The Handmaids Tale

I don’t understand why Margaret Atwood wants to display women as weak in the novel “The Handmaids Tale.” Offred is obviously miserable in the situation she is in even though she tells the Japanese people she is happy. I believe that Margaret Atwood created a contemporary world where women’s rights are stripped from them in the “Handmaids Tale” because she feels that women are treated unequal compared to men. Margaret was an active feminist and it is depicted through her literature. I would like to research Margaret’s biography and find out why she writes stories about, how angelfire.com described them as, “women struggling with inequality.” I chose this topic because the book, to me, is very confusing, and it is scary thought. I want to know what drove her to write of such things and why she was considered a feminist. It all seems to tie together and it make more sense the more I read about her.

                                                                            http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1761581

What I have learned

Dear Mrs. Cline,

   This semester of school has been very successful for me. I feel as though I have learned a lot. I have learned how to write an analysis of a book or poem rather then just summarizing it. Literary analysis is different then the kind of writing I have done in college. A lot of writing that I have done in the passed was based on a personal experience. It’s been about something I have lived, and to me that’s easier then what we have been doing in this class.

I was never interested in poetry and I feel like it was always hard for me to interpret its meaning. I realized that there is not one specific meaning to a poem, there are many and its really about how you interpret it. With that said, poetry has become more enjoyable for me to read, there is less pressure to figure out what the “real” meaning of the poem is and I can actually enjoy the poem.

Reading the play “The Sand Storm” made me very emotional. When Casavecchia and his crew were protecting a community of people in Baghdad he developed a strong bond with these people. He became emotional to towards them so when they were told they had to leave because there was something more “important” for them to be doing.. Casavecchia saw the people’s pain as they left but he immediately became numb to their pain. It was clear to me that a lot of the soldiers knew how to shut emotion off when it came to war. It was sad to read some of the things that the soldiers had to do or had done to the enemy. A lot of them felt like they should have more emotion towards it but they didn’t, some of them say they wish they could find a way to feel “human” again.

          What I would like to improve on is just my overall writing. I would like to be able to express my thoughts, through writing, in a more clear and understandable way. Sometimes I feel like I have great ideas but I cant find a way to express them so I think I can improve on that.  Over all I really enjoy this class and appreciate what I have learned. I am excited to see what you have in store for the class in the second half of the semester. 

Do We Really Want to Know?

CPL Rodriguez said “Have you ever faced your own mortality?” in Sean Huze’s play “The Sand Storm” (Huze 15.) Soldiers face their own death every day and it’s something they probably think about each day in and out. It has to be a hard life to live thinking that you may not live to see the next sun rise. Reading Sean Huze’s play was very interesting. It is based on the Iraq war and I think because it’s something that is happening right now that it makes it more interesting for me. It is hard, in general, to hear about war, especially this one as I am not completely for this war. After reading this play and Tim O’Brien’s short stories I couldn’t help but compare the two since they are both based on war stories. One of Tim O’Brien’s short stories was “How to Tell a True War Story” I thought when Casavecchia said, in Huze’s play, “You’re not supposed to share ‘em. Nope. You’re supposed to go through absolute hell, become something you do, if you make it home…keep it to yourself. Bear witness if you will. Otherwise no truth will ever come out of it.” (Huze 1.)  The character, Tim, in “How to tell a True War story” basically feels that there are many ways to tell a “true” war story and sometimes it’s by lying, while Casavecchia believes you should not tell them at all. In my mind, we all want to hear about what happens, we want to get some sort of grasp on how a soldier lives but some of us cannot handle it. It can be very disturbing to know that a soldier bashes their enemy in the head with their boots over and over until their pant legs are covered in blood (Huze 14.) It makes you wonder which parts are actual fact and which is mere imagination in Huze’s and O’Brien’s stories. And can we handle the truth? 

                               http://blog.usnavyseals.com/2010/06/memorials-for-the-fallen-of-iraq-and-afghanistan-in-kansas.html

The Things They Carried

                               http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/picture_gallery/05/in_pictures_the_vietnam_war_/html/2.stm

“The things they carried” by Tim O’Brien is about men in the Vietnam War. The narrator, Tim O'Brien,  describes what all the men carry, or in his words “hump”. Most of the things are typical things that you would probably suspect them to carry but varying from person to person some of the things that they carry are on a more personal level. Lieutenant Jimmy Cross carries a rock that a girl, named Martha, who he met in college, gave to him.  He also carries two photographs of her.  Lietenant Cross is in love with Martha and he struggles with the fact that she does not love him back. Cross becomes so obsessed with the thought of Martha that he loses focus of his first priority, protecting his troops.  Ted Lavender gets shot after going to the bathroom and Cross blames himself. At first Lieutenant Cross still cannot stop thinking about Martha, she was still enveloping his mind, but after awhile he starts becoming depressed and he feels more and more responsible for Lavenders death.  He eventually comes to the conclusion that “his obligation was not to be loved but to lead” (O’Brien 26.) He burned the photographs of Martha and her letters and he came up with numerous ways to get rid of the rock. Cross was on a new path and it didn’t involve love.

http://www.illyria.com/tob/tobbio.html

Is There Such Thing as Justifiable Suicide?

