Relationships with Strangers

Our theme for this week was relationships with strangers.  We read Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” and David Sedaris’ “Jesus Shaves.”  The narrators of these two stories both treat the strangers they meet very differently.  In Marquez’s “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings,” the people living in the town treat the winged man very badly.  They throw old food scraps and fruit peels at him and someone even pokes him with a hot brand.  The people in this story do not seem to care very much that this man may be an angel or a person that they should respect.  Instead, they treat him like an animal or a piece of property.  In Sedaris’ “Jesus Shaves,” however, the narrator interacts peacefully with the strangers he meets in his French class.  The students in the class have many different ideas and traditions from one another, but they are not cruel to each other about it.  Instead, they just disagree civilly and must accept that their traditions and culture may seem very strange to some people from other backgrounds.  Despite how different these stories are, I really enjoyed reading both of them and learning more about how and why some people act the way they do around strangers.  

Familial Relationships in Literature

Our readings in class this week all shared the theme of familial relationships.  We read Jimmy Santiago Baca’s “Green Chile,” Jhumpa Lahiri’s “Interpreter of Maladies,” and Seamus Heaney’s “Digging.”  All three of these works focused on the relationships between family members.  In “Green Chile” we read about the narrator’s relationship with his grandmother and how they use green chile to uphold cultural and familial traditions, in “Interpreter of Maladies” we read about how secrets can tear a family apart, and in “Digging” we read about how a person can still be a part of family traditions and values even if they choose a different way of life.  The families in each of these stories are all very different.  In “Green Chile,” the narrator cares deeply for his family’s traditions and even sacrifices his own preference for red chile to be a part of his grandmother’s love of green chile.  The narrator of “Digging” still follows his family’s tradition of digging, but chooses to dig with a pen instead of a shovel.  The Das family from “Interpreter of Maladies” completely leaves behind their Indian heritage and traditions in order to talk, act, and dress like typical American tourists.  In their own way, the families in each of these works have to decide for themselves if and how they will participate in the traditions of their parents and grandparents.

War Stories

Our theme this week was stories about war.  We read Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s “The Charge of the Light Brigade,” Wilfred Owen’s “Disabled” and “Dulce et Decorum Est,” Marjane Satrapi’s “The Shabbat,” and Tim O’Brien’s “How to Tell a True War Story.”  All of these stories were closely related to the theme of this week’s readings.  I thought it was very interesting how reading Tim O’Brien’s “How to Tell a True War Story” changed my perspective on the other stories we had read earlier in the week.  “How to Tell a True War Story” talks about the realities of war.  It says that true war stories do not have a moral or lesson to learn.  True war stories have no real ending.  According to this idea of a true war story, I believe that all of the stories that we read in class this week would fit the description of a true war story.  These stories seemed to show the reader only a small piece of an event or a person’s life.   Even after one finishes reading the story, it is easy to imagine that event or existence continuing on for many years to come.  These stories also had no lesson for the reader to learn.  They simply showed the harsh realities of war and its aftermath.

"My Last Duchess"

During this week, we read Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado” and “The Raven,” Robert Browning’s “My Last Duchess,” and Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper.”  These stories and poems are all excellent examples of relationships that are plagued by insanity.  My favorite of these works, however, was probably Robert Browning’s poem “My Last Duchess.”  I really enjoyed how Browning gave the reader little clues throughout the poem that eventually led to a shocking realization at the poem’s end.  This is seen as the narrator says that his last Duchess was “… painted on the wall, looking as if she were alive” and that he “… gave commands; then all smiles stopped together.”  Browning also uses these details to help the reader to understand the narrator’s character.  The narrator is a very controlling man.  He says that his wife “smiled, no doubt, whene’er I passed her; but who passed without much the same smile?” and that as his wife rode “round the terrace-all and each would draw from her alike the approving speech, or blush, at least.”  In the end, he killed his wife because she did not follow his commands.  He saw her as a possession and referred to her in the poem as a piece of art or some inconsequential object.  

"Daddy"

Sylvia Plath’s “Daddy” was a very interesting poem to read.  Initially, I was confused by this poem and was unsure of what it meant.  After my first reading, I was also very unsure of what the narrator’s feelings toward his/her father were.  The narrator seemed to alternate between hating his/her father and fondly remembering him.  After multiple readings and listening to the author read the poem out loud, however, I was finally able to gain a better grasp on what the real meaning behind this poem is. 

Through this poem, the narrator describes his/her father as a very fearsome ruler over the narrator’s life.  The narrator’s father is described as an oppressive black shoe that seems to almost smother the foot (the narrator).  He is a Godlike statue that looms over the narrator.  He is a Nazi while the narrator is a Jew.  These metaphors work well to convey the narrator’s feelings of fear and oppression toward his/her father.  Despite all of this, however, the narrator also seems to care for his/her father, miss him, and almost idolize him.  The narrator even married someone in an effort to try and replace his/her father.  By the end of the poem, the narrator seems to finally be able to step away from the father’s oppressive influence in her life and escape his shadow once and for all.  

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.