A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man By James Joyce

One part of the novel that really struck me was the stream of consciousness style of writing. Not only was it an interesting an different style than I am used to (I will get into that more in the reaction section) but it is easy to observe Stephen's growth into an artist, and his maturation in his use of language and words. First of all through this stream of consciousness style of writing Stephen's maturation in language is very distinct; comparing one line from the first page, "his father told him that story: his father looked at him through a glass: he had a hairy face" (Joyce 3) to a line from the back of the book, "the soft beauty of the Latin words touched with an enchanting touch the dark of the evening, with a touch fainter and more persuading than the touch of music or of a woman's hand" (Joyce 265). It is clear and evident through stream of consciousness that his diction has expanded to more complex words, and his syntax has also become more complex, the sentences are longer and more dynamic. The comparison of these two sentences display his development into the artist that he is at the end of the novel; the first sentence is short, and is mostly just observable facts, while the second sentence at the end of the novel is much more than observable facts. It compares the Latin words that Cranly said to music and a woman's hand. Stephen incorporates personification into this sentence and gives the sound of the words a human quality, the ability to touch. Through words Stephen has the ability to create a painting of sound. Through the story Stephen has come to realize the beauty of words and their meaning, often thinking about the connotation and denotation of different words. Through stream of consciousness Joyce shows Stephen's development into an artist through Stephen's changing diction and his ability to create illustrations with words.


"And for ages men had gazed upward upward as he was gazing at birds in flight. The colonnade above him made him think vaguely of an ancient temple and the ashplant on which he leaned wearily of the curved stick of an augur. A sense of fear of the unknown moved in the heart of his weariness, a fear of symbols and portents, of the hawklike man whose name he bore soaring out of his captivity on osierwoven wings, of Thoth, the god of writers, writing with a reed upon a tablet and bearing on his narrow ibis head the cusped moon" (Joyce 244).

In this quote Stephen ponders over his choice to become an artist, he knows that it may not be the easiest or safest thing to choose, this is shown through the allusion to Daedalus, the artist in Greek Mythology, he created wings to fly out of the labyrinth that he and his son were confined to as a punishment. Daedalus arrived safely on land but his son, Iacrus, flew too close to the sun and fell to his death. Stephen realizes that he can have the same fate as Icarus. He is also comparing the colonnade to an old temple and alluding to a group of Romans that interpret omens for guidence. This also shows that Stephen is nervous of his future and how it will turn out. The mention of flight and birds, however, shows that Stephen is ready to take that leap, or flight, of faith and become the artist that he wants to be. That he is ready to move on a become his own person and escape the snares of the soceity, become the artist instead of the priest,  just like Daedalus escaped from the labyrinth.    


A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man was very interesting. I liked the plot of the story, Stephen growing up and realizing his individuality; but the stream of conscousness, though very interesting, was very confusing, and throughout the whole novel I found it difficult to read. I barely understood what I was reading because it took me so long to read one page. I do really want to have a better understanding of this novel because it is such an amazing novel, and it is exceptionallly well written. It was just so hard to comprehend because of the style of writing and the unfamiliar words that Joyce uses. I don't hate this book but it wasn't my favorite either. I might, later in my life reread it, but I don't think that will be relatively soon.
  

Poem Analysis Nummer zwei!!!

A work of Artifice

By: Marge Piercy

poem number 263

The bonsai tree

in the attractive pot

could have grown eighty feet tall

on the side of a mountain

till split by lightning.

But a gardener

carefully pruned it.

It is nine inches high.

Every day as he

whittles back the branches

the gardener croons,

It is your nature

to be small and cozy,

domestic and weak;

how lucky, little tree,

to have a pot to grow in.

With living creatures

one must begin very early

to dwarf their growth:

the bound feet,

the crippled brain,

the hair in curlers,

the hands you

love to touch.

Structure of the poem

The structure and set up of the poem itself is very important to the meaning of the poem. all the lines have been kept short to represent the small limbs of the bonsai tree and, in turn, the oppression of women so become the best they can be. Also diction is important to the poem's meaning, Piercy is comparing women to the Bonsai tree and by saying that the bonsai tree grows in an "attractive pot" instead of just a regular pot shows the idea that women should be beautiful and attractive. Also the word choice for the tree "Domestic and weak" (14) shows that women have to stay home and not be strong, both physically and mentally.

Allusion

Also the whole poem alludes to how women were viewed before they had equal rights. The Bonsai tree alludes to women and the gardener to men. It is a poem about how women were kept from growing to their full potential and how men made sure of that. Women were told that it was their job to be domestic and weak, and they were lucky to have a home to grow in. The bound feet alludes to women's inability to do anything they want to do, for example to have a job. "The crippled brain" (22) alludes to women not being able to go to school or get the same education. Also the "attractive pot" (2) and "hair in curlers" shows that women were supposed to be pretty trophy wives who stay home and clean and wait for their husbands to get home.

