No matter how many times I read Othello, I still strongly dislike it thanks to Shakespeare’s writing technique. By continuing to ramble on and on, his writing gets wordy and makes no sense whatsoever; reading it constantly confused me rather than making me understand what was actually taking place throughout the play. Thankfully, I was fortunate enough to be able to turn to the World Wide Web for guidance and clarity regarding Othello. Although every character is important in the play, there is one character that stands out – Iago. Iago is a total douchebag. He is extremely manipulative, outrageously obsessive, and always in the middle of everything. Throughout the play, Iago constantly tries to ruin the relationships between several of the characters making him like the “villain” found in a childhood story. Just as a villain’s goal is to cause harm for other people, Iago’s goal is to hurt Othello just because he chose Cassio instead of him for a lieutenant position. Helping him achieve his goal is Roderigo. In the beginning, he manipulates Roderigo into thinking that if he helps him tear Othello and Desdemona apart, Desdemona will be his forever. He also starts a rumor regarding a sexual encounter between Desdemona and Cassio. Iago not only thinks of way to benefit him, he seems to get satisfaction of making the other character’s lives chaotic and filled with drama. He acts like he is being a helpful friend for the characters when in reality he laughs because he could care less about them. Iago’s character reminds me of many high school girls. They are nice to your face, but as soon as your back is turned and you put trust into them, they screw you over.
Langston Hughes’ “Song for a Dark Girl”
The Harlem Renaissance commonly known as the “New Negro Movement” is a literary, artistic, cultural, and intellectual movement. This movement inspires many black writers to share their creativity with others. One of the most important black writers of the Harlem Renaissance who is a prominent advocate for the struggle of African American equality is Langston Hughes. Langston Hughes is an African American poet who uses much of his own personal experiences, including how he sees the inequality of race differences and the variations of social class to construct his outstanding poems. Most of Langston Hughes’ poems show several of his unique writing techniques including the use of several metaphors to improve the reader’s ability to interpret the meaning of the poem – his poems are much simpler than those of Shakespeare, Donne, and Dickinson. For example, in his poem, “Song for a Dark Girl,” a woman compares Jesus Christ to several white men who hang her beloved. Throughout this metaphor, the woman blames Jesus Christ for causing her this unbearable amount of pain while offering her no sympathy or condolences. Langston Hughes also uses figurative language and poetic structure to strengthen the intended messages of the poems. He includes the repetition of “Way Down South in Dixie” and capitalization of every beginning line to express how influential and important the setting in the “Down South” really is. Langston Hughes also uses poetic structure more specifically an ABAB rhyme scheme. His choice to use an ABAB rhyme scheme allows the poem to be read and understood with ease because every other line of the poem rhymes. Langston Hughes’ did not only have a remarkable influence on the Harlem Renaissance but on future generations of all difference ethnic groups as well.
Shakespeare vs. Dickinson
Several poets, including Emily Dickinson, have chosen to travel the path less traveled by – she writes on topics including death and mortality, madness, isolation, and sex, which most authors would hesitate to publish. Dickinson’s one-of-a-kind informal poems consist of very little to no rhyme schemes and organizational aspects alongside erratic punctuation which help foreshadow her own sporadic mind. For instance, every poet’s poem is written differently just as no two people are the same. Shakespeare’s poems express formal and strict guidelines including specific organization such as meters and rhyme schemes while Emily Dickinson’s poems contain a far less complex organizational technique. Both poets use extending metaphors and offer the reader with the ability to interpret deeper meanings throughout their poems. However, I believe that Emily Dickinson’s unique writing skills are used to develop her poems into something greater than just a few words on a tiny piece of paper.
Emily Dickinson’s writing techniques are sporadic. For one, most of her poems seem to all revolve around unhappy occasions that she has first-hand experience of. In her poem, “I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,” she starts off by showing that her brain is gradually fading away. Secondly, her grammar is not formal like Shakespeare’s. Her punctuation means more than just a dash here and there; it serves as her way of showing the good and the bad times in her life and allows the reader to ponder what happens after the “Boots of Lead” crush her mind which put herself into complete isolation. Also, her capitalization “errors” are placed in the poem simply for emphasize and importance of the fact that her life of solitude influenced much of her writing because she is in the poem, “I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,” slowly slipping from sanity to insanity. Dickinson’s poems are prime examples of how one can use their unique writing techniques to impact the world.
