Frost

Home Burial

As I read this poem it really surprised me that a man had written it. I think as the woman did that a man couldn’t understand a woman’s loss of a baby. After carrying a child for 9 months then to lose it would be un-bearable. The man in the poem was trying to be understanding for his wife but it wasn’t really coming through. He obviously loved his wife and wanted things to be as they were before but couldn’t understand that she needed more time to mourn.  She was apparently the type of person that doesn’t want to talk about the things that bother her where he seems to be the type of person that needs to talk about it. She was so deeply wounded by her loss that she also couldn’t understand how he could talk to people about other things on the same day that they buried their child.

The Road Not Taken

I have heard this saying for years but never knew that it came from a poem by Frost. I really liked it. The meaning is clear and shows how people never know where the road will take you until you make the decision to take that road. You can always take the same road as everyone else and never be worse for wear but then you can take the road that not that many people are taking and end up so much better off.

Fire and Ice

I liked this poem because it gives an opinion. Fire or Ice we will never know till it happens, each will be painful for those that are living and both have the ability to heal the earth from the damages that humans have inflicted on it for the last 300 years, but which will be the end?

The Other Two

I really like “The Other Two,” I found it interesting to see the point of view of Mr. Waythorn. When he married Mrs. Waythorn he didn’t really seem to think about her two ex-husbands until they started to become part of their lives.

Mr. Haskett was depicted as a terrible person to me at the first mention. Then once he starts to show up in the story he doesn’t seem that bad. He just wants to have a part in his daughters live and wants to see that she has the proper up bringing for her station. Mr. Waythorn though he doesn’t seem to agree that the governess which was currently tending to Lily wasn’t good enough he still fired her when Mr. Haskett asked. The fact that Mr. Haskett was coming into Mr. Waythorn’s house seemed to be Mr. Waythorn’s biggest issue with the situation.

Then there is Mr. Varick was the second ex-husband of Mrs. Waythorn, which Mr. Waythorn didn’t really have a problem with but was uncomfortable with associating with him at first after marrying his ex-wife. They seem to work through any issues there was with the comfort zone when Mr. Waythorn’s partner became sick with the gout and Mr. Waythorn had to take care of Mr. Varick’s account. It seemed that it was going to be an issue when by chance Mrs. Waythorn was speaking to Mr. Varick at a function and Mr. Waythorn was uncomfortable about it until she explained that she thought that it would be better for her to speak to him than to ignore him and walk away. By the end of the story society had even started to invite them to the same parties

The last page was interesting when they all seemed to end up in the library by accident. This seemed to show the best outcome possible when a woman from the early 20^th century has two ex-husbands.

The Open Boat

I was not impressed with the Open Boat. This short story could have been much shorter. I did find interesting the quote “If I am going to be drowned—if I am going to be drowned—if I am  going to be drowned, why, in the name of the seven mad gods who rule the sea, was I allowed to come thus far and contemplate sand the trees?” This was repeated a few pages later but why did the author make this into such importance to be repeated. Because they are trying to make it out of their situation alive shouldn’t they be praying to which ever gods they think would help them most? Not belittling them like they start doing.

I didn’t really understand what happened to the people on shore that saw them did they get too far way or did they just leave the beach?

Then they are talking about pie, of all things pie I understand that they were hungry but talking about it would just make it worse. I believe that this was based off a real experience the author had on a trip to Cuba but I believe that he just put too much into it.

In the end they reach land once again but they knew that they wouldn’t be able to get the boat there so they got the boat as far as they could then when it capsized they swam the rest of the way.

Stephen Crane Poetry

In the Desert

“In the Desert” was very interesting it was like someone’s nightmare in a poem. I thought that he did a very good job describing the creature that was eating his own heart. I think that it was saying something about the creature since he said that his heart was bitter so to me it tells me that he was a bitter creature in everything that he did.

Supposing that I Should Have the Courage

I think that the author is trying to infer what the payment for being virtuous should be. He questions what he will get for being stabbed with the “sword of virtue.” He asks about a castle or a kingdom but when he finds out that hope would be the only reward then he is ready to be stabbed. This shows what kind of man the author was he is saying that having hope is the best reward there is even if it is for being virtuous.

A Man Feared that He Might Find an Assassin

This short poem was very interesting to me. These two men both feared opposite things so in saying that they both feared to meet each other.  The last line leaves the reader questioning who is the wiser of the two. I think that the one fearing to find a victim is the wiser because there are so many people could be the victim but there are not as many people have the evilness to be the assassin.

Do Not Weep, Maiden, For War is Kind

This poem is giving the wrong impression. War is in no way kind. This poem is telling maidens that war is kind that it killed your lover but war is still kind???? Whatever! Don’t weep war is kind we just kill the young men. It continues to tell both babies and mothers that war is kind and that their father or sons were killed but war is still kind. It is such a misconception in that it is lying to these people that war is a good thing.

The Awakening by Chopin

It was only after the first 40 pages that I finally arrived at the conclusion that this was a story about a woman finding her freedom. I feel like Mrs. Pontellier has always done what has been expected of her and never thought for herself. There always was her father there to make any decisions for her then she married and her husband made all the decisions.

