Shakespeare's Sonnet 130

Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130 has been one of my favorite poems of his for a very long time.  I really enjoy how he uses the poem to poke fun at the ideas and phrases commonly used in other works of poetry during this time.  In the first ten lines of the poem, the narrator seems to be almost insulting and looking down upon the woman that he is speaking about.  In the last two lines of the poem, however, we are able to understand what the true meaning of this poem actually is and that the speaker really does love this woman quite a bit.  He just does not like the ridiculous ideas of beauty that have been presented to and about women in many other poems during this time.  The ideas behind this poem are also very relevant in our society today.  The ideal of beauty that is presented in today’s movies, magazines, and other media is very similar to what is described in this poem.  These unrealistic ideas affect our perception of what is beautiful in today’s society in much the same way that the ideas used in these poems affected the perception of what was beautiful during Shakespeare’s time.

"The Prophet's Hair"

This story was written by Salman Rushdie.  It takes place in India in the early 1900s and mainly focuses on events surrounding one family after the father, Hashim, finds a hair from the prophet Muhammad at the bottom of a river.  Possession of this hair soon leads to a chain of disastrous events for Hashim and his family. 

I thought this story was very interesting.  I enjoyed how the story was set up so that we knew Huma was looking for a thief before we knew why she was doing this.  This technique helped to intrigue me at the beginning of the story so that I was more interested and excited to read the rest of it.  I also enjoyed reading about the different characters in the story and why they did the things that they did.  I was very interested in the fact that the thief broke the legs of all of his sons so that they would be able to make more money begging. 

After finishing this story, I believe that it had a good moral of honesty.  Hashim was not honest in keeping the prophet’s hair for himself and, therefore, brought destruction upon his family.  The thief was not honest in breaking the legs of his sons so that they would be able to make more money and brought about his own death as well as the healing of his sons. 

Overall, I really enjoyed reading this story and talking about it in class.  I am looking forward to reading other similar works in the future.