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I have to say, I really do feel bad for Charlie Kane. Given away to a bank, growing up in a cut-throat world. It’s too bad there wasn’t child services back then. The choices he made could have been better too. It was good that he picked up the newspaper industry, it was what he was interested in. The power hunger wasn’t good for him either.
I thought the concept of finding what “rosebud” was was pretty cool. Reporters from a newspaper trying to find the meaning of the last words from a famous newspaper owner. Whats more it was neat to find out it was a symbol of his past, of the good times he had as a kid when the bank didn’t own him.

Willy is a troubled man. He brought up his kids thinking that they were to follow in his footsteps and it would work out perfectly. 1 for 2 bud, good job there. Whether he was brought up that way or its just the way he is, that mindset that his plan for them is the plan they will follow is his flaw and merit.
The reason that he is flawed is the way he handles Biff. Willy believes that the sons should follow the father’s orders like good little soldiers, but now that they are grown they have minds of their own and Willy doesn’t seem to be comprehending that. When Biff tries to explain what really happened at his meeting with Oliver Willy keeps interrupting. Willy knows that things went wrong but is trying to convince himself of a different result.
Even if his plans for his boys blinds him from reality, its still good to have a plan. Both Willy and the boys get excited when talking about future prospects. This whole planning process is key to the family because its one of the only things that makes them happy to be with each other.
All in all Willy is lost. He doesn’t know what to do with Biff. He is searching for answers from everyone he meets or remembers. When Willy flashbacks with Ben he is only amazed with Ben’s success. When Willy goes to Bernard in the present Bernard has no solutions for him. Willy needs to open himself up to the possibility that things don’t go as planned, this is what we have to learn from him.

This cool cat knows whats up.

Reading Death of a Salesman is actually not that hard to follow. Granted sure if you have not seen the movie before than yeah the fights would probably be dumbed down a lot and you wouldn’t get the gusto of Willy and his tirades. For example, when Charley comes over in the evening for cards and Willy starts talking to both Charley and the memory of Ben the fight from the book seems tame compared to the movie. “If you don’t know how to play the game I’m not gonna throw my money away on you!” is a quote that from the book I took as a more quiet, seated Willy.
I think that the way the book and the movie match up is quite amazing. Yeah plays need to go by the lines but from what I’ve read and what I’ve seen they are perfect, despite some stage directions.

Well I certainly thought that this project was meant to present an overall image for these poems more than analyzing. Granted my group did have quite a bit of analyzing but hey, we made sure to tell of the images, garden path with seed pods, poplar tree, ivy crown. Not to be rude to the other groups but there wasn’t much to the visuals to me. But if I had to pick one (not my own) I would have to say “The Dance” by William Carlos Williams.

Just reading through the poem makes me visualize a white forest with a dancer under the trees. “When the snow falls the flakes spin upon the long axis.” I can really understand though where the “life is a dance” thing comes in too, “Breathlessly you will take another partner better or worse,” being of marriage. And there are other points in there but I’m not sure how to explain them.

But even still I could see this type of setting from this poem (yeyeah finally used one of my own pics in a blog!).

Imagism. No fluff. No crap. Just straight up meaning. I like it!
Going over The Red Wheelbarrow was pretty nice actually. I easily understood what everything meant (till theme came up which even still I wasn’t too far behind) and sort of found a way to make analyzing simpler. But I think it is too bad that the movement didn’t last longer. I think there should be more of imagism to work with today. Just looking around there is so much fluff that there would be no amount of peanut butter and not enough slices of bread to cover it all.

Then there is that problem of finding the meaning of the words. Sure you have to slow down and take it line by line, word by word. But even still, if you don’t know the meaning, or are having an off day, you’re going to be a bit slow. Analyzing was easy with The Red Wheelbarrow because there were some pretty simple symbols in that poem. I guess we will see how things go with these other two. Fun fun.

Something to leave you craving.

As a poem, Howl seems to be quite an event in itself. Giving a good smack in the face of society is what was intended, and apparantly it did its job. It sort of makes me think of a counterweight to The Waste Land. One being the lack of morality and one being the excess.

I really don’t know what to say about this piece of work. I think its great that Ginsberg spoke his mind about the times and did not hold back about it. The use of diction is…well, creative. I also like the structure of the work, set up of three parts, each part having its own mirrored look. But something still doesn’t want me to like this work, but I’m not sure what.

The analyzing of it kind of seemed a bit mundane. Yeah we recognized what parts were based on what theme (war, politics, etc.), and yeah we understand that the stuff he mentions was what was going on. So I think its knowing what parts are important is what gets me.

Now this is what I call a poem in good form.

Now that I think about it, this poem doesn’t really apply to society at all anymore. Eliot wrote this in what, 1922? At this time all anyone could think of was money and sex. This is the time of Al Capone, speakeasies, and flapper girls. Everyone was carefree and reckless, buying stocks like its nobody’s business, spending what they want. Yeah morality was out the window, but translating that to now is like black and white. We as a nation have grown out of our infant years. America is over 200 years old, we should have learned some sense of homeostasis by now. Sure you might say the idiots making a racket at a college party next door might not have caught on but every societal group has dysfunction somewhere.

