Poem "Out Beyond Ideas" by Mewlana Jalaluddin Rumi
1. The title of this poem is significant because the poem is about leaving all of our ideas behind so that we may see everyone as equals. Our ideas of right and wrong is the reason that their are problems in the world and by leaving them behind we realize that we are actually all equals.
2. I think that the tone of this poem is inspiring and hopeful because the author is hoping to inspire people to leave their ideas behind so that we may not have as many problems in the world.
3. As I read this poem I really began to think about how many problems there are in the world. I think the author is right in that if we just leave our ideas and differences aside then many of the worlds problems that are very severe could possibly be solved or maybe they would never have happened in the first place.
4. In this poem there seems to be a shift from talking about a field that sounds amazing to talking about a world that is full of problems. This shift from a positive feeling to a negative feeling confirms the overall theme of the poem.
5. The theme of this poem is that the world is filled with problems and many of them could possibly be solved if we leave our ideas and our differences aside.
Thursday, December 11, 2014
LOVE SONG OF J. ALFRED PRUFROCK NOTES
-poem is talking about how time is wasted
-he did not have the time to make the decisions that he really wanted to make
-he has waited too long to make the decision
-a lot of us procrastinate and we lose time
-we need to keep track of time before we lose track of it
-he is trying to warn the rest of us to not spend our lives like he spent his
- the title is ironic because nobody really loves Prufrock in his own "love song"
-time can either heal or heart
-if time is not healing then it must be hurting because time can only heal something if there is something that got hurt by living your life and if you're not living then time can only hurt you
-he did not have the time to make the decisions that he really wanted to make
-he has waited too long to make the decision
-a lot of us procrastinate and we lose time
-we need to keep track of time before we lose track of it
-he is trying to warn the rest of us to not spend our lives like he spent his
- the title is ironic because nobody really loves Prufrock in his own "love song"
-time can either heal or heart
-if time is not healing then it must be hurting because time can only heal something if there is something that got hurt by living your life and if you're not living then time can only hurt you
Tuesday, December 9, 2014
QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER IN "THE LOVE SONG OF J. ALFRED PRUFROCK"
1. Throughout the poem the author talks a lot about time. At the beginning he is young and feels like he has a lot of it and that when he wants to do something he can wait. Then at the end of the poem he is older and feels like he does not have any time to do anything anymore. He wishes that he would have acted on his thoughts when there was time when he was younger. I think that the author's point is that time goes by a lot faster than most of us anticipate and we should make the most of the time that we are given on this earth.
2. Elliot uses the allusion to show that J. Alfred Prufrock was not like Hamlet at all. Unlike Hamlet, J. Alfred Prufrock was scared to act or do anything about his problems that he was having. Hamlet was the opposite and was trying to solve his problems by acting on them and trying to kill the king to get revenge.
3. "To have squeezed the universe into a ball" This part of the poem makes me picture someone taking the universe in their hand and squeezing it so that it becomes smaller and more manageable. This image shows the reader that J. Alfred Prufrock wishes the world were smaller so that he could manage his problems and do something about them and this is the underlying theme of the entire poem. He wants to be able to face his problems that he never had the courage to face.
2. Elliot uses the allusion to show that J. Alfred Prufrock was not like Hamlet at all. Unlike Hamlet, J. Alfred Prufrock was scared to act or do anything about his problems that he was having. Hamlet was the opposite and was trying to solve his problems by acting on them and trying to kill the king to get revenge.
3. "To have squeezed the universe into a ball" This part of the poem makes me picture someone taking the universe in their hand and squeezing it so that it becomes smaller and more manageable. This image shows the reader that J. Alfred Prufrock wishes the world were smaller so that he could manage his problems and do something about them and this is the underlying theme of the entire poem. He wants to be able to face his problems that he never had the courage to face.
Saturday, November 15, 2014
Hamlet (the madman?)
We are all crazy in our own ways but some of us can just handle it better than others can. In the play Hamlet, Hamlet seems to be able to control his emotions that he is feeling towards his family. The more he seems to contemplate killing his Uncle the more his craziness seems to consume him, but even though he is going crazy over the decision he is still sane enough to form an elaborate plan to kill his uncle so is he really mad?
