Reflection. Facebook for Emily

Group Reflection
This Quarter, in a quick review has been awsome. I have met some new people, learn some valuable writing skills, and learned how to analyze poems and short stories. Our group consisted of me, Jessica, Kayla, and Gavin. For the final project our group chose to create a facebook for Emily from “A Rose For Emily.” We felt Emily’s character is a confusing one and that it would be fun to kind of play with what we believe will help the class and ourselves understand Emily a little more. Emily was really reserved and many people knew nothing about her. She seemed depressed and always down. So in our facebook for Emily we made her info page a little interesting. We chose to create her information page the way we did because we wanted to make it funny but also tie it to the text so that we could reference it.
When I first was reading “A Rose For Emily” I was a little confused on what was going on but with this project I familiarized myself with the story and was able to understand Emily in a different way then my original opinion. In our presentation each of us plans to do a different part. I will be reading the information page to the class and giving a brief explanation on why we did this and how we came about the descisions we did. I will basically be presenting our facebook for Emily by going over her profile. Gavin will talk about how the facebook gave Emily a personality. Our group felt that in the story it was difficult for a reader to understand her personality. Kayla and Jessica have studied the character and will talk about how making the facebook made us study her characterization and relationships in the story (like kicking out the tax collectors, etc) and lastly how trying to make status updates made us study the order of events in the story and showed that William Faulkner manipulates time a lot by not putting things chronologically. Over the course of completing this project our group met a few time only to create the facebook and to make sure we were all on the same page. The rest of the project was done through facebook by making status updates and posting comments on Emily’s wall.
Overall I really enjoyed my group. All members took part in the project and we all seemed to get along just fine. I feel that this project helped me and my group understand Emily a little more and it allowed us to really have some fun with her character and help the remainder of the class understand her. I think this project instead of the final was a great idea. For the type of class that we had and the amount of things we did I felt that a final may have been a little tough. While this was not as tough as a final it gave everyone a chance to learn a little more on what we know. Often times tests are tough to gage what you have learned because people can be bad testers, but with this project we did not have to deal with the anxiety of a test and we still did work in the process.
Finals week is very stressful and with test in basically all my other classes this project gave me an opportunity to study a little harder for my other classes. This Literature class was my favorite class of this quarter. I really enjoyed Professor Hageman as an instructor and I felt he was fare on grading as well as assignment lengths and the amount of reading done for this class. I am glad I took this class and I am glad that Professor Hageman gave us this alternate final opportunity rather than an actual test. I learned a lot through this project and in this class and would suggest that many people take this class. Professor Hageman was great, my peers were great, and everything was pretty good.

Link to facebook
http://www.facebook.com/
we will give the username and password in class

Antigone

Antigone’s character can be characterized in different ways. The first way can be looked at as defiant. She seems angry at many things and does not seem to care or have a worry about what will happen by burying her brother. The other way her character can be viewed is through loyalty. Antigone is very loyal to her brothers. She feels that it is her job to love as they love her. After reading the first part I got the sense that Antigone is troubled and faced with difficulties. I also concluded that Antigone is a strong girl because she does not allow her sisters descision on what to do influence her in any way.
Creon honors one brother and dishonors the other, but Antigone is loyal to both and has no fear of Creon. Antigone is can be viewed as noble is nature and birth because she uses these choice of words when conversing with her sister on how she should be. Loyalty, which is a feeling or attitude of devoted attachment and emotions. This is exactly what Antigone shows in the first part of the play.
While Antigone is loyal and because she is loyal and may break a few rules by going against Creon, she tells her sister not to worry about the possible mistakes she might encounter. She simply says “Make straight your own path to destiny.” Antigone must have had a close relationship to her brothers because while she will risk punishment to be loyal to her brother, she also says she would loathe her sister for a certain way of talking. To me that shows that she was connected to her brother in a way that she would be upset with her sister for her words against him.

Can It Be Considered A Facebook?

