English 121 - Spring 2005

Invisible Man

2005-04-22T13:52:00.000-07:00

This book with all of is racial themes is not as "historic" as one might think. Sure we don't have people forceing other people to fight blind folded or strictly colored schools, or even segragation but groups of people still look down on other groups of people. It seems that the it moved from black and white to straight and gay and Arabs to most other people. Although, being white i can't truly say that racism has been erased. the kkk still exists, white supremisy groups still exist, so just becasue segragation is not practiced, it doesn't mean that racism is over. but it does seem to have shifted to gay rights with all the conserversity with same sex marriage and adoption.

Idealogy and The House of the Spirits

2005-03-29T14:58:00.000-08:00

As stated in the Theory Toolbox, "Ideology is the thing that entices you to forget that meaning always happens in a context. Ideology leads you to accept each day as a natural fact: Things are the way they are; case closed." With this statement it seems that any part of Allende's novel would provoke one to realilize that the ideology the novel portrays also pertains to ones life. The entire novel is the story of peoples lives. These people intertwine and the stories of the individuals overlap with each other. This is how life is, although sometimes not as interesting as the novel or sometimes more so. And so because ideology leads us to believe that things are the way they are because they are, then the entire book reinforces the ideology that is in ones own life. Whether someone is being forced to get married, having a baby, getting beat up, dying, getting revenge, whatever it is all part of life they just are. They are the ideology that is.

Question for Rachel Blau Duplessis

2005-03-12T19:54:00.000-08:00

When you were little, what did you want to be when you "grow up"?

Antigone

2005-03-12T19:08:00.000-08:00

A play. This was a standard story. War, love, death, someone pissed off at some one else. It was an easy read but kind of borring. It wasn't very exciting. It seemed to be one of those stories that every other story is based off of. Like how there are really only five or so different stroies and everything else is a variation of one of the five original stories. this has to be one of the five.

Ballad of Gregorio Cortez

2005-03-12T18:32:00.000-08:00

At first this work reminded me of Paul Bunion. It tells the story of Gregorio Cortez, a man that seems to perfect to exist. The same with Paul Bunion, except that Paul Bunion is fiction and the story of Gregorio Cortez came from a true story. However, the story has since been embleshed in a way that it seems very fictional.

Differnt people in different areas tell the story different. Reading the different variations was interesting. You could see how a different line or change of words changed the meaning. It seemed that different areas changed the story to have Gregorio Cortez be their hero. The best cattle ranger in a place that ranges cattle and so forth.

Federico Garcia Lorca

2005-02-17T17:48:00.000-08:00

Blood Wedding was a standard love story. A marriage is going to take place, the bide is in love with some guy who has a wife and kid but loves the bride back, and then once it can't get any more of a standard love story the groom and the guy that the bride loves kills each other.

Although this was the standard love story I did enjoy it. I thought it was a good story though predictable. It was set in the 1930's. The mother of the Groom was concerned about the bride having another love. The father of the bride was more concerned about if the groom has land rather than the feelings of the bride. Leonardo, whom the bride was in love with, was the only character with a name but also was concerned with selfish motives.

Actually now that I think about it, it seems that all the characters where more concerned their selves. The mother didn't protect her son from a bride that she knew, or had suspitions that, she loved someone else. The father of the bride was concerned about land and free labor. The bride just ran away with Leonardo. Leonardo lied to his wife and then ran away with the bride. The groom did ran after his bride, which would seem the least selfish, however, I think he did it cause it looks bad when the girl you just married runs off with another man. But then selfishness is human behavior.

I thought this would be a good movie, a real movie, not flamingo dancers in a practice studio. It would be a good movie because it probably is a movie already in another form. It is a good play but the standard love story.

Kate Chopin

2005-02-03T18:19:00.000-08:00

Well, this book was something. I didn't like it at all. It seemed very short with everything. I think that it would be a lot better if it was developed more, maybe even some details about the other people in the book or even a little more about what was going on in Edna's head. That said, I did like that the book gave way to interpretation, although I think a little too much.

Chopin seemed to focus on Edna, whether she was happy in her marriage of not, obviously not. And her journey to find what she was missing, and or to keep herself. I think Edna noticed that the other married women had lost their identities, or allowed their children and husbands to become their identities, and she did not want that to happen to her. She didn't overly mother her children, and she didn't want to allow her husband to treat her like he owned her. As she was fighting to keep her identity she fell in the path of men. These seemed to say that she was looking for love, but it think that she was looking for what made her happy. Ultimently either nothing did or the ocean did because she killed herself in it.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman

2005-01-23T15:54:00.000-08:00

When I first saw the title to this piece of work, The Yellow Wallpaper, I felt like I heard of it before some where. I then realized that I saw the film on the independent Film Channel. It was an hour or an hour and a half long. It wasn't interesting in the least bit but I watched the whole film because it seemed like there would/should be this amazing ending that will pull everything together and the film would end up being intelligent and thought provoking.
At the end of the movie I just wanted that hour or so of my life back. But I have to say that the story, and themes of mental illness and female/male relationships as well as actual writing itself comes through in the written version a lot more clearly.

People could take this story in many ways, you could concentrate on the mental illness or the relationship of the wife and husband in the story, or how the wife writes to escape from the confindment of her room. While I read it the relationship between the wife and husband is what came out to me the strongest. It seemed that the husband didn't have any respect for his wife. He just decided what was best for her, not caring about her opinion on the matter. It was a time that where women could not have opinions and that's sad. I think that since he didn't allow to do anything since she was sick it made her sicker. And as she got sicker the wallpaper became more and more fascinating to her. It seems that the woman in the paper was what she felt like, the personification of her feeling. Being trapped at night while her husband was there and being everywhere outside during the day while her husband was out. The wife uses writhing as a form of escape, which everyone needs. But I think it seem to do the opposite. Because she has to be secretive about it her writing helps her become more paranoid. And as she becomes more paranoid the wallpaper becomes more and more an obsession until she has to rip it down.

Frederick Douglas

2005-01-23T14:38:00.000-08:00

This was the first time I have read any part of Frederick Douglas' Narrative. It is quite powerful. Being written in a very matter of fact way it conveys the emotion that he had went through. A lot of people try to write stories that convey such emotion but fail, in part because you know that they haven't really went through it themselves. Knowing that this just isn't a fictional story but a story of one's life you can feel the the mode that he must of been in.

Douglas speaks a lot about education and freedom and how the two interconnect. He knows that his way to freedom is through education. As he travels down the road to gain some education he realizes that the more he learns the more he realizes what he doesn't have because he is a slave. He even at one point starts to envy his follow slaves that are uneducated, because he knows that although they know they aren't free men they do not know the extent of what they are missing.