In Class Essay: Desire

*How poetic devices help to convey the speaker's complex attitude toward desire

Prewrite:
-Lines 1-4 says how desire is evil, a bad thing to have but it also can play an important role as a motivator
-The narrator states that people finally realize that desire is bad when they are rock bottom
-Rhyming, fluid tempo, slow, regretful, sorrow? not really but somewhat dark/sad

     Desire, wanting something causing you to act differently in order to attain it. Most people all have desires, whether it is small or something large, it's something quite inevitable. In the peom Thou Blind Man's Mark by Sir Phillip Sidney, he expresses the misfortunes of desire through his tone, mood, rhyming patterns, syntax and diction.
     The poem starts with the ideas that desire is evil, up to no good. Although at first it may play a role to you as a motivation, soon desire will lead to more desire, causing you to become greedy and in the process, hurting others in order to get what you want.
     At first, I felt as if the repetitive rhyming scheme seemed to take the seriousness and the mood of the poem, but the more you read it and understand the context, you start to understand that the rhyming plays a role to maintain the connection of desire and the nagative outcomes forplaying. The poem has a fluid tempo which helps ellaborate the point across, making it easier to read. The mood, tone, syntax and diction used by the author helps convey the exact emotion and thought of the author about the subject of desire.
     It is clear that desire seems to be the downfall of most people yet we cannot stop the feeling of wanting something, because of course that is what keeps us going. The authors uses of the poetic devices such as the rhyming, and the use of specific negative words, illustrates a gloomy aura for the poem as a whole making it obvious of the distaste desire brings.

Poetry Essay: The More Loving One by W.H. Auden

Prewrite:
-The tone is very delicate but still very strong in meaning
-Be the man not the beast
-If two people cannot love equally, the narrator would rather be the one who loves more than the one to be loved more.
-the narrator seems to be the bigger or the better person compared to many people, he is very sincere and honest with his feelings.

     We often go through our lives hoping to find that one special person that is will love you back equally and provide you what you need. Although we desire so much, in reality, there will always be one side that cares and puts more effort than the other, that's the whole concept of individuality, right? In this peom, The More Loving One by W.H. Auden portrays the feeling and thoughts of a person who would rather be the better and make the best of everything he has.
      In the first stanza, Auden draws out a person who would choose to be a man and not a beast who takes all he hads for granted just to achieve what he wants most. People are made to want more, to be motivated but often times it leads to being greedy, wanting more than what you are able to give back. But of course, that's what most people want, to be loved and to do less but attain more. Others can care less in all honesty what happens to you, in the end the majority will save themselves before they even think about saving and helping others.
    The peom itself is endearing and pushes the feelings of the auudience to be the more loving one, even if that means loving more and being loved less, even if it means the outcome isn't always what you want, because by doing this, in the end you will be a greater being and you will feel that much better about yourself. Throughout the poem, Auden uses stars and the elements of the sky to express the being of a person and how they feel and act.
    Throughout the peom, Auden uses his tone and diction to portray the figure of a person who strives to be the better and the "more loving one". His aura as the narrator is both touching and inspirational even in a short four stanza poem.

Gridlock

The More Loving One by W.H. Auden

Title:
The More Loving One- That there's always someone that has more feelings for a person than that person feels about them.

Paraphrase:
In the first stanza, Auden starts by stating that people will have the choice to be a man or a beast, and that they will have that choice no matter what the people and things around them say or do. The second stanza states that the narrator would prefer to be the more loving one if there cannot be equal feelings. The third stanza pretty much says that it would be the other person's loss if they do not see what feelings and love the narrator has to offer. Finally, in the last stanza, Auden says that everything dies or disappears, and that although it is inevitable, it will always be hard to deal with.

Connotation:
Stars- any heavenly body, except the moon, but in the peom's case I believe it symbolizes a person.

Attitude:
The attitude of this poem is solemn and gentle. It seems so sympathetic, fragile almost but at the same time it is stating a feeling or thought that's so strong.

Shift:
After the third stanza, there seems to be a shift where the narrator goes from being positive, and happy to sorrow of losing the people he cares around them. In the first three stanzas Auden writes about wanting to be the better person, wanting to be the one loving rather than being loved but then in the last stanza the narrator becomes sad, stating that although times pass, it'll always be hard to lose someone in your life.

Title revisit:
The title seems more meaningful, meaning that the narrator would want to be the better person, the one to give love and make someone happy, avoid the chances of becoming some beast who doesn't love back.

Theme:
The theme of this peom is that often times the amount of feelings given and received are not equal but it is always better to be the one who loves more because you will always make someone happy which should make you happy as well.