Bartleby’s facebook is not one of fashion. His picture would be of complete black chosen by Bartleby himself, for he strongly believes a blank picture would represent his personality better. Bartleby’s status would say, “I prefer not to, so leave me alone, I’m not bugging you.” The central theme of Bartleby’s page is blankness. His page contains almost nothing about himself besides the fact that he prefer not to. As far as friends go, Bartleby would have no friends. This is not because know one likes him but rather he won’t accept anyone. Bartleby seems to be in a state of complete isolation, purposely keeping himself from others.
The biggest mystery to Bartleby’s facebook is that he logs in everyday. This analysis makes one wonder what he is doing. He has nothing about himself, no picture, no music, no friends, and he only has comments from people asking him what he does online. Bartleby’s favorites would be very unusual sites that most have not heard of.
Bartleby’s facebook has no purpose, serves no communicational purposes, and basically is a page of nothing. When asked why he doesn’t edit his page, he responds, “I prefer not to.” This seems to sum up the entire story of Bartleby. For being such a cyber guru, one might think he would have the fanciest page of them all. Bartleby lives his entire life on his facebook because he feels at piece. He is a reserved person who would not like to be bothered and that is why his facebook stands in complete blankness, in hope that he would turn people away with his plain facebook with nothing but nothing.

"First Fight, Then Fiddle"

“First Fight, Then Fiddle”
The world as a whole has had problems and conflicts between societies, cultures, and world leaders. When asked the question of war people have many different opinions based on the organization of their beliefs and even religion. In many instances war is a duty of many young men trying to figure out their lives. Life is not very easy and more often than not it’s unbelievably tough. Lately I have learned to set my priorities and life will get easier. Gwendolyn Brooks has a similar approach in her poem “First Fight, Then Fiddle.” In this poem, her approach is to stress the importance of focusing on the important parts of life, and then once you have conquered the necessary you can enjoy life the way it should be enjoyed. Now you may read Brooks’ poem and wonder how it is about war, but it’s not about the type of war with blood and battle. Instead it’s about the biggest war: Life. Just like the young men who believe that their first priority in life is to battle for their country, many humans battle everyday trying to figure out their priorities. This is why I enjoyed Brooks’ poem because I felt I could interpret it. After reading this poem I had an understanding that Gwendolyn really believes that it is important to battle through the roughest parts of life so that you can enjoy life to its max. Brooks’ shows this many ways based on her writing of “First Fight, Then Fiddle.” In this analysis I have chosen three main lines that I believe support Brooks’ main purpose in the poem. I will analyze each of these lines to help readers of “First Fight, Then Fiddle, understand the poem more in depth beyond the line they read.
The first line that I think is important to study comes late in the poem. The line says; “Carry hate in front of you and harmony behind.” This can easily be interpreted many different ways but I looked at as keeping the unwanted things that may be tough in front of you and the fun, exciting things for when you have completely mastered the unwanted duties of life. The definition of hate is to dislike passionately; to be unwilling. If reviewed based on the second part of the definition, to be unwilling, you can conclude that Brooks intends to show that the most important things should be put ahead in life and they are often the things that we don’t want to do, things that we absolutely hate but have to do because it is a priority. Gwendolyn Brooks doesn’t stop with this line, as the poem continues she uses more exquisiteness descriptions to translate the meaning of her poem.
The next line says, “Be deaf to music and to beauty blind.” This line has almost the same meaning as the first line I analyzed. The only difference is this line only stresses the importance of keeping the attractive parts of life away. The first part, be deaf to music, is quite simple to me. This part of the poem is depicting music as something great and exciting. It doesn’t necessarily mean stop listening to music but instead it’s using this term to give an example of the parts of life we all want but know we can’t have until we finish the important life challenges. The second line has the same meaning but instead of using music as the example Brooks uses beauty. Everyone loves beauty because obviously it’s beautiful and in this line Brooks suggests being blind to beauty. Brooks gives advice in this line. She basically is saying give yourself an opportunity to succeed in life. She says this by advising you to be blind to beauty, meaning just because something looks fun and more appealing don’t let it distract you from your goal.
Brooks ends the poem with this line: “For having first to civilize a space wherein to play your violin with grace.” This line summarizes the entire poem giving an ending on what has been said throughout the poem. “For having first to civilize a space” can be understood like this, now that you are done with work. I believe this because of the way I interpreted the poem as a whole. This second part of this sentence says: “wherein to play your violin with grace.” In this part Brooks finishes the poem with great meaning. As stated before this poem is about doing the important things in life before you enjoy luxury. With this line the meaning is finally uncovered with the interpretation, now that work is done have fun and live life the way it should be.
Life, at times, may seem hard and unfair but you can’t let it discourage you. It’s almost like school and by this I mean it’s hard. When you have a paper doesn’t it seem like the only thing you do is procrastinate? When you are done you feel great and you enjoy whatever you’re going to do next even more. “First Fight, Then Fiddle,” by Gwendolyn Brooks, shows this by providing imaginary evidence. Just like the men fighting for us now, fight through life. It’s going to be hard no matter what you do and that’s just the cold hard truth, but look beyond the thick and see the thin. For once you have overcome the toughest parts of life, there is nothing left but good. Take Gwendolyn Brooks’ advice and fight the war, the war called life, before you take on beauty. Beauty has to start somewhere and in life the beauty comes after things are well served. The only way time will be given back is if you put in time.

