ENGL 121

Things Fall Apart

2005-04-23T16:53:00.000-07:00

“Things Fall Apart”, is a very good book that follows an African man by the name Okonkwo, he is a very powerful person who is set in his ways and beliefs. His beliefs center around the idea that a man is worth how hard he works and hates those who are lazy and doesn’t like to work at all. He gets this set of mind from the way he views his own father, who stands for nothing and works as little as he has to, giving his family a bad name. His bullheadedness and attitude is almost a perfect match for Esteban Trueba, and it is impossible to not see that these two men are very much alike after reading both books. Like Trueba, Okonkwo has his set ideological views on the world and nothing can change them, and also like Trueba, these set views on how things should be breaks him apart, and causes his life to come tumbling down around him. But the sad part of the situation is that most of his ideas and views are good, if he’d just soften up a little he probably could have made it through life just fine. But as fate would have it, his stubbornness gets the better of him, and like Trueba, he resisted any type of change and society swallowed him up and spit up out a sad shell of his former self.

Invisible Man

2005-04-16T15:16:00.000-07:00

The Invisible Man is someone I do not like at all. His actions, his reasoning, his thoughts, they all just seem to disagree with me and for the life of me I do not know why. Every time I picked up this book I couldn’t help but to be mad when I put it down. He seems to be learning and changing one minute and have a gleam of hope in his life and the next minute he is changing his own thoughts and contradicting himself. He keeps on talking about how much he wants to make it as a man, be known for something, but he is too blind to see that all his actions are leading him in completely opposite direction. And in the end, he ends up in a hole running his mouth and only left with his jumbled thoughts to keep him busy. Like he said in the beginning, if you are left in a room with no lights on you can lose a sense of who you are and your being expands to feel the entire void, I feel that this has happened to him and this space is completely wasted on a person that doesn’t even deserve his body let alone his thought. I see him as nothing less then a coward and a self inflicted failure in life and his actions are almost completely controlled by those around him, and if you can’t create yourself and control who and what you are, then who and what are you? If you can not see yourself, how can you expect others to see you.

The House of the Spirits

2005-04-13T14:33:00.000-07:00

First off I must say that I liked this book very much and I owe it almost completely to Esteban Trueba’s actions and speeches. Everything that this man does is done with complete conviction and devotion, and nothing he does is viewed to be out of line in his mind. It seems as if his mind was pre-cast in stone and all his views and opinions follow his ideological sense of the world. As much as I hate to agree with many of his views and points I almost have to seeing the current social standings and settings that this tale is taken place in. Most of what he preaches and believes to be true seems to hold to form with everyone else around him except for those closest to him. I think it is a very interesting and twisting fate that was blessed on him to have to live a life in a family that doesn’t follow his word in a world that listens to him very closely and is almost looked up to among his peers. It his stone cold views of the world and the changes that are taking place around him, combine to makes this book interesting to me. I just can’t figure out where his influences have come from, his family, the people that he loves go at life in a completely different manor so I’d have to rule them out. His own father and blood relatives are spoken of very little, so that’s a possibility. I really can’t draw a conclusion to this question. What really strikes me as odd is that Esteban started off as nothing and worked his way up, and the only thing he had to start with was a name. And when he made it in life he looked down on those who are starting the same way that he did, and felt that they were below him simple because they were a nobody and had no real ability to move up if they had no name. And in the end, I almost had to laugh when he pronounced his name and no one cared what he had to say, it is sad what had to happen to his grand daughter and other members of his family, but in a way it almost seemed to be just payment for the years of torment that he caused.

Antigone

2005-04-10T21:18:00.000-07:00

I am very impressed with Bertolt Brecht interpretations of “Antigone”. I was able to read a few of the versions available and was astounded by the differences, and I was also amazed at how well Brecht adapted her version to her modern day mind set of the post World War feeling that was sweeping through Europe at the time that this was written. When talking about politics and men of power and king & queens, tales of abuse and neglect seem to always pop up somewhere along the lines, “Antigone” is just one tale that can be told and adapted to many different settings. The power that these men posses ruins their minds and covers their eyes in almost every case, and can be document at almost any time in history. Just think of our modern era, we have Saddam Heusen, the former Iraqi president, Kim Jong Il the North Korean ruler, and probably a unknown number of warlords and drug king pins that run ramped in third world countries. This play brings up all the questions and social standing that accompany a falling ruler or a tyrant led group of people, and any body with a solid base on the different social structures around the world can relate to this play or adapt to it for their own personal use. I would be very interested to see what a writers interpretation would be of “Antigone” it could be set in our modern society.

