The School

Trees, snakes, herb gardens, gerbils, white mice, salamander, tropical fish, puppy, orphan, parents, grandparents, students, all twelve of these were dying all around the students of Edgar's class. Edgar tried to help the students by giving reasons for why those things happened continuously but could not come up with a good explanation. The rate of death was unfathomable and the children were distraught. When they had a class discussion about what was going on they wanted Edgar to make love with Helen so that they would not be sad by what was going on around them and they would not lose hope. After their "demonstration" a gerbil came in the classroom and the children had completely forgot about everything and were happy once again. This is one very sad story almost hard to believe.
Not only was the death of everything around them unbelievable, but the way the children responded when they were thinking about those deaths. When I was reading, the students seemed to be in elementary school, not past the third grade. But then they say "is death that which gives meaning to life?" and "but isn’t death, considered as a fundamental datum, the means by which the taken-for-granted mundanity of the everyday may be transcended in the direction of –." I am pretty sure that most little kids would not have such opinion about death even with all of the things happening. I guess the reason Barthelme put it in the story was just to give one of the usual explanations for death that no one is satisfied with but does settle for.
Death after death of all of these things reminded me of all of the incessant wars, conflicts, genocides, tsunamis, earthquakes, and disasters that have taken place in the world; people die everyday. We are always bombarded with the deaths of people everyday and many wonder why things like these happen but still strive to make that connection with those around us like try to find love. Why do people do this if there is a possibility that they will die the next day or within a short period of time? Because we still have hope for life and a better future just like those little kids when the gerbil came in. Just like Ecclesiastes 3:11 says we have " time indefinite put in [our] hearts" in other words, nobody wants to die. 
Questions:
Who did Edgar and Helen represent, if anyone/anything?
Why was Edgar always using petty explanations for what went wrong?

"A Silver Dish" not a Silver Spoon

To tell you the truth I did not understand anything that I read the first time around. It was really confusing because of the various characters and the way the plot was structured. What I did gather was that the story started at the end then went to the beginning. The son's name was Woody and the father, Morris. The biggest part of the story is set during the Great Depression even though it is only a memory of Woody's when he is older. Morris was known to be a con man and had many vices in addition to cheating on his wife. During this time Woody was going to a seminar school and his father got into a bind and needed to get money for his mistress. So he meets with his son and tells him that he wants to ask Mrs. Skoglund for the money. Woody does not want to go because that lady is also his benefactor. Being the son, he doesn't have a choice but to accompany his father to ask for money. Morris is not a very religious person and I believe the story says that he is an atheist which is completely different from Mrs. Skoglund, a devout woman. While they are in the parlor asking for the money Mrs. Skoglund gets a minute to pray to God to give her guidance. Now Morris gets worried, not knowing if she bought the story or is going to give him money, so decides to steal a silver dish from her just in case she says no. After fighting with his father, they came to the consensus that if she does agree to it they will put the dish back. Mrs. Skoglund does give them the money but Morris doesn't put the dish back. Later on Woody leaves the family to go with Halina but does not leave them without meeting their needs- he has already applied for them to receive welfare. In the end, Morris dies at the hospital after years of struggle.
One of the aspects of the story is the religion. The Selbst family is majorly christian but they were Jews before. The father is mostly an atheist  and does not care for religion because it "was a demonstration on behalf of real life and free instincts, against religion and hypocrisy." In his eyes they were just fools that were being caught up the things people told them and not for what was real. Many times Morris was just trying to use them but interestingly did not let his son become part of what he did not agree with. Even though Morris is depicted as a bad person, he seems to be above the whole religion thing which makes him be more level headed and logical when it comes to this aspect. Unfortunately many religions are only trying to take away people's money and say whatever the people want to hear so they can keep on coming. And the sad thing is that the bible shows us that there is a specific way of worshiping God and it is not what most religions are doing.
Another aspect that struck my interest was the way that Woody devoted most of his time to serving others but in the end he was not happy with his life.
     "Woody did her shopping on Fridays, filled her freezer. Also, Friday night he always spent with Helen.     Saturday he did his big weekly shopping. Saturday night he devoted to Mom and his sisters. So he was too busy to attend to his own feelings except, intermittently, to note to himself, “First Thursday in the grave.” “First Friday, and fine weather.” “First Saturday; he’s got to be getting used to it.” Under his breath he occasionally said, “Oh, Pop.”
It is sad that he did not enjoy his life because of helping other people. So it raises the question of how much we should help others and why we should do it. Maybe it was because the people he was helping did not care much for him. But Woody cared a lot for his father, I feel like if he knew that he really did care for him just did not express it in the conventional way. He knew that Woody did not like seminar school so devised a way to get him out and even though he left it was with the intention (probably) to not let his children go hungry.

