Retrospect This

It seams to me that the point of this class is to learn about critical thinking through literature.  If one reads a book, then they will learn about the book.  If one watches a movie, then they will learn about what the movie tells them.  If one reads poetry, then they do not just learn about what is on the surface but things that are underneath.  He/she would have to use the skills that they have to figure out what is going on and to find meaning behind the poem. 

The one thing that I did not like about this class was the blog entries.  This is because I prefer to just have journal writings.  Yes the Internet is cool, but this was just unnecessary.

I liked a lot of the work that was shown to us throughout the course of the semester.  The one that stood out to me was “Nothing in Heaven Functions as it Ought.” This was very interesting to me because I am a strong Christian.  Most of the allusions I knew about and read.  It was just interesting how the poet depicted heaven as this wonderful place.  He related it to the world in a way that reminded me of my childhood.  What I thought heaven would be like as a child, he had captured it in his poem.  It just took me of guard when he did this, which made the poem mean that much more to me.  This poem made me re-think about how I should view heaven.  After all my experiences at church, it just seams that heaven should be like a child’s playground. 

Tempest is Surreal

When I read the Tempest I thought of it as a lighthearted piece of work because of the different elements in the play.  When one uses magic in a play, it starts to become surreal.  This is because the play no longer can happen in real life.  It seams to me that a drama is usually one that happens in real life.  That is how the audience relates to the actors so well.  But when that relation is taken out of the picture the, in my opinion, it takes it away from a drama and into a more lighthearted play.

Women in Poetry

       One of the themes, that is in A Doll's House, that have been encountered before is in Yellow wallpaper.  In the Yellow Wallpaper and A Doll's House is the position of women in society.  In Yellow Wallpaper, women are seen as people that cannot handle their own emotions.  They have to have the men help them solve their problems.  Similar to this, A Doll's House talks about how women should not be allowed to make their own decisions because they will be foolish.  Which is shown by the bank not allowing women to sign for a loan.  This shows that women are not trusted in this society.  Unfortunately this is what happens sometimes in society.  They just loose track of what they are doing.  This is why the authors wrote these stories, to put the people in this world back on track.
       Themes are treated differently in a play then if they were in a short story.  Because a theme in a play is shown by how the characters act to certain situations.  This is shown by how Torvalt would have his wife dance in front of everyone and then not let her socialize. It shows how women are viewed by his actions. The difference in a short story, the narrator can give some insight on the matter.  So he/she can tell the audience about it instead of the the audience having to figure it out through the characters actions.

Oedipus is a Tragic Hero

Finding what Aristotle's Tragedy means, will help show that Oedipus is a Tragic Figure.  He exhibits some of the attributes that a tragic figure would show.  The first is that they have a tragic flaw, which Oedipus presents when he does not listen to his wife and continues on his path for knowledge.  This shows how he was stubborn and this attribute kept him going till he found out about his mother/wife.  His downfall was ultimately him being stubborn.  Another tragic figure attribute that Oedipus displayed was that he had conquered an evil.  The evil that he had conquered was the sphinx, which he conquered the by solving the riddle.  All in all, Oedipus proved to be a tragic hero

Heaven's Play

When one personifies a trait to being a person then the audience is able to relate to that personality.  This relation is through the different actions of the virtues and vices.  As well as the appearance of these characters would help one see how they can live their lives with these virtues/vices.  Having these characters on stage in stead of just having a lectures helps because the audience experiences what the main character had experienced.  When one experiences something is much stronger than for one to simply hear a lecture from someone.  Creating this play would be a great lesson for the play.  This works as a drama because the main character would have an internal conflict of the not having these virtues/vices as his friends.  The end having found these virtues/vices and how one can obtain them.  Also helping the church teach what one needs to get into heaven.

Poetry's Assignment

When i first read the poem i had so many questions about what was going on the poem.  After reading the poem a second time i started to see more of the different scenes that were going on.  After re-reading the poem a few more time I saw that I was not getting anywhere with the approach that I was taking.  So The next approach was to go to outside sources, which was an old assignment from high school.  This assignment helped explain what was going on with urn as the author went the different parts of the story.  Finally once I understood the story through my research, the professor's insight helped me learn more about the poem and this made it easier to organize and complete the assignment.  As far as my view of poetry, this did not change because i have always liked poetry.  Having an assignment that I felt was easy made me like poetry just a little bit more.

Who said poetry was difficult

The poem that i found most difficult was "The Flea".  This was because this poem was pack with so many figurative language and was very difficult to read at first.  It wasn't until the professor explained it that it actually made sense.  It seams to make sense of poems that one needs to know the background of the author, background of the time and have read many similar poems before.  Considering this i think that the class did pretty well with their interpretation.  I felt that once she explained the poem i had no more questions about the poem.  The poem that i felt was easiest to read was Ozymandias, this was because i had already read it in high school.  On top of this, it was an easy read, very straight forward and not much hidden.

Writing is easy

My understanding of these stories did not change at all during this process of writing.  The only thing that had changed was how I phrased things.  I brought to mind different ways of interpretation and used this to phrase things differently.  Other than that, this essay was easy and i should be able to get an 'A' on the next one.