Walker Brothers Cowboy

2. “Walker Brothers Cowboy” has many interesting parts to it, however the title itself is one that really sticks out. The title comes from a song that one of the main characters makes up about himself. He is a salesman for Walker Brothers and uses songs and rhymes that he makes up to keep him entertained on his routes. This story is told from the prospective of this salesman’s daughter, she talks about a day on her father’s route and the song that he sings while on the route. After his job, they go to visit someone from her fathers past and she knows that she has to keep this a secret upon returning home. The plot is interesting because it is not something that you would expect from the title of the story. This short story shows how the world wide depression affected one family and sent them from owning their own business to living in poverty and resorting to other means of providing for themselves such as working for Walker Brothers. The song shows how this man copes with the new life he lives.

4. The first two line of the walker brothers cowboy song starts lit this, “Old Ned Fields, he now is dead, so I am ridin’ the route instead…” This is important because it refers to what the story has been titled after; it also shows that he was only able to get this job because the salesman before him had died. “One yard after another, then, the old cars, the pumps, dogs, views of the gray barns and falling-down sheds and unturning windmills.” This excerpt resembles poetry in a way, it has flow and rhythm but also really describes the boring and dull job that this man endures everyday. At the end of the story, the speaker states, “My father does not say anything to me about not mentioning things at home, but I know, just from the thoughtfulness, the pause when he passes the licorice, that there are things no to be mentioned. The whiskey, maybe the dancing.” This shows that there are some things in the family that are not shared, and that the family is being hurt by the depression. These three excerpts from the story show the melancholy tone of the story and life during this time. 

Sonnet 14

           Sonnet 14 is about John Donne and his relationship with God. Although it is only fourteen short lines, it describes his feelings toward and his relationship with God vividly. He is repenting for his sins and asking God for his forgiveness, speaking not only of God’s greatness and power but also of his own faults and mistakes. He asks for punishment and help while still showing the love he has for him.  This sonnet resembles a prayer and a confession with great detail and imagery.

            There is a lot of content packed into these fourteen short lines, however it is not just “crammed” into the sonnet, it is carefully and beautifully places into an artistic and aesthetic arrangement. John Donne uses many different literary devices to create a piece that seems more like an emotional prayer than a sonnet.

           

The use of alliteration in this sonnet is key for describing the darker parts. When he talks about God’s powers to bend, break, blow, and burn it creates an image of destruction and chaos, this image that is created in the readers mind is intensified by the alliteration that is used. It makes the words seem more alive than they would on their own.  In lines two and three, he also uses words that rhyme but contrast each other. The word mend conveys a positive emotion, whereas the word bend creates a negative one.

Donne also uses irony to show the relationship between him, sin, and God. He describes himself as being betrothed to sin or God’s enemy. He asks to be divorces, to have the knot untied and broken. Donne explains his relationship with sin as a marriage, something considered sacred and close to the heart. This irony exemplifies how bad his sins are, or at least how bad he feels about them. He asks for a divorce, which is frowned upon in the church.

Before he talks about his marriage with sin, he speaks of his love of God. It is ironic to me that he loves God and yet he is married to sin. It makes is seem that he has a closer tie to sin than he does to God even though he is listing the reasons for his love for God in the lines just before these. This is also very ironic because he is praying to a God that he shows to be very important to him in previous statements.

The voice of the speaker is what makes this sonnet what it is. The speaker speaks as though he is praying to the lord asking for forgiveness. He presents his case with a great deal of inferiority and obedience. There is a great deal of begging and pleasing for punishment and forgiveness that gives the sonnet the tone and feel that makes it seem so real. His tone allows the reader to feel like he or she is inside the speakers head and really feels what the he feels. In my opinion, the tone is the most valuable part of this sonnet.

Sonnet 14 is a piece of art that is full of emotion and feeling. The author shows his need to repent and his love for God in this sonnet by using many literary devices and techniques. This sonnet is beautifully written and put together and although it has some dark images, it is aesthetic. This writer does a wonderful job of showing the reader the pain of sin, the need for forgiveness, and the love of God that the speaker feels in this sonnet. He is able to do this all while providing true beauty in this piece. 

Waiting for the Barbarians

In the novel, the magistrate learns many things but to me, one of the most important is by far that the barbarians are not really the barbarians. He sees that the special forces in the book can be seen as the barbaric characters in the book, and the barbarians are not as barbaric as they may seem at first. This reminds me of Brave New World, by Adolus Huxley. Throughout the book, it becomes apparent that the real savages are not the uncivilized people, but the ones that have been controlled and fixed into molds. The magistrates learns a new way to view people and what barbarian really means.

The second important thing that he learns is the difference between what is civilized and what is barbaric. The book describes civilization as having a government, when this disappears and becomes corrupt the civilized people become the barbarians. The civilized people almost give up their ability to call themselves civilized when they do this.=, showing that they might be the real barbarians.

