isharma’s Blog

Ginsberg in his poem “Howl” is referring to the problem that still persists in today’s world. He refers to it asa  madness for drugs. 

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by
              madness, 

In the stanza mentioned above he is saying that the great minds have been destroyed by the bug of drugs.

starving hysterical naked,
       dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn
              looking for an angry fix
They are so desperate for the drugs that they do not want to put clothing on their body but rather they would spend that money so that they can buy one fix of their addiction. The madness is to crazy that they do not have the energy to get up and walk but they can walk to hunt for their fix.
 who cowered in unshaven rooms in underwear, burn-
              ing their money in wastebaskets and listening
              to the Terror through the wall
This stanza could be referring to the soldiers that fight in the war. We have seen most of the time that, soldiers are very tempted to use the drugs for the survival in the cruel conditions. It is often seen that the madness of killing that the soldiers experience is often hidden by by the madness of the drugs. These brave people when come back after serving the country their great minds have been polluted by the madness of killing substance such as drugs.
The overall message Ginsberg has conveyed in this poem is that our world is being eaten away by an immortal entity known as "DRUGS."

The play written by Miller is all about betrayal and loyalty. Catherine was brought up by Eddie and his wife. She use to get along with everyone before Marco and Rodolpho. After Rodolpho moved in the house Catherine fell in love with him and completely forgot about the favor Eddie did on her. Her loyalty should have been towards Eddie by listening to what he has to say about Rodolpho but instead she chose a stranger over a guy who took care of her. 

On the other hand Eddie’s anger took over his brain. His loyalty towards his family was betrayed when he snitched on Marco and Rodolpho. He took them under his roof and then snitched on them. His duty was  to protect them and give them a good life. His disloyalty costed Marco the life of his son. 

For a middle class family loyalty and respect are the only things that are valuable. Eddie lost his loyalty towards his family and catherine lost her loyalty towards Eddie.

I believe that in the story Indian Camp the depiction of Native Indians happens to be primitive. Primitive means to be, the first or earliest of the kind or in existence, especially in an early age of the world. To me the Native Indians were like the first ones to be the existence on this land, the were the ones to start all the traditions. Especially how Nick’s dad was preparing for the delivery of the new born baby by the young Indian girl. Nick’s dad was the total opposite than the husband. Nick’s dad was so cool and relaxed while going through the whole sequence of child birth, he was even able to teach Nick how to go through the whole process of child birth. On the other hand the husband was the total opposite. To me he seemed to be a weak man, he couldn’t be there by his wife’s side while she going through the child birth. And then ended up slicing his throat from ear to ear, because he couldn’t take the whole process of child birth. “He pulled back the blanket from the Indian’s head. His hand came away wet. He mounted on the edge of the lower bunk with the lamp in one hand and looked in. The Indian lay with his face toward the wall. His throat had been cut from ear to ear.”

During the Armory show in 1913 there were many great paintings and sculptures. All of them had interesting colors and themes to them. One thing I noticed was that almost all the paintings and sculptures had something to do with women. The one painting and one sculpture that really stood out to me was the Gallery O and H.

In Gallery O the painting looks to me that it is not three women in one room but one woman in the bathroom going through the sequence of after-bath. Looks like the woman in the painting was going through the whole coming out of the shower and drying herself and getting dressed. This really reminds me of moderns times because this is the same sequence almost all women go through. Being a woman, I myself do this.

Next the sculpture that I really enjoyed looking at was Gallery H. In the Sculpture has a lot of great things happening. There’s  a woman lying down and relaxing on a long couch in what looks to be in her living room, with her goldfish swimming in the a small tanks. This really resembles modern because the whole idea of putting a fish in a small tank and put on a table in your house didn’t really start till modern times.

In both Gallery O and H, modern times really stood out to me. Both galleries had things that are done in modern times. Like the way the woman was going through the whole motions of an after-shower routine, and the whole way the author portrayed her with her hair up and the way the woman’s body is curved.

The story is about a artistic woman who is considered crazy by her physician husband. The wife has a unique gift where she can see a simple wallpaper from a different prospective then her husband. In the whole story she is trying to show her husband to look at the wallpaper than just a mere paper. She is trying to tell him that the pattern on the wall means something but he just tells her to get some rest. She even brought a proposal of tearing the wallpaper down and paint the room differently but her husband tells her that there is no point of  wasting money on a rental home. The wife sees herself in the wallpaper that she is mentioning throughout the story. She talks about how she sees a woman crawling out at night and just wants to get out. When she says this its her cry for freedom. She has been imprisoned in the nursery and wants to break out free and live beyond the nursery walls. She has no connection with the outside world and her favorite thing to do in the house is to write but her husband has also forbidden her to do that. By writing she feels little bit liberated and relaxed but at the same time tired.

At the end of the story they are leaving the house. She seems very happy about the fact that she does not have to stay in the room where she could see herself everywhere. She wanted to ruin that image which she did by tearing up the wallpaper. When her husband comes in the room he faints because her thoughts and her will to tear up the wallpaper made his mind blank and he felt he lost control. This was the wife’s victory because she made him feel like, she can do whatever she pleases and he has no control over her. 

