Baptizing the Gun

This story in The New Yorker is about a Nigerian man trying to get through traffic.  He is driving a red Volkswagen Beetle and the first major scene is when it breaks down.  His car is stopped and a Lagos man near the road offers to help.  The narrator, whose name I never quite caught, is terrified by this man and seems to want him to leave as quickly as possible.  The Lagos man does not leave however, and invites himself along for the ride back to where the narrator is staying.  Once they get the car started the Lagos man does not stop talking.  He is constantly saying something about Nigeria or the people or anything he can think of.  The narrator is slightly afraid of this but is also grateful that someone helped him get his car started.  At some point the narrator realizes that he and the Lagos man come from apposing tribes and this scares him even more.  He does not want to offend him or let him know where he comes from.  As they drive he realizes that he has run over something that is kind of large but soft.  After a few moments the Lagos man confirms, “That was a corpse, man” (Akpan 5).  This idea of running over a corpse resonates with the narrator and he often refers back to it on his journey.  At first he is scared and never wants to be that corpse in the road, but as he continues and the environment becomes less stable he starts saying that he wants to be that corpse.  He says, “Let him kill me, auction off or sacrifice my essential organs, and crush my corpse under cars, I think” (Akpan 14).  I thought that this reference back to the corpse was very interesting and it really showed how as time went on he gave up trying.

Once the two get closer into town the Beetle breaks down again.  The entire car ride the narrator had needed to use a bathroom quite badly and takes this opportunity to go out and pee by the train tracks.  The O.P.C catch him and accuse him of defecating, which he did not.  It takes him bribing these men to get out of the charges and be left alone.  All along this drive he has had to bribe people to continue on his way without trouble.  The environment in this part of the world seems to be very different than any that we have really studied so far.  At the end of the story his car breaks down again, but they manage to get it to a fuel station.  Three little children come running up and start begging for them to let their father fix the Beetle.  They make their case by saying, “We need to eat tonight!” and “God shall elect you the new President of out country!” (Akpan 16).  Eventually the narrator does let this man fix his car and after the job is finished he is finally able to get the Lagosian to leave him.

Definitions:

Defunct – no longer in effect or use; not operating or funcitoning

Molue – a bus of some sort

Love and Honor and Pity and Pride and Compassion and Sacrifice

The story “Love and Honor and Pity and Pride and Compassion and Sacrifice” by Nam Le is a well written account of a man’s abnormal relationship with his father.  The author is a writer whose father comes to stay with him for three days.  It seems that they are both from Vietnam because they speak Vietnamese to one another.  Besides the authors struggle to overcome writers block and having to deal with interactions with his father he has a girl friend that does not understand his past. He is very private about the relationship with his father but tells the audience the type of abuse inflicted on him as a child.  He says, “He knew how to cane me twenty times and leave only one black-red welt, like a brand mark across my buttocks” (Le 13).  Linda, the authors’ girlfriend, does not understand how he could be so civil towards a man who was horrible to him as a child. 

Throughout the story I got a sense that being involved in the Vietnam War changed his father.  Most veterans of Vietnam have severe PTSD, but in this case, the man seems to be weighed down by his memories instead of overtaken by them.  His father tells war stories with his old buddies but they seem lighthearted recounts of the old days.  When they get home however, the author asks his dad to tell him the real story.  He wants to know what really happened out there.  He plans to use this story for his own personal benefit; he wants to hopefully sell it.  His father is distant while telling his stories but he does not leave out the part about being tortured.  He says, “They tie you by your thumbs, one arm over the shoulder, the other pulled around the front of the body.  Or they stretch out your legs and tie your middle fingers to your big toes—“ (Le 26).  Overall, the final scene where the author see’s his father burning the story is very moving and brings a deeper insight into their relationship.

Definitions:

Equably – free from many changes or variations; uniform

Defeatism – the attitude, policy, or conduct of a person who admits, expects, or no longer resists defeat

Pg. 151-200 The Lazarus Project

This section of the text gives the reader more information about Brik and Rora’s travels.  When traveling from Ukraine to Moldova there is a scene where they are at the boarder and the guards are examining their passports.  Both have American passports and Brik’s gets accepted with no problem.  Rora’s passport on the other hand is a little shady; there are smudged stamps everywhere.  Brik explains this trick, “washing your passport to cover up for the missing entry stamps” (180 Hemon).  It is interesting the tactics that some immigrants must go through in order to get across a boarder.  On this same page Brik and Rora observe another man who seems to have no passport, but is able to sweet talk and pay his way through the boarder.