"Howl" -Allen Ginsberg

Wow! This is by far the most confusing poem I have read. After reading it, I don't even know if what I thought I understood was actually right. The mood of the poem seemed to be of a wandering nature. The first part was writing about how all of these geniuses of his generation were being destroyed by madness, poverty, disillusionment, along with many other fallen or even better, deferred, dreams. They really seemed not to have a reason to live and just roamed around doing things they did not care for and did not have any kind of morality. The people are living in the same place but they do not seem to share or communicate.
This poem is really different than the rest of the poems we have been reading because it is way more graphic. One of the prime examples is that these people "let themselves be [f*****] in the [a**] by saintly motorcyclists" showing how much the society had been degenerated. The poem talks a lot about the amoral society but it oddly also has a religious aspect to it. It has multiple references to when Jesus was on Earth. Golgotha was the place were Jesus was put on the torture stake and died while the expression "eli eli lamma lamma sabacthani" means "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Maybe he uses this expression to symbolize how people feel like there really isn't anything that can make all of the things going on around the world better. I guess this is an aspect of the 20th century writings. Many people look for pleasure in drugs, alcohol, sex, etc. to escape from reality or believe in something better but they just end up achieving nothingness. 
The second part of the poem is also related to religion because it is pretty much speaking to Moloch which is the god to which people sacrificed their children to. The people seem to be forced to offer sacrifices to him and offer themselves while ending up disillusioned because the god they were sacrificing so much for did nothing for them and really could not help make anything better. Many people may feel like that but do not do anything about it. This poem was similar to the story of "My Kinsman, Major Molineux" because the country boy is also wandering around and in the end he is the victim of the vices of the city people. After realizing how the city life is, he realizes that he cannot rely on anybody but himself. 
Questions:
Why is this poem called Howl?
What does the third part of the poem mean?? 

"Harrison Bergeron" -Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

The year is 2081 and the human race has reached its goal of being completely equal. Not only in the sense that they are treated the same way but their intelligence is the same, looks, strength, and everything else. The people who are above average are hindered by the Handicapper General where they are made to wear things in order to be just like everyone else. The couple, George and Hazel, have an "abnormal" child who tries to fight the system. He was in jail and then manages to escape into a ballerina show where he induces a ballerina to be his Empress and they take off their handicaps and begin to dance to the musicians which have also taken off their handicaps. These conspirators end up dying and Harrison's mom is watching and actually forgets what she saw so in the end she is completely unaffected by what happened.
This selection reminded me a lot about Feed because the author's portray the society as people that are not interested in learning or thinking but rather they are concentrated on what others tell them they have to think or be. This story was written around the 1960s which is along the time that a lot of hippies were going around talking about all of the conspiracies that were going on. The way Vonnegut describes the government certainly did not put in a favorable light but was trying to portray the amount of control it could have over it's people and not letting them even have an opinion or try to change what they do not agree with. I think one of the differences is that the people in Feed treated it more like a fad and weren't forced to do this by law because not everyone had it. They willingly accepted people thinking for them and choosing what they like or dislike. But in "Harrison Bergeron" we see Harrison fighting against it while others simply acquiesce. George seemed like he wanted to go against it but he really did not have that strength and just let it happen while his almost superhuman son took action. Of course him getting shot trumped the whole revolution but it was a sign that some people wanted something different and not to be dragged down. The constant noises that George heard in his head from the handicap were torture just for him not to think too much about something. This shows that people did want change but did not want to be the ones to start it.

