coldness and darkness is a spirit, or a force - which makes the meaning even more complex and deeper - as if someone is putting this cold blanket over the earth - leaving misery. And this misery is there until the SNOW MAN decides to go. I like it for the most part. It is interesting. Makes sense. 

Poetry Response: The Gift

This poem was very simple. It kept my attention. I of course picked one of the shorter ones, the long ones bore me. But this poem focused around such a simple problem in life - getting a splinter. While her father was pulling her splinter out, he was telling her a story in a calm low voice to distract her from the pain. In the middle of the story, he removed the blade that the author thought they would die from. This poem could easily be a metaphor. Obviously ( i assume the author is a girl) this girl was experiencing pain and she thought she was in serious harm from it, but her father, or it even could be a representation of a dream or hope, distracted from this pain and eventually lifted it. Looking back on the experience, she doesnt even remember the pain from the splinter. She remembers her father's low voice telling that tale. Ending the passage by saying "a well." She couldve meant that his voice had a deep sense of depth and meaning. It was never ending - always growing - always going deeper. i just realized that the title of the poem is "a gift." This poem could also just be a commemoration to her father. Her father made even the most painful situations a gift, because of his compassion and the depth that he shared with her. 

Awakening Blog 5

Chopin’s character choice for this novel is quite interesting. While Edna deals with her own struggles, Chopin creates charactors the resemble the polar opposites of what Edna is dealing with. Adele, who embraces the mother role and lives exactly the way she should and then Mademoiselle Reis who is not married, does not care of the opinions of others, and lives for what she is passionate about – music. Throughout the beginning of the novel, Edna is much more like Adele, who is serving her societal expectations. As the novel carries on and when we get to Chapter 13 I believe, we see the strong similarities between Mademoiselle and Edna. They understand one another and their ideas about life. Mademoiselle even gives Edna the letter that Robert wrote about her. Those two women together do not care what society thinks about them. However, I think that Mademoiselle also serves as an example for Edna in a way that has self control and respectful of the traditions of the society. Edna is still filled with the passion of women independence and living the way she wants, while Mademoiselle lives the way she wants but in an acceptable manner, for lack of better way to put it. 

Awakening Blog 4

I am beginning to see a pretty large difference between Robert and Edna. If Edna could have it her way, I feel like without saying anything to anyone she would run away with Robert and never speak to anyone from the past. Her desires and wants are so present within her that she is willing to just fulfill them all immediately! However, we can see that when Robert spontaneously left to Mexico, his manner is completely different. He tries to stay polite and short and still be the “man he is supposed to be.” Robert simply just has feelings for Edna, but cannot show them. He is not necessarily trying to break out of his society norm like Edna is. Edna is willing to cross those boundaries. She grabs his hand and asks him to write to her, saying this with complete passion. He left, for no specific reason yet, but maybe because he knew it was going too far. Yet she was willing to carry this romance on farther and father. They certainly both want one another, but they are different in how they handle it. 

Awakening Blog 3

Chapter ten is incredibly significant I feel like. Here, I can truly FEEL so the first time the desire between Robert and Edna. I can sense the games that each one plays with eahcother, promiarily Edna to Robert. After Edna attempts to swim, Robert walks her home. Yet, Edna’s husband isn’t back yet. And both of them want to spend as much time together. Once they get home, it is like there is an excuse for them to stay together – to wait until they can hear the others walking along the beach. Yet here they sit in complete silence, edna still being lady – like yet in a sense, rebellious, where the loudest noise between them was their silent desire for one another. It truly feels like the beginning of what is going to be an affair. I mean, duh, we know it happens, but in their lives, they don’t know. And something is growing between them. I am trying to go in depth somewhere in here but I cant exactly find a way. So hopefully this is good enough. Because this is quite significant in the plot of the story. 

Poetry Response.

Like most poems in this set of poems, this one was sort of weird, only once you’ve reached the ending. I think the poet is saying that if he didn’t speak for a year, had no one to impress or no words to confuse himself or say lies, would he begin to get well? It makes me think of what we talked about for the Heart of Darkness. “the human condition.” Would he get well? I don’t think it is a matter of sickness. Here the poet is AGAIN analyzing himself in a small dark room by himself. “performing brain surgery on himself,” he says. Small dark rooms alone is place with heavy thought. Where he is forced to look at himself. It is interesting how he says that all the floors and the ceilings like are all like mirrors. It gives us this image of where he is seriously looking at himself, all around, raising the question, who am i? and he says, what a mess. Right after this part is where I get lost. Where the question is raised why? And he sits together ith the mountain li po? Huh? i know that he is in deep thought – and now is he brining in unity with nature? This is now the “beginning again.” Where after he looks at himself, he has an epiphany, and he “begins again” – one with nature. I don’t know. It is hard to understand right at the end. It is like some Chinese poem or something. 

Poetry Response.