We find out a lot of information about Rambo in this section.  Rambo became such a powerful man because he would make deals and con his way into money.  He was in the business of transporting Serb bodies across the boarder so that their families could give them proper burial.  He made a lot of money this way, but because a liability for the government.  Several attempts were made on his life until he was finally shot.  This did not kill him however, and he was smuggled away, out of Sarajevo.  Rora tells this story because he knows that if he ever goes back to a place where Rambo is that he will most likely be killed.  Rora explains, “if he were to go to Sarajevo, Rambo might kill him. He could try to escape from Mostar via Medjugorje, go to Germany or somewhere, but he had no money, knew nobody there” (184 Hermon).

The other story that has been occurring with Lazarus and Olga has turned into a constant search for Isador.  The police want to find Isador because they believe him to have been an anarchist accomplice to Lazarus.  Olga has been hiding Isador at her house and you can tell that there may be some history between the two.  When Miller comes by her house for an interview he is asking her many questions about the whereabouts of Lazarus’s body and where Isador is.  She answers his questions simply and without much information, yet Miller exaggerates everything she seems to be saying.  When Olga says, “Go away, Mr. Miller. Leave me”, he rights “Upon hearing the news, the Jewess wept: ‘Leave me alone to die with my grief.  All I had in the world was my brother Lazarus and now he is lost forever—I cannot even talk to his grave.  I am alone for eternity” (200 Hermon).

Definition:

Recalcitrant – resisting authority or control; not obedient or compliant; refractory

Pg. 53-96 The Lazarus Project

The Lazarus Project by, Aleksandar Hermon, is about a young man who emigrated from Bosnia.  He is married to a woman named Mary, and is trying to become a writer in the United States.  Throughout the second section of reading we see how the main character, Brik, travels to Ukraine with his friend Rora.  Rora and Brik knew each other back in Sarajevo before the war.  Brik was able to escape the war by taking classes, but Rora was caught right up in it.  We see how Rora got involved in the fighting because he trusted his friend Rambo.  Rambo was able to get an upper hand during the war through his relationship with a man named Miller.  Miller was a very wealthy American who loved poker, and Rambo beat him miserably in a game.  This particular story is described by Rora, who says, “Miller lost, of course, and Rambo had him in his pocket” (84 Hermon).  This could be the reason why Rora is ultimately alive to tell this tale.  He was able to escape the war and meet back up with Brik and go on to be a photographer.  

The other part of this section is the story of Lazarus and how a policeman killed him.  We meet his sister who is overcome with grief and sorrow to find out that her brother is dead.  This part of the novel confused me because I wasn’t sure who was directly related to Lazarus, and who the real Lazarus was.  Brik tells a story to Rora about a biblical Lazarus, he says, “ ...Lazarus is dead and his sister is friends with a certain Jesus Christ… so she asks him to do something about it…He calls him forth and Lazarus rises from his death…” (76 Hermon).  Due to the fact that there is this biblical tale about Lazarus and a real Lazarus in the story I was confused upon which they were talking about and who the sisters where related to.  In the end, I believe that Olga and Isador are both related to the Lazarus that has been recently killed.

Definitions:

Pomaded – a scented ointment, especially one used for the scalp or for dressing the hair

Cothurni – a grave and elevated style of acting; tragic acting; tragedy

Promulgated – to make known by open declaration; publish

Parsing – to analyze (a sentence) in terms of grammatical constitutes, identifying the parts of speech, syntactic relations 

Extra Credit Speakers

I came and saw the first half of the English speakers in Strom Thurman.  The four speakers were John Persly III, Lindsay Jones, Steve Cats, and Keith Lee Morris.  John Persly and Steve Cats both read poems while Lindsay Jones and Keith Lee Morris read essays or short stories that they had written.  It was harder to follow the poems because they were so short it was difficult to pick up on a central theme, unless you were listening very closely.  The essays were well written and easy to understand and were quite enjoyable to listen to.  The first speaker read a few poems all revolving around the theme of the Apache kid.  He made a statement in the beginning about how he had bought about one hundred of the old western classic movies, and that is where a lot of his inspiration came from.

