Tragedy Loves Company: 2003 Q3 Essay

A few Saturday's ago, I conducted an experiment. I the most recent prompt that my AP students had written on, set a timer for 40 minutes, and wrote the essay myself. I must confess that the experience was eye-opening. I struggled with the time. I personally felt like I had too much time and I needed to focus and really dig deep in my analysis. And I struggled with the feeling that I was simply repeating myself. I then gave my essay to a colleague, without a name, and asked him to score it--pretending it was a student paper I was struggling with. I scored an 8 on the paper, which I agree with. The essay was good, but not without its failings.

Here is the prompt:

"According to critic Northrop Frye, 'Tragic heroes are so much the highest point in their human landscape that they seem the inevitable conductors of the power about them, great trees more likely to be struck by lightning than a clump of grass. Conductors may of course be instruments as well as victims of the divine lightning.' 

Select a novel or play in which a tragic figure functions as an instrument of the suffering of others. Then write an essay in which you explain how the suffering brought upon others by that figure contributes to the tragic vision of the work as a whole.

You may choose a work from the list below or another novel or play of comparable quality. Avoid mere plot summary."

I chose Antigone because that is what my students wrote on. And without further ado, here is my essay:
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Tragedy loves company. Tragic heroes in literature often cause suffering in the people around them, as they suffer themselves. In Sophocles' play, Antigone, King Creon functions as the tragic figure that causes the suffering of others. He brings about the suffering of his own family (Antigone, Haimon, and his wife, Eurydice), as well as the suffering of the common people of Thebes. This all helps the reader to better understand the theme that power blinds people to the needs of others.

About halfway through the play, Haimon, Creon's son, comes to speak with him about the sentence pronounced upon Antigone (Creon's niece and Haimon's betrothed). Creon's only thought though, his only desire, is power. Creon refuses to listen to his son, or the Choragus. His mind is made up and his stubborn pride will not allow him to change, because to change would make him look weak--and a king cannot look weak. This helps the reader understand how damning power can be. As soon as a man gets even the smallest ounce of power, he lets that go to his head and then refuses to listen to his advisers. This is the case in the real world and the case in the play. Creon refuses to listen to anyone and that prideful refusal leads to the suffering of his son, Haimon; his niece, Antigone; and his wife, Eurydice. Creon "kills" his entire family because he is too proud to change. Sophocles warns us of the dangers of power and how a tree in a storm better be able to lean, or else that tree will break.

In the end of the play, the blind prophet, Teiresias shows up to counsel Creon. Teiresisas states that he can no longer communicate with the gods, and that they aren't accepting his sacrifices anymore. Now, Creon messing things up in his own family is one thing, but now he has cursed all of Thebes with his actions. The common people (here represented by the Chorus and the Choragus) cannot speak with the gods anymore. They can't ask for blessings upon their families or their crops. Creon curses all those around him. As he says in the play, everything he touches comes to death. Sophocles provides us with a wonderful example of how not to lead, which we so desperately need in this day and age. Creon's desire for power clouds everything else in his mind. He cannot think, he cannot reason. His discussions with almost every character in the play turn into angry fighting. Creon is blind to everything else--the needs of his family and the needs of his city. And because of this blindness, Creon suffers, but more importantly, those around him also suffer. Hopefully the irony of Teiresias, the blind prophet, bringing this to Creon's attention isn't lost on the reader either. At the end of the play, the reader should see how important it is for leaders to temper their power with reason and good counsel from trusted advisers. No one can lead and be an island. You can't do the job by yourself. Those who try as we see in the case of Creon, only cause those around them to suffer. Like Northrop Frye states, "[they are] so much the highest points in their human landscape that they seem the inevitable conductors of the power about them." And that power blinds them to the needs of their subjects and causes pain and suffering.

One final passage from Their Eyes Were Watching God

With this post I just want to provide a beautiful quote that we can just revel in. Some marvelous poetic lines that we can root around in and just enjoy because they sound wonderful.

"So Janie began to think of Death. Death, that strange being with the huge square toes who lived way out West. The great one who lived in the straight house like a platform without sides to it and without a roof. What need has Death for a cover, and what winds can blow against him? He stands in his high house that overlooks the world. Stands watchful and motionless all day with his sword drawn back, waiting for the messenger to bid him come. Been standing there before there was a where or a when or a then. She was liable to find a feather from his wings lying in her yard any day now. She was sad and afraid too. Poor Jody!"