Ballad of Gregorio Cortez

2005-04-03T17:50:00.000-07:00

Gregorio Cortez is the perfect subject to be portrayed as a hero. When I read a story with a so called hero, or in some cases a super hero you kind of hope that they are like this man. This story makes him very like able and you are encouraged to be behind him because he is a common man with a family and can think on his feet. He doesn’t ask for trouble but confronts it when it comes for him if he has the ability to and has the right mind to do what would be the best decision in the conflicts that he is faced with. What really gives this man his hero status is that he was at one time a real man and not a myth or a fairy tail, and knowing that he really existed gives his story an even stronger feel when you hear or read his name. But when I read his tale, I have it in my mind that he is real, but it bothers me when I read some of the more outrageous parts of the story and know that they probably didn’t happen. I almost want to delete his status as a real person to enjoy the story but I can’t, and with this said the story looses most of it’s effectiveness with me. I know it hold a significant amount of meaning to many people around the Mexican and U.S. border, but it will fade into my mind as a blown out tale of a man who might of done something amazing, but was lost in the celebration.

Blood Wedding

2005-03-30T01:34:00.000-08:00

This story follows two men who in the end die for the love of one woman. It is full of critical concepts such as subjectivity and cultural backing and influences that give the tale its’ own set flavor. What really grabbed my attention was the odd symbolism that followed through the story that the knife brought with it. It gave me the perfect description of this particular social settings “love hate relationship”. It is needed for work and carried by men who feels that it is a needed part of them selves, and is feared by women who sees it as the symbol of war, murder, and family disputes that seem to always lead to the lose of a loved one, creating pain in the family. A nice twist to this thought came when the mother gave her son a knife and sent him to his death, this had to break her down after her sons was found dead, because she was the gleaming protester of this so called cursed weapon, and for her to had it to him, she had to know what was going to happen, and this made me question, why did she give it to him and not follower her true feelings? I finally come to the conclusion that it wasn’t her rage or anger that lead her to her actions, but the setting, the timing, and the social pressure that was creating by the betrayal. It seems to me that most of the actions in this tale came from a subjective frame of thought, and all the twist seemed to be out of line do to the boundaries set up by their surroundings.

The Awakening

2005-03-10T19:53:00.000-08:00

Mrs. Pontellier is a very interesting and lovable character in the sense that I felt pity on her through the entire book up until the end. I enjoyed reading and feeling her changes as she became enlightened to new feelings and powers along her way. In the end however, when she decided to kill herself with one of her new freedoms it confused me greatly. This was a women who is starting to realize that she has the ability to do mostly what her will wants, but what she lacks is the strength to push herself forward and pay the hard price for a few of the things she still sees and untouchable. And by killing herself I feel all of her ability and wants were thrown away for nothing. My enjoyment in this reading went very much like her life did, not very sure at first, then gradually stimulating through the thickness of the book, and finished off with a great disappointment that will keep me from ever picking this book up again.

Yellow Wallpaper

2005-03-09T00:12:00.000-08:00

CRAZY!! CRAZY!! CRAZY!! I could not stomach this writing; I had to read it over a few times just to be able to go at it in a different directions and mind sets just to be able to think of it in a critical form. I know it sounds harsh, but I have no time for the mentally challenged, and to see through their eyes made it that much worse for me. However, taking a step back and thinking it over, I am very impressed with the author’s ability to separate me as a reader away from the author, and focus completely on the main character. I almost hate and resent the author for putting me in the mind of the mental, and as I sit in my chair writing this I can only laugh because the room I am in is yellow…one minute, I think I just seen something move…no, never mind, I hope this damn story didn’t rub off. CRAZY!! CRAZY!! CRAZY!!

Douglas

2005-02-26T23:52:00.000-08:00

The excerpts that we got to sample from the “Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglas” came across to me as being very powerful in their intent. The purpose behind this writing was for Douglas to get his experiences on paper for the people to read and remember the troubled times that our country once went through. Granted, this might not have been his first plan for the writing but it is what was created and is still gaining power as it gets older. It is truly a stand out piece that will be read and recommended at any time slavery is discussed, or is in question in any conversation at a scholarly level do to the facts that it presents. Its true power comes from the writer himself, Fredrick Douglas. With out Douglas as the author, a lot of the strength in the words would have been lost and forgotten. It was very rare for a slave to have gained the abilities that Douglas has, as far as his reading and writing abilities, which gave him the opportunities to record his life with his own hand. As a reading knowing that his story is being told from his own past makes the feeling as you read carry with it a great sense of reality, a reality that must not be forgotten.

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2005-02-08T13:52:00.000-08:00

Just getting my first post up.