The second speaker, Lindsay Jones, read a sensitive essay about her experiences housing a Haitian girl in need of medical treatment. She described her feelings towards this little girl and the language barriers that she encountered.  The little girl, Ludmi, loved to help out and even started to call Lindsay mamma.  Lindsay illustrated her feelings of love for Ludmi and how she would be very sad when the day came for Ludmi to go back home to her real family.  The essay was very moving and made the audience feel her struggle of housing a Haitian child for a short period of time.

The third speaker, Steve Cats, read many poems about virtual reality.  Before he read his poems he said, “There is no need for outer space because we have virtual reality.”  I do not quite understand what he meant by this, but his poems were certainly out of this world.  He used a lot of rhyming in his poems but besides that I couldn’t get much out of them.  There was one poem about gloves and human touch but besides that I did not understand much of what this older man was saying.

The fourth and final speaker that I listened to was Keith Lee Morris.  He was by far my favorite speaker to listen to.  He read an essay or short story entitled, “My Roommate Kevin is Awesome.”  The story was relatable because the characters were college age and describing the fantasy college experience.  The main character and his roommate Kevin would throw these crazy parties everyday where unrealistic events would occur.  The first day, Kevin was able to levitate, which attracted the initial crowd of people to their room, making these two guys popular.  After that Ray Charles was in their room, and everyday even crazier events occurred.  It was a very entertaining, funny story and was a good way to end the night.

A Wife's Story and American Dreamer

This weekend while reading “A Wife’s Story” in The Middleman and Other Stories by, Bharati Mukherjee, I was very interested in the story of Panna.  She is an Indian woman living in New York City, trying to get her degree in special education.  You can tell that she has emerged herself in the American culture and has learned to adapt to this different way of life.  When her husband visits the big city and the American people entrance him.  They go site seeing together and he criticizes American culture and the way that Panna seems to accept it.  At one point when the couple are purchasing tickets for a bus tour of the city he says he her, “What was the chap saying? I told you not to wear pants. He thinks you are Puerto Rican.  He thinks he can treat you with disrespect” (Mukherjee 36).  From this quote alone you can see how he thinks down on American culture and believes that he can be controlling towards his wife.  A lot of American women would hear a comment like this and think that it is wrong for a man to talk to a woman in such a commanding way.  On the other hand, Panna had an arranged marriage, a regular custom in India, and is having to deal with the consequences of that.  The article also written by Bharati Mukherjee, explains some of her views of an Indian woman living in an American society.

Mukherjee describes in the article more about how it is being an immigrant.  She is not a native-born American citizen, but worked hard to gain her citizenship so that she could be a part of society.  She says how she had a “love of the ideals embedded in the American Bill of Rights” (“American Dreamer”).  She lived in Canada for 10 years with her husband, Clark.  This time on her life was difficult and she felt a lot of cultural divide.  She struggled with her identity and was not sure whether she would be able to remember and life the old life of India in a new culture of the Americas.  Mukherjee goes on to describe the “dangers of an ‘us’ vs. ‘them’ mentality” (“American Dreamer”).  She explains that this theme can be seen in California, where there is increased violence towards minority and ethnic communities.  By the end of the article the reader can tell that Mukherjee really loves being an American citizen and see’s it as a right that she had to earn, it was not handed to her by birth, and is therefore proud of that fact.

Definitions:

Derisive – chatacterized by or expressing derision; contemptuous; mocking

Demagogues – a person, especially an orator or political leader, who gains power and popularity by arousing the emotions, passions, and prejudices of the people

The same River Twice: End of Novel

As the novel comes to an end, the two stories, one of Chris’s life as a young man and the other his life married and with a child on the way, finally come together.  Chris ends up in the everglades in Florida working as a naturalist.  He is not properly qualified for the job as he describes, “I borrowed all his books and learned enough to fool any hapless tourist into believing I knew the area like a Seminole” (161).  He worked as long as he could, loving the nature and tracking the hurricane that finally gave him a reason to quit.  Chris had lost any friends that he made at this job and after the hurricane he went back up to Boston and stayed with his friend Shadrack for a time until he met Rita.  They dated for a while and married in Manhattan where she is originally from.  Keeping a journal had been Chris’s most prized possession at times and relied on it in many occasions where he had no one to turn to.  Now however, with Rita in his life he explains, “The journal had become useless, an obvious dodge” (176).   He no longer needs this form of escape from the outside world because he appears to be happily married. 