A Good Man is Hard to Find

A good man is hard to find especially when you are looking along the same road where the escapees from jail are. This short story by Flannery O'Connor is about a family that is going on a trip and the grandmother with her cunning ways, manipulates the children to go look at a house where one of her past suitors lived. There is a foreshadowing of the story at the beginning of the story when the grandmother is reading the paper and tells the family about the Misfit, a man that just escaped prison. This family is completely the opposite of what a perfect family is and it is noted that all of them are acting in a way that is not contributing to keeping the peace while on this trip. Once they do get on that dirt road the cat jumps out at Bailey and the car flips. When they are trying to get help the Misfit comes up and ends up killing the whole family while the grandmother is only trying to spare her own life. Then she gets shot herself and the story abruptly ends just like that.
This story was written during the 1950s when everybody was trying to achieve the perfect family status in their nice house with a white picket fence and two or three children. This family appears to be perfect but it is obviously not the case. The poor man cannot assert his manliness because he is being drowned out by the two women in his life-his mother (mostly) and wife. The grandma is really trying to make the decisions her son should be taking and doesn't even care about the daughter-in-law which is probably why her name is not even mentioned. The children are horrible little people. They don't care to do what their parents tell them and don't give a hoot about what the grandmother has to say to them either. The children have pretty much lost all of their respect for the older people and really like to voice their opinions. The one thing that stuck out in my mind was the way the grandmother took advantage of the whole situation so that they could do what she wanted and she did not even care that they were killing the rest of the family out in the woods. The only person she was worried about was herself until she realized how erred she was in her ideas and touched the man which resulted in her dying. Her actions made her the antithesis of a "good" woman.
The husband was really quite the character. He would get really annoyed by what the family was doing and then he would go off but later on he just did things the way they wanted instead of taking a stand. But if you look at many of the commercials and tv series, most of the time the man/husband is depicted as being the weaker, dumber person and the wife always makes the decisions for the household. And most of the time I hear that women want to be the ones to wear the pants in the relationship. So isn't this really what women want? They want to be the man in the relationship but when things happen like what we read in the story, the man is the one that gets the blame for acquiescing to what the rest of the family wanted. So the husband really could have done better but I am not sure if the women would have been pleased if he actually stood up to them and said no.


Questions:
Why is the title "A Good Man is Hard to Find?"

A Dream Deferred... I mean "Harlem"

What do you want to be when you grow up? I want to be an astronaut/doctor/teacher/insert profession of choice here. Every kid no matter what will always answer you with great enthusiasm what they want to become when they are grown ups. The wonderful thing about children is that their possibilities are limitless, no one can tell them they cannot do whatever it is they say. In the poem "Harlem," Langston Hughes is most definitely thinking from the perspective of a young boy, but rather someone who has been around long enough for their dreams to be set aside for various reasons. Hughes describes the various routes a deferred dream can go, none of which are very appealing. Who wants the stench of "rotten meat," or the view of a festering "sore," or even the weight of a "heavy load?" All of these things are undesirable but the reality is that dreams that are put off are inevitable. It is impossible to know the future and so even less probable to make sure that we can do what we have been planning for many years. Unexpected things happen and eventually pull us away from what we wanted to do in the beginning but what would be worse is having dreams deferred because of skin color or race.
Appropriately this poem was named "Harlem" seeing as it is one of the places where many African Americans lived and had to share in the common struggle for reaching out for something more in life and becoming something in this world. Many of those dreams were deferred. Even if they did want to succeed in school or get an education, they found out that they really couldn't do much because their world was ruled by the white man so they could not advance as much as they would have liked to. Many old people probably also had to put their dreams on hold because they unexpectedly had children or for the same laws that did not allow for them to get ahead in their careers. The last part was kind of ambiguous for me because it could be taken in a positive light or a negative one. When he asked "or does it explode?" does it mean that they decided not to let it stop them from doing what they wanted or that they got tired of the oppression and resorted to violence for what people had done to them?

Theme for English B for English 2200

This young black man is coming out of his English class thinking about what he should write for the assignment the professor asked for. This is what is happening to the young man in the poem "Theme for English B" by Langston Hughes. Although the young black man is going to a university during the 1950s, life is not as wonderful for him as it may seem. He was the only African American in his class and was not close to his family during that time which only emphasized the sense of loneliness he felt when he was thinking of what to write about. Then he thinks about things to write on and realizes that even if the instructor might not like it, he and his students (even the speaker) have so much in common that the color of the skin does not even make a significant difference. Of course, he admits that neither of them want to agree to that but it's true.
I really liked the way that Hughes wrote this because when I first read the poem I imagined the young man walking from his class through those streets, the park, all the way into his room at the Y. That imagery alone made me as a reader see the struggle he went through everyday and the two completely opposite worlds he was a part of. But as much as they were different, the speaker made them fuse together and become a part of him, to be him. When he thinks about Harlem he says, "I hear you: hear you, hear me---we two---you, me, talk on this page" and also when he is talking about his professor tells him that he is "yet a part of me, as I am a part of you." Being a black man and an old white professor is as contrary as one could get, but yet the speaker lists multiple things they have in common like "eat, sleep, drink, and be in love [...] work, read, learn, and understand life." And even the fact that they are both American puts them in a category where they could even have similar tastes in music like "Bessie, bop, or Bach." I think what the man was trying to say was that since we have constant interactions with people and even the places we go to or live in are close that we share common goals, interests and that we inevitably become part of another person just by coexisting.
Questions:
Why did the speaker say that the man was only "somewhat free?"
What did he think the white man was could/would learn from him?