To me, The Waste Land seems to be one of the “great” pieces of literature of American times. It’s one of those works that if you would trace down the ideas of morality or ethics or of the sort you would find it to be the origin. In fact it could be called an “Origin-piece”, if I may coin a term. But honestly I don’t think I am getting the intended message from this work. I think I understand the overall jist of it, but thinking deeper isn’t clicking right. Certainly doesn’t help that I know next to nothing about biblical history.

It’s been a while since I’ve posted green, thought it was about time. Sharps Compliance, the company which 3 million people with medical problems dispose their needles to, have created a solution to their stack of needles. Since the needles cannot be reused in accordance to government policy and a landfill of needles sounds like the most dangerous thing next to oil spills, Sharps Compliance has found a way to safely dispose and reuse. They have begun sanitizing and grinding down needles and lancets to create PELLA-DRX, a material which could be used for building foundations, park benches (I’m going to check my seat before I sit now I know it), roadways, and other constructions of the like.

This story also reminds me of my 9th grade research paper topic “Should clean needles be given to intravenous drug users?” Now drug users don’t have to worry about harming the environment, how nice!

As always with poems or short stories by older authors, my first reaction to this one is awe and confusion. But after a bit of going over it, just like always, I start to enjoy it. Even if this is yet another work about how society is influencing us The Waste Land does seem interesting. I always love connections to greek mythology so I’m glad some of that is in it. Granted I’m not much of a christian and have not read the bible at all, I do appreciate religious factors put into it because most of the values I (try to) live by are illustrated in the bible. I think that it is also beneficial that its separated into parts so its a bit easier to understand, bit by bit.

Going over The Waste Land the way we did was a lot easier to understand that if we did it alone. I don’t necessarily know enough to link allusions and the poem together, nor have I really had a good educational history of analyzing until this year. I can sort of take notes about what we talk about, and when I go back over it the words bring back the meaning behind them sometimes.

Herman Melville’s story of a boss and an uncooperative employee tells us many things. The Boss gives us a light and dark side to helping others, selflessness and selfishness. The work not only explains how materialistic society was becoming, but also applies to today’s society. There is a lesson to be taken from this.

Selflessness is defined as “the quality of unselfish concern for the welfare of others” by The Free Dictionary. The Boss exemplifies this quality all throughout the work. Once Bartleby entered the office, he has received the best attention from the Boss than any office would give, his own work area, a screen for privacy, and window to the world. When he finds out that Bartleby is sleeping at the office, the Boss feels pity for the man and decides not to call the police. But Bartleby turns to refusing to do the work asked of him and the Boss is dumbfounded.  He wracks his brain to find a way to help this man without sending him to the authorities but only comes up with giving Bartleby money and letting him go, “I owe you twelve dollars on account; here are thirty-two; the odd twenty are yours.—Will you take it?”  When Bartleby refuses even that, the Boss becomes even more confused. So as a solution the Boss moves his office, trying to pass it off to Bartleby as a simple environment issue. The Boss’s final act of desperate selflessness is when he offers Bartleby his home. But, even after the charity given, the Boss’s motives were not always true.

Selfishness, then,  is defined as “concerned chiefly or only with oneself” by The Free Dictionary. Even if the Boss seemed to be doing the right thing by attempting to aid Bartleby, a sense of self-approval came over him. “To befriend Bartleby; to humor him in his strange wilfulness, will cost me little or nothing, while I lay up in my soul what will eventually prove a sweet morsel for my conscience.” By being friendly to Bartleby and trying to help him, the Boss thinks that karma will prove in his favor. As opaque as it seems, the Boss’s little bribe to Bartleby was a shot in the dark to try to rid himself of the uncooperative employee. The change of location of the office is also an act of selfishness, the Boss is out of ideas so he simply moves himself. When Bartleby is moved to the “Tomb” the Boss just gets desperate to prove that he is a good person by inviting Bartleby to stay at his place. Under the nice exterior of the Boss there are selfish motives.

One of the more important aspects of the story is the point of Bartleby’s rebellion. By putting him in an office on Wall-Street, Herman Melville is describing how the economy is like back in 1853. Everyday is about getting the work done and getting paid. Even the times of day are associated to the wild employees Turkey and Nippers, angry when the simplest of things are not up to their standard of work. Even the Boss, who tries to bribe Bartleby with money, is caught up in the changing society. Bartleby seems to be the only one who is resisting, “preferring not to” do the work of Wall-Street. Eventually he stops all together, staring out a window to a wall as if the wall is his enemy, blocking him from a better world. This culture can be linked to present day, with the exception of the scrivener. The value of someone now is mostly based on how much money they have or what shiny new toy they just bought. Most people do not value others for their actions or words, to them money speaks louder.

The lesson that any reader should get from this story is that others are more important that material possessions. You can’t buy friends, you can only greet them with a smile and let things roll. Having friends isn’t about what kind of cars you have or the latest phone, but what you do together, your actions and words.