I Confess to Thee…
Poetry is a six letter word that has the ability to make me cringe. In all honesty, I do not like poetry…at all. The way that poets, including Shakespeare, write is awkward and difficult for me to comprehend especially when specific poems have more than one meaning. For instance, I am the type of person who is extremely organized. I like everything to be an exact way including what I read and write. I believe that because I am this way, it irks me that one poem can mean several different things – there is not only one answer. However, by utilizing several of the techniques that were discussed in class, such as rereading the entire poem several times then carefully analyzing what each line of the poem was saying and looking up words I really had no idea what they meant, I was able to better understand what the poet was actually trying to portray even though I may not have read it in a deeper meaning. For example, I believe that Shakespeare’s 18th sonnet “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” is comparing a woman, such as his wife or his mistress, to Mother Nature’s essence and natural beauty. Is that what Shakespeare was trying to imply or not? For me, I look at the surface of the poem – I do not automatically try to find the actual deep meaning of the story line which is a glaring fault of mine. I also do not understand some of the diction that Shakespeare uses because I am not used to that style of writing from that era. Even though poetry has been and continues to be a literary struggle for me, I believe that this class can improve my poetry reading and analysis skills.
John Donne’s “The Flea”
John Donne’s poem, “The Flea” is a really strange and awkward poem at first glance. When skimming the title “The Flea” or reading the poem a few times, a person may believe that John Donne is simply talking about how a flea that, “has sucked first his blood, then her blood, so that now, inside the flea, they are mingled,” when really he is trying to portray the thought of a flea joining two people together in a way that they cannot be separated because of something complex as marriage. John Donne’s uses a flea to symbolize a relationship such as marriage, which is something I would not compare it to because fleas are pests and are not romantic in any sense of the word. Donne uses a flea to show that just as a flea can attach to an animal, two people can be together forever even if they do not want to be anymore. Also, Donne’s poem shows that even though each individual’s parents do not approve of their spouse, they will be together regardless because of a flea. Donne’s use of a flea as a symbol of something more meaningful between two people (usually when someone mentions a flea, they want the pest to die so that they never see them again) helps his poem become more complex. Throughout the poem, I believe that Donne continues to hint at the act of sex without actually saying the word “sex.” It is like the flea symbolizes being bitten by “sin, or shame, or loss of maidenhead.”
Ernest Hemingway’s “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place”
At first glance, Ernest Hemingway’s short story, “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place,” is simple and realistic. However, Hemingway allows the reader to dig deeper into the actual meaning of the story by focusing mainly on the relationship between people of different ages (the old man and the young/old waiters) and their actions and reactions to one another. For example, the young waiter is like my generation today. He is selfish, inconsiderate of anyone but himself, and thinks he knows everything – it is his life and he will do as he sees fit. His actions and reactions are based on what is happening now – he does not look to the future and how something might affect him later on down the road. As the young waiter ages, he too may be exactly like the old man sitting in the café just wanting to pass the time by before he has to return to his lonely, empty home. On the other hand, older generations such as the old man and the old waiter’s make their judgments based on previous situations and by taking into account where they will be in the future – they think ahead instead of just seeing what is right in front of their eyes. For example, the older man has been through many obstacles and wants a “clean, well-lighted place” to stay for a while because he would rather not go home to his empty house. This particular “clean, well-lighted place” serves as a place to help heal the lonely – it will be there when nobody else is around. The old waiter sympathizes with the old man because he understands what the old man is going through because his own life is filled with loneliness and much despair. Hemingway uses age to symbolize how today (younger) generation is acts much different than many generations before them due to the fact that they experience obstacles in various ways and have ultimately different ways of thinking.
