Piano

Piano by D.H. Lawrence

The music takes over a man as it makes him think of a simpler time, his childhood.

In the evening, hearing a woman singing to a piano makes the narrator think of a child sitting under the piano at the mothers feet as she plays piano and sings. He returns to the present time then, again, remembers the child, himself on winter Sunday nights singing hymns accompanied by a piano. The singer in present time gets a little louder and he returns to reality and upon reminiscing on his childhood, he becomes sad wanting the past.

Colonel Satoris

Did anyone else notice that William Faulkner used the name "Colonel Satoris" in both of his stories that we read in class. In "A Rose for Emily" you can find it on page 31 and in "Barn Burning" you can find it on page 31. Just a little something I noticed.

Love Poem Over Toast Paraphrase

We do a lot of things intentionally to start our days. We start the day with a routine, get up, drink coffee, get in the car and go. And then we go through our days preventing things, whatever the media tells us we need to prevent like aging skin. We are materialistic and we like our things to be nice (keep the hoe from rusting), and we like to let everyone know that our lives are perfect, and hate the think that anyone would know any different. We say yes and no throughout the day as each day is like every other day. We spend our days, our lives, wanting instead of appreciating what we have, what we’re doing, and living in the moment. Since all we do is want, we want each other so at the end, we don’t want to leave each other, but we want to love more and more real than we do. We look at each other and pretend that we love each other as we want to.

Love Poem over Toast

So I had two different summaries of the poem, Love Poem over Toast. The first was:

A husband and wife sit at breakfast thinking of their monotonous lives. They think of the end instead of the present.

And the second was:

Two lovers sit at breakfast looking at eachother knowing the affair is over. They know the "love" is just physical attraction instead of soul and mind.

Stock Western Characters

The Stock Western Characters

Cowboy hero
Greasy villian and his bandits
Corrupt Sheriff
Helpful priest
Beautiful lady- always attracted by or to the cowboy hero
Faithful horse
Sometimes the sidekick

Plato's Cave People vs Robert

Plato tells about people seeing things on the wall but not in real life. The blind man can't see anything except through words and feeling. Neither the people in the cave nor the blind man saw everything as it was. As the people walking by showed the people shapes through shadows, the husband showed the blind man through drawing the cathedral. The people were stuck against/ toward the wall as Robert was stuck being blind.

The Chronological Happenings of Miss Emily

Miss Emily lived with her dad and her hired hand. She gave piano lessons and painted. Her dad had lent money to the city and because he did, they didn't make him or Miss Emily pay taxes. Her dad died and Miss Emily refused to believe he was dead. She let anyone touch his body until 3 days after he died. After she died, she stayed in her house with the hired hand. Next time she was seen, she had cut her hair and was with Homer Barron, a Yankee. Emily's cousins came to stay wth Miss Emily and Homer disappeared. She kicked them out and he returned Everyone thought they were married by how she started to act. She bought rat poison and then Homer disappeared again. She closed all of her windows and shut up the house upstairs. The house started to stink and so some locals put some lysol into a window. She wasn't seen much after that. When she died, the help let people in and they found her downstairs. They went upstairs and found the remains of Homer Barron on a bed with everything set out as if a wedding had just occured. On the pillow next to him was a grey hair and a pillow that was dented in as if a head had just been laying there.

