Five sentences

Sadly enough the Dirty Pretty Things disbanded.

Annoyingly it creaked every time I moved, I despise my chair it is noisy and uncomfortable.

Marlow was in my thoughts, he will not remain there for long.

Even though the boat was damaged, it continued down the river nonetheless.

Passage re-write page 33 Heart of Darkness

In a few days the Candy Crusaders went into the patient candy land, that closed upon it as the kool aid sea closes over a fizzler. Long afterwards the news came that all the gummy bears were dead. I know nothing as to the faith of the less valuable gummy animals. They no doubt, like the rest of us, found what they deserved. I did not inquire. I was then rather excited at the prospect of meeting the leader of the lollipop guild very soon. When I say very soon I mean it cooperatively. It was just two months from the day we left the syrup creek when we came to the pop rock bank below the lollipop guild leader's jelly bean castle.

Poem Response

Pantoum of the Great Depression

The poem “Pantoum of the Great Depression” was written by Donald Justice to express the emotions and experiences of the Great Depression. The Great Depression struck America during the 1930’s and devastated the country raising the unemployment rate by 25 percent. Many people became impoverished and started to work seasonally on farms picking various vegetables, cotton and fruit. Also many great novels were spawned by the depression, like Of Men and Mice or To Kill a Mocking Bird.
The poem as the name states is a pantoum, though it does breaks its structure in the last stanza. The overall mood of the poem is gloomy but peppered with the themes of patriotism and pride of the people. The images Donald Justice uses are bleak and miserable, as they are intended to convey the archetypical perception of the Great Depression. The words Donald Justice uses are strong and negative for example; tragedy, storms, catastrophe, sorrow, fear and fog. The imagery is very dark, but it is the overall meaning of the sentence which counteracts its. We can use the example of “Our lives avoided tragedy”, there might be the word tragedy in the sentence but the fact that it’s avoided takes away the power of its meaning. Beneath the lines, we can see the poems true intentions shine through. The poem is meant to give hope, tell the people that life will go on and that they might not know when the depression ends but it will have to end.
Donald Justice was born 1925 in Miami, Florida. He graduated from the University of Miami and taught poetry in the Iowa writer workshops. He won a Pulitzer for his memoir Selected Poems. Donald Justice is known for his pessimistic lyrics and for his specific use of narration and repetition.

Sonnet

When the glorious day vanishes into the night
When the stars and moon bid thee good evening
I sit forsaken and frozen with fright
From a thought that I can’t perceive its meaning

For I have found, myself to be acceptable
Yet now I fear my sweet life has run its course
As no person has deemed me suitable
They are now compelled to remove me by force

I have tried to drive these bleak thoughts away
Sleep, medicine and liquor have aided
But still into my mind they continue to stray
My mind is befuddled and heavily laded

I lay in my bed next to the lonesome light
Wishing, praying that the day deceives the night

Books & Brand

The other day, I went to the book store and bought two wonderful Victorian novels. "Great Expectations" by the lovely Charles Dickens and "The Picture of Dorian Grey" by the fascinating Oscar Wilde. I decided to start with the Dickens novel because well, I'm going alphabetically and I like to save the best for last (I love Wilde).
I happen to be a great fan, of a man who enjoys Wilde even more than I do. This man, himself is a great Stand-up comedian and has wit as sharp as Mr. Wilde's. This of course is Russell Brand, some of you may have never heard of him which I'd say is rather unlikely and others may despise him for his comments about the jonas brothers. Yet people underestimate Mr. Brand because he wears tight clothes and behaves rather fopish at times, but he is a man of true intellect, eloquence and masculinity (no he is not gay). His brand of comedy can be considered sordid (Brand tells it like it is), but it is peppered with refrences to some of the greatest literary works ever written. Which brings me back to Dickens and Wilde which have covertly made it into my favorite authors list. I can only recommend you read some of their novels, because they are nice to read and to talk about.

Scene Commentary from pages 35 – 37

The pages 35 to 37 concern Algernon and Cecily’s second private meeting, in the gardens. Most of the dialog is spoken by the two characters, though the Merriman always seems to appear when the characters dialog climaxes. This scene is especially important as it marks the first professions of love for each other.

Algernon is in a difficult position because he knows, Jack wants him away from his estate, yet he wants to stay with Cecily. After his argument with Jack, Algernon starts to converse with Cecily who under the pretence of watering her flowers had entered the garden. After Cecily utters a couple of flirtatious lines, Algernon says “…you seem to me to be in every way the visible personification of absolute perfection” (pg.35). This entices Cecily to write down his words from dictation. We get to know a completely different side of Algernon when he professes his love to her by saying "I have dared to love you wildly, passionately, devotedly, hopelessly" (pg.35). From this sentence we can observe that Algernon has indeed changed and become a more romantic man, other than his usual gallivanting and womanizing self. Cecily on the other hand is a very consistent character, she is always naïve and very delusional. We get to see this when she describes her fictional engagement with Earnest over the past three months. She is so delusional that she writes herself letters and even gives herself presents meant to be from Earnest, if she weren’t so young one would believe she has a psychological disorder. But Algernon at this point is so infatuated with Cecily; he doesn’t mind/realize her immature behavior.

