Reflection #10: Blogging Experience

The first day of class, when the professor talked about blogging, I thought it would spend a lot of time but after I made the first blog I knew it would not be as difficult as I expected. Later I understood that it would be a great idea because it pushes you to criticize, analyze, discuss and also offer different point of view about the class works and as a result, better understanding about literature. The idea of leaving comments on other people’s blog was also great because it force you to read other people’s blog, analyze their points of view and their reactions about the readings and compare them to yours. Not only it helps to understand in a more attractive and funny way but also it helps you to relate with other people and friends through different class sections. The most interesting part of the blogging experience is that it is very different and more enjoyable than bringing journals to the class because the journals have a due date contrary to blogging that you have significant and enough time to do also adding that you can edit it at any moment and fix your work. With this I mean that blogging is, for me, a new, interesting, enjoyable and better way to express your thought and opinions about the short stories, novels, comics and drama that had been read on class and is not the same boring, standard and old school way to make an English class.

Reflection # 9: Maus

At first I thought it would be more of the same but, after I started to read it, an intense desire to continue reading it and never stop came to me. Surely it was because of the intense violence and suspense that Maus contains and also the crude description of the situation. One of the most interesting things of the comic is how the characters are indentified, for example, the Germans are known as cats, Poland are known as pigs and the Jews are called rats. The language is crude, and obviously irritant in the way the people, most of them Jews, are treated. One of the most amazing things of the comic is when Vladek do everything to find his wife and stay near her. He threw her a piece of bread and when the guards see it he started to chase her in order to punish her for interchanging food. Also it is incredible the part when the author describes how the Germans give food to the Jews using flavored water, instead of soap, and small pieces of sausage. It’s amazing how the author mix love, desperation, suspense, violence and racism in a very crude, dramatic and interesting way. What result incredible is that this really happened and the story is based on a true story that the author decided to reveal it in a very interesting way, by a comic book.

Reflection #8: Blindness on M. Butterfly

Certainly there are two types of blindness, the blindness as an impediment or illness and blindness as product of stupidity and ignorance. More than crazy, you should have severe mental disease critical enough to not to think that, as a man, you have to look below the navel to ensure that the selected merchandize have with it all the required and appropriate equipment as a factory default of course. Everyone knows that love is a so beautiful feeling that, even suffering because of it, you always want more and that this sense of butterflies in the stomach is part of this emotional phase. But how blind could be the love to easily fool someone? This is a question that Gallimard would very anxious to answer. This man not only was stupidly fooled but it was for a so long time that it result incredible to think that a person like Song possess this spectacular power of hypnotic persuasion powerful enough to convince Gallimard that he (Song) is a woman. The most interesting question of all this, surely, is how Gallimard never noticed Song’s third leg? Obviously they should have experimented strange sexual positions in order to hide that so noticeable member and Song’s real sexual orientation. The funniest thing is that the pour Gallimard was convinced and crazily in love with a man, without knowing it, for twenty years. And it continues bothering my existence the fact that I continue asking to myself if he, at any moment, felt curiosity to look at Song’s front equipage or if he ever was interested in front contact. Pour Gallimard, with his shame and dishonor tormenting his soul and, as if it wasn’t enough, in prison doesn’t had more remedy than drown with his depression and confusion which, without doubt, were the motives of his sudden suicidal act.

Reflection #7 : "Negro Power"

This last week was a very interesting because for the first time I understood a poem the first time I read it, jajaja. Obviously I’m talking about the poet Langston Hughes whose poems not only are very interesting and curious but very easy to interpret and understand. This man writes about Afro American life on United States. The first one we read on class was “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” which is tells us, by descriptions and metaphors, the truth about black people’s life that trough the history they were used as slaves, mistreated and considered inferior to other races. Trough the poem he says he had known rivers, and he refers that rivers, in the history, has been used to force black peoples to extract gold and other valuable things that usually cost their life and the black blood spread through the rivers becomes their veins, the black peoples veins. Also he says “My soul has grown deep like the rivers” and he refers that he also has been mistreated and pushed away and that motivates him to reinforce his soul to fight for his rights and freedom and to flow like water in a river.
Another poem and surely the most I liked is “I, too”. In this poem he express that he is also an American, and part of the civilization. But peoples judge him because of his color and had been rejected because of his ethnic origin. He is the darker brother and he said “They send me to eat in the kitchen” and the word “They” refers to white peoples who are constantly trying to intimidate black peoples in order to make them feel inferior. But the poet also says that he laugh because he eat well and that one day nobody will treat him like that referring that he has faith that things will change and be more fair.