"First Fight, Then Fiddle"

“First Fight, Then Fiddle”
The world as a whole has had problems and conflicts between societies, cultures, and world leaders. When asked the question of war people have many different opinions based on the organization of their beliefs and even religion. In many instances war is a duty of many young men trying to figure out their life. Life is not very easy and more often than not it’s unbelievably tough. Lately I have learned to set my priorities and life will get easier. Gwendolyn Brooks has a similar approach in her poem “First Fight, Then Fiddle.” In this poem her approach is to stress the importance of focusing on the import parts of life, and then once you have conquered the necessary then you can enjoy life the way it should be enjoyed. Now you may read Brooks’ poem and wonder how it is about war, but it’s not about the type of war with blood and battle. Instead it’s about the biggest war, life. Just like the young men who believe that their first priority in life is to battle for their country, many humans battle everyday trying to figure out their priorities. This is why I enjoyed Brooks’ poem because I felt I could interpret it. After reading this poem I had an understanding that Gwendolyn really believes that it is important to battle through the roughest parts of life so that you can enjoy life to its max. Brooks’ shows this many ways based on her writing of “First Fight, Then Fiddle.”
The first line that I think is important to study comes late in the poem, the line says; carry hate in front of you and harmony behind. This can easily be interpreted many different ways but I looked at as keeping the unwanted things that may be tough in front of you and the fun, exciting stuff for when you have completely mastered the unwanted duties of life. The definition of hate is to dislike passionately; to be unwilling. If reviewed based on the second part of the definition, to be unwilling, you can conclude that Brooks intends to show that the most important things should be put ahead in life and they are often the things that we don’t want to do, things that we absolutely hate but have to be do because it is a priority. Gwendolyn Brooks doesn’t stop with this line, as the poem continues she uses more beauty descriptions to translate the meaning of her poem.
The next line says; be deaf to music and to beauty blind. This line has almost the same meaning as the first line I analyzed. The only difference is this line only stresses the importance of keeping the attractive parts of life away. The first part, be deaf to music, is quite simple to me. This part of the poem is depicting music as something great and exciting. It doesn’t necessarily mean stop listening to music but instead it’s using this term to give an example of the parts of life we all want but we know we can’t have until we finish the important life challenges. The second line has the same meaning but instead of using music as the example Brooks uses beauty. Everyone loves beauty because obviously it’s beautiful and in this line Brooks suggests being blind to beauty. Brooks gives advice in this line. She basically is saying give yourself an opportunity to succeed in life. She says this by advising you to be blind to beauty, meaning just because something looks fun and more appealing don’t let it distract you from your goal.
Brooks ends the poem with this line: For having first to civilize a space wherein to play your violin with grace. This line summarizes the entire poem giving an ending on what has been said throughout the poem. For having first to civilize a space can be understood like this; now that you are done with work. The reason for me believing this is because of the way I interpreted the poem as a whole ahead of this line. This second part of this sentence says: wherein to play your violin with grace. This part of the poem finishes the poem with great meaning. As stated before this poem is about doing the important things in life before you enjoy luxury. With this line the meaning is finally uncovered with the interpretation, now that work is done have fun and live life the way it should be.
Life, at times, may seem hard and unfair but you can’t let it discourage you. It’s almost like school and by this I mean it’s hard. When you have a paper doesn’t it seem like the only thing you do is procrastinate, I know I do, but think about it when you are done you feel great and you enjoy whatever you’re going to do next even more. “First Fight, Then Fiddle,” by Gwendolyn Brooks, shows this by providing imaginary evidence. Just like the men fighting for us now, fight through life. It’s going to be hard no matter what you do and that’s just the cold hard truth, but look beyond the thick and see the thin. For once you have overcome the toughest parts of life there is nothing left but good. Take Gwendolyn Brooks’ advice and fight the war, the war called life, before you take on beauty. Beauty has to start somewhere and in life the beauty comes after the well served. The only way time will be given back is if you put in time.