The situation becomes more uncomfortable when Cecily reveals similarly to Gwendolen, that she always wanted to love someone named Ernest. Algernon tries to save himself by asking Cecily if she could love him if he had another name. To his surprise she tells him “I might respect you, Ernest, I might admire your character, but I fear that I should not be able to give you my undivided attention”, Algernon decides to be re-christened and consequently runs off to find Dr. Chasuble.

Thesis for a trivial essay

How did Love affect the soldiers during the Vietnam War?

One of the major themes of this novel is, love. All of the soldiers mentioned in the book experience some aspect of love or lack there of. The soldiers yearn for love, affection and female company, someone to be there for them and give them a sense of normality, an anchor in the chaos of war. We will further examine the effects of "love" on the soldiers attitudes and actions in the War.

Passage re-write page 210

And now, finally, the bear was out. We slipped back to our stations and went to work again on the nets. Louder now, more persistent. Moonlight sparkled in the barbed wire, and there were eerie reflections and layerings of shadow, and the big white stars added some resonance. There was no breeze. The night was absolute. Slowly we carried the ammo cans closer to the bear’s cave, and this, in addition to the moon, gave a sense of impending threat, the slow belly-down crawl of evil. At three in the morning Azar set off the first trip flare. There was a light popping noise, then a fizzle out in front of the cave. The night seemed to cut itself in half. The white flare burned ten paces from the bear’s lair. I fired off three more flares and it was instant daylight. Then the bear moved. He made a short, low snarl- not even a snarl, really just a short sniffled whimper- and there was a distorted sequence as he sprung sideways and tumbled toward a heap of leaves and cowered there and hugged himself and waited. “There,” I whispered “Now you know.”

The Unreliable Narrator

The chapter "The unreliable narrator" deals with characters from two different novels Pale Fire and The Remains of the Day. Both novels contain a character which narrates the story. In Pale Fire it is Mr. Stevens (the butler) and in The Remains of the Day it is Charles Kinbote. Though the two novels differ completely in topic both use an unreliable narrator as a literary tool; to make a seemingly simple story more interesting by twisting certain events and happenings. Tim O' Brian uses the same technique in The Things They Carried. In this novel Rat Kiley is the main unreliable narrator, his stories are always enhanced by his tendency to over exaggerate and his need to impress the other soldiers. Even though the narrators of these three novels are 'unreliable' they enhance it and give it its tone.

Personal Letter

Dear Mother,

This summer was the first time, I was traveling alone. Even though I didn't seem nervous, I was terrified to go to South Africa by myself. I wasn't afraid of political tumult or being hurt; I was afraid that something might happen to you and I couldn't be there. That day when we went to buy those bracelets; we swore that we wouldn't take them off until we met again. You were so worried about me, I felt that you didn’t want to let me go, but you knew you had to. You asked me what stone I wanted on my bracelet, it didn't matter to me, so I let you choose one. You chose Labradorite for me, which is a stone for protection and strength. I could have been hurt on many occasions working with Dr. Kriel; every buffalo, sable, rhino, leopard or giraffe capture and treatment is potentially dangerous. Yet I came home unscathed, I might have had some minor scratches and bruises but I arrived in one piece.

Now I have decided to continue to wear my bracelet, knowing it will help me overcome this difficult year ahead of me and lighten the burdens I have to carry.

Thank you.

Love Fabiola

The Things They Carried Lists

I chose to post the things Jimmy Cross and Ted Lavender carried.

Jimmy Cross

- Letters from Martha
- Rucksack
- Compass
- Maps
- Code books
- Binoculars
- .45-caliber pistol
- Strobe light
- M-60
- M-16 gas rifle
- M-79 grenade launcher
- M-18 smoke grenades
- Fragmentation grenades
- Responsibility for his platoon
- Canteen
- Photographs
- Dog tags
- Pocket knives
- C-rations
- Mosquito repellent
- Salt tablets
- Steel helmet


Ted Lavender

- Weed
- Tranquilizers
- Steel helmet
- Fatigue jacket
- Trousers
- Jungle boots
- Flak jacket
- Compress bandage
- Plastic poncho
- Canteen
- Ammo
- Rucksack
- M-16 gas rifle
- M-79 grenade launcher
- M-60
- Dog tags
- Pocket knives
- C-rations
- Mosquito repellent
- Salt tablets
- Fear