Reflection #6: Alzheimer's by Kelly Cherry

This poem tells about an old man who after been in the hospital, maybe because the doctors were doing some physical analysis to him because of his Alzheimer, returns to his house as Kelly Cherry describes. Kelly uses a simile to compare the old man’s mind with the suitcase he is carrying in his hand insinuating the old man is confused. As he is at the house’s door, Kelly describes his surrounding atmosphere. By the descriptions she uses to define the place, one could think the poem take place in a rural territory because there are flowers, roses, bushes and other types of small forest around the place. The old man recognize his house, the walkway he built, his car, even his past life, when he was young, his passion for the music. He dedicated part of his life to the music, but now there’s something more important or urgent as Kelly describe. His illness, as a normal effect or the Alzheimer, don’t let him recognize the old woman standing in front of the door which, maybe, could be his own wife. The poem is written in open form and contains some literary elements like similes and metaphors. An example of a simile is when Kelly writes “his mind rattling like the suitcase, swinging from his hand…” and one example of a metaphor is when she also writes “While the white wood trim defines solidity in space”. When she uses white wood, she refers to tulip trees, and other types of small trees which sound logical because at that moment she is describing an area out the house with flowers.

Reflection #5: Are Women and Cars the same thing?

Wow! I never thought that boring moments could be so powerful to guide such a talented, brilliant and creative mind like E. E. Cummings’ one to write something like this. It’s incredible to think that a person have creativity in such proportions. I never imagined read a thing like this. It’s very exciting not only because you have to read it many times to understand it but because once you deciphers the code behind each word, you form part of Cummings’ mind and you are able to understand his or her ideas, comparisons, descriptions and not only that but there’s no way to hold your desire to start laughing. Believe me; I saw many kinds of comparison with a woman but never with a car. “She being Brand” surely is the best double sense poem I had read in my life. It’s funny, at first I thought it was about a person learning to drive but after I read it many times I was able to understand this sensual, sentimental, passionate and, without doubt, funny act that hide that columns of words we call poem. There’s an interesting point in this poem. I knew that there’s something important in the title of this poem. And after I looked at it very close I saw that, in the title, there’s only one word starting with caption letter. Looking closely at “she being Brand” and the sense of this poem, the word Brand means, I think, Virgin, “she being Virgin”.

Reflection # 4: Girl

This week we read two new stories, Eveline and Girl, the first written by James Joyce and the second by Jamaica Kincaid. Girl was a very strange story, because I never thought that a single sentence could be considered as a short story. It is a single sentence, a very extensive one. The whole story is about a mother who is speaking to her daughter telling her what she should do, how she should act and how to do everything. It is a story about how parents always are obligating you to do this, to do that, this is good and this is bad, you should do this and you shouldn’t do that. That’s funny because at least the half of what the mother told to her daughter we had heard that in a moment of our life. But what captured my attention was that the mother is very strict with her and is always telling her daughter that she has to do everything she said to not become a slut, as she expects her daughter to be.

In the story, the daughter spoke only two times because her mother was talking like a maniac. The most interesting part of the story is when the mother tells her daughter “this is how to squeeze a bread to make sure it’s fresh”. That’s erotic because she refers to the male sexual organ. The daughter later ask her “but what if the baker won’t let me feel the bread” and the mother answered “you meant to say that after all you are really going to be the kind of woman who the baker won’t let near the bread?”. I think the mother is trying to tell her daughter that she has to be sure that the man she choose is virgin and if she don’t do that, the consequence is that she would be treated as a slut. The story was interesting but I never thought that a single sentence could be considered a short story.

Reflection # 3: "The Cask of Amontillado"

This week was an interesting one. We read two good stories but “The Cask of Amontillado” was more interesting to me. It was a crazy story of a man named Montresor who is planning to take revenge of his friend Fortunato. What did Fortunato to make Montresor angry and full of revenge? The author doesn’t give a clear explanation and description about what Fortunato did.

The way that Montresor planned the revenge was very crude. He planned it step by step. He knew that nobody will notice that because everybody was at the carnival and he knew that his friend Fortunato, the victim, was going to be drunk so Fortunato would not be able to notice Montresor’s perverse plan. Another interesting thing in this story was Montresor’s family symbol. Yeah, the foot crushing a serpent. That give us an idea of whom and how was his family. They all were sick peoples, sick of hate and revenge and Montresor inherited his family’s characteristic. And also the motto “No one wounds me with impunity” gives us a clue of the outcome of the story. Montresor started to make the wall to lock his friend and Fortunato though it was a joke. Of course if my friend tries to lock me in a crypt I would think it is a joke. After all Montresor locked Fortunato on a crypt and eventually he dies. It’s crazy to thing that a man is trying to do that to his friend. Montresor is a sick man. He is crazy and a very vindictive man. The story was very interesting and full of horror and suspense and I really liked it.

