Food Memoir Glog

Food Memoir

"The Rainbow" Blog Post

Part I

            In the novel The Rainbow, D.H. Lawrence uses polysyndeton, the symbol of blood, and imagery to contrast the “far-off” land of the urban world with the woman’s simple, rural existence that flows in her family’s bloodstream, emphasizing her unquenched thirst for knowledge.

            A woman who wants to be part of the “world of cities and governments” (line 20) wouldn’t make that great of a story, but the fact that this longing goes against her very nature is what opens the reader’s eyes to her situation. Rural life is the essence of her family’s very being; it is what they “know in their blood” (line 8-9). Lawrence goes on to describe that “their faces” are “always turned to the heat of the blood” (line 12) which signifies that her family always follows their gut feeling to be close to nature and, consequently, “far-off” from the “active scope of man” (line 19-21). The woman looks out to the “world at large” (line 31-32) while “the Brangwen men faced inwards to the teeming life of creation” that flowed in “their veins” (line 27-29). This once again depicts how the rural life seems to be rooted in the blood of the family, yet the woman strays from this, rejecting “blood-intamacy” (line 16) that stems from her family’s very nature.

            The polysyndeton with the word “and” throughout the passage stresses the extent to which the woman’s ideal and actual lives differ. Facing outwards to the city, she discovers…

Part II

            My partner (Derek) scored my essay a 5-6, which I thought was a little generous considering it was not even close to finished. I agree that my analysis was reasonable and I could present my ideas with decent clarity and control, but I did not closely analyze how Lawrence employs literary devices because I barely got to discussing them when time ran out. I feel like if I articulated my ideas on paper in a more timely fashion and got the chance to write everything I was thinking I would have scored better.

            One thing I would do to make my essay better is discuss the contrast between the complacency of the men and the tension within the woman. I touched on this with my discussion of the “blood-knowledge” but I could have talked more in-depth about the woman’s internal struggle to gain knowledge (and the way Lawrence uses both the repetition of the word “knowledge” and tense diction to portray this idea). Lawrence uses words like “strained” (twice actually), “hung”, and “battle” to describe the woman’s “deepest desire” to gain knowledge. This deep yearning is contrasted with the men’s complacency and the fact that, although they look towards the sun (a symbol of growth), they are stuck in a rut that she wishes to escape.

            Another technique that emphasizes the men’s complacency is polysyndeton, which I began to write a paragraph but wasn’t really going this direction with. I was going to discuss how it pointed out the differences between the men and the woman, but this does not cut into the deep and complex meaning of the piece. Yes, they are different, but how, and why does this make the passage meaningful? After further analysis of the passage, I began to see that the repeated use of the word “and” seems to mirror the kind of repetitive work that the farmers partake in day in and day out. This monotonous working exemplifies the fact that these men are utterly and completely unmoving in their being, forever sentenced to working the earth and helping other organisms grow while ignoring their own potential to gain knowledge. For example, the men “looked out to the back at sky and harvest and beast and land”. This would also be a great place for me to address the complexity of the passage and the seemingly contradictory position that the men are in as “their faces” turn to “the heat of the blood” (or the sun).

            This idea mixed with the idea of the woman looking outward to gain knowledge could have made a really good paragraph. I could have discussed the juxtaposition of the woman “looking out” the front of the house and her husband looking “out to the back”. This simple comparison captures the essence of the woman’s position. She is looking out in front, forward, which can symbolize progress and movement towards knowledge, while her husband looks backwards, towards “sky and harvest and beast and land”, towards what the family has always done, towards complacency. This also would have been easy to tie back to the “blood knowledge” idea as the shear fact that there is a huge difference in the way the woman and the men see the world and this is the source of her current position. The woman tends to look forward and yearn for growth through knowledge while the men grow complacent in their tendency to look back.

Final Portfolio Reflection

One of the assignments that I’m most proud of is the second Hamlet character post. I really captured the essence of Hamlet’s character in this post because it mirrors his self-hatred that he spewed in his soliloquy in Act 2. My favorite lines are “Actors of Hollywood have more valor than I do. Players of the 1600s have more emotional connection to the loss of loved ones than I do” because I paralleled what Hamlet addressed in his soliloquy (the fact that the players could garner more emotion than him) with the movie trailer and came up with a similar line that he may have uttered in response. I embedded the quotes into my sentences well which allowed me to create a mixture of what Hamlet said and my own input to create a realistic reaction he would have had to seeing the Taken trailer. One thing that I could have done better was the introduction/background information. I needed to make sure the reader knew the plot of the movie, but I feel like I could have incorporated my character’s voice into it better to provide for a smoother transition into the rest of the blog post.

I learned to compare and contrast quotes from different sources as I compared Hamlet’s cowardly inaction to Bryan’s heroic actions. After this post I found it easier to write blog post #5 where I had to perform a similar task. Comparing quotes from the song with quotes from the play was much easier after I did basically the same thing with the second blog post.