As the book comes to an end we see Rita going through labor and giving birth to their son.  She has a long and difficult delivery and Chris handles it the best he can, getting sick at times and being there for her.  Throughout the novel when the author would talk about Chris and Rita there would always be scenes where Chris is out in the woods looking and thinking about nature.  The outdoors seems to calm him and give him greater self worth.  The very last scene is Chris in the woods with his son wanting to tell him all the right and wrong things to do in life.  Instead Chris says, “I give him a leaf which he calmly tastes.  He can’t learn from my mistakes, only from his own” (188).  The real life lesson at the end of the novel is that Chris has learned from every place he traveled and every mistake he has made in his life and now knows that he would not be the person he is if he had not gone through it on his own.

Definitions:

Roving – roaming or wondering

Corrugated – to draw or bend into folds or alternate furrows and ridges

Bathysphere – a spherical diving apparatus from which to study deep-sea life, lowered into the ocean depths by a cable

The Same River Twice: Part one

The first few chapters of The Same River Twice by, Chris Offutt, is kind of like two stories being told at once.  I assume that this is the purpose of the book, to have two stories that gradually merge into one.  The first story that we learn about is Chris when he is older and trying to marry the love of his life, Rita.  He asks her to marry him twice before she finally says yes the third time he asks.  He is frustrated by her refusals and says, “Being refused twice led me to a careful strategy, guaranteed to catch her when she was weak” (Offutt 12).  He coerced this woman into marrying her but it did seem like it was what she wanted as well.  This part of the story continues on through their marriage into the discussions of having children.  Chris at first does not want children at all.  He believes that he will not be a good father and most importantly does not want Rita to love the child more than him.  Eventually he realizes that he will either have to live a life without Rita or one with her and a baby.  They decide to start trying to get pregnant and after a long while they finally conceive.  The rest of the chapter, and the next one that continues this story, is about his fears of raising a child.  He is afraid that he will mess up the child or that it will be born a freak.

The other story that the author is writing about is when Chris was younger and left Kentucky.  He went to New York to become and actor and encounters some very interesting people.  He meets a woman named Jahi, and she teaches him about the human body and human sexuality.  She opens his eyes to the city and all the different kinds of people you can encounter.  The turning point in his relationship with Jahi is when they go horse-back riding.  He is very skilled at this and is galloping with his horse, but as he does this he see’s “[a] young rider slid from the saddle.  His head slammed against a streetlight, spinning his body in a pinwheel, slinging blood that spattered the street” (Offutt 37).  After this he never speaks to Jahi again.  He gets in an accident playing football and returns home to Kentucky for a while.  When he returns to the city he meets the twins, Luis and Javier.  The twins get into all sorts of mischief and always have Chris be the look out.  At the end of the chapter the twins try to get Chris to marry their cousin, Maria.  Chris does not want to marry Maria and ends the chapter by leaving town.

Definitions:

Undulating – to move with a sinuous or wavelike motion; display a smooth rising-and-falling or side-to-side alternation of movement

Derisively – characterized by or expressing derision; contemptuous; mocking

The Crying of Lot 49: Ch. 6

The last chapter of The Crying of Lot 49 doesn’t exactly tie the whole story together.  There are a few possibilities of why Oedipa has been going or sent on this wild goose-chase all over looking for these muted post horns.  She begins the chapter by going to see Mr. Bortz and asks him further questions about Tristero, still trying to figure out this conspiracy.  Mr. Bortz knows a good amount about Tristero but says that Driblette, the actor/director, knew best.  Driblette however, is dead and there are all having a wake for him.  Oedipa is so confused as to why Driblette would have added the last few lines to the end of the play.  The book that Oedipa found in Zapf’s Used Bookstore had additional lines written in than the originial, which Driblette used.  Oedipa says, “But the night I was there Driblette did use the Vatican lines, he said the word Trystero” (Pynchon 126).  She continues to question everything about Tristero and the muted post horn symbol.  It isn’t until Fallopian puts an idea in her head that she starts to question the whole production.

