Could I post a blog in ten words?

 

Hank Green's YouTube hit "I Know (A Song in Ten Words)" pretty much sums up the logic that Othello's mind must have been spinning through while contemplating his murder on Desdemona.  Now, I don't mean to be rude in the presence of a Hank Green video, but I feel like this is in order.  This song confused me at first.  The song possesses only ten words, which are then sang very quickly to a very catchy tune, yet these ten words somehow manage to capture how I feel the Othello reaction to his situation was - confusing and lacking of any structure.

"I don't think you know what you think you know, baby,
But baby don't you think that I know what I know maybe."

Now, I'm not trying to sum up Desdemona's reactions to Othello's strange accusations in a modern English translation, but I think that this would be as close as one could get to finding one.  Not only did Desdemona know what Othello thought he knew, but she then countered what she thought Othello knew she thought he knew.  The war pitted amongst Desdemona and Othello may have ended in a physical smuggling, but this was only after they were pitted against each other in a brutal mental battle by Iago where each thought they knew what the other thought they knew, but didn't realize that they didn't really know what the other really knew.  That sentence was confusing for emphasis.


Note: The song doesn't take the whole video, so that part warrants none of your time, unless you are a tried and true Nerdfighter.



Juxtaposition.

"Getting Out"

"Taking hands

we walked apart, until our arms stretched

between us.  We held on tight and let go" (21-23).

In Cleopatra Mathis's "Getting Out," the tone of the speaker appears to be nostalgic - that's a tone, right?  If it is not a tone, then I guess I would go with regretful.  The speaker really does not seem to feel the same now as he did when they broke up.  The imagery of a feuding couple is juxtaposed by the only tangible memory of the speaker which practically depicts them as being born for each other.  The main imagery in the passage is sound.  This imagery is even paired with a simile (that's so cool!) in line 13 when they heaved "words like furniture."  I don't know about you, but if I was being bombarded with furniture, then I would expect it to be quite painful.  The couple needed to learn to talk with each other more respectfully.  Now, they speak once a month through the mail and their words are only hurtful.  Personally, I feel like they would not even still communicate if they did not have love for each other.  They only "held on tight" because they did not want to leave, but they felt like they had to.  It's almost like that feeling when you flip a coin that it will land on one or the other, even if you are only flipping it because you were in a toss up.  Neither wanted to leave, yet both couldn't stay.

"Mr. Z"

"The obit writers, ringing crude changes on a clumsy phrase:

'One of the most distinguished members of his race," (25-6).

In "Mr. Z," by M. Carl Holman, not only did I have "Mr. Jones" by the Counting Crows stuck in my head, but I also managed to catch on to some of the things talked about in the questions.  For example, the first line gives a clear idea that Mr. Z was African American.  From here on out, the poem became a satire, and the speaker juxtaposes being proud of Mr. Z for breaking the race barrier and mocking him for his awkwardness.  To be honest, I am not really sure why the speaker does not name Mr. Z, but I almost feel like it might be because the speaker just does not know it, but that seems like a far-fetched reasoning, so we should act like I never said it.

Let me go back to the point I made earlier about the contrast of pride and awkwardness.  The pride comes from Mr. Z's ability to fit in (3-6), while the awkwardness comes from him choosing raceless views and going to places that accept "exotic skin."  Assuming that I read this correctly, Mr. Z is Jewish, but non-traditionally married a lady who left the Jewish faith.

Okay, so I have yet to address the quote from above.  Question number five asks about the irony in the obituaries - when or if I die, can you make sure that no one makes a joke in my obituary for me?  The irony is actually kind of amusing for me - which is quite disturbing - but the obit writers basically are saying that his race, African Americans, have remained useless wastes of space and congratulations on doing something productive even if you had to avoid anywhere that might not find you worthy.

P.S.  I love this song, which caused me to directly enjoy the poem.

"The Joy of Cooking"

For the first time in my life, I feel fairly confident on a poem's meaning!

"Although beef heart serves six

my brother's heart barely feeds two" (15-16).