Success in circuit lies

I think that the first line means to tell the entire truth, but instead of saying all at once, people would rather expose little bits of it which circle around around to end up at the complete truth. Because circuit means circular, so everything say to come to one end.

Too bright for our infirm delight

If the truth is too bright we cannot present it all at the same time, but rather we have to present it bit by bit, which is exactly what Emily Dickinson said in line 1. Next Our infirm delight. Our delight is things we enjoy, therefore our infirm delight implies that the things we enjoy change. So overall this phrase seems to mean that the truth is too difficult for us to grasp, we are people who like change. This gives me the impression, that the truth Emily Dickinson is talking about, is something unchangeable, some greater truth, that will never change.

The Truth’s superb surprise

Here Emily Dickinson presents more information as to what the truth is. It is something that will supposely surprise us. But it happens to be something that isn’t anything bad, but rather something pleasing.

As Lightning to the childern eased With explanation kind

I wonder everything written in the poem in the past few lines has anyhing to do with lightning, thats probably what the  line meant”Too bright for our infirm delight” the bright thing is regarding towards the bright lights that shown by a lightning strike. That what Emily meant by this line by including the childern. Because childern are the main group of people on earth that are really scared of lightning. But once they know what it is they can ease their minds and not be scared anymore.

The Truth must dazzle gradually Or every man be blind

“The Truth must dazzle gradually” again informs us of the slow and gradual pattern, which should tell the truth, and tells us again how great the truth is. “Or every man be blind” This line seems to tell me just how strong the truth is. Given it at once we would be blinded by it. This holds in line with how Emily Dickinson has been using light throughout the poem, because people can in fact be blinded by light, if they are unable to close their eyes.

Whitman has based this poem on humanity. In this poem he has presented his confusion. This confusion is represented by “I” vs “Crowd” vs “Tide.” His confusion varies from deciding what is the past and what is the future. He thought that he could see the world as one. If he knows himself that means he knows everyone. He is trying to relate himself to the crowd but he is having a hard time doing it and understanding his own identity. He sees everyone dressed normally just like him but still cant relate to them on the basis of their physical appearance. The question of Who is he? is the main goal of his poem.

At the end of the poem Whitman is able to resolve his dilemma. He finally sees that he is not different from other people on the ferry but he is also the part of the crowd. He realizes that the concept of “I” is what putting him in dilemma at the first place but after he related himself to the men and women on the ferry he was out of his misery.

I like how we had to think about the image that a specific stanza brought in our mind and then we had to look for it till it fit perfectly with what we thought.

I did not like how this website was not really compatible with my computer (MAC).

After participating in this project I learned that Whitman’s poem is not really hard to comprehend. The material that he talks about is all around us we just have to look deeper.

I thought the assignment was fine the way it was assigned

“It may be you transpire from the breasts of young men,
It may be if I had known them I would have loved them;
It may be you are from old people and from women, and from offspring taken soon out of their mothers’ laps,
And here you are the mothers’ laps.”

The image that I picked really stood out to me in respect to Whitman’s text because he is trying to create a special connection here between human beings and nature. The image shows a mother holding the baby which is how mother nature holds us in her arms. In the image the baby is looking away from the mother but the mother is looking at the baby with an expression of love and care in her eyes. This sums up how we treat our nature we never look at it the same way as it does on us. He is trying to tell us that nature is just not a  meaningless creation of god but every aspect of it has a special meaning and is related to all of us in one way or the other. We are all natures creativity. We are born from it and we end in its arms too but the nature never let us finish. It brings us back to life in one form or the other. In this case Whitman is referring grass as a median of bringing the finished back to life. His comparison of mother loosing a child to nature really captured my attention. As he says that when a mother loses a child nature takes  the child in her arms and treats them as her offsprings.

The lines mentioned above from the poem really made me think about all the innocent lives that we have lost in the war of Iraq. All the innocent souls that were killed in the war went back in mother nature’s arms forever. Even though mothers have lost their children but the children have not lost their mothers in this cruel war. 

http://en.wikivisual.com/images/2/22/Mother,Child,ReliefSculpture,SoldierField,Chicago.jpg

According to Emerson the knowledge in the books is old and is someone else’s work. Our educational institutions limits our creative thinking by telling us what and how to do everything. All the schools have an assigned syllabus that they go by semester after semester and almost following the same book that they have been assigning for the past couple of years with minor changes. The information that the teachers introduce us too are the discoveries or inventions that have been done 50 years ago. Our educational institutions teaches us that books are everything but, Emerson mentions that books are something but not a source of everything. Books are good to go back for references but not to be followed. 

Since every generation has different information requirement books from 10 years back cannot fulfill that requirement for the recent information. Educational institutions teach us to imitate the creative thinking of the others. Books should not be the source of imitation but should be a source of your own creative thoughts. It should make the “Man think” and not “the Thinker.”