Throughout the play Hamlet goes back and forth and doesn't know whether it is better to deal with his problems or to just die so he doesn't have to worry about them anymore. In his "to be or not to be" soliloquy he shows the audience how this decision is impacting him. This is when the decision really starts to consume him so that he really does began to become mad. That being said, he is definitely not mad. He obviously does not let the decision impact the way he makes an elaborate plan to kill his Uncle. If he was truly made and consumed by his problems, there would be no way that he could carry out his plans. He might have gone mad if he did not talk about his problems out load. By talking out loud to himself he made his words and ideas more than just words and definitions. They became reality and really helped him to ultimately make his decision. Words can cause movements when said in the right way and we can see this in the way Hamlet lets out what he is thinking.
Hamlet may seem like he is mad but the only thing that has really made him get even close to going mad is the ghost that basically told him to do this act of violence. The ghost is the root of all of Hamlet's biggest problems. Hamlet would probably just suffer in silence if the ghost hadn't said something to Hamlet. Even though Hamlet listens he is obviously troubled but not mad because he does execute his elaborate plan.
Throughout the play Hamlet goes back and forth and doesn't know whether it is better to deal with his problems or to just die so he doesn't have to worry about them anymore. In his "to be or not to be" soliloquy he shows the audience how this decision is impacting him. This is when the decision really starts to consume him so that he really does began to become mad. That being said, he is definitely not mad. He obviously does not let the decision impact the way he makes an elaborate plan to kill his Uncle. If he was truly made and consumed by his problems, there would be no way that he could carry out his plans. He might have gone mad if he did not talk about his problems out load. By talking out loud to himself he made his words and ideas more than just words and definitions. They became reality and really helped him to ultimately make his decision. Words can cause movements when said in the right way and we can see this in the way Hamlet lets out what he is thinking.
Hamlet may seem like he is mad but the only thing that has really made him get even close to going mad is the ghost that basically told him to do this act of violence. The ghost is the root of all of Hamlet's biggest problems. Hamlet would probably just suffer in silence if the ghost hadn't said something to Hamlet. Even though Hamlet listens he is obviously troubled but not mad because he does execute his elaborate plan.
Sunday, November 2, 2014
Literature Analysis #2
1.) Exposition: This story is about a team of Navy Seals that have a mission to eliminate a target that is part of Al Qaeda. This Navy Seal is deployed and is supposed to do just do recon on a leader in the Taliban but it turns into a lot more than just that. While they are hiding they are discovered by some mountain herders that would go tell the rest of the village that they were they, so they are forced to make a decision. They can either tie up the herders to slow them down or they can kill them to save themselves. After they talk it over and begin to really get upset about what they should do, they ultimately decide to tie them up and then get away as fast as possible. This proves to be the wrong decision when they do not get away fast enough and are then surrounded by the Taliban. This is when the firefight begins and since they are trained they kill a lot more Taliban but they are outnumbered and are forced to jump down a cliff multiple times. Every time they jump down the cliffs to avoid being shot at they get very injured and the narrator talks about he was really lucky that his gun landed right next to him every time that he fell down the cliffs even though he lost a lot of other things. Eventually the narrators entire team is killed in the fire fight and the only reason that he lives is because he hides from them under a rock. The narrator is then found and is secretly taken care of by the villagers. While he builds up his strength and recovers he is taken care of by many of the children. Eventually the village rises up and pushes out the Taliban and then the narrator is able to be rescued.
2.) The theme of this novel is to never give up even when everything else is going to hell. We see this message throughout the story and especially when one of the seal team members dies. Every time the narrator loses one of his team members he does not give up but seems to want to survive even more for them. Even at the end when it seems like he is going to give up under the rock he is saved by the villagers which shows that sometimes people we don't expect us can end up helping us the most.