Reflection #2 "The Grandmother Told You Not to Go that Way"

This was a horrifying, deadly, poisonous and disturber week. Starting with “A Rose for Emily” a short story about a woman who sleeps with a dead body and finishing with “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” another short story about a family who were killed by a group of three criminals. The most incredible about this is that a woman also named Emily, here in Puerto Rico, did the same as Emily in the story, slept with a dead body. Aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!!!!! How crazy, maniac, and psycho one should be to sleep with a dead body. If that is incredible, what about killing a whole family, including the children. That was what happened in “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” and what I’m going to write about.

Everything started when the family planed to go to Florida. The grandmother adverted her son not to go to Florida because there were a murderer so she wanted to go to Tennessee but her son denied to, so all the routes pointed at Florida where The Misfit, the murderer, with his gang members were looking for their next victim, in this case victims. What capture me the attention is that, like most places, there’s a place to stay a couple of hours for entertainment and to take some food. I’m talking about The Tower, the Red Sammy’s restaurant. That’s biblical, that was like the last dinner they had before dying. Of course that nobody, except God, know when where or how you will die, but what I want to show you is that looked like the last dinner.

The funniest thing of this is that the grandmother though they were going to Tennessee, so she told the family about a house with a secret panel causing the children to get interested in it. I think she had Alzheimer or something like that to not to recognize the area and that was critical and probably what moved them to a tragic future. They were the people with the worth lucky in the world to have an accident in the worth place in the worth moment. And this man, The Misfit, with his sick mind and with the help of his gang members kills them crudely and with no reason.

The question is why he kills them? What did the family to push him to do that? The father, the mother and the children, he killed them all. The most impacting moment of the story is when the grandmother tries to persuade him to not to kill her, but to start praying and to believe in God. This was an interesting part because, in a difficult moment like that, the grandmother was telling to The Misfit that God is the right way and that he should start to pray when, in a certain form, she was also loosing her faith. What leaved me with some doubts was that, after The Misfit killed the grandmother, Bobby Lee said “Some fun!” and The Misfit said to him “Shut up, Bobby Lee. It’s no real pleasure in life.” Did he suddenly felt sorry of what he did?

Raflection #1 "Strange Title and Humans Actions"

Of all the things we did in the class this week, the short story “Hills Like White Elephants” capture my attention. Not only the title sounds strange and mysterious, but it contents guide you to a dialogue difficult to understand. It doesn’t give you too many details and descriptions and that complicate it. I read it twice and I didn’t understand it. It wasn’t until I read it for the third time that I knew that the author was talking about an abortion.

It results incredible that a girl and a man are not only talking about an abortion but planning it. It couldn’t be worth. The man has mental disease. Or he is ignorant or he has no conscience, but there’s something in his mind that don’t let him see the truth about this issue. All this start when the girl asked him "What should we drink" and he said "Beer". Wait a second, if she is pregnant, isn’t' drinking harmful for the little creature? Trough the story we could see he is always insisting her to abort, in certain form, saying that it is simple and that everything would be like before. After all, the girl ended saying “Then I’ll do it. Because I don’t care about me.” Why she get convinced? Obviously because she is just a girl in love with a man who is easily washing her brain in order to do what he wants. This shows that the man has a total control over this relationship and over her. Notice that this doesn't mean that she will do it or not. This only shows that she has a tendency to accept his ideas because he is playing with her mind and trying to control her.

It's difficult for me to understand why someone has such a criminal mind to plan an assassination which results more incredible to believe it is legal. The worth of this is that her harmful activities, like drinking, put the innocent creature in danger. There’s something that captures me the intention. The author didn’t give much detail like how old are the characters, but he offer us two words, girl and man. I think that he is trying to put a distance between the two characters. He is trying to separate both ages. And if this is true, that easily explain why the man want her to abort. He doesn’t want to be in troubles for pregnant a minor. Don't you believe me? So well, think about what he said: "You know how I get when I worry". Worry about what? As if it wasn't enough, the pour girl, because of her ignorance, doesn’t understand that she is playing a dangerous game. The man just wants her to abort and then...

The story has an open ending and you decide how the story would end. In my opinion, I'm not sure if she will do it or not. It all depend if she grow up and find what is right for her, even if that imply to break with the relationship and continuing with her pregnancy. The story was interesting. It was a little difficult to understand but it was totally enjoyable. The only strange thing of all this is the title.