Pronoun Usage in Their Eyes Were Watching God

Zora Neale Hurston is a very interesting author. She seems to fall into and out of lyrical language throughout her novel. There are moments where she needs to write beautifully, and then there are moments where she pulls back and just presents the action at hand. Something that I have noticed while reading, is that during these moments of beautiful, lyrical language Hurston plays with nouns and pronouns. The emphasis is mine in the following quotes.

"The people all saw her come because it was sundown. The sun was gone, but he had left his footprints in the sky. It was the time for sitting on porches beside the road. It was the time to hear things and talk. These sitters had been tongueless, earless, eyeless conveniences all day long. Mules and other brutes had occupied their skins. But now, the sun and the bossman were gone, so the skins felt powerful and human. They became lords of sounds and lesser things. They passed nations through their mouths. They sat in judgement."

This first quote come right at the beginning of the novel and Hurston describes these people, these "sitters" as less than human. She doesn't use words with positive connotations--"mules," "brutes," "sitters," "conveniences," even "people." There is no familiarity, nor is there any love. As these "skins" are passing judgment on Janie, Hurston wants us to be passing judgement on them as well.

This next quote is right at the end of the novel...

"The day of the gun, and the bloody body, and the courthouse came and commenced to sing a sobbing sigh out of every corner in the room; out of each and every chair and thing. Commenced to sing, commenced to sob and sigh, singing and sobbing. Then Tea Cake came prancing around her where she was and the song of the sigh flew out of the window and lit in the top of the pine trees. Tea Cake, with the sun for a shawl. Of course he wasn't dead. He could never be dead until she herself had finished feeling and thinking. The kiss of his memory made pictures of love and light against the wall. Here was peace. She pulled in her horizon like a great fish-net. Pulled it from around the waist of the world and draped it over her shoulder. So much of life in its meshes! She called in her soul to come and see."

The first line is so interesting to me because there are three distinct days in the list and they are coming to life in these lines and singing and sobbing and sighing. The events of Janie's life are so powerful to her that she visualizes them before her and then wraps herself in these experiences. Very symbolic.

Poetry Response: to the fig tree on 9th and christian, by Ross Gay

We have a wonderful librarian at Pomona. She is always looking out for us. Sometimes, I will walk into my classroom and there will be a little stack of books on my chair with a post-it on them. Or I will find a new book tucked into my mailbox at the school. I often don't have time for whatever marvel of book-writing she has placed within my care, but sometimes...sometimes...

That brings me to the poetry of Ross Gay. A few weeks ago I found two new collections of poetry on my chair; one of them was catalog of unabashed gratitude, by Ross Gay. Today I read three poems from the collection and I have to say, I am now a fan. So, I will probably be bringing you several poetry responses over poems in this collection.

to the fig tree on 9th and christian
by Ross Gay

Tumbling through the
city in my
mind without once
looking up
the racket in
the lugwork probably
rehearsing some
stupid thing I
said or did
some crime or
other the city they
say is a lonely
place until yes
the sound of sweeping
and a woman
yes with a 
broom beneath 
which you are now
to the canopy
of a fig its
arms pulling the
September sun to it
and she
has a hose too
and so works hard
rinsing and scrubbing
the walk
lest some poor sod
slip on the
silk of a fig
and break his hip
and not probably
reach over to gobble up
the perpetrator
the light catches
the veins in her hands
when I ask about
the tree they
flutter in the air and
she says take
as much as
you can
help me
so I load my
pockets and mouth
and she points
to the step-ladder against
the wall to
mean more but
I was without a
sack so my meager
plunder would have to
suffice and an old woman
whom gravity
was pulling into
the earth loosed one
from a low slung
branch and its eye
wept like hers
which she dabbed
with a kerchief as she
cleaved the fig with
what remained of her
teeth and soon there were
eight or nine
people gathered beneath
the tree looking into
it like a 
constellation pointing
do you see it
and I am tall and so
good for these things
and a bald man even
told me so
when I grabbed three
or four for
him reaching into the
giddy throngs of
yellow-jackets sugar
stoned which he only
pointed to smiling and
rubbing his stomach
I mean he was really rubbing his stomach
like there was a baby
in there
it was hot his
head shone while he
offered recipes to the
group using words which
I couldn't understand and besides
I was a little
tipsy on the dance
of the velvety heart rolling
in my mouth
pulling me down and
down into the
oldest countries of my
body where I ate my first fig
from the hand of a man who escaped his country
by swimming through the night
and maybe
never said more than
five words to me
at once but gave me 
figs and a man on his way
to work hops twice
to reach at last his
fig which he smiles at and call
baby, c'mere baby,
he says and blows a kiss
to the tree which everyone knows
cannot grow this far north
being Mediterranean
and favoring the rocky, sunbaked soils
of Jordan and Sicily
but no one told the fig tree
or the immigrants
there is a way
the fig tree grows
in groves it wants,
it seems, to hold us,
yes I am anthropomorphizing
goddammit I have twice
in the last thirty seconds
rubbed my sweaty
forearm into someone else's
sweaty shoulder
gleeful eating out of each other's hands
on Christian st.
in Philadelphia a city like most
which has murdered its own
people
this is true
we are feeding each other
from a tree
at the corner of Christian and 9th
strangers maybe
never again.