She is a mother but she doesn’t seem much like a mommy, she seems to love her children but isn’t the always there mommy. Mrs. Pontellier’s character seems to me an example of how many women would have been like back then because girls were never allowed to think for themselves and pushed to marry at an early age before they really had been able to find out her they were.

Mrs. Pontellier’s affair with Alcee Arobin was her final step to her awakening of her self. She had just done what was expected of her that with Robert spending so much time with her and finally having to make some of her own decisions while out on the island for the summer without her husband she saw that there was more to her than just the dutiful wife and mother that she wanted so much more. Though she did ill fatedly fall in “love” with Robert, it only served to help her see herself.

I don’t think that she was knowingly planning to kill herself when she swam so far out, but underneath she was tired of this world and didn’t want to live in it without Robert.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman

I think that Charlotte Gilman’s “The Yellow Wall-Paper” would be an excellent story to tell around Halloween.  Her characters slow spiral into complete insanity was thrilling. I think that she really pulled from her experiences while she was going through her own depression.  

Jane, the main character, really didn’t seem that sick at the beginning of the story. It sounded to me that she was going through at normal bout of post-partum-depression, which would have been treated with medication now. John, her husband/doctor, is treating her how they treated these types of issues in that day. I don’t agree with how he took her out into the country and isolated her but if he really believed that would be the best thing for her maybe he should have stayed with her. This also makes me think that Gilman may have been treated in this manner as well when she was “sick.”

The yellow wallpaper was what Jane focused on since she was made to spend so much time in her room. She was made to take an hours nap after every meal and to sleep in there at night. This in my opinion was one of the things that made her condition worse. She just kept staring at that yellow wallpaper and started to see things in it until it became an obsession. Then discovered what she thought was a woman trying to break out of the paper. This, to me, was symbolizing her trying to break out of the depression. Though quickly her hallucinations get worse when she starts to see the woman “creeping” around outside during the day. It’s like she sees herself as she is moving around during the day, though she does say the woman hides when a carriage comes.

This continues until the last day that they were going to be living in that house and John wasn’t coming home. During that night she started ripping all the paper off the walls trying to help the woman escape her trappings. When Jennie, her husband’s sister, came to see her in the morning she had most of the paper off and Jane convinced her to allow her to stay in the room to “sleep.” Jane not wanting to be disturbed locked the door and through the key out the window.

Then I noticed that it says “I” but then has Jane as one of the subjects so I think that her depression had gotten so bad that she had developed schizophrenia and the “woman in the wall” was the second personality that finally took over when she peeled the paper off.  I didn’t quite understand what she did with her “well hidden rope” but I think that she used it to kill her husband so that she (personality #2) couldn’t be suppressed again.  I could be really off with my analysis.

Bierce: Obsessed with Death

The author’s obsession with death is evident in An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.  I really had thought that Peyton Farquhar had managed to get away from the solders. Though a Yankee myself I have always preferred the characters in stories that are on the Southern side of the Civil War. I feel like the North had somehow provoked Farquhar into whatever he did to be hanged for. The North had sent a scout out into Southern territory to ask about, and then the scout tells Farquhar about a great quantity of drift wood at the bridge that would go up in flames quickly. Telling Farquhar, a southern supporter, something that would hinder the North so much is just asking him to go out and set it on fire. That was a trap and I don’t think that is fair to Farquhar. Farquhar seemed to only do whatever he could for the cause he believed in whole heartedly.

          When the story seems to continue with Farquhar getting away and returning home was told so vividly that it was believable that he really did get away. Until he is roaming through the woods without any sign of human habitation and with “black bodies of the great trees forming a straight wall” this started giving me the idea that he didn’t really make it but more was his death walk. This was really just his spirit going home to his wife and not his physical body returning to her. It was like he didn’t know that he had died so his spirit went home just like he wanted to.

Daisy Miller

I was surprised to find that Daisy Miller: A Study had a moral to it. I was expecting from the first few pages to be a complete fluff story. Mr. Winterbourne needs some socialization; he seemed to have spent way too much time in the company of older people and doesn’t know how to handle people his own age. I think that if he had known how to handle Miss Miller this story would not have unfolded in this manner.

                Having contact with people from other countries for many years I have heard often how wild and outspoken young Americans are compared to the cultures my friends have come from and even though this is set a hundred and some years earlier the same stands true here as well. Miss Miller though part of the upper crust in society she is outspoken almost to the point of being brazen. She dares not to listen to the rules of polite society and faces the consequences. She doesn’t find it an issue to be seen un-chaperoned with an unwed man.   This is common now but in the 1800’s this was a fast way to ruin a young lady’s reputation. 

                The moral seems to be that following the rules of society is imperative to life. Miss Miller pushes her luck when she starts to spend way too much time with Mr. Giovanelli. He monopolizes her time and since he is not part of the main stream society that she is this is looked down upon. He also doesn’t follow the rule of the society of the time, allowing her to get him to take her out after dark. When they are found at the Coliseum at midnight is where fate steps in and she become sick with Roman fever. This ultimately kills her but not before she admits that if Mr. Winterbourne had know how to handle her she would have loved him.