Another blog post that I really like is the creative project one. I wanted to do something with food for my project because of the major theme of hunger in The Life of Pi (plus I’m always looking for an excuse to eat food), and I thought of a really good way to do this while addressing complexity and deeper meanings of the text. I also wrote a very clear and concise thesis for this project and included quotations from the book that related closely to both my thesis and the brownie cookies themselves. The most important thing about this project, however, was that I learned to write theses better as a result. I went in after school for help on my thesis writing and it really showed in my project which I was very happy with.

My participation in class changed for the better over the course of the trimester. At first I was really unsure with my abilities and a little afraid of being wrong in my analysis of literature which hindered my ability to search the deeper meanings of pieces. As the trimester progressed, though, things began to click and I became more comfortable contributing in class.

The last half of the trimester I found myself contributing to almost every class discussion. For example, when we were discussing the use of metaphysical conceit in John Donne’s Batter My Heart, Three-Personed God I pointed out the irony in the author’s description of God’s actions as they seemed to have connotations of lust, yet still described the author’s desire for chastity (“Nor ever chast, except you ravish me” (Donne)). I actively engaged in the conversation and left class feeling a lot more comfortable with the poem.

One of my goals for the trimester was to improve my multiple choice scores on AP practice tests. We took a practice test in the beginning of the trimester and I performed less than desirably (I got 59% of the questions correct) and set some goals for improvement. My first goal was to score at least a 70% on a multiple choice test at the end of first trimester by practicing my skills throughout the tri. This trimester (in addition to writing multiple choice questions in class and taking another practice exam in class) I practiced my multiple choice skills on an AP test I found online. I think it was the culmination of all of these steps that led to me reaching my goal of a 70% on the multiple choice we took at the end of the trimester. I think with more practice in the B section of the course I will become even more comfortable with this section of the exam and I will be able to reach my 85% goal.

Another one of my goals was to be able to analyze poetry more effectively. I remember in the beginning of the trimester I had trouble even comprehending the meaning of some pomes so I made it my goal to read and analyze a couple poems (especially ones from older time periods) per week so that by the end of the course I could have the ability to read and analyze a piece of poetry in less than five minutes. I included a specific time in my goal because come May I will be under strict time restraints when reading pieces and answering questions about them. At first I would just read a poem and try to understand the basic meaning, but as I practiced, I started to piece together techniques the poets used to create that meaning, even in pieces of writing from older time periods. In this section’s final exam, for example, there were some questions about a Shakespearean sonnet on how Shakespeare shaped the meaning. I ended up only missing a couple questions in this section which is far better than the beginning of the trimester when I couldn’t even decipher what the authors were trying to portray. I do have a lot of room for improvement, though, as the poem at the end of the test didn’t go as well…but I have no worries! I haven’t reached my goal yet, but I will continue to practice poetry analysis and I expect to be able to consistently read and analyze a poem in less than five minutes by the end of second trimester.

Hamlet Blog #6

Character Post #5

I chose the song "Some Nights" by Fun. because it closely outlines the struggles that Hamlet went through prior to his death and the indecision that he experiences throughout the play.

In the fifth and sixth lines of the song, the singer says "but I still wake up, I still see your ghost / Oh Lord, I'm still not sure what I stand for". There are a couple parallels to Hamlet in these lines. The first, and most obvious, is that Hamlet sees the ghost of his father, who tells Hamlet to “revenge his foul and most unnatural murder” (1.5.25). Although Hamlet immediately desires to “sweep to [his] revenge” (1.5.31) he quickly becomes unsure of himself. Hamlet is convinced that the spirit who visited him “is an honest ghost” (1.5.138), but at the same time is uneasy about killing Claudius because it would be one of the worst sins to commit. Hamlet has to chance to kill Claudius while he is praying but doesn’t in fear of sending “this same villain…to heaven” (3.3.77-78). While Hamlet wants to listen to his father’s ghost and get revenge, another side of him keeps him from doing the act and thus, Hamlet is not sure what he stands for. The song even repeats this line, asking “what do I stand for?” which directly relates to the internal struggle Hamlet has the entire play.

In lines 10 and 11 of the song the speaker asks “This is it, boys, this is war, what are we waiting for? / Why don't we break the rules already?” These lines associate with Hamlet’s soliloquy in Scene two of Act two. He effectively asks himself “what am I waiting for?” when he says “o, what a rogue and peasant slave am I” (2.2.475) and when he ask himself “am I a coward?” (2.2.497). Hamlet knows that he wants revenge but is “pigeon-liver’d” (2.2.504) and cannot bring himself to “break the rules already” (by killing the king, which is considered a sin against nature) like the song suggests.

