Margaret Atwood "The Handmaid's Tale" Essay

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While I was reading this book "The Hand Maids Tale" I took note that it often spoke of the color red. Many things were signified with the color red, like the dresses the handmaids must where when they go out in public, the red vans. This got me wondering what is behind the significance of the color red, what is meant by its use. I also want to look at what effect labeling something with certain colors like the color red in this case has on people in a cult. I think if I can better understand the meaning behind this I can better understand its use in this book. Its not just the color red that is used to label something in this book. The wife's would wear blue dresses. So it can help me better understand many different aspects of this book.


If you want to learn more about the book "The Handmaid's Tale" or purchasing the book please visit
http://www.randomhouse.com/book/6125/the-handmaids-tale-by-margaret-atwood

Half way through the semester

Mrs. Cline,

      As we have passed through the half way mark in the semester I have to admit I am pleased with myself and the work I have done. English class has always been a struggle for me, and I am not going to lie, literary analysis has challenged me. With all that I feel I have grasped the idea of literary analysis fairly well. This type of writing makes you really dissect the literature, and look passed just the words to find the true meaning or reason for the author's writings. I felt like I struggled with the concept of a literary analysis at first. On our first essay I kept writing what I thought was more of a review of the reading. I must have had to go back and delete everything I had wrote several times before I got the hang of it.
  
      I have never been a strong reader, but I think with having to do this type of writing, it has really helped improved some of my reading skills. I hope to finish up this class as strong as I have started it and continue to get better at reading and literary analysis. It would really give me a sense of accomplishment, given my past English class struggles, to end the class on a strong note.

Sean Huze's "The Sand Storm"

Image Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-invasion_Iraq,_2003%E2%80%93present

The writings of this play bring us into what war is really about. Sometimes it can be hard for someone like me, who has never experienced and probably never will experience war, to fully understand what war can be like. Even with the written words like that of this story, we can only begin to imagine the true horror that goes on during war times.

In this play you can see how hard a war like this one can be extremely hard on a person. Faced every day with death and things we can't even fathom. One connection I made from this war story and others is the soldiers reactions to death itself. Often I see them describing how surprisingly they feel little emotion at first to the killing of other men. They often talk about how they wonder if there is something wrong with them, they feel almost non-human. They know what they are doing and feeling should be wrong, but they can't feel that. It is like the mind blocks the realness of the situation. The body and minds natural response is to avoid stressful situations and things of such horror, and I believe the lack of emotion a soldier speaks is the bodies response to the situation.

This particular war story hits home for me more than others because of my age. I was a freshman in High School when we went to war with Iraq. Most other war stories you read about are from a different generation such as Vietnam, and while I can still feel for those who lived through that, it was before my time. This was the war of my generation, at least so far, the soldiers that were involved in this War were not much older than me. I will be honest, until I read this story, I really didn't even look at the attack on Iraq as much of a war. It seemed to not last very long, and according to the media it almost seemed like we took Bagdad with ease and not much resistance. By seeing the stories of these soldiers paints a much different picture for me.

Even though the numbers of our troops that were killed was low in comparison to the enemy, the events that happened were still just as horrific for the soldiers as if they had been in WWII. The way they speak of how many civilian casualties there were, bodies all over the town, knowing that they did that. I couldn't imagine. This is something that will weigh on their shoulders forever. I think this play did a great job in delivering its message, and portraying the image in our minds about the events that occurred in Iraq.

If you would like to read more about Sean Huze and his experience with the war, please visit the link below
http://www.alternet.org/world/20358/

The Things They Carried

Image Source: http://www.newstimes.com/news/article/Author-O-Brien-reveals-life-in-war-zone-714834.php

The book written by Tim O'Brien titled "The Things They Carried" is filled with many interesting short stories. The stories that are written are based of events that occured in the Vietnam War. One story inparticular caught my special attention and really got me thinking. The story is titled "On the Rainy River". This story is based off a persnoal event in his life that changed his life, when he was drafted by the United States to fight in the Vietnam War.

In this story he writes about how assambed he was about the actions he took. A story he seemed embarrased to tell. He was a college student recently graduated, with a promising future. Like most people at the time of the war, he didn't understand why we were there, and what we were fighting for. Not wanting to fight in a war he did not understand or care to participatre in, he runs. He ran from his family, friends, and his life. He makes a run for the Canadian Border. In the end, he ends up never making to Canada and returns home and to the war.

Myself being a college student of about the same age, this story really got me thinking. What would I do if today i recieved a draft letter in the mail? I am a college student, with big hopes and dreams, and with a great future in mind for myself. I don't think I would behave much differently than Tim O'Brien did in this story. I think I can speak for many when I say the first thing that would probably come to mind would be RUN! This is a real life possibility for anyone of us. The draft is still something that can be utilized today. So I don't think down on Tim O'Brien at all for how he acted. I think even though he went back, to fight a war he did not understand, it was incredibly brave. I don't know if I would be able to do the same, if it had been me I might have very well made it to Canada.


If you are interested in the author Tim O'Brien or in finding other books of his please visit this link
http://www.illyria.com/tobhp.html

Poetry of Witness

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We were asked to respond to, two poems that we reacted to in some way. I can't say I was able to personally relate to any of the poems we were asked to read, however there were several poems that shocked me or I had some feeling towards when I was done reading them.

