Plunger Wars

"I feel as though I were walking on the edge of a precipice, towards which thousands are crowding, and endeavouring to plunge me into the abyss" (pg 63).

 "Often, I say, I was tempted to plunge into the silent lake, that the waters might close over me and my calamities forever" (pg 62).

As you may remember from the "Death of a Salesman" Socratic Seminar, I really don't like characters who are ultra depressing, and both Elizabeth and Victor are both suicidal (so it would seem).  I find some of the details in this two ever so similar thoughts very interesting though.

• "towards which thousands are crowding" versus "into the silent lake"

This is something that I hadn't realized, but both Elizabeth and  Victor are going through highly emotional events that are basically complete opposites.  Elizabeth is being trapped by everyone around her, including herself, every time they talk about the murder, while Victor is trapped in his silent secret in his beliefs in the true murderer.

• Mr. Costello said, "Mary Shelley likes to repeat words and phrases."

You know, Shelley easily could have varied her word choice and said "jumped" or "leaped," but she decided to repeat the word "plunge" in both scenes.  It's the connotation of the word that you plunge into something bad and that it would be dangerous.

• Simile versus not a simile

Elizabeth's situation was mentioned in a simile, but Victor's was not.  I really have no clue how to interpret that.

P.S. Sometimes I feel like I blog about the most random details I can find.

"Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night"

"Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light" (1-3).

"Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night," by Dylan Thomas, despite not being what I expected it to be about - thank you - shows a very clear pattern.  You see, Thomas uses the very distinct rhyme scheme of a Villanelle - I once wrote a Villanelle with Becca Quill entitled "Mice on Moon," which was turned into a feature length music video performed by Bryan Rainey, Abby Koop, and Margaret Blandford, but that is a story for another day.  Basically, the overall pattern is something like an ABA' ABA ABA' type of deal, with the last quatrain being something like an ABAA'.  Not only did this link the tercets, but it also emphasized the last stanza as that of importance.  This poem really gave meaning to your phrase, "The author was not just lazy with their word choice."  Before I get into what the four different... men? tercets were for, I decided to give a little shout out to the first tercet.  It not only served as a nice reiteration of the poem's title in case I had already forgotten - I hadn't - but it also told me what the "good night" is - death.

There were "men-y" tercets in this poem (that was a pun).  In fact, there were four distinct types of people in this poem - I do not believe that the speaker is literally talking about men, but rather using it as a way to say humanity.

Wise men know when they will die, but will not see that the contributions that they think they made were actually useless.

Good men always think that they could have done better with their life when they begin to see death.

Wild men just go with life as it goes, but as they see death, learn that they had did not do anything significant.

Grave men see death as almost an exciting term.  The speaker uses a simile to show this excitement.

Okay, another pattern is that wise men and wild men do not go gentle, while good men and grave men rage.  Can you say, "Those start with the same letter?"

P.S.  Margaret messed up when she was singing my song, but I have gotten over that!  Mrs. Sander might still have that video if you really wanted to see/hear it.

"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.

"My Mistress' Eyes"

"I love to hear her speak, yet well I know

that music hath a far more pleasing sound" (9-10).

I really wish that I had not seen the name Shakespeare before I started to read this.

In "My Mistress' Eyes" by thou whom shall nither be named, I felt like the tone was probably condescending.  The speaker seems to not think very well of the mistress.  Even the good qualities in the mistress such as her voice are not good enough for the speaker.  I get the feeling that the speaker either does not want to have feelings for the mistress or has set their requirements in love far too high.  To me, it would be common sense that no one's eyes are as bright as the sun (Go similes!), yet this seems to be detrimental to the possibility of a relationship to this speaker.  I feel like this speaker does not want to love the mistress more than the latter of my previous options.  The speaker basically says, "You know, your eyes sparkle like the morning sun, but they are not made of rubies and marble so you are inadequate."  I feel like since this is Shakespeare, someone should have died, but I suppose the confusion in the love of these two will have to suffice for the traditional Shakespeare writings.  The last two lines go to suggest that the speaker really does have emotions for the mistress, but that the feelings are for fake reasons and not genuine care.

"A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning"

"If they be two, they are two so

As stiff twin compasses are two" (25-26).

In "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning" by John Donne, I can honestly say that I have no clue what it is about.  I really thought that I understood the meaning, but the questions at the end completely negate everything that I thought the poem meant.  The one thing I can say with almost 25 percent certainty is that the speaker is not about to die, but rather go on a journey.  The simile I posted above is the only one that I can find, but there are apparently another two I am missing a long with a metaphor?  It was also what leads me to believe that the speaker is about to go on a journey, since you would not really need a compass when you die.

I also understand that there was an earthquake which killed many and left the rest stranded to leave the town behind?  This might be the source of the contrast between the journey and the dying, but I honestly have no clue.

Another small observation that I made that probably means nothing at all is that the speaker said "Care less" and not "careless" in line 20.

Refer to the picture below for the expressions I made while studying this poem.

"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.

Never Let Me Go - Sixteen

"I thought about Hailsham closing, and how it was like someone coming along with a pair of shears and snipping the balloon strings just where they entwined above the man's fist" (pg 213).

Much like in Brave New World, this novel seems to describe all the major events through some sort of comparison.  This simile shows the actual importance of Hailsham for the students.  While Hailsham may have seemed like a school for all the students, it really just gave everyone the chance to live a semi-normal life.  When Kathy has this experience with the clown with a briefcase, it kind of seems to be a representation of how foolish everyone was when they were little.  Clowns always represent humor and mockery, while the briefcase seems to deny that idea.  The briefcase may show how they have all matured through time (the most prominent theme I have seen thus far), but could also show how they used to think they were mature.  When the balloon strings get cut, not only does it show us that they all scatter, only to see each other should a higher power direct them to each other, but also shows us leaving behind the safety of home.  They each go off on their own paths where any decision could be bad and anyway they go could be wrong.  Like a balloon, each student from Hailsham can only take so many hits before they have to give up, only so many donations before their bodies shut down.  The combination of the balloons, clown and briefcase made for a very detailed illustration on how Kathy feels about her past and future endeavors.

Oh, and the balloons had faces which not only makes them look five times better, but also really shows how tight-knit the community was and how much they are meant to portray the Hailsham lifestyle.