Much Madness is divinest Sense
By: Emily Dickinson

I had to read this poem a couple of times to figure out what the speaker was trying to convey.  The conclusion that I arrived to was that what most would consider madness is actually sanity.  The poem has a very unique message that I personally disagree with.  It says that one whom agrees with the majority proves his sanity.  However, going against the majority classifies one as crazy, even dangerous.  "Assent-and you are sane- Demur-you're straightway dangerous-" (830).  I do not agree with this message at all.  If one agrees with the majority, that's great.  However, going against the majority proves bravery and courage.  It is hard to stand alone on an idea or issue, so I think it is remarkable for one to do this.  It does not make one a threat or insane.

Bartleby, the Scrivener
By: Herman Melville

When I read this story, I actually felt really bad for Bartleby.  Compared to Nippers and Turkey, he was a very different person.  When asked to examine documents, Bartleby used the simple response of "I would prefer not to" (649).  He was so different that the lawyer was intrigued by him; he would even watch Bartleby.  He soon noticed that Bartleby never left the office.  He started to feel bad for him, and he decided to keep him employed out of pity.  One Sunday, the lawyer stopped by the office after Church.  He couldn't get the door unlocked because the key wouldn't fit, and Bartleby opened the door.  "In a brief word or two, he moreover added that perhaps I had better walk round the block two or three times, and by that time he would probably have concluded his affairs" (656).  The lawyer soon realized that Bartleby had been living in the office.  He felt very sorry for the scrivener.  The lawyer decided that he would try to talk to Bartleby about the situation, but Bartleby was resistant to the topic.  Bartleby eventually quit his job, yet he remained in the office as his only source of shelter.  He was thrown in jail when he was told that he must move out.  He eventually died in jail, and the lawyer found this to be very upsetting.  He later found out that Bartleby once worked at the Dead Letter Office.  Is this what made Bartleby go mad?  Was Bartleby "normal" befor he worked that job?  Overall, I found this story to be very sad.  I felt much pity for Bartleby; he was a very lonely person.  Because of this, he had trouble interacting with others, which the lawyer definitely picked up on.

I felt a Funeral, in my Brain
By: Emily Dickinson

This poem features a depressing mood.  The whole poem uses an extended metaphor to compare a funeral to the narrator losing her mind.  She is near a mental breakdown, and she views her mind as a funeral.  Like a funeral, the speaker is depressed and isn't experiencing happiness.  She mentions "Mourners to and fro" (776) in the symbolic funeral.  The current situations and hardships the the speaker is experiencing are like mourners lingering in a funeral.  They come and go, but some of them are always present.  She is feeling her mind go numb, as she states in line 8.  I think that the speaker is also comparing her soul to an old wooden floor.  I came to this conclusion in lines 9-10 of the poem.  She mentions "and then I heard them lift a Box and creak across my Soul" (776).  The creaking made me think of the creaking of a wooden floor plank.  I think she is saying that the problems that have put her in this state of mental instability is like a wooden floor.  She doesn't know how much more her conflicting mind can handle, just as a creaking floorboard can't support the weight of people and objects forever.  Ultimately, the speaker is in a terrible mental state.  She is going numb due to this state and the lack of resolution to her problems.  She describes her solitude.  She must feel alone and without anyone to turn to for help.  This extended metaphor between the funeral and speaker's mind establish the depressing mood of this poem.

APO 96225
By: Larry Rottman

I actually really liked this poem.  I feel that it has an important message, and I personally didn't find the message hard to understand.  When the poem begins, the speaker states that a young soldier was away at war, and he wrote his family a letter.  All that it said was "Dear Mom, sure rains a lot here" (846).  His mother's response was that the family was worried about him, and they wanted to hear how he really was doing.  The soldier avoided the topic of the war.  In his next letters, he mentioned monkeys and the sunsets.  His mother begged him to actually share what was going on.  They wanted to hear how he was doing and learn about what he was experiencing.  To satisfy his worried mother, the soldier wrote a shockingly honest letter.  "Today I killed a man.  Yesterday, I helped drop napalm on women and children" (846).  His father responded to this letter, saying to be less graphic and depressing.  That letter had bothered his mother, and she found herself even more upset after learning the truth.  I think that this shows situational irony.  There is irony in the fact that the soldier's parents pleaded for him to share what was really going on with him while he was away at war.  However, when he told his family what he had done, they asked for him to write less-depressing letters.  He had done exactly what they wanted, and they asked for him to write how he had previously written the letters before.  I think that this reveals an important and applicable message.  The tragedies and events that soldiers go through cannot be handled well by those back at home.  They do not understand the situations that soldiers are put in, and they find the actions of the soldiers to be very disturbing.  Just like there is physical distance between soldiers and their loved ones at home, there is distance between their understandings and handling of the realities of war.

Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night
By: Dylan Thomas

I actually really liked this poem.  It contains a wise message, but it presents it in a very clever way.  The speaker describes different classifications of people, making the poem easier for readers to relate to overall.  By addressing the different types of people, he makes it more likely for a larger audience to relate to the message of the poem.  He says that wise men know death is inevitable, but they enjoy their lives while they can.  Good men do kind deeds for others, hoping to avoid death as long as possible.  Wild men get caught up in their lives, and they seem to forget about the nature of death.  However, they at least enjoy the lives they live.  Grave men (men that are close to death) see death, but they try to blind themselves of its reality.  They do not welcome death, and they ignore it until it comes.  Lastly, the narrator addresses his father.  He presented this poem to him to motivate him.  He gives this poem with the message to live life to the fullest.  I liked the repeated line of "rage, rage against the dying of the light" (968).  This phrase is repeated with emphasis.  It tells us to keep on living our lives.  No one should welcome death before he or she has to.

Crossing the Bar
By: Alfred, Lord Tennyson

I found this poem to be a bit confusing.  I don't really understand how the narrator is relating this ocean journey to his death.  He does mention his departure; but other than that, I am confused as to how this is about his death.  When the poem starts, the narrator says that the sun is setting as the evening star rises in the sky.  He explains that he hopes the tide "seems asleep."  He says that he wants the tide to be "too full" to have any sound or create any foam in the ocean.  As his journey continues, the speaker notes that it is now twilight.  Darkness fills the sky, as well as the ringing of the evening bell.  He says that he doesn't want anyone to be sad when he leaves.  "And may there be no sadness of farewell when I embark..." (886).  This is how I determined that the narrator is talking about his death.  However, I don't get how the rest of the poem relates to this.  At the end, he mentions that he hopes to meet his Pilot face to face.  Who is his Pilot?  Is this a real person, or is the speaker using symbolism?

That Time of Year
By: William Shakespeare

In this poem, Shakespeare characterizes the speaker's age with different aspects of nature.  He begins by comparing the speaker's age to autumn.  He creates imagery of the few surviving leaves hanging on the dead trees, the cold weather of winter approaching, and the lack of birds because they have all migrated away.  Next, the speaker's age is compared to twilight.  The "sunset fadeth in the west" (966) informs readers that darkness is making its way into the speaker's life, meaning his death will be soon.  He then compares the narrator to a fire.  "The ashes of his youth doth lie on the deathbed whereon it must expire" (967).  The fire of the narrator's youth is dying out, so he will soon die in the ashes of this "fire."  In the final two lines of the poem, the speaker is addressing a loved one.  He tells the loved one to understand the situation, and their love will only grow stronger from this point forward.  I noticed Shakespeare's use of iambic pentameter in this poem.  The quatrains (4 lines in a group) ended in ABAB rhyme schemes.  Also, Shakespeare ends the poem with a couplet, as the final lines end in rhyme with the words "strong" and "long."

A Rose for Emily
By: William Faulkner

In this short story, I noticed situational irony.  Emily Grierson seemed pretty depressed and lonely throughout the entirety of the story.  Even when Homer Barron came into the picture, I did not think she was truly happy.  She was still seen sitting alone in the window of her house some nights.  When Emily went to the druggist, I thought she was going to pull a Lily Bart.  She kept telling the druggist that she wanted arsenic, which is very poisonous.  The label on the box had a picture of a skull and bones and said it was for rats.  Considering Emily seemed unhappy with her life, I thought she was planning on killing herself.  She would not tell the druggist why she was getting the arsenic.  "'But the law requires you to tell what you are going to use it for'" (286).  Even after this, Emily refused to explain her intentions.  Because of this, I assumed she would end up committing suicide.  The townspeople said that they did not see her leave her house for 6 months.  However, they also said the Homer Barron entered her house one day and was never seen leaving.  They all just assumed that Homer and Emily got married and lived in her mysterious house together.  Emily eventually died at an old age in her house, but no one even knew that she was sick.  After her burial, the curious people end up going upstairs in her house, which no one had supposedly been in in 40 years.  Shockingly, they find Homer Barron's dead, decomposing body laying in a bed upstairs.  I was taken by surprise when I read this.  I did not even think of the possibility that Emily planned on killing Homer with the arsenic.  This was situational irony because what really happened was completely different from what I expected to happen.

The Lottery
By: Shirley Jackson

A symbol that I took note of in this story was the black box.  It is a symbol of tradition, which is why the people still have it.  "...But no one liked to upset even as much tradition as was represented by the black box" (265).  The box is old and falling apart.  The narrator says that after each lottery, there is always talk of replacing the old box.  However, that has yet to happen.  "There was a story that the present box had been made with some pieces of the box that had preceded it, the one that had been constructed when the first people settled down to make a village here" (265).  The people stay loyal to their roots and traditions, which explains why they still have not replaced the shabby box.  The box is used for the lottery, which gives it further symbolic meaning.  The lotteries have been traditions within the villages for years.  However, it is stated that other surrounding villages no longer practice the lottery.  I think it's interesting that the people are so dedicated to keeping the tradition of the box and lottery alive.  The lottery altogether seems like a crazy and ridiculous idea for a tradition, and they do not have any real evidence that it truly is a tradition.  In my opinion, they are almost brainwashed with the idea that the lottery and its outcome serve as a traditional practice.