Kate Chopin’s “The Storm”
Kate Chopin’s “The Storm” reveals the impact her use of specific elements of the setting helps strengthen her short story. The setting was not set in today’s society, which helps one better distinguish the character’s class differences. For example, Calixta and Bobinot’s dialect, a combination of French and English, represents those who could spend time and money with schooling in the upper class while Alcee’s dialect focuses on speaking proper English (speech of average, ordinary people – low class). When each character talks, you are easily reminded of where each person came from and what their class may be. I believe that “The Storm” symbolizes more than just a type of gloomy, wet weather; it initiated the whole plot. At first, the storm is just beginning and Calixta’s house is used as a shelter not only herself, but for Alcee – an old flame (her husband Bobinot and son Bibi are away at the Freidman Store). Instead of Calixta being with her family, another man comes into her home, literally takes Bobinot’s place in the bedroom, and as “a bolt stuck a tall china-berry tree at the edge of the field,” he has a sexual encounter with Bobinot’s wife. When the storm starts to fade away, Alcee leaves and Bobinot (still completely unaware of what just happened) comes home. Regardless of whether the affair between Calixta and Alcee ends or not, or whether Bobinot ever finds out about it, in the end everybody is “happy.” That’s what counts, right? Just like my grandpa once told me, “In the end you will be happy, if you are not happy, then it is not the end.”
Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart”
When you first start reading, “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe, you meet a man who is doing everything in his will power to convince someone that he is not mad. Continuing on throughout the story, he repeatedly states that he is not mad yet, he still struggles with convincing himself that he is in fact not mad. He goes on to explain how he murdered a man, not because he hated the old man or wanted his riches, (he actually did like him), but because he could not stand to look at his unappealing pale blue eye. As most cold-blooded “madmen” do when talking about a murder they committed, he too did not lose his composure one bit as if he truly believes he did no wrong in murdering the old man; he bettered himself because he does not have to look at the man’s eye ever again. He stated, “Object there was none. Passion there was none…For his gold I had no desire. I think it was his eye! Yes, it was this!” Alongside his motive to kill the old man, is his evidence that he is smart therefore he cannot be a mad man. For example, he states that “madmen know nothing. But you should have seen me.” He is overly confident that the police will not suspect any foul-play because unlike madmen who know nothing about how to properly get away with murder because they are not smart enough, he in fact does. He states, “If still you think me mad, you will think so no longer when I describe the wise precautions I took for the concealment of the body.” He believes that since he took the time to cut the body into pieces and hide them under the floorboards that he is “smart” and could not be a mad because “madmen know nothing.” As he continues to justify his actions to the police, he is bothered by something in his ears, a noise that grows so unbearable that he shrieks, “I admit the deed!” His reasoning for being smarter than a mad man and his drive for committing such a hapless crime is evidence that he was in fact a mad man.
John Updike’s A & P
In John Updike’s short story, “A & P”, he makes various statements regarding his observations within the grocery store. Most of his comments are about the girls within the store and revolve around human nature and the society one lives in. For example, Sammy begins talking about the girls’ body types, whether one is fat and the other is tall, to how he and society views each individual girl’s specific features and their outfit choices of bikinis. By constantly commenting on each of the girls’ appearances, you can see how males, married like Stokesie or single as is Sammy, behave around females these days; like animals. Just as males naturally do, society also judges people, mainly women, based solely on their outside appearance not what is in the inside.
Alongside how males normally degrade girls with society helping “fuel the fire,” Updike includes Lengel, a character who portrays today’s Christian way of thinking and authority. Lengel is a Sunday school teacher and the manager at the grocery store Sammy and Stokesie works at. Lengel judges the girls’ appearances, yells at them, and then embarrasses them despite the fact that he is a “Christian” man. By using Lengel as a character, he shows that not all Christians are perfect; everyone at some time in their life has judged someone else. Another character John Updike uses in his short story is Sammy who tries to be the girl’s “hero” which in the end, the girls exit the grocery store without looking back.
marandaparham 