This! THIS! This huge poem is absolutely beautiful. Gay is trying to express to his readers that simple things, something as simple as a fig, or a fig tree, can be all we need to bring people together. I believe that he accomplishes this wonderfully.

The poem opens with "Tumbling through the / city in my / mind without once / looking up", from my point of view, I believe that Gay is throwing us into this dream world. He knows that this image of people feeding each other from a fig tree in the middle of the city is a fantasy, and I would argue that we as a reader understand that it is a fantasy as well. But, what a fantasy, right? If only things like this happened in real life. Our world would be a better place. Because, like I mentioned earlier, sometimes it just takes something very simple to bring people together. Working together, eating together, sharing in an experience; this is what the people in this poem are doing--sharing in an experience. One that immediately makes every person involved powerful and vulnerable and willing to engage with their fellow man.

Gay's poetic structure and diction is very simplistic, but I think, even that, adds to the overall effect of the poem. He could have summarized this event in a much shorter structure--longer lines, spread out across the page. And he could have chosen larger words--I haven't read much, but I assume he knows and uses a ton of words. But Gay choses to keep it simple, just like his message in the story of the poem. The simplistic nature of this poem is keeping in theme with the story that is happening to the speaker. Gay is hoping that his poem will have an effect on his reader, a very similar effect as the one discussed in the previous paragraph.

I enjoyed this poem thoroughly. The lack of capitalization, punctuation--so you have the read the whole thing in a single breath--it all adds to the enjoyment of a terrific poem.

William Shakespeare's Star Wars Rapid Fire

I may have milked this book too much. I've been writing about this awesome book for weeks now and so I figure that I will post one final rapid fire post where I discuss several lines from the play and then put an end to this book.

OBI-WAN

                    That number seven shall our freedom mean.
                    But only on of seven shall we need.
                    I fear those numbers--seven and then one--
                    Do something dangerous portend. But why?
          (5)     Our company is only six, unless
                    There were another join'd unto us here.
                    Then were we seven, yet what means the one?
                    O! Strangely sweeps the thought into my mind:
                    I have a feeling through the Force that ere
          (10)  We leave this place, some seven shall we be.
                    Yet one shall stay behind as sacrifice.
                    Thus seven and thus one: the numbers tell
                    The story that herein shall soon be told.

It might be because we just read Gloucester's speech in King Lear the other day, but I hear some echoes of those same sentiments here in Obi-Wan's speech. Obi-Wan feels fate tugging on him and believes that destiny is calling for him to sacrifice himself for the party. And because Obi-Wan believes in fate (or the Force or whatever) he will go through with it.

OFFICER 1     [through comlink:] But what hath happen'd?

HAN
                                                  --'Tis no matter, Sir--
                    A slight malfunction of the weapons here.
                    But all is well, and we are well, and all
                    Within are well. The pris'ners, too, are well,
                    'Tis well, 'tis well. And thou? Art thou well?

This passage made me laugh. It pays such wonderful homage to the movie, but amplifies the comedy in Han Solo's answer to the officer through the comlink. The repetition of the word "well" makes this happen. Over and over again Han keeps saying "well," and each time it just adds to the final punchline: "Art thou well?" Like Han Solo really cares. This was just perfect for this character.

But now that I have been looking back through this book, I think that I have one more post to get out of this. I want to compare one of Luke Skywalker's speeches to the original Shakespeare from Henry V. I think it will provide some good fodder for my thinking. So, until then...