Reflection

I did like this poem because I felt like it portrayed the unfairness that women were treated with, and it was not harshly blaming men for the inequality that women were treated with, not all men thought of women that way. Also  I noticed that towards the middle of the poem it started to become more obvious that Piercy was not just writing about a Bonsai tree and its Gardener, but was talking about women's rights. Towards the middle she started to write things like "domestic and weak" (14) and then she started to say things like "Bound feet", and "Crippled brain", when she switched from writing about a tree to writing about women's rights I could really feel the emotion and the struggle behind the words. I think that is what I liked most about this poem. It connected me with the past.

Poem Analysis Numero Uno!!!

Siren Song

By: Margaret Atwood

poem number 201. 

This is the one song everyone

would like to learn: the song

that is irresistible:

the song that forces men

to leap overboard in squadrons

even though they see the beached skulls

the song nobody knows

because anyone who has heard it

is dead, and the others can't remember.

Shall I tell you the secret

and if I do, will you get me

out of this bird suit?

I don't enjoy it here

squatting on this island

looking picturesque and mythical

with these two feathery maniacs,

I don't enjoy singing

this trio, fatal and valuable.

I will tell the secret to you,

to you, only you.

Come closer. This song

is a cry for help: Help me!

Only you, only you can,

you are unique

at last. Alas

It is a boring song

but it works every time.

Allusion

One of the literary devices in this poem is the allusion to the three sirens in Greek Mythology that were called Seirenes. The Sirens were given the body of birds, this is what Atwood refers to when the speaker says "bird suit" and "feathery maniacs". The sirens would sing songs to entice sailors to come closer to the island they lived on, then the sirens would drown their victims. The knowledge of this story helps to create an image of three creatures that lure passing sailors into their web with song. You know the Siren's intentions as soon as you read the title, but Atwood's twist makes the speaker seem as though she is unhappy and needs help. The speaker lures the passing sailor into her trap by making him feel unique and special by saying that he is the only one that can save her. The speaker gains the sailor's trust by enticing him with secret, forbidden knowledge of the Siren's song, but in the end the secret song was the one she has sung to him. 

Repetition

Another literary device in this poem is the repetition of the words only you. It gives the sense of the speakers urgency and desperation to be freed from the island, even if these feelings are fake. Actually many pieces of this poem are repeated to create the emotions of desperation and urgency which help the Siren's song become more believable. For example the words "I don't" are repeated,  " I don't enjoy it here" (13), and "I don't enjoy singing" (17), this helps the Siren seem innocent and it helps to hide the fact that she is the predator and the sailor the prey.

Reflection

I picked this poem because it reminded me of a song about someone lying to the singer like a Siren lies to the Sailors. After reading this poem I realized that there was similarity between the two, but I also thought of Margaret Atwood's novel The Handmaid's Tale and its feminist qualities. So after reading the poem again and a few moments of thought I realized that this poem could also be about feminism. The Siren could be portrayed as a "Damsel in distress" that men, the sailor, think need help getting out of their "bird suit". When actually the "Damsel in distress" is capable of handling the problem on her own, shown through the fact that her task was accomplished by the end of the poem. Also the line "looking picturesque and mythical" (15) makes me think that Atwood was saying that women are not some object to look at, they have brains and are just as smart and clever as men. I cannot tie the rest of the poem to this theme so I believe they are more qualities of the poem that can be interpreted this way instead of the whole poem.     

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

Throughout The Handmaid's Tale there were so many allusions to the bible, they pop up everywhere like the weeds in the garden I used to grow. Gilead, the town that Offred lives in, is a land of peace and relaxation in the bible. But Gilead in the novel is not like the biblical Gilead, in fact, it is just the opposite. The society is on the knife's edge of civil war, outside of Gilead there are rebel groups trying to overthrow the society; while inside of Gilead the Handmaids have their own secret society called Mayday which allows them to pass on news of what is happening in the society. Tthe term Handmaid is also biblical, Handmaids were female servants and in the bible when the wives could not bear children they gave their handmaid to their husband to bear children for them.  In the novel the Handmaids do just that, have babies. Similarly the store names are also an allusion to the bible, for example Milk and Honey in the novel this store is a produce store but in the bible it was a place where the land was fertile, both in crops and children. This image contrasts with the the Gilead in the novel which is fertile in neither food nor children. Where it is such a big deal when there are oranges in the store and where the City is so desolate in children that they need to assign handmaids to the Commanders. Atwood uses these contrasting images in the allusions to show how society twisted the bible in order to fit what the society needs. They need a higher birth rate, so they say since handmaids are in the bible it is right and not sinful to have one. There needed to be a reason for people to agree to this new society, or at least to keep everyone calm enough so that most people will not fight against it, so they named the city Gilead; a name that has a relaxing and pleasant feeling attached to it.

"I would like to believe this is a story I'm telling. I need to believe it. Those who can believe that such stories are only stories have a better chance. If it's a story I'm telling, then I have control over the ending. Then there will be an ending, to the story, and real life will come after it" (Atwood 39). 