The Glass Menagerie (Blog 5)
By: Tennessee Williams

While reading this play, I actually really liked it.  I actually found Williams' unique style with such detailed stage directions to be favorable.  I liked being able to picture all that was happening, and it was so easy to do this with the thorough directions.  "At the rise of the curtain, the audience is faced with the dark, grim rear wall of the Wingfield tenement.  This building is flanked on both sides by dark, narrow alleys..." (1235).  Descriptions like this were useful for me to better imagine the setting of each scene.  In addition, I liked the fact that Williams only included 4 main characters.  This made it much easier to understand their individual thoughts and actions.  Also, I feel like this made them have closer ties to each other.  One element that I particularly disliked was the ending.  There was not one happy thing at the end of this play.  Laura was still left feeling lonely, with no gentleman callers.  Amanda was still struggling with relating to her son.  Tom lost his job at the warehouse, and he ended up leaving his family altogether.  "'Not long after that I was fired for writing a poem on the lid of a shoe-box.  I left Saint Louis'" (1288).  I wanted at least one of the characters to end up achieving a goal or just anything positive.  The lack of such an ending made me dislike this aspect of The Glass Menagerie.

The Glass Menagerie (Blog 4)
By: Tennessee Williams

Williams successfully evoked sympathy for Laura Wingfield.  Throughout the play's entirety, I felt bad for Laura.  She was painfully shy and often times awkward.  An example of this was described when Laura told her mother that she stopped going to school because she got sick during a typing test.  "'Her hands shook so that she couldn't hit the right keys!  The first time we gave a speed-test, she broke down completely- was sick at the stomach and almost had to be carried into the wash-room'" (1242).  In addition, Laura had no self-confidence.  She was especially self-conscious about her physical disability.  Overall, Laura basically put herself down and made herself lonely.  In Scene 7, I thought she and Jim were heading in a good direction with their newly rekindled relationship.  Jim was motivating Laura to have confidence in herself, and she was actually opening up to someone.  After Jim kissed her, it was obvious that Laura really liked him.  Right after this, though, Jim decided to tell Laura that he was engaged and would be married in June!  "'Laura, I've- been going steady!  I go out all the time with a girl named Betty'" (1284).  This shocked me, and I felt so bad for Laura.  The little bit of confidence that she had finally built up was crushed in a matter of seconds.

The Glass Menagerie (Blog 3)
By: Tennessee Williams

All of the characters in this play are dealing with internal conflicts.  Amanda is trying to cope with an internal conflict centered around her son Tom.  Amanda's husband left her family years ago, and they have no idea where he even is.  I think that she fears that Tom will leave her family, too.  Tom is very frustrated with his life, especially with his job at the warehouse.  In Scene 4, she and Tom get into a very heated argument.  Amanda is upset by Tom's leaving every night to go to the movies, and she doesn't believe that he actually goes to the movies.  "'Why listen, if self is what I thought of, Mother, I'd be where he is-GONE!' (Pointing to father's picture)" (1247).  Tom denies that he would ever leave his family, but that does not comfort his stressed out mother.  I think that Amanda recognizes that Tom is the only source of real income for the family, and she has no idea what they would do if Tom left.  I was surprised at the end of the play when Tom shares that he left his family behind after he was fired.  I didn't think he would do this, especially when he kept trying to reassure his mother that he wasn't like his father in that sense.  I thought that he cared about his family enough that he wouldn't do this to them.

The Glass Menagerie (Blog 2)
By: Tennessee Williams

In Scene 7, Laura shows Jim her glass menagerie.  She shows him the unicorn figure and tells him that it's her favorite one in her collection.  "'Poor little fellow, he must feel sort of lonesome'" (1281).  When Jim said this, I concluded that the unicorn is symbolic of Laura.  Laura feels lonesome, especially due to the fact that she has never had a gentleman caller before this.  In addition, Jim accidentally hits the table and breaks the unicorn's horn.  This makes it look like an ordinary horse.  Similarly, Jim kisses Laura.  However, he quickly admits that he is seeing a woman named Betty.  This causes Laura to feel unimportant, like she is just any other girl that Jim encounters.  She no longer feels unique, which she finally felt when Jim danced with her and kissed her.  In the end, Laura is still left alone.  She still remains without a potential husband, and she feels broken (like the broken glass unicorn).  I think that this was her motivation in giving Jim the broken unicorn.  It would have reminded her of how broken Jim left her feeling, and it would be better for it to no longer be near her.

The Glass Menagerie (Blog 1)
By: Tennessee Williams

One literary term that I found present in this play was situational irony.  In Scene 2, Laura admits to Amanda that she had a crush on a boy named Jim in high school.  She talks about how he was a talented singer, starred in The Pirates of Penzance, and had class with her three days a week.  I didn't think much of this confession of Laura's.  However, in Scene 6, I picked up on the ironic situation that was about to take place.  Amanda told her daughter that her gentleman caller was Jim O'Connor.  In the previous scene, Tom mentioned that he went to high school with this man.  "'There was a Jim O'Connor we both knew in high school.  If that is the one that Tom is bringing to dinner- you'll have to excuse me, I won't come to the table'" (1264).  Laura is terrified to see Jim again.  She doesn't know how she will handle his presence in her own