Analysis of Macbeth Test Performance

I felt like I did pretty good. Some of the multiple choice confused me and 15 seconds for every question was barely enough to read through the choices of answer so it was hard to decide on a answer or remember which letter was which. By the time I looked at the question and read the first two choices it seemed as if the screen was already scrolling, there was absolutely no time to look down at your paper or even have a second thought. The essay, was much easier in a sense that we had more time to answer one prompt. The prompt itself was very easy to reflect on as long as you read the required materials and understood the meaning of the literary work that the author was trying to put across. I think I did fairly well on the essay, much better than the multiple choice, that's for sure.

Seventh Reading

What Would You Fight For? by DH Lawreance


I am not sure I would always fight for my life.
Life might not be worth fighting for.

I am not sure I would always fight for my wife.
A wife isn't always worth fighting for.

Nor my children, nor my country, nor my fellow-men.
It all deprnds whether I found them worth fighting for.

The only thing men invariably fight for
Is their money.  But I doubt if I'd fight for mine, anyhow
not to shed a lot of blood over it.

Yet one thing I do fight for, tooth and nail, all the time.
And that is my bit of inward peace, where I am at one
with myself.

And I must say, I am often worsted.



As I read this poem over and over, I thought I started to understand more and more of what the poem was telling me... But then I would always get stuck at the last to stanzas. I kept asking myself what's so significant about a tooth and nail? What's so great about them that it's the one thing worth fighting for? Isn't the whole point of fighting to have a meaning? Or even a betteroutcome? Reading it over and over did not help me what so ever in this case, I had to look up what it meant.

Macbeth Act 3 Notes

Act Three, Scene One

Banquo suspects Macbeth but gains comfort from the second part of the Witches' prediction — that his own children will be kings. Having announced his intention to go riding with Fleance, Banquo is persuaded by the Macbeths to return later that evening to their new palace at Forres for a special feast. However, Macbeth realizes that the Witches' prophecy regarding Banquo represents a threat to his own position. Unable to endure the thought of Banquo's descendants claiming his position, Macbeth summons two hired murderers and confirms with them prior arrangements for the killing of Banquo and Fleance.

Act Three, Scene Two

This short scene allows the audience once more into the private thoughts of the murderous couple, while holding the action momentarily in suspense. As the hired killers make their way toward Banquo, Macbeth and his wife meet secretly. His wife attempts to soothe his troubled mind but ironically feels the same doubts herself. Killing the king has provided them with many more difficulties than they first envisioned. To the astonishment of his wife, Macbeth reveals his plan to murder Banquo.

Act Three, Scene Three

The hired murderers meet as arranged. On hearing approaching horses, a signal is given, and Banquo and his son Fleance are attacked. The murderers' lantern is accidentally extinguished, and the job is left half-done: Although Banquo is killed, Fleance escapes.

Act Three, Scene Four

At Forres, Macbeth and his wife welcome the thanes of Scotland to the banquet. Immediately prior to the feast, one of the murderers appears at a side door and reveals to Macbeth the truth about the mission: their success in the killing of Banquo and their failure to murder Fleance. Macbeth recomposes himself and returns to the table. As he raises a toast to his absent friend, he imagines he sees the ghost of Banquo. As with the ethereal dagger, the ghost of Banquo appears to come and go, propelling Macbeth into alternating fits of courage and despair. Lady Macbeth invites the thanes to depart and, once alone, tries one last time to soothe her husband. But Macbeth's paranoid mind is already on to the next murder, that of Macduff. To ascertain his future with greater certainty, he makes clear his intention to visit the Weird Sisters once more.

Act Three, Scene Five

Hecate, the classical goddess of the lower world who represents the spirit of ancient witchcraft, calls the weird sisters to her to complain that her own part in Macbeth's downfall has been overlooked and that she now wishes personally to make his downfall complete. The scene is unnecessary to understanding the play and was probably not written by Shakespeare.

Act Three, Scene Six

Meeting with a rebel lord, Lennox reveals his doubts concerning Macbeth. His argument is that those who might be immediately suspected of murdering their kinsmen are less likely to have done so than Macbeth, who had killed the guards of Duncan's chamber so hastily. Although Lennox is prepared to accept Macbeth's actions, he cannot help feeling deeply suspicious of him. The other lord reveals to Lennox that Macduff has fled from Scotland to join forces with Malcolm in England. Moreover, they have requested help from England's King Edward the Confessor. Both Lennox and the other lord pray that God's vengeance may swiftly fall on the tyrannical Macbeth and that Scotland may return to peace once more.