"In a Station of the Metro"

Ezra Pound’s “In a Station of the Metro,” in my opinion is definitely a poem. It may be short but there are many ways to discuss and interpret this poem. Poems are readings that require anaylizing and sometimes reading between the lines. “In a Station of the Metro” is perfect for this because it is so short. In fact it may be more of a poem than some others just because the fact its short. “In a Station of the Metro,” is definitely a poem because it involves imagery. In line one Pound uses imagery by describing the crowd having a type of look on their faces, also in line two he describes the petals as wet on a black bough maybe creating an image of something sad, scary, or romantic. The fact that you have to read between the lines suggests that this is a poem. Although this is extremely short and many may not consider it a poem it has several aspects to discuss. I feel this poem is a scary poem because line one describes the looks of the crowd creating a sense that the crowd may be scared of something. In line two the petals show quietness and mystery along with these petals being stationed on a wet black bough it also demonstrates a sense on dark mystery. It’s almost a guarantee that this is a poem. It demonstrates most things that create a poem. Yes, it is short but it creates a sense of question when read as well as a great sense of imagery, which both are necessary when identifying a poem. Pound breaks this poem down into two basic lines of imagery. This poem is considered great by many scholars because it requires an imagination and for this reason I believe, with no question, that this piece by Ezra Pound is very much a poem.

Casabianca by Felicia Dorothea Hemans

A boy with his burning ambition.

In casabianca, by Felicia Dorothea Heman the author states that the flame lit the battles wreck, which shows the audience the significance of the battle. This seems to start the mood because by her starting it off this way the reader is able to catch the greatness of the fire as it lit up the entire place.

In the poem the boy stands strong on a burning deck keeping his post, waiting for every last instruction, and though he is just a boy he is proud of himself. As danger neared the boy never moved for he wanted the instruction that would tell him he could. He waits for his fathers signal and yet nothing came. He calls hopelessly to ask if his task in hand was finished and yet no response. He continued to stand with death nearing, for he won’t move unless told to. Again he signals for his father and again no response, the only problem is the boy doesn’t know that his father is unconscious. So as the boy stands strong, based on instruction, the flames from battle continue to close in. Once again the boy calls in hope for the return of his father’s voice giving him freedom. The fires eventually swallowed the ship with a loud noise and boy was gone.

In the last part of the poem the author does not clearly state that the boy is dead. Instead she askes where is he is and fallows that with a statement to ask the wind at sea. The very last set of lines is probably my favorite piece of the poem. It says, “With mast, and helm, and pennon fair, that well had borne their part, but the noblest thing which perished there was that young faithful heart.” I understood this last part as every man did their part but fled to safety but the hero of the poem is the boy and his faithful heart.