Robben Island

http://africanhistory.about.com/od/apartheid/p/RobbenIsland.htm

-Nelson Mandela was locked up here for over 25 years
-He was only allowed to leave his cell to do manual labor in a quarry, like many other anti-apartheid political prisoners.
-In 1652 Jan van Riebeeck established the first permanent settlement by Europeans in South Africa in the area that today is the city of Cape Town.
-Van Riebeeck was sent by the Dutch East India Company, a company based in the Netherlands which traded goods between the East and Europe.
-Five years later, in 1657, he decided to use the island as a place of banishment, sending exiles and slaves to dig out the white stone found there.
-In 1959 the island became a maximum security prison and between 1961 and 1991 over three thousand men were incarcerated here as political prisoners.
-June 1990 saw the start of the removal of political prisoners by then-president FW de Klerk, the last leaving the island in May 1991.
-It is now a world heritage site.

Pride and Prejudice

Ahearn Thesis: Ahearn discusses the social classes and their importance in the novel. 

Gray Thesis: Gray discusses money and income and their importance in the novel. 

Ahearn Points: He talks about the different classes and jobs, for instance, aristocracy, gentry, clergy, layers, businessmen.

Gray Points: He talks about the earnings of the characters in the book and of Jane Austin. He says that Darcy makes 800,000 and Bingley makes 165,000. Jane Austin made less than 700 pounds in her lifetime form her novels. 

I agree that both money and social status are a big part of the novel and Austin's England. They are both considered when a marriage is in the works. I think that both authors made good points when they spoke about money and status. 

Having a better background on the classes was helpful in understanding both pride and prejudice. It especially helped me to understand Darcy's arrogance. Knowing more about Jane Austin's history and her money matters was helpful in understanding the Bennets because had them  making less money than herself. 

The Twelfth Night

I believe that Shakespeare meant to show that love can make people both crazy and blind. Shakespeare shows how far some people will go to get love, for instance how far Olivia will go to get Cesario or how far Orsino will go to get Olivia. Malvolio really shows how far he will go for Olivia’s love when he dresses up in yellow stockings and acts crazy just to follow her instructions in a letter. Love makes people do crazy things and go to crazy lengths. Shakespeare shows this well in many cases in this story, but especially through Malvolio’s pursuit of Olivia.

The second thing that Shakespeare portrays throughout this play is that love is blind. He shows this through the flirting that happens between Viola (as Cesario) and Orsino. They flirt and show affection for each other but they cannot be together because they are both men. Also, how Olivia falls for Cesario without even knowing him. She just falls in love instantly without taking the time to see who he really was. Sebastian does this too when he marries Olivia without even getting to know her. He sees a beautiful woman and just marries her because he falls in love right then and there. This play is also about love at first sight. Sebastian falls in love at first sight, just as Orsino does at the end of the play when he falls in love with Viola.

This play conflicts with my views on love in many ways. For instance, I do not believe that love is something that can happen easily. I think that you should get to know someone before you fall in love with them; you cannot just be in love without knowing the person first. Looks are the only thing that most of these characters have to base their significant others off of. Very few actually spend the time to get to know the people they plan to marry before doing so. I also think that it is crazy that these characters work so hard for people that they do not even know. Malvolio worked so incredibly hard to win over Olivia when he was not even sure of her feelings for him. He destroyed his pride and his life by doing the crazy things that he did to win her over, and in the end he is alone. Viola also almost gives up her disguise on multiple occasions because everything is overshadowed by how much she loves Orsino in her mind.

These characters fail to look at love logically before they commit themselves to their lovers for life. It might seem romantic, but at the same time it is complete ludicrous. Although the play is adorable, it gives the illusion that once someone finds love, that’s it and there will be no issues to follow. I do not believe this is true. I think that even though Shakespeare shows how difficult it can be to find love, he fails to show that it isn’t always easy after that initial feat. As cute as the play was, it was indeed misleading and unrealistic. (521)

Luck and Lucky

In my mind, the word luck relates to fortune, specifically, good fortune. Someone with a lot of luck, a lucky person is full of good fortune. Randomly, good things will happen to them. Luck is not something that you can earn or gain, it just happens. People who are lucky just are that way. They might find money on the ground or a teacher might not check the homework the day that they forgot to do it. Luck is intangible; it is not something that can necessarily be measured either. Some people are lucky and others are not, but that can change. It is not a permanent thing either. It simply is what it is.

I chose the word luck because, honestly it interests me. Luck is something that cannot be described very easily. It had no definite definition. It means something different to every person. I am interested in where it came from and where the concept came from. How did the idea or concept of luck even come to be? It seems to be so different from most ideas. What brought about the need to describe luck? It is such a simple idea but it can be so complex because of the different associations people have with it.

For instance, I associate luck with the ability to be completely clueless to the answer to a question and then get the answer right by simply guessing without any knowledge or thought in the process. One instance of this would be luck. A person who can always guess the right answer would be considered luck in my book. Luck is most definitely a positive thing and something everyone would love to have. However, you cannot work toward luck, it is impossible. Pure chance is all luck really is.