The first poem I chose was one that surprised me. It turned out to be about something completely different then what I had originally envisioned. The poem I am talking about it titled, "Immigrants in Our Own Land" by Jimmy Santiago Baca. Part of my misconception may be due in part to the title. After reading the title I assumed that I would be reading a poem about immigration from a foreign country. The way the writer describes the process of arriving to the new world, "We take Tests. Some of us were craftsman in the old world, good with our hands and proud of our work"(Baca lines 9-11). This passage here depicts to me what it might be like for an immigrant just arriving to the United States. I believe the author's intent was to mislead his readers at first

The point at which the writer really caught my attention was on line 42 where he writes, " My cell is crisscrossed by laundry lines"(Baca Line 42-43). At first I was hit with a sense of confusion, but as I read I realized he wasn't talking about immigration into a country I believed he was talk about prison. I just thought it was so fantastic how he made that connection. He had all his readers thinking one thing but then adds a twist.

    Image Source: http://barkeryear10vietnam.pbworks.com/w/page/11427576/Legacy-of-the-War

The other poem that caught my attention is again not because of any personal experience but did get me thinking. This poem is title, "Songs of Napalm" by Bruce Weigl. Even though most of us today were not in Vietnam, and not many people I know were even around during that time, we can still feel for the veterans in that war. After reading this you can get an understanding of how traumatic it was for those of that were there. What was seen by the soldiers of that war will not soon be forgotten. This poem shows how even the calmest of things such as a thunderstorm can bring back the worst of memories.

A good example of this is in line 21 where the author writes, "But still the branches are wire and the thunder is pounding mortar"(Weigl Line 21). You can see from this example that these former soldiers can't escape from their horrible memories. I have several friends that are in the service right now, and I pray that none of my friends come home with painful memories like the ones this poem represents.

If you would like to read more about the Vietnam War please go to http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/modules/vietnam/index.cfm
I found some interesting things on this website.

Works Cited:

Jimmy Santiago Baca."Immigrants in Our Land", Archaeology of the Cirlce 1990
Website: http://www.ndpublishing.com/.

Bruce Weigl. "Songs of Napalm" New Directions Publishing Corp 1999
Website: http://www.groveatlantic.com/

Sam Hamill's "The Necessity to speak"

Image source: http://dianedimond.net/some-sex-crimes-get-a-pass-%E2%80%93-why/   



    In Sam Hamills writing "The Necessity to Speak" touches on a very interesting and highly controvesial subject. He essentially talks about we as human beings and americans are our own worst enemies. We wish to live in a world free of violence. Every evening we turn on the news and see countless stories of someone was murdered or beatten in an alley. We fear the images of this, and wish the world was just a better place. So we close out eyes and pretend it is, we do not face reality and deal with our problems.

     Sam Hamill writes that we promote viloence in this world but our silence. We hide our children from grim realities, realities of our past. Ones we feel are just to hard to deal with, and the children should never have to know such horror. We prefer to live in our own little fairy tails, the violence occuring in other countries are viewed as not our problem. What can we do about it from here? He talks about how a beatten child eventually will turn into the beatter, he learns it is best to be the beatter rather than the victom.

    We also establish as a society a acceptable level of violence, we promote going into the military where you are trained to kill, a father uses a level of violence to dicipline a child, we have violence in our movies and all around us, violence that is seen to be within the boundry. So how can we expect to ride ourselves of all the violence in the world when we view a level of it "ok"

     Sam Hamill believes our silence is our own worst enemy, in trying to hide our children from truths, a women not speaking up about her abuser, not facing the realities of the world, we are promoting the murder's and muggers, giving them free passage. We learn in his writing that Sam himself was a victim in a violent incedent. Later in life he joins the Military. He has seen both sides of the fence, the victom and the executioner.

    At the end of his story he offers the idea that poetry may be a way to end the silence. It is a way to ge the truth on paper. We may not like to read or know the truth. We perfer our own reality, but we need to see the truth. Read a poem that expresses something that ay be hard to deal with but has trhe potenital to maks us better as a society. Are we really protecting ourselves by ignoring the truth.

     Sam also see's poetry as a way for omeone who has been through a tramatic event such as someone who was been beat or abused, that may experience extreme anxiety, to release this emotion. They can be over whelmed with emotion and consumed by it, casuing them to act out to loved ones, paussibly violently. Poerty can act as a release, a way to express their feelings and vent your emotions, and I agree with this. Often when you read a piece of poetry you can see the author's emotions at the time he or she wrote it. Just as a musician writes a song about a lost love.

   I found this to be intersting, and make you think a lot about society today. How we deal with certain stressors, and how we become they way we are. Every event in our life can be routed back to the type of person we become.


Here is more info on violence against women in the U.S. if you wish to lean more about this issue.
http://www.now.org/issues/violence/stats.html

Good Readers

What makes a good reader? To me this is a question with many answers, and can somewhat a matter of opinion. I think each piece of writing is meant to be approached in a different way. To be a truly good reader you need to be able to see how to approach a certain piece of writing as the way it was written to be approached. I think Nabokov touched on that a little in this article. He mentions in order to completely appreciate a book for what it is you have to begin the story with an open mind, no assumptions as to what the book is. He suggests that when you begin a book you should try to remember the idea that each new book is like a creation of a new world, and we need to study this new world closely before we make our judgments. I agree with this notion as well as his comment, a good reader should have an imagination and some artistic sense.

            Would I fall into any of these criteria? I have had struggles entering a book with an open mind, it takes a lot for me to like a book, I generally like books that are part fictional but not something that is so farfetched that it is unbelievable.  I do have some artistic sense and imagination, but my reading skills have much room for improvement in my eyes.