Point of View

Amanda Kom
Dr. Hepworth
ENGL 150-03 Introduction to Literature
29 January 2007
Alternative Points of View
(Third person point of view for John Updike’s “A & P”- a non participant point of view)
As Sammy stood in a slouched stance ringing in his customer’s groceries, three young and nearly naked girls walked into the store. Sammy didn’t notice until he held the HiHo crackers. But when he noticed, he froze and stared at the girls in only their bathing suits. He instantly memorized ever curve and freckle on each girl and took extra notice of the girl in a beige bathing suit that led her two friends.
The old lady that was waiting for her groceries to be checked grunted to get Sammy’s attention. Sammy instantly snapped back into reality and checked the crackers a second time. The lady snapped, “You already rang those up, are you trying to charge a poor old woman more than she already has to pay? Back in my day…”
(First person point of view for William Faulkner’s “A Rose For Emily”- an observer)
I watched all of the other town’s women in their tight, short, black dresses as we all stood over Miss Emily Grierson’s grave. They didn’t even care that she had died, they were only curious and wanted to see all of the latest news firsthand so they’d have something to gossip about later.
Most of us used to take care, in a way, of Miss Emily before she cut herself off completely. She was very stubborn and we couldn’t do anything directly for her. We left her alone and the city didn’t make her pay taxes, but I heard that caused some disagreement with the newer tax collectors. I don’t think she ever knew the kinds of sacrifices people made for her.
(Third person point of view from Eudora Welty’s “Why I live at the P.O.”- nonparticipant)
Stella-Rondo moved back to her parents house after she and her husband, Mr. Whitaker, separated. Hurt but prideful, she told her family her biased side of the story, so everyone, Mama, Papa-Daddy, and Uncle Rondo, pitied her. Everyone but her sister, who was older by one year and one day. She saw right through Stella-Rondo and despised her for being the spoiled baby of the family.
Stella-Rondo didn’t come back home by herself, but with a two year old child that she had named Shirley-T. She swore she was adopted, but she resembled Stella-Rondo and Mr. Whitaker to a tee. To keep negative attention off of herself, she framed her sister almost immediately and tried her hardest to make the family mad at her.

Amanda Kom
ENGL 150-03
January 23, 2007
The Foolish Hyena
One day somewhere in Africa, a Hyena passed by a working Meerkat.
“What are you doing?” The Hyena asked.
The Meerkat replied, “Working.”
“Why work?” The Hyena scoffed. “The sun is bright and the season is young! Play! Play in the sun!”
“If I play, then nothing will be ready when the rainy season comes! While you are out in the wet weather, I will be having my own fun and I won’t be miserable. You will see.”
The Hyena rolled on his back laughing at what he just heard. He ignored the Meerkat’s warning and continued playing in the bright African sun. He chased butterflies, teased hedgehogs, and laid out for Hyena naps in the hottest part of the afternoons.
A month later, the Hyena saw the Meerkat working again. He boisterously pounced in the direction of a feeding hare, not to catch it, but to flaunt that he was having fun while the Meerkat worked. The Meerkat didn’t even glance in the Hyena’s direction and this irritated the Hyena. He tried again. This time, he got a little closer to the Meerkat and rolled in the grass and laughed very loudly. The Meerkat continued working.
“Do Meerkats ever have fun?” he inquired.
“You will see, Hyena.” And the Meerkat continued working.
One more month passed and every day brought with it a new grey cloud. The Meerkat had finished preparing for the rainy season and was enjoying the last bit of the sun. The Hyena returned a third time, tired from playing so much in the past months. He laid down near the Meerkat’s home while he watched the Meerkat play his Meerkat games.
He chuckled (since he was too tired to laugh) and mocked the Meerkat, “You only had a week to enjoy the sun, but I had months. Don’t you wish you would have played instead of worked?”
The Meerkat smiled, “I am not sorry that I worked. In a few days, I will still be having fun and you will be sad that you played so much. You will see.”
Three days later, the grey clouds started to rain. The first day, the Hyena stayed under a tree as he was still tired from playing. The Meerkat was dry in the water resistant home he had worked hard to build. He was smiling and enjoying the relaxing patter of the raindrops above him.
The days went on and it continued to rain. The Hyena had nowhere to go but under the few surrounding trees, and even then he was getting a little wet. He was miserable and starting to catch a cold. He sneezed and coughed and sniffled until one day the Meerkat peeked out of his hole.
“Are you sneezing, Hyena? Did you catch cold?”
The humiliated Hyena nodded and sniffled again.
“Wait just a moment.” And the Meerkat disappeared. He reappeared with some herbs and berries. He scampered over to the Hyena with the remedy. “Did you learn your lesson, Hyena?”
The Hyena nodded again.
“Well, I think you have too. Come with me. I made my home big enough to share.”

Moral: Working before playing will pay off.

This is Amanda Kom and this is my blogspot. :)