Fallopian says to her, “Has it ever occurred to you, Oedipa, that somebody’s putting you on?  That this is all a hoax, maybe something Inverarity set up before he died” (Pynchon 138)?  This line changes Oedipa’s thinking.  She begins by defending herself and then she starts to look into it.  Surely enough she finds that almost all the locations that she has found muted post horns are properties owned by Pierce.  She is coming to believe now that Pierce did buy off everyone involved in the Thurn and Taxis, Tristero story she has been hunting down.

The novel ends at an auction that Genghis tells her about.  Many of Pierce’s things are going to be sold at the auction, including his counterfeit stamp collection where they found in the watermark the muted post horn.  Genghis says that there is going to be an unknown book bidder at this auction wanting to buy the stamp collection.  He believes that the bidder could be someone wanting to keep the secrets of Tristero from coming out.  Oedipa still believes that this is just a hoax that Genghis is encouraging.  Oedipa goes to the action, hoping to find out who this bidder is and put some closure on it.  The scene ends with, “The auctioneer cleared his throat.  Oedipal settled back, to await the crying of lot 49” (Pynchon 152).  It is clear that the title of the novel comes from this scene and that there is not definitive ending.  Pynchon keeps you guessing a little and has you come up with your own scenario of what happens.

Definitions:

Vertiginous – whirling; spinning; rotary; affected with vertigo

Cudgels – a short, thick stick used as a weapon; club

Harquebuses – any of several small-caliber long guns operated by a matchlock or wheel lock mechanism

Philatelic – collecting of stamps and other postal matter as a hobby or an investment

The Crying of Lot 49: Ch. 4

The majority of this chapter of The Crying of Lot 49 was about the symbols that Oedipa seems to be finding.  In the previous chapter, Oedipa finds a symbol written on a bathroom door that looks like a horn.  She is determined to find out what the symbol really means but knows that it is related to the Yoyodyne Company and the postal service.  She finds a man working in a cubicle at Yoyodyne that was doodling this horn symbol.  The passage reads, “As it turned out he wasn’t working, only doodling with a fat felt pencil this sign: [sign of horn with mute]” (Pynchon 67).  Then again when Genghis Cohen is examining Pierce’s stamp collection he finds that the muted horn symbol is drawn in on many of the stamps.  Oedipa remembers that the “gold once-knotted horn (Pynchon 77)” is the symbol of Thurn and Taxis, a postal company.  Cohen points out that the other line that is coming out of the horn appears to look like a mute.  In other words Oedipa puts it together that whoever these people are they are trying to stop this postal service by creating their own underground service through Yoyodyne.

As this story unravels it becomes more clear about what Oedipa and Metzger are trying to do.  They are discovering the type of business that Pierce was in and how he got all of his money.  The reason why they go to see the play in the previous chapter is because they find out about these bones that are in the middle of a lawsuit.  Someone dug up bones from a burial and it is believed that it was one of Pierce’s companies that were distributing them.  In the end of this chapter Oedipa makes a comparison of these bones to the cemetery that Cohen picked the dandelions from to make his wine.  Oedipa says, “… and bones could still rest in peace, nourishing ghosts of dandelions, no one to plow them up” (Pynchon 79).

Conspiratorial – the act of conspiring, an evil, unlawful, treacherous or surreptitious plan formulated in secret by two or more persons; plot.

Coquette – a woman who flirts lightheartedly with men to win their admiration and affection; flirt

Adenoidal – of or pertaining to the adenoids; having the adenoids enlarged, especially to a decree that interferes with normal breathing.

The Crying of Lot 49

Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon, has definitely been the hardest read so far.  I am still very confused as to the plot line and what direction the novel will go in.  The main character, Oedipa, has just come into an estate, left by a man named Pierce in his will.  Then the story takes a turn and you see Oedipa being called by a doctor at 3:00 a.m. asking her to participate in a drug experiment.  She refuses to take the pills saying, “I don’t know what’s inside them” (Pynchon 9).  The doctor is concerned that she doesn’t trust him but Oedipa stands strong and will not be a part of the experiment. 