King John Act I, Scene I

It has begun. I started reading King John last night and thus far they have declared war on France. Some lines:

               KING JOHN
               Here have we war for war and blood for blood,
               Controllment for controllment: so answer France.

               CHATILLION
               Then take my king's defiance from my mouth,
               The farthest limit of my embassy.

               KING JOHN
    (5)      Bear mine to him, and so depart in peace.
               Be thou as lightning in the eyes of France,
               For ere thou canst report, I will be there;
               The thunder of my cannon shall be heard.
               So, hence. Be thou the trumpet of our wrath
    (10)    And sullen presage of your own decay.--
               An honorable conduct let him have.

I was worried when I started reading that there wouldn't be much in the way of beautiful imagery or metaphor in this play. I don't have a lot of experience with Shakespeare's history plays, but this passage has put my mind at ease.

Lines 1 & 2 are John's pronouncement. "You want to bring war to us? We will bring war to you!" These are very powerful statements. The phrase "blood for blood," is similar to the biblical eye for an eye. You shed out blood we will shed your blood.

Then in lines 5-11 we get this wonderful metaphor. King John dismisses the Chatillion (the emissary from France) and commands him to warn France. He compares this warning to the idea of thunder and lightning. In a storm, first you see the lightning and then a few moments later you hear the thunder, because of how sound travels. So, the Chatillion's warning will be the lightning and then John's cannons will be the thunder. And the closer they come to battle, the closer the lightning and the sound of the thunder will be. A great image, and I love the line: "For ere thou canst report, I will be there;" A very powerful line.

Since John seems to think a lot of himself, I am predicting that pride will be his downfall. A pretty good bet because that is the tragic flaw in almost all tragic heroes. 

The Verdict is In: Dead Poets Society is a Modern Day Greek Tragedy

I have always maintained that the wonderful film, Dead Poets Society, is a modern-day Greek tragedy. So, I have over the years given my AP Literature students the opportunity to view this film and analyze it using this lens for extra credit. This year did not disappoint. We got some great blog posts out of this. Funny that an extra credit assignment gets us some of the best writing of the whole year. 

The overwhelming opinion from almost all of my students was that Dead Poets Society is indeed a modern-day Greek tragedy. Only one author said it wasn't quite a Greek tragedy. Go ahead and check out these blog posts.

http://juuullliiieee.blogspot.com/2016/02/extra-credit-blog-post-dead-poets.html

http://pamlikesham.blogspot.com/2016/02/extra-credit-blog-post.html

http://adeepinsightfullookintomycomplexbrain.blogspot.com/2016/02/extra-credit-dead-poets-society.html

http://elephantprince.blogspot.com/2016/02/ec-blog-post.html

http://blogginnbrown.blogspot.com/2016/02/dead-poets-society-extra-credit.html

http://briaunawithau.blogspot.com/2016/02/extra-credit-blog-post-is-dead-poets.html

http://shelber36.blogspot.com/2016/02/dead-poets-society.html

http://emilyyy25.blogspot.com/2016/02/blog-post-extra-credit.html

http://klamthelam.blogspot.com/2016/02/extra-credit-blog-post.html

http://lajefajade.blogspot.com/2016/02/dead-poets-society-is-indeed-modern-day.html

http://extremelycreativeaddress.blogspot.com/2016/02/extra-credit-blog-post.html

http://creativeyhoughts.blogspot.com/2016/02/is-dead-poets-society-modern-greek.html

http://mandatoryapliteratureblog.blogspot.com/2016/02/dead-poets-society-tragedy.html

http://lillyfaye123.blogspot.com/--I really enjoyed this one in particular.

http://eds20.blogspot.com/2016/02/extra-credit-blog-post.html

http://coolapblog.blogspot.com/2016/02/the-kind-of-tragic-dead-poets-society.html--This post is the one that doesn't believe that the film is quite a Greek tragedy.

Finding Terrific Writing in Unusual Places: Red Seas Under Red Skies

 Sometimes I worry that people see me as a bit of a literature snob. My favorites include such literary giants as Fitzgerald, Faulkner, Joyce, Shakespeare, and McCarthy. But I also am a huge fan of science fiction and fantasy literature. I love sitting down and just enjoying a fast paced adventure. Recently I have been enjoying Red Seas Under Red Skies, by Scott Lynch. In many cases, fantasy books are not written very well. I mean they convey action fine enough, but the beauty of the sentence is lacking. Not true with Lynch. He is an accomplished writer that has perfected his craft, he just chooses to write fantasy novels. Here is a nice paragraph from chapter two.