3.) The author's tone seems kind of reminiscent and sorrowful because he is looking back on this terrible event that happened. He talks about how he is amazed that they died because Navy Seals were supposed to be invincible but obviously they aren't. He also constantly talked about how hard it was to keep going while his partners were all dying.
4.) The author uses direct characterization mainly to characterize all of the characters. At the beginning of the story he directly tells the audience what each character is like and how they act and what their job is in the team. Through out the story some of these characterizations are proven through the actions that the characters do when they are in this unbelievable situation.
5.) The main character, which is the narrator, is definitely a dynamic character because this traumatic experience changes him. At the beginning he thought that they were so well trained that they really had nothing to fear but by the end reality hit him. Their training helped them but definitely did not make them invincible like they thought it did. The narrator also learned how hard his job could actually be and why he was trained the way that he was.
6.) After the story was over I felt like I had met every single one of the seal team members. The narrator went into great detail about each character and what kind of person they were like. He then proved it all in the story he was telling so you really got a sense of what the characters were like which made them very realistic.
2.) The theme of this novel is to never give up even when everything else is going to hell. We see this message throughout the story and especially when one of the seal team members dies. Every time the narrator loses one of his team members he does not give up but seems to want to survive even more for them. Even at the end when it seems like he is going to give up under the rock he is saved by the villagers which shows that sometimes people we don't expect us can end up helping us the most.
3.) The author's tone seems kind of reminiscent and sorrowful because he is looking back on this terrible event that happened. He talks about how he is amazed that they died because Navy Seals were supposed to be invincible but obviously they aren't. He also constantly talked about how hard it was to keep going while his partners were all dying.
4.) The author uses direct characterization mainly to characterize all of the characters. At the beginning of the story he directly tells the audience what each character is like and how they act and what their job is in the team. Through out the story some of these characterizations are proven through the actions that the characters do when they are in this unbelievable situation.
5.) The main character, which is the narrator, is definitely a dynamic character because this traumatic experience changes him. At the beginning he thought that they were so well trained that they really had nothing to fear but by the end reality hit him. Their training helped them but definitely did not make them invincible like they thought it did. The narrator also learned how hard his job could actually be and why he was trained the way that he was.
6.) After the story was over I felt like I had met every single one of the seal team members. The narrator went into great detail about each character and what kind of person they were like. He then proved it all in the story he was telling so you really got a sense of what the characters were like which made them very realistic.
Saturday, November 1, 2014
Hamlet Act 2
- Polonius sends a spy to spy on Laertes personal life
- Ophelia says that Hamlet has accousted her
- Polunius suspects that Hamlet's moodiness might be from his love for Ophelia
- He goes to tell Claudius of his idea
- Rosencrantz and Guildenstern come to try and cheer Hamlet up
- Polonius suggests a plan to hide behind a curtain to find out if Hamlet is actually mad with love
- Hamlet talks to Polonius and he seems to be insane
-Hamlet wants to make a play to represent what Claudius did to his father to see if Claudius is actually guilty for killing his father
- Just making this play shows that Hamlet is not one hundred percent committed to the idea of killing Claudius
- Ophelia says that Hamlet has accousted her
- Polunius suspects that Hamlet's moodiness might be from his love for Ophelia
- He goes to tell Claudius of his idea
- Rosencrantz and Guildenstern come to try and cheer Hamlet up
- Polonius suggests a plan to hide behind a curtain to find out if Hamlet is actually mad with love
- Hamlet talks to Polonius and he seems to be insane
-Hamlet wants to make a play to represent what Claudius did to his father to see if Claudius is actually guilty for killing his father
- Just making this play shows that Hamlet is not one hundred percent committed to the idea of killing Claudius
Thursday, October 16, 2014
Literary Fiction & Empathy
Reading fiction can help you understand people by helping the reader notice the way the character acts and comparing that to the way that the character is feeling. By doing this the reader is able to do this better in real life situations. It also makes you use your imagination more and think more about what might be happening in real life situations. From Hamlet, you can take away that even when people seem like they are okay they may in fact be hiding something that they are feeling. You can infer that it may be important to ask other people how they are feeling frequently to know what is truly on their minds.
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