In "The Joy of Cooking" by Elaine Magarrell, the speaker juxtaposes the sister's tongue with the brother's heart.  Through what I believe would be metonomy (Google Chrome thinks that I meant to say Deuteronomy, but I definitely meant metonomy...), the speaker is relating the preparing of the tongue with simply having a heart.  The tongue represents speech, while the heart represents love.  The sister's tongue has been "scrubbed and skinned" (2) because of its constant use.  Meanwhile, the brother's heart is "firm and rather dry" (10) because he does not use his heart.  While the speaker has clear favorite combinations when speaking about the tongue, the speaker merely finds a stuffing for the heart lack luster.  The speaker then goes on to lines 15-16 where the speaker compares the heart of cow with that of a brother.  Of all the major players on the food chain, humans have some of the smallest hearts (somewhat because of our natural size, but this suggests deeper meanings since the speaker does not relate how a cow's tongue is longer than a human's tongue).  It almost implies that should humans use their hearts as much as we do our tongues, then the heart would be able to mature to the stage that the tongue does and maybe become a delicacy.

Lastly, the tone seems to satirical.  The speaker definitely seems to be mocking how people think that words speak so much louder than they will let their actions show.

"Dream Deferred"

"Or does it explode?" (11).

"Dream Deferred" by Langston Hughes is very interesting in that Hughes uses six separate comparisons in an effort of expressing the emotions of an African American trying to fit into American society.  I chose the line above because it starkly contrasts the other five comparisons.  What brought me to notice it first was definitely the italics and separation from the other comparisons.  It brought my eye to it when I first scanned the poem and forced me to accept that all of the other comparisons were leading up to a greater message.  The first five similes were each individual ways of showing that the dreams postponement could be easily overlooked by the speaker since the speaker obviously felt that they were a small obstacle.  This is juxtaposed by the magnitude of an exploding dream.  The final, and lone, metaphor drove home the fact that while the five previous consequences of a longing dream may not seem as serious, the elevating risk-factors clearly end in a lost cause.  Dreams are being compared to bombs because they are something that you can see smoking, but there is no tangible danger until it actually explodes, just like the lingering effects of reaching for an unobtainable dream.

"Pink Dog"

"Ash Wednesday'll come but Carnival is here.

What sambas can you dance?  What will you wear?" (32-3).

"Pink Dog" by Elizabeth Bishop seems to be an extended metaphor which compares the fear that a pink dog strikes into people with the foolish nature of a beggar.  While both of the images in comparison are negative, I feel like this poem is much like "London" in that Bishop is shining them in a new light.  The pink dog has "a case of scabies, but looks intelligent" (8-9).  To me, this line implies that the pink dog is only naked because of an outside force brought upon by some indirect life choices, much like a beggar.  Dogs would never choose to have scabies much like how a beggar would never choose to have to beg.

The quote I chose above mocks society in a sort of way.  The society (Germany calls their Fat Tuesday celebration Karneval, so maybe a German society?) is creating a false sense of perfection in the society with the celebrations.  This correlates with the message that Bishop is achieving because she seems to parallel on the message of Jesus that those with misfortune on earth will have happiness later in eternal life.  Bishop juxtaposes her early negative imagery of the pink dog ("Naked," "passersby draw back and stare," "of course they're mortally afraid") with a new light of hope for the dog that it might look grim now, but in time, the dog will be glorified.

Also, are the rhetorical questions there for a purpose or just decoration?

"I felt a Funeral, in my Brain"

"And then a Plank in Reason, broke,

And I dropped down, and down -

And hit a World, at every plunge,

And Finished knowing - then -"

The imagery in this poem is highly linked to the sense of hearing.  While I read this, the TV was on and my dad came in to talk to my dog- yes, my family is very odd- yet while I was reading this, I still was able to really hear the sounds of "Mourners" (2), "a Drum" (6), "creak" (9), "and Silence" (15).  I do not actually think that I have ever read a poem where sound was the major feature of it, but it was quite an experience to imagine the scene through the sounds in my head.  Dickinson was very smart to use the sense of sound for this poem since it really describes the inner workings of this person's mind instead of the traditional poem that is depicting some wonderful scene from nature.