"Jean cleared the barrier from the third-floor hallway, left a few more coins (from Locke's purse) with the bemused innkeeper, and bustled about the room, allowing some of the smell of drunken enclosure to evaporate out the open window. Upon reflection, he went down to the bar and came back with a glass decanter of water."

This paragraph is, in essence, two sentences. The first is far more complicated than the second. We have a list in the first sentence: Jean is accomplishing three tasks. Lynch uses the oxford comma before the conjunction--my man! The sentence becomes slightly more complicated though with the final phrase attached to the list with a comma. And he has some great 50 cent words in here: bemused, enclosure, evaporate, and decanter. If this were a lesser writer the amount of attention would not have been given to such an insignificant paragraph. I have read quite a bit of bad writing in fantasy and Sci Fi novels and it is so refreshing when you find someone who is a master of his craft. 

Not what I though Lynch would look like. See, you learn new things all the time.

Significance of the River Dirce in Antigone

My students have been reading Antigone, by Sophocles, and recently I asked them to do a close reading of the Parados as one of their blog posts. For the most part, the blog posts were right on track. Students were identifying metaphors and personification. But one question seemed to stump most--if not all--of my students. I believe it was simply because they didn't dig deep enough in their research for the question, choosing instead to stick with the first answer they found. And maybe stump is too harsh a word, they just needed to push a little bit more and they would have had it. Now to the question:

What is the significance of Polynieces and Etocles fighting in the river Dirce?

Most students were able to re-tell the story of Dirce in mythology, but failed to find the information that all Theban kings were sworn into office while standing before Dirce's tomb. Thus, Polynieces and Etocles fighting each other--over the Theban crown, no less--in the river Dirce, becomes symbolic because they are fighting for the right to rule in the river named after the tomb where they swear in Theban kings. 

Antigone is usually pretty straight forward, not a lot of symbols or literary devices. But, in the Parados we have this rich symbolism where we get more by understanding the mythology 

One student got it right though. Check out her blog posts here:
http://susiequeen16.blogspot.com/

Beautiful Description in The Crossing

Just a quick post to share this beaut of a sentence that I found in The Crossing by Cormac McCarthy.

"In that wild high country he'd lie in the cold and the dark and listen to the wind and watch the last few embers of his fire at their dying and the red crazings in the woodcoals where they broke along their unguessed gridlines. As if in the trying of the wood were elicited hidden geometries and their orders which could only stand fully revealed, such is the way of the world, in darkness and ashes. He heard no wolves. Ragged and half starving and his horse dismayed he rode a week later in the mining town of El Tigre."

Wow! I mean, just wow!

McCarthy's Use of the Complex Sentence

Still reading The Crossing, by Cormac McCarthy. Got into part two and my reading just really slowed down. It's not that it isn't interesting, just that there is a ton to process. Here is a quote from part 2, page 129:

"They rode the high country for weeks and they grew thin and gaunted man and horse and the horse grazed on the sparse winter grass in the mountains and gnawed the lichens from the rock and the boy shot trout with his arrows where they stood above their shadows on the cold stone floors of the pools and he ate them and ate green nopal and then on a windy day traversing a high saddle in the mountains a hawk passed before the sun and its shadow ran so quick in the grass before them that it caused the horse to shy and the boy looked up where the bird turned high above them and he took the bow from his shoulder and nocked and loosed an arrow and watched it rise with the wind rattling the fletching slotted into the cane and watched it turning and arcing and the hawk wheeling and then flaring suddenly with the arrow locked in its pale breast."

If you have ever read McCarthy (or Faulkner, or Morrison for that matter) you know that he likes the long sentence. Part of his style. In this case I believe that McCarthy is using this to suggest that time is passing, but it seems that all of time is sloughing into itself. You cannot really tell when things are happening; it seems that it is all happening at once. All at one time. His use of the conjunction "and" accomplishes this task. The sentence isn't incorrect, just very long and drawn out. It helps the reader to feel the exhausting nature of this journey. And this happened, and this happened, and this happened. I don't think that most writers should use this style. This is reserved for those masters who are allowed to break the rules.