                                                     http://www.jackierobinson.ymca.org/yblog/executive-decisions/2010/9/11/test.html

Wislawa Syzmborska wrote “Photograph from September 11^th.”  This poem brought back emotions for me because I can vividly remember being in 7^th grade and the entire school was quiet and cold. The hallways were dead and not one person was lingering. Everyone was glued to the television watching the twin towers crumble to the ground. It was the most god awful site I had ever seen and the image of people- not just people but everyday hard working adults-like my parents- were jumping from the buildings. Symborska wrote about the people jumping from the towers; she gives almost a peaceful description of the circumstance and one that I wish I had thought of while watching these people fall to their deaths.  She writes “The photograph halted them in life, and now keeps them/ above the earth toward the earth”(Symborska lines 4-6.) 

I also reacted strongly to “Letter Composed During a Lull in the Fighting” by Kevin C. Powers. For me, death is something that I have been struggling with for the past few years. I think about it more and more as I get older and it becomes more significant in my life. I think the fact that death can be so far out of your control and the fact that you don’t know what happens after life, that it can become a scary thought.  This poem, I think, is about a man that was in a war and ultimately couldn’t bare the thoughts of what had gone on during the war and wanted to take his own life. He was writing a suicide note to a woman he loved and in this instance this person did have control over life and death.  To think that he is choosing death because of events that happened during the war saddens me.  In my mind, I feel he must have had to do some pretty unpleasant things to people in order to consider taking his own life. I couldn’t even fathom taking my own life, although I couldn’t fathom taking another’s.

I am very opposed to suicide but in both poems “Photograph from September 11^th” and “Letter Composed During a Lull in the Fighting” suicide may become justifiable. The difference between the poems is the people in the world trade centers were probably going to die no matter what and the more peaceful way, for them, was to jump rather than to burn to death so is that really suicide? In my eyes, no, I guess just the image of those people jumping will never leave my head, it’s like what Sam Hamill said in his piece “The Necessity to Speak”, “we cannot bear very much reality” and in this instance I cannot handle this much reality (Hamill 1.)  In Powers poem suicide may be considered less justifiable but more so compared to a person who is depressed because his wife divorced him and wants to take his life. I know it is a hard thought to think about for people who have been in the war but in this incident the person might have the chance to be helped. If they can find the strength to reach out maybe they can be saved.

http://www.save.org/

Deception of Words

http://www.washingtonpoets.org/lifetime_award.php

Sam Hamill, the writer of “The Necessity to Speak”, has many thoughts of what poetry is and what the writer is. Hamill’s life experiences seem to take presentence in his opinions of poetry. He repeatedly stated “We can’t bear very much reality.” I know there are a number of corrupt things that happen in this world that if we, as united states citizens, knew about all of it, it would scare us. Hamill says, “A true poet, someone once said, is often faced with the default task of telling people what they already know and do not want to hear.” It’s true, we all know that everyday there are rapes, murders, robberies, domestic violence. But if we were to think about that daily it would scare us...it would put limits on our lives and we don’t want limits.

            In Sam Hamill’s piece he quotes Gary Snyder saying “What the writer invents is its own reality.” The writer can portray themselves to be good, even when they are not. Hamill says “The writer is the good man with the belt wrapped around his fist.” The writer is the one who is manipulating the words, creating the world that we are entering.  The writer has the opportunity to make us, as the reader, sympathize or empathize with them even if they are immoral or corrupt. They can make us turn on the people who, in the real world would be considered the “good guy”. The thought of that seems deceitful, it makes me feel naïve, or susceptible to lies. Just because a man “with the belt wrapped around his fist” presents his words in a certain way to make him look decorous, that means he is now good? He now has control over our minds? Have we blocked out the actual vision of the belt wrapped around his wrist? Hopefully, if it is presented to us in words,  we will be able to decipher the difference between the firefighter who works hard and supports his family in order to have control over his life and the man who beats his wife and children in order to have the control in his.
http://www.thedrunkenboat.com/hamillview.htm

What Makes a Good Reader?

            Vladimir Nabokov enlightens readers with his opinion on how he feels what a good reader is in the article “Good Readers and Good Writers”.  There are some ideas that I agree with and some that I don’t.  I agree with Nabokov when he says that you should feel the ideas the writer gives you and to have an open mind when beginning a new book.  Nabokov feels that if you start a new book with a preconceived generalization already made then you are starting off in a wrong direction and you “travel away from the book”(Nabokov 613).  Nabokov also feels you should use your imagination, since the author did; it’s only fair that you do as well.  A reader should also know when to use his or her imagination when the author gives a clear and specific detail of the world they created (Nabokov 616). Something I do not agree with is when he says one should not identify with a character in the book. I think that when you can empathize with a character or a scene in a book you are more engaged and alert to details which therefore makes you a better reader.

Some characteristics I believe make a good reader are being able to pay attention to detail, having an open mind and a good imagination, and being able to empathize with characters or a situation within the reading. Considering the fact that I am a serial skimmer and miss important details quite often while reading I can safely say I do not feel I am a good reader. Although, due to those negative characteristics I will reread things and that is one of Nabokov's characteristics of a good reader. I find that the more interested I am in the material the better I read. Luckily there is always room for improvement!