I picked the above selection of lines because they featured an anaphora through the repetition of the word "and."  This really set the stage for the dramatic effect in this poem.  I felt like this entire poem was leading up to the inevitable suicide of the person being described (though it will be very embarrassing if that is wrong).  This person was throwing themselves their own funeral, because they felt like no one would come.  He or she imagined it- silent- no one was there to say their goodbyes.

The last two stanzas feature a large juxtaposition of good versus evil.  In the fourth stanza, I believe that Dickinson is describing the chaos in heaven as the angels try to frantically to speak the person into not going through with the suicide, but the Devil won over the diseased mind.  The last stanza depicts the snapping out of reality and killing themselves.  The last stanza seems to display the idea that people who commit suicide go to Hell by having had the person "dropped down, and down" (18) as if they are in Dante's world and slowly falling to the level of Judas.  They finished knowing what it was like to live in a world of real pain when they reached Hell, which led to the closure of the poem.

"The Panther" by Rainer Maria Rilke

"As he paces in cramped circles, over and over,

the movement of his powerful soft strides

is like a ritual dance around a center

in which a mighty will stands pararlyzed,"

("The Panther," Rilke)

This oxymoron used by Rilke really answers the first question posed on the handout.  Rilke uses the image of an entrapped panther because of the connotation of a panther versus the connotation of a lion.  This oxymoron alone gives the opinion that panthers are creatures to be respected, while the normal opinion of lions is that they should be feared.  Also, this stanza (was that the right word?) seems to juxtapose the natural power of a panther with the paralysis of an imprisoned panther.  I had thought that this was at a zoo when Rilke described the bars that the panther lived in, but the other images of people and, maybe more importantly, the ritual dance make me feel like this panther is a part of a circus attraction, but I do not know if panthers are actually circus animals.

In the last stanza, an "image enters in" the heart of the panther, which I take as being when the panther is released from its cage and finally gets to experience the world, but this goes away when the show is over.  I got this conclusion from the possible double meaning to the word "curtain of the pupils."  It makes it sound like the panther is simply waking up and opening its eye lids, but it could actually mean opening the circus curtains for the viewers, which can be described as pupils as well.  So I guess an image does not actually enter into the panther's heart, but rather the viewers at the circus who get to the dark silhouette of the panther doing a ritual dance.

Through an oxymoron and juxtaposition, Rilke seems to portray the immense pressure of a circus panther undertakes as a result of being taken in by a circus and treated as an attraction instead of an actual beast.

I wanted to put a picture of a panther in the circus to show how silly they look, but there are none on Google Image so I guess maybe it really was just a panther in the zoo.  Most of my analysis seems to still work though, so I am pleased with this poem!  Seriously, why do I feel like I have seen panthers in the circus?

Never Let Me Go - Two

        "Anyway, it was those temper tantrums that really got people going, escalating everything, and around the time I'm talking about- the summer of our Senior 2, when we were thirteen- that was when the persecution reached its peak.
       Then it all stopped, not overnight, but rapidly enough... Then gradually, people got bored and the pranks became more half-hearted, until one day it struck me there hadn't been any for over a week" (pg 21).

Ishiguro uses a plethora of small anecdotes through Kathy's memory to indirectly characterize Tommy.  I think that these play hand-in-hand to shape Tommy's character in the most unbiased way possible by allowing the reader to infer their own personality traits of Tommy instead of simply hearing Kathy's view on Tommy's persona.  Through all the tantrums, I learned that Tommy really just seems to be misunderstood and not really an angry person.  He seems to be the kid who wants to be friends with people, but is not really sure how so he just tries to get attention in whatever form he can.  During these anecdotes, Kathy really showed us the changes that Tommy made to better his lifestyle.  Anecdotes also help me to relate to the characters more as well as make the story seem more plausible.  The juxtaposition in Tommy's personality above shows us how quickly he was able to change when Miss Lucy told him that it is okay to be different (which is a nice contrast to Brave New World's values).  I think that Ishiguro chose to juxtapose the different personality traits of Tommy so that we can really see what was bothering him and that he really just needed reassurance in his life.  It also may become the start of a theme on how people can change their personalities so easily, but I would not go out on a limb to say that one yet.

I also think that these flashbacks and anecdotes will remain very active in the first part of the novel since it appears to be used to describe Kathy's childhood with Tommy and Ruth at Hailsham.