Explain: Wolves by Joe Wilkins

I have to admit it: I am a Joe Wilkins fanboy. My first exposure to Wilkins was in The Sun where his wonderfully beautiful essay, You, All of You, appeared. I've loved his writing since then and whenever I see something published by Wilkins I just have to devour it. So, I knew I would be blogging about this newest poem from Wilkins that just got published today on the Linebreak website. This poem is also interesting from the standpoint of the other things I have been reading. There has been a lot of wolves in my read as of late. Anyway, on to the poem.
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JOE WILKINS

Explain: Wolves

OR-7, also known as Journey, is the first confirmed wolf in western Oregon since 1947, and the first in California since 1924. Since the wolf left his pack in September 2011, he has wandered more than 1,000 miles […] through Oregon and Northern California.
–Wikipedia

The wandering wolf OR-7 appears to have a mate.
–The Oregonian, May 12, 2014

She wanders heavy-bellied, full of milk & knives.

Lowers the barrel of her body like this, forepaws soft & sure as motherwings against the infant earth.

When finally she takes flight, she falls to gnashing the neckmeat of deer, one last upwelling of arterial blood the very blush of certain bodies in the near heavens.

When mountains gather their snap & shatter, when down comes the wind & winterlong, even wolfbones leak their autumn grease, wolfeyes go lonesome & sallow, & for warmth every wolf snouts the yeasting fleshpockets of those they run with & love.

I’m telling you capped & nightgowned like that the story is not the wolf’s but ours, our fear not of being devoured but blinded, lied to, made complicit in our own undoing.

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The images in the poem are strange and beautiful.

• "She wanders heavy-bellied, full of milk & knives." The odd part of this image is the knives. Her belly is full of a wolf pup(s), but metaphorically Wilkins is calling the pups knives. These unborn pups will grow up to become wolves: dangerous animals. Knives helps us to see the wolf pup's potential.
• "When mountains gather their snap & shatter, when down comes the wind & winterlong, even / wolfbones leak their autumn grease." When I was listening to the reading of this poem that phrase, "wolfbones leak their autumn grease," made me stop in shock. What an interesting image. When winter comes even the wolves lose some of themselves, in the struggle to stay alive during those tough months.

Then the poem has it's poetic turn, in the fifth stanza. "I'm telling you capped & nightgowned like that the story is not the wolf's but ours, our fear not of / being devoured but blinded, lied to, made complicit in our own undoing." Yes this poem is about wolves, but it is also about that animalistic nature inside each of us. We are the wolves.

Joe Wilkins does it again people! 

Last Our Town Post

I don't want to belabor Our Town. Like I said in my review, I really do think that this is just an average play with some good lines and an semi-interesting theme. It is uplifting though, which doesn't happen often in classical literature. We love talking about death, depression, and not getting the girl in AP Lit. But there are some wonderful, poignant lines in Act III.

"Oh, earth, you're too wonderful for anybody to realize you."
"Do any human beings every realize life while they live it?--every, every minute?"

The Stage Manager's answer to these questions is no. Humans do not realize how wonderful life is. Simon Stimson seems to agree later on the next page. But them Mrs. Gibbs provides the counter-voice.

And I think that I agree with Mrs. Gibbs. There are times in our lives when we do realize how wonderful earth and life is. That might be a moment when your first child is born. Or perhaps when a second child is born. Or perhaps when you marry your best friend in the world entire (as Cormac McCarthy would phrase it). Maybe when you read something and it touches you to the very core. But maybe it can be something as simple as looking at an old photograph, posing for a new photograph, reminiscing about the 80's with your Mother on Thanksgiving, or hanging out with those people who you love. I think that Wilder just wants us to have one of those moments while reading or watching his play. He wants us to stop and realize that life is wonderful..."every, every minute."

I do find it interesting though that as I was reading this play my favorite youtubers put out the following two videos about uncontrolled excitement, which I believe is connected to all of this. Sometimes the vlogbrothers are heady and seem to like to push their brand of nerdom on the rest of us. But other times they really have something interesting to say. These two videos give us some amazing analysis of these ideas. Watch them both!



 And then we get this wonderful line from John Green:

 "Okay, so I would argue that you are both never and always truly alone." 

And sometimes you have to just stop and be thankful for the genius that is John Green and how he can, in one simple sentence, encapsulate everything that I feel when the sky is grey and clouded over, and my feet are freezing, and I just feel yucky inside.