The Picture of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wilde: Theme

Lit Circle Essay Prompt

Often times the reader often discovers that the first chapter of a novel
or the opening scene of a drama introduces some of the major themes of the
work. Write an essay about the opening scene of a drama or the first
chapter of a novel in which you explain how it functions in this way. Your essay should not be the plot of the work you are discussing.

AP Practice Test Multiple Choice

1. E
2. A
3. E
4. C
5. A
6. A
7. D
8. D
9. B
10. B
11. A
12. E
13. B
14. D
15. D
16. C
17. A
18. E
19. D
20. C
21. B
22. C
23. B
24. B
25. C
26. C
27. A
28. C
29. E
30. C
31. D
32. D
33. B
34. D
35. C
36. D
37. E
38. C
39. D
40. D
41. B
42. C
43. A
44. C
45. D
46. E
47. B
48. A
49. A
50. D
51. B
52. C
53. C
54. D

Literature Analysis: Kafka on the Shore

1. Kafka on the Shore (Umibe no Kafka,in Japanese) by Haruki Murakami is about two different narrators switching off throughout the novel who are somehow interrelated. The odd chapters are narrated by a fifteen year old boy, Kafka Tamura's story. He runs away from his father's house to escape an Oedipal curse and to embark upon a quest to find his mother and sister. After a series of adventures, he finds shelter in a quiet, private library in Takamatsu, run by the distant and aloof Miss Saeki and the intelligent and more welcoming Oshima. There he spends his days reading the unabridged Richard Francis Burton translation of A Thousand and One Night and the collected works of Natsume Sōseki until the police begin inquiring after him in connection with a brutal murder.The even chapters are told from Satoru Nakata's point of view. Due to his uncanny abilities, he has found part-time work in his old age as a finder of lost cats (notably, Murakami's earlier work The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle also involves searching for a lost cat ). The case of one particular lost cat puts him on a path that ultimately takes him far away from his home, ending up on the road for the first time in his life. He befriends a truck driver named Hoshino, who takes him on as a passenger in his truck and soon becomes very attached to the old man. Nakata and Kafka are on a collision course throughout the novel, but their convergence takes place as much on a metaphysical plane as it does in reality and, in fact, that can be said of the novel itself. Due to the Oedipal theme running through much of the novel, Kafka on the Shore has been called a modern Greek tragedy.

2. The power and beauty of music as a communicative medium is a central theme of the novel, the very title comes from a pop song Kafka is given on a record in the library.The music of Beethoven, specifically the Archduke Trio is also used as a redemptive metaphor. Among other prominent themes are: the virtues of self-sufficiency and efficiency, the relation of dreams and reality, the specter of the heritage of World War II, the threat of fate, the uncertain grip of prophecy, and the power of nature.

3. The tone of the novel is somewhat mysterious, you are always wondering the connections and the lingering feelings and emotions. The novel seems to have not so much of a dark tone but still in a way sad, and there are tones of unsureness.

•"The pain Hoshino felt at that instant was awful, unreasonably so. A huge flash of light went off in his brain and everything went white. He stopped breathing. It felt like he'd been thrown from the top of a tall tower into the depths of hell. He couldn't even manage a scream, so hideous was the pain. All thoughts had burned up and shot away. It was like his body had been shattered to pieces. Even death couldn't be this awful, he felt. He tried to open his eyes but couldn't. He just lay there, helpless, face down on the tatami, drooling, tears streaming down his face."

•"I know I'm a little different from everyone else, but I'm still a human being. .... Sometimes, though, that small difference feels like an abyss."

• "But I'm scared, and my teeth won't stop chattering. Try as I might I can't get them to stop."

4.  Kafka's alter ego "Crow" who gave him advice was an interesting literary technique used, along with the motif about destiny, symbolism, insight to the character's thoughts and observations, paradox, and foreshadowing.

• Motif: "But the whole thing's fixed already. I can't just suddenly say I quit and stop what I'm doing. And taking my own life isn't an option. That's already been decided too."

• Motif: "If there's a curse in all this, you mean to grab it by the horns and fulfill the program that's been laid out for you."

• Symbolism: "Your hands are sticky with something- human blood, by the look of it. You hold them out in front of you, but there's not enough light to see. It's far too dark. Both inside, and out."

•Foreshadowing: "On my fifteenth birthday I'll run away from home, journey off to a far-off town, and live in a corner of a small library."
• Paradox " “Memories are what warm you up from the inside. But they're also what tear you apart.”