This quote is my favorite in this novel. In Gilead Handmaids are not allowed to speak, or read , or talk to other people because Gilead silences all women, even the wives, but Offred is rebelling against the society by telling her story of Gilead, even if it is not to someone directly. And creating this story gives Offred some power in her rebellion, she gets to create the "ending" of the story. What I also like about this quote is that it shows her hope that there will be and ending to this story, that real life will start up again and she will find Luke, her daughter, her mother, and Moira. That she will be able to tell this story to them. Also if she tells this story it will give her the strength to get through her life in Gilead until the end of her story. This quote shows her hope that she will pull through this and escape and shows it also her rebellion against Gilead by not giving control of her mind and thoughts over to the society, that is why it is my favorite quote.  

I liked The Handmaid's Tale a lot because it was a very thought provoking novel, it made me think about the bible and it made me think about our government and compare events in history with events in the book. I also liked the ending before the Historical notes, it let your imagination decide if Offred escaped or if she was captured by the Eyes. I didn't like how Moira gave up fighting against the society while she was in Jezebels, I have to say I was hoping for Moira to lead a rebellion against Gilead and when she gave up I was very disappointed and a little scared about what would happen then. I do like how Offred did not really give up though, she did at one point but then she started to fight back again, I was happy when Offred started to fight back again. I did not like the Commander at all, well I shouldn't say that, in the beginning while we were first getting to know him I thought he was just as chained down by society as Offred was, just as lonely, but then after a few almost sexist comments from him and after he took Offred to Jezebels I realized the he may have been lonely but he was not chained down by society like Offred. To me at the end the Commander struck me as a shallow man who only cares about what he wants and not how it might affect others. I didn't like how he used Offred just to get what he wanted.    

We By Yevegeny Zamyatin

Sentence structure is one of the elements that captured me in this novel.  The way that Zamyatin wrote We shows D-503's emotions better than any other way he could have written it. D-503's emotions are shown through the use of ellipses. In the beginning there are not many ellipses, they only show up once in a while, but when D-503 starts to develop a soul they occur more often. Because D-503 begins to feel emotions such as love and jealousy; also D-503 begins to think in a more philosophical way, before he only thought scientifically. The ellipses allow the reader to feel the emotions as if they were their own, instead of just reading print on a piece of paper. Also the ellipses allow the reader to fill in the blank of what D-503 is feeling, for example:

"But the elevator was already humming down, down, down... She had taken R from me. She has taken O from me. And yet... And yet..." (Zamyatin 77). 

The ellipses allow much more raw emotion than a description of D-503's emotions would. It is easy to know what d-503 is feeling while he says, "And yet... And yet...". D-503 is realizing that he loves I-330 even if she has taken everything from him. 

"But fortunately, between me and the wild green ocean was the glass wall. O, mighty, divinely delimited wisdom of walls, boundaries! It is perhaps the most magnificent of all inventions. Man ceased to be a wild animal only when he built the first wall. Man ceased to be a wild man only when we built the Green Wall, only when, by means of that Wall, we isolated out perfect machine world from the irrational ugly world of trees , birds, abd animals..." (Zamyatin 90-91). 

 This is one of my favorite quotes in the novel We. The Green wall separates the city from the outside, or the "savage" world. Keeping pristine scientific, mathematical thought inside and philosophical, questioning thought outside. In this quote the Green Wall reminded me of the wall that the society put up in their own minds so they only have rigid, unfeeling, scientific thought, not natural thought. And this wall is only brought down when they cross over the Green Wall and see the beauty of nature through their own eyes. When D-503 crosses over the Green Wall with I-330 he sees nature and the beauty of the world and that unleashes deeper thoughts, he starts thinking more poetically and less scientifically. D-503 realizes that just because he does not understand something or because there is no one definite answer, it is not irrational. D-503 realizes when he crosses over into the wild beyond the wall that the Green Wall does not keep out the unneeded from OneState, it keeps everyone in from the freedom of thought outside OneState.


I  like We by Yevgeny Zamyatin, I like the growth of D-503's emotions and soul, it irritated me when he followed the many rules of the society without complaint. When he started to break away from conformity I practically did a happy dance. Tthroughout the novel I had mixed feelings about I-330, in the beginning I did not like her, she seemed like someone who was dangerous, like she was just out there to hurt people. But then as I got to know her i started to like her because she was the leader of a group of people standing up for freedom. I also liked the stream of consciousness style of writing, it is a little hard to understand what D-503 is talking about sometimes but it is a really interesting style of writing. I also liked the people who lived outside the Green Wall, it was a little bit odd to find out that they were furry humans, but it seemed to me that the hair symbolized that they are the closest to nature, or the beings with the most freedom. their thoughts are not strangled by the tyrannous society on the other side of the wall. One thing that I did not like was D-503's constant reference to math, it annoyed me that he would compare people to irrational numbers, people are not unchanging numbers, people change and grow, also some of his references to math confused me.