The singer says “some nights, I wish that this all would end” which carries strong connotations of death. This longing for death and escape from pain is also present in Hamlet’s “to be or not to be” soliloquy, where he ponders whether “’tis nobler in the mind to suffer” or “to take arms against a sea of troubles, / And by opposing end them” (3.1.57-60). Hamlet wonders if it would be better to just die much like the singer admits that sometimes he wishes that it “all would end”. An interesting complexity in this parallel is that the singer wishes this upon himself “some nights”, a time when most people are sleeping. In the soliloquy, Hamlet equates death with a long sleep and therefore ponders why he is awake and alive during this dark time of his life. “To die: to sleep”, it seems only natural that when night falls on his life he should sleep, but instead he decides to live (3.1.60).

The song seems to end with an address to a lover or ex-lover which can be compared to Hamlet’s relationship with Ophelia before they both died. The singer says that he thinks “it’s for the best [they] get [their] distance”. When Hamlet confronts Ophelia in Act three he wants as much distance as possible, telling her to get “to a nunnery…and quickly too” (3.1.132). A fitting way to end a song that tributes Hamlet’s struggles: with blunt “farewell” (3.1.133).

 

[Note: I did not include a video because of explicit lyrics and the lack of a clean version of the music video on YouTube]



"Some Nights" by Fun. lyrics

Some nights, I stay up cashing in my bad luck.
Some nights, I call it a draw.
Some nights, I wish that my lips could build a castle
Some nights, I wish they'd just fall off

But I still wake up, I still see your ghost
Oh Lord, I'm still not sure what I stand for oh
What do I stand for? What do I stand for?
Most nights, I don't know anymore... oh woah, oh woah, oh woah oh oh.
Oh woah, oh woah, oh woah oh oh

This is it, boys, this is war, what are we waiting for?
Why don't we break the rules already?
I was never one to believe the hype - save that for the black and white
I try twice as hard and I'm half as liked, but here they come again to jack
My style

And that's alright; I found a martyr in my bed tonight
She stops my bones from wondering just who I am, who I am, who I am
Oh, who am I? Oh, who am I? mmm... mmm...

Well, Some nights, I wish that this all would end
Cause I could use some friends for a change
And some nights, I'm scared you'll forget me again
Some nights, I always win, I always win...

But I still wake up, I still see your ghost
Oh Lord, I still not sure what I stand for
What do I stand for? What do I stand for?
Most nights, I don't know... (come on)

So this is it? I sold my soul for this?
Washed my hands of that for this?
I miss my mom and dad for this?

No. When I see stars, when I see, when I see stars that's all they are
When I hear songs, they sound like this one, so come on
Oh, come on. Oh, come on, oh come on!

Well, This is it, guys, that is all - five minutes in and I'm bored again
Ten years of this, I'm not sure if anybody understands
This one is not for the folks back home; Sorry to leave, mom, I had to
Go
Who the **** wants to die alone all dried up in the desert sun?

My heart is breaking for my sister and the con that she called "love"
Man when I look into my nephew's eyes...
Man, you wouldn't believe the most amazing things that can come from...
Some terrible nights... ahhh... oh woah, oh woah, oh woah oh oh
Oh woah, oh woah, oh woah oh oh

The other night, you wouldn't believe the dream I just had about you and me
I called you up, but we'd both agree
It's for the best you didn't listen
It's for the best we get our distance... oh...
It's for the best you didn't listen
It's for the best we get our distance... oh...

Character Post #4

I just read of Ophelia's awful disposition, and I tell you if it weren't for her father and Laertes's "groundless slander" (Seng) she would not be mad as she is. I agree with Seng that Polonius and Laertes steal Ophelia's innocence by implanting distorted views of my love for her in her head which "is clearly the beginning of her tragedy" (Seng).

"I lov'd Ophelia. Forty thousand bothers / Could not with all their quantity of love / Make up my sum." (5.1.216-218). We were perfect for each other and everyone else thought so too! My mother even "hop'd" that she would "have been my...wife" (5.1.191). If only Laertes and his father had not made "an accusation of guilt where no guilt has been" (Seng).....but of course I had a hand in this too. But I would not have killed Polonius if it weren't for "his spying, sneaking, and eavesdropping" (Seng). Even the song Ophelia sang supports what I believe. Ophelia sings that "Young men will do't, if they come to't; / By cock, they are to blame" (4.5.59-60). What treacherous words her family has put into her innocent mind! This song is a direct reflection of the skewed view of man, and thus me, that her father and brother have forced upon her.

It is funny how Ophelia seems to be proclaiming more truth when she is mad than when she is in a stable mental condition. She said that she would "give [Laertes] some violets, but they / wither'd all when my father died" (4.5.175-176). A direct stab at Laertes's ill instructions from months ago and he pays no heed! When Ophelia was going off the handle singing these ballads, Laertes blew it off as nothing as he was busy plotting his revenge. Does he not realize that all he has told her over the past months has taken its toll? I heard that he himself said "a young maid's wits" are "as mortal as an old man's life" (4.5.154-155). What a hypocrite. I guess Laertes really does possess "wooden understanding" (Seng).

Ophelia's mental state makes me regret killing her father less and less, because if it weren't for him, she would be in her right mind right now.