Review of Our Town, by Thornton Wilder

Our Town by Thornton Wilder
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

"Yes, now you know. Now you know! That's what it was to be alive. To move about in a cloud of ignorance; to go up and down trampling on the feelings of those...of those about you. To spend and waste time as though you had a million years. To be always at th mercy of one self-centered passion, or another. Now you know--that's the happy existence you wanted to go back to. Ignorance and blindness."

Just finished Thornton Wilder's Our Town. I had never read the play before and I have been preparing it for my AP Literature and Composition students. This play will become their reading over Christmas break. I will say that I enjoy this play better than the old play we used to assign which was The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde, which I felt didn't offer much in the way of literary interpretation. Our Town certainly does a better job of offering students something to discuss and interpret, but overall I felt that it was simplistic and heavy handed.

I mean I get the message, I understand the theme that Wilder is trying to put down. And it is a good theme, but at times (especially during the third act) I felt like Wilder was stuffing it down my throat.

I mean what else can I say. It was an average play about an average group of people, living in an average town.

But, like I said, I think it will serve well for a Christmas break reading assignment.

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Parents, tell your children how you feel

I was reading Our Town, by Thornton Wilder to prepare for my AP Lit students Christmas reading selection and ran across the following passage in ACT I.

     EMILY:Mama, am I good looking?
     MRS. WEBB:Yes, of course you are. All my children have got good features; I'd be ashamed if they hadn't.
     EMILY:Oh, Mama, that's not what I mean. What I mean is: am I pretty?
     MRS. WEBB:I've already told you, yes. Now that's enough of that. You have a nice young pretty face. I never heard of such foolishness.
     EMILY:Oh, Mama, you never tell us the truth about anything.
     MRS. WEBB:I am telling you the truth.
     EMILY:Mama, were you pretty?
     MRS. WEBB:Yes, I was, if I do say it. I was the prettiest girl in town next to Mamie Cartwright.
     EMILY:But, Mama, you've got to say something about me. Am I pretty enough...to get anybody...to get people interested in me?
     MRS. WEBB:Emily, you make me tired. Now stop it. You're pretty enough for all normal purposes.--Come along now and bring that bowl with you.
     EMILY:Oh, Mama, you're no help at all.

No help indeed. I am embarrassed for Mrs. Webb. She had the opportunity, an opportunity to build her daughter's confidence and show her how much she is loved and valued. But instead he gets annoyed, passes off Emily's concern, and scolds her. Not the best parent in my opinion. Mrs. Webb has things to say about her own beauty, but chooses to just tell her daughter that she is "pretty enough for all normal purposes." Gee, thanks Mom; whatever that means.

People, don't be like this parent. Tell your children that they are beautiful and handsome and pretty and wonderful. Heaven knows they need that kind of affirmations, especially when they enter their formative teenager and early adult years. Don't be a "Mrs. Webb."

P6: I felt a funeral in my brain CCCR

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P5: Because I could not stop for death CCCR

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Poetic Turns

The newest poem from Linebreak is a great example of poetic turns. Here is the poem:

Against Aristophanes

by Jacques Rancourt

                                                  No e-mails can reach you.
                                                  No texts. Here, a smokestack

                                                  chokes up soot intermittently.
                                                  Cloud-makers, I once called them,

                                    (5)         and what a world if that were true.
                                                  At the window I tap from

                                                  the interior and wait for the ghost
                                                  to write back. Only the willow,

                                                  starved for water, responds
                                    (10)       by clicking a beaded branch

                                                  against the glass. At one end
                                                  of a parking lot, a Target bag

                                                  skims the pavement,
                                                  drifts before a thing whose stillness

                                    (15)        I took to be a truck at rest,
                                                  moonlight on chrome,

                                                  its driver asleep across the seats.
                                                  How his mother, if she lives,

                                                  must worry. I wake and wait
                                    (20)       for you to call at this lavender hour.

                                                  Nothing strange inside
                                                  your heartbeat, irregular as it was,

                                                  nothing but your blood's drum,
                                                  your mysterious body

                                     (25)      more mysterious now,
                                                  more foreign for being

                                                  outside of me. I thought
                                                  we were made of water,

                                                  one soul split into two,
                                     (30)      but we are made of canyon,

                                                  a sky unpolluted by light
                                                  and thus filled with light,

                                                  a moon so full
                                                  if reveals the desert to be

                                      (35)     in motion: a coyote stalking
                                                  a trickle of water,

                                                  a wren skipping nail to nail
                                                  on the arm of a cactus.