The next day Oedipa goes to see her doctor, Roseman, who asks her to run away with him. He blatantly says, “Run away with me,” and Oedipa’s response is “Where” (Pynchon 10)?  This response seems to catch him off guard and then the story changes to some reference to Rapunzel.  I am not quite sure what this reference is supposed to represent.  As a whole, Oedipa seems to be a woman with a lot of control and very desirable among men. The characters all float around her and now with this potential inherited wealth through the Estate I expect many more people to be coming up to her.  I believe that the novel seems confusing now because there the plot keeps jumping around.  It’s difficult to tell when Oedipa is having a flashback and when she is talking to people around her.

The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams

Finishing The Glass Menagerie over the weekend left me a little disappointed.  I enjoy reading novels or plays that answer all of my questions.  In the end you never know if Laura ends up finding a man or if Amanda is able to continue living her life off of someone else’s money.   Looking at the big picture however, the play is not about Laura or Amanda; it is truly about Tom and his struggle with working in the warehouse.  Tom shows Jim his membership to “The Union of Merchant Seamen” (Williams 62) says how “[he] paid [his] dues this month, instead of the light bill” (Williams 62).  Clearly this statement describes how he does not care for his family as he does for himself.  From the beginning he has done whatever he can to escape from the control of Amanda and be the person he wants to be, like his father.  His father left the family and Tom ends up doing the same thing.  Tom does feel bad leaving Laura however.  In his final speech he says, “Oh, Laura, Laura, I tried to leave you behind me, but I am more faithful than I intended to be!” (Williams 97).  This statement shows that he does care for his sister and hopes that she will succeed in life.

The scene where the young gentleman caller, Jim O’Connor, comes to dinner is very entertaining.  Jim’s character is outgoing and a little bit arrogant.  It is clear that he thinks very highly of himself and wishes that he could relive his glory days in high school where he was a star athlete and excelled in the debate club.  His entire interaction with Laura is a show on its own.  He seems to take advantage of the fact that she is interested in him and builds up her confidence and kisses her, only to tell her in the end that he is in love and explains that he is “going to be married the second Sunday in June” (Williams 93).  As the reader I was sad that Jim didn’t end up with Laura but found it sweet that she gave him the broken glass unicorn. 

The title of the play, The Glass Menagerie, fits perfectly.  The whole family is like a collection of unusual animals.  Laura is crippled and terribly shy, while Amanda is controlling and abrasive, and Tom is a drunk who ultimately ends up leaving the family.  The whole household is like Laura’s little glass animals, fragile and a spectacle to look at. 

Sonny's Blues by James Baldwin

This week, I found reading Sonny’s Blues, by James Baldwin, to be really interesting. The story is about a mans’ struggle to deal with his younger brothers drug addiction.  Kenneth McClane introduces the story with his own personal accounts of dealing with a brother with an addiction and it took me reading through the entire story to understand a lot of what McClane is saying.  I have no personal experience being on such a strong drug and don’t know anyone who has so I could not relate with a story about addiction but have sympathy for those that have.  The quote that stuck with me the most is when Sonny is describing his feeling of what it is to be high.  He says, “Sometimes, you know, and it was actually when I was most out of the world, I felt that I was in it, that I was with it, really, and I could play or I didn’t really have to play, it just came out of me, it was there” (McClane 52).  The words are so powerful and can really put you in the mindset of someone on a strong drug like heroin.  

