Round of Applause for TS Eliot

This post kind of goes along with my other commentary on Hamlet but I hadn't read Eliot's response to it at the time. In all honesty, I agree with Eliot's criticisms of Shakespeare's play. I'm not sure I would go as far as calling it an "artistic failure," but I don't see why it is such a widely discussed piece of literature. Like Eliot says, most of the play is puzzling an confusing. Half of the time while reading Hamlet I thought to myself, "What's the point?" I agree with Eliot that there are a lot of superfluous scenes in the play--scenes that don't make sense or pretty random. If someone asked my to describe the tone of the play or discuss a major theme, I truly would have a difficult time doing so. As discussed in class, throughout the entire story you never know why Hamlet is doing what he's doing. You hardly know anything about Hamlet himself, or any of the other characters. You're given no explanations, no background information, and no foundation to build your own personal theories on. You're pretty much just guessing at what's going on in the play the entire time. I was, at least. I think Eliot has a pretty good response to the play. There's a big part of me that thinks people like and praise Hamlet simply because Shakespeare wrote it--if Shakespeare wrote something, it has to be good doesn't it? seems to be most people's train of thoughts. I'm glad Eliot doesn't pretend to enjoy the play or give it false sentiments. It was kind of refreshing to read about a well-known author bashing Shakespeare for once.

Recitatif

So throughout the entire story I wasn't sure which girl was white and which girl was African American. Every time I thought I had it figured out, Morrison would write something that made me question everything. Originally I assumed Morrison herself was the narrator, making the story from an African American perspective. But then I realized it wasn't her and then I got super confused. At first it kind of annoyed me, not knowing who was who. I wasn't sure if I was completely missing something, or what. I just knew I had no idea what color skin the narrator had and what color skin the friend had. But in retrospect, I realize it doesn't really matter who has what color skin in the story. It actually makes it kind of interesting, not knowing. Because the story really could be told from either perspective--it works both ways. And I think that really adds something special to the story. It's interesting to read through the piece of writing twice--once from the viewpoint of a young African American girl; and once from the point view of a young white girl. Either way the story gives the audience a good look into the different stages of life between the friendship of an African American girl and a white girl. The story makes me wonder if any part of it was based on a personal experience of Morrison's.





P.S. I still don't understand the title of the story at all.

Barbie Doll

Marge Piercy wrote "Barbie Doll" over forty years ago, yet people--especially, of course, girls--can still relate to it today. You would think that forty years later society would throw away their standards of how young girls should look as they are growing up. That's not the case, though. Girls today are still under the same pressure Piercy wrote about in the early 1970s. The sad truth of reality is that you could be one of the smartest, healthiest girls out there, but if you are not pretty by society's standards, you're not really anything. And that's the worst part. Day in and day out girls are getting criticized based on how they look. Yeah sure, some girls can brush off the nasty comments as if they're nothing, but at some point that patience is going to run out (Her good nature wore out/like a fan belt, lines 15-16). That girl who acted like the remarks didn't bother her is going to crack. Just like in the poem. If you take the poem literally, the narrator kills herself because society has told her she's not pretty. If you take the poem metaphorically, the narrator seems to have undergone some sort of surgery to make herself pretty in society's eyes--thereby killing who she truly is. Either way it doesn't end well. To me, it's just sad to look at the poem knowing it was written in a different time, with different people and pretty much different everything, and still see that females are criticized on how they look in the same way. Not a lot of progression, in my opinion, and something that really needs to change.

Emily Dickinson

So for the longest time I have been pretty indifferent about Emily Dickinson and her writing. I haven't really liked her, but I can't say I disliked her poems. I do have to admit that I find her liberal use of capitalization and dashes very intriguing. I also find it interesting that no one really knows why she writes like she does. After reading "My Life had stood--a Loaded Gun--" I've decided that I do actually enjoy Dickinson. This isn't the first time I've read this poem, but it is the first time I've actually retained what she's saying in it. I guess the overall poem is a bit strange--comparing her life to a gun--but for some reason it interests me to a great extent. I like how Dickinson was able to compare a life to such a random object, and even better is that what she said made sense to me. I actually get where Dickinson's coming from in this poem, which makes it a lot easier and more interesting to read. I guess I really enjoyed how she chose something a person normally wouldn't think of when they're describing a life, but Dickinson was able to create 24 lines of, in my opinion, really great writing.

Hamlet

The first time I read Hamlet was in senior year of high school. It wasn't my favorite piece of literature ever, but in my opinion it was pretty good as far as Shakespeare goes. Now, after reading it again, my opinion on it still stands: Hamlet is one of my least favorite characters I have ever read about. For some reason I find him cowardly and pathetic. As I read the play I kept going back and forth in my mind, Is Hamlet really crazy? Or is he just faking it and using it as an excuse? Honestly I don't even know if I could give an answer to either of those questions because I simply do not know. When I was reading it this time, I tried to look at the story through the Sigmund Freud critical approach that says Hamlet likes his mother a little too much. And I have to admit, with that approach in mind, there are points in the play where it does seem like that. I'm still not one hundred percent sure I buy that theory, but I'm willing to consider it. Which, in my personal opinion, is just another strike against Hamlet in my book. It's like he's everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Hamlet is one of the most sporadic and unpredictable characters I've ever encountered, but in this instance I don't really mean that in a good way. I know a lot of people sympathize with Hamlet and claim he's a victim of outside sources--which I do agree with to some extent--but to me he's still just a tragic character who needs to get his act together. The question posed in class today was, "Why does Hamlet delay?" Naturally we came up with a lot of different reasons for Hamlet's delay in killing his uncle, but personally I think he was just scared. He seemed so driven and determined to do it, yet never actually executed a plan. Until the very end but by then it was too late, as Hamlet himself was already dying. So basically in conclusion, I didn't find myself sympathizing with Hamlet very much. I found myself criticizing and questioning him, every move he made and every word he said.

Death of a Salesman

Having read Death of a Salesman in high school really helped me when approaching it a second time around for this class. I was able to prepare myself for the potential confusing parts of the play. I warned myself to read it carefully, knowing that last time I read it I probably missed some key points. The first time I read the play there were a lot of parts in it where I asked myself, What the hell did I miss? So when reading it this time I was a bit more prepared for those parts--though some parts were still a bit confusing and I had to read them over and over again until what was happening actually sunk in. A lot of people say you when you read something for a second time you discover a lot of stuff you missed, and I couldn't think of a better example than Death of a Salesman. I have to say that I wasn't very fond of it in high school. I found it pretty boring and didn't really see the point of it. Though even after a second time of reading it I'm still not the play's biggest fan, I can appreciate it more now and even analyze it better.

The Lady with the Dog

Throughout my lifetime I've read my share of love stories--some of which were good, some of which weren't so good. When I first read The Lady with the Dog I was expecting a stereotypical happy-ending love story. I figured the man would divorce his wife, Anna would divorce her husband, and the man and Anna would live together happily ever after. Of course, like every love story the two characters faced a number of trials and tribulations throughout their relationship. None of that was surprising. In my opinion the most shocking part was when Anna left the man for her husband when her husband wasn't feeling well--I didn't see that coming. Again, not surprising the man chased after Anna after some time. I expected her to welcome him with open arms, as long as her husband wasn't aware, so when she sent him away I was surprised yet again. The whole story, for me, was kind of sad and tragic; I found the ending neither hopeful nor promising--it didn't seem like the man and Anna's relationship was going to work out in the long run, which is ironic seeing as it was the main focus of the piece of writing. To me, it seemed like the whole story was a build up of the man and Anna's relationship, only to have it crash and burn at the end, which isn't like the majority of love stories.