I see two distinct turns in this poem. The beginning of the poem has these wonderful images, all of them charged with some imaginal energy. I like the image of the smokestack smoking away. The narrator taps against the glass, watching a Target bag drifting through the parking lot like some wrath--"At one end / of a parking lot, a Target bag / skims the pavement, / drifts before a thing whose stillness /  I took to be a truck at rest, / moonlight on chrome," All very beautiful! The poem is focused on describing all of these images, a very image heavy poem. And then it turns in line 19-- "I wake and wait / for you to call at this lavender hour." Now we are inside the narrators head again and he (I'm assuming it is a male) is dreaming of "your mysterious body" (which I am assuming is a girl).

But it doesn't stop there. In his contemplation he continues to look inward. To examine this relationship and how it effects him and his sense of self. On this inward journey, the narrator turns the poem again in line 27--"I thought / we were made of water, / one soul split into two, / but we are made of canyon," Now we turn into a metaphor. These two people, man and woman, are "made of canyon." They cannot be further from each other; they are different.

Some wonderful final images as well.

• "a coyote stalking / a trickle of water, / a wren skipping nail to nail / on the arm of a cactus."

The Hero Cycle in The Crossing

One of the immediate things I noticed while reading the beginning of The Crossing was McCarthy's use of The Hero Cycle. So, I thought it would be interesting to analyze the events of the novel through this lens.

The Call to Adventure: Billy Parham's "call" comes early on in the novel. In the first few pages, Billy wakes in the middle of the night to the cries of wolves. He dresses, careful not to wake his little brother, and goes outside to follow the wolves, to watch them in their graceful circles. Their howling calls Billy. In that moment you can see Billy Parham dedicating himself to the wolf--that he will be intricately connected to these majestic creatures. But Billy's call doesn't end there. A short while later, Billy's father calls him to help trap the she-wolf that is eating members from their herd. This is the final moment of his call. Billy ultimately accepts the call to go out and interact with these animals.

1st Threshold: Billy crosses the border into the world of adventure in three places. One could interpret that his trips with his father are crossing a threshold. He goes out to experience the wild and find the she-wolf. Or, you could interpret the part when Billy goes out alone to track and trap the she-wolf without his father. Finally, the first threshold could be when Billy actually crosses the border into Mexico.

Mentor/Helper/Wise Old Man: Billy visits senor Echols during his journey to trap the she-wolf. Echols has scents that will attract the wolf and acts as almost a mystical helper for Billy. The fact that Echols speaks in Spanish adds to the mysticism. He gives Billy advice, but more than that he helps Billy to understand the nature of the wolf. That the wolf will be inextricable changed once Billy traps it. That to trap the wolf is to end the wolf. But he also knows that Billy will be changed in the process as well.

Sometimes you need to just stop and savor language.

This is one of those times. When we need to just stop and revel in the beauty of literature. Some quotes from McCarthy's The Crossing:

page 31--

"Before him the mountains were blinding white in the sun. They looked new born out of the hand of some improvident god who'd perhaps not even puzzled out a use for them. That kind of new."

page 45--

"He said that the wolf is a being of great order and that it knows what men do not: that there is no order in the world save that which death has put there."

page 46--

"You catch the snowflake but when you look in your hand you don't have it no more. Maybe you see this dechado. But before you can see it it is gone. If you want to see it you have to see it on its own ground. If you catch it you lose it. And where it goes there is no coming back from. Not even God can bring it back."

Little Prediction:
I think that Billy is going to catch this stinking wolf that they have been tracking and trying to trap since the beginning and then he is going to want to keep the wolf. He will train the wolf to be a pet, domesticate the wolf. But then it really won't be a wolf anymore, will it? He will take the wolf out of the animal. He'll have a pretty wicked pet, but it won't be the same. Just like the snowflake McCarthy talks about. You can look at a snowflake, but once you touch it, once you catch it in the palm of your hand you change the snowflake forever. It cannot be undone and it is no longer a snowflake.

page 46--

"The wolf is made the way the world is made. You cannot touch the world. You cannot hold it in your hand for it is made of breath only."

See what I mean?

page 47--

"He said that the boy should find that place where acts of God and those of man are of a piece. Where they cannot be distinguished."