I am the youngest child in my family and could not imagine putting my older siblings through that kind of torment and worry.  Right before the main characters mother dies she says to him, “You got to hold on to your brother, and don’t let him fall, no matter what it looks like is happening to him and no matter how evil you gets with him” (McClane 42).  This is a lot of pressure being put on an older sibling to take care of their little brother and I think is part of the reason why the two go so long without speaking to one another.  The main character is appalled at the actions of his brother and feels as though there is no hope for him and therefore ends communication for a time.  I believe it is because he thinks he has failed his mother and has not kept his brother safe from the temptations of Harlem, the city they grew up in.  At the end of the story the main character seems to have this revelation, or realization of how his brother must have been feeling for all these years and the struggles that he has gone through.  As he watches Sonny up on stage playing the piano with the other men he thinks to himself, “I had never before thought of how awful the relationship must be between the musician and his instrument.  He has to fill it, this instrument, with the breath of life, his own” (McClane 54).  In some ways he could be making the relationship of instruments to drug addiction.  It seems as though the drug is what is making you alive but in reality it is the person that has the choice whether to make it take over your life or not. 

McClane picks out the quote, deep water and drowning are not the same thing, and adds that, “they can be.  And one can fall even further, farther” (McClane 31).  I still don’t quite understand this quote, but while it relates to addiction I can imagine that feeling as though you are stuck in deep water can be worse than drowning, not actually getting the relief you need.  Simply becoming stuck in one place in time.

Truculent (30): fierce, cruel, aggressively hostile

Environs (30): the surrounding parts or districts of a city, outskirts

Poems from Robert Frost

The first poem, Birches, by Robert Frost is not too difficult to decipher.  I am from Massachusetts therefore I can relate to the idea of ice storms and the ice accumulating on a tree till the branches look like they are about to touch the ground.  It is quite beautiful to see the branches bent to such an extent.  About a third of the way through the poem the Frost says, “…with all the matter-of-fact about ice storm…I should prefer to have some boy bend them…” Clearly Frost is comparing the way snow and ice bends the branches of trees to little boys playing on them and bending them in the same manor.  Although the branches will never bend as much by little boys the beauty of it is still there.  Frost says, “I’d like to get away from earth awhile and then come back to it and begin over. “  He sees envisions how the boys are light-heartedly playing on the branches and how the ice bends the branches in the same way and sees the beauty in it.  There is something special about playing up high in a tree in New England and never wanting to come back down.  You feel free, like nothing could ever touch you from way up that high.  Frosts other poem, Mending Wall, was not as familiar to be as Birches.

Mending Wall is about two neighbors with a wall up in between their property.  Frost sees no need for the wall to be up between the two homes.  Frost says, “There where it is we do not need the wall: he is all pine and I am apple orchard.”  He is saying that on his neighbors side of the wall there are only pine trees and on his side of the wall there are only apple trees.  Frost goes on to say that the trees will never touch one another and there are no cows that would pass between the two properties.   He see’s no need for the wall but the neighbor simply replies, “Good fences make good neighbors.”  I can understand how this saying would be beneficial.  A lot of people like their privacy and do not want others spying on them or checking to see what they are doing.  I feel that Frost however, is just being friendly and wants to interact more with his neighbor.  He ties to think of ways to plant this idea in his neighbor’s head of taking down the wall but has had no luck.  His neighbor seems outdated in the way he repairs the wall and therefore most likely seems outdated in his ways of thinking as well.

Alexa Barach

Test Blog: Ezra Pound

In a Station of the Metro

The apparition of these faces in the crowd;

Petals on a wet, black bough.

A metro is a platform of public transportation.  Generally in cities, a metro is short for metropolis and therefore a place where public transportation is needed.  Pound describes a crowded metro and it may not be clear as to where exactly it is.  This metro however, may be wet because it is raining or a dreary day.

The feelings that the poem communicates are dark, heavy ones.  The words "wet, black bough" allow for these feelings.  In addition, the fact that the metro is crowded could symbolize that the author is becoming lost in the crowd.

Upon first read, the poem seems to be a sad poem about a man lost in the crowd at a train station, becoming lost in the dreary weather.  After reading the poem again, I feel as though the man in at the train station isn't necessarily becoming lost in the crowd but is more observing the conformity of the hoards of people moving past from one platform to another.  He takes notice of the "petals on the wet, black bough" whereas others simply pass it by.  Pound could be comparing the metro to the conformity of society and how people do not take the time to think about the world around them, even if it is raining or dreary outside.

Poem about the CAT bus:

When not wanting to be aboard, it is everywhere,

If in need of a ride, it is hard to find.

After sharing my poem with a classmate, she seemed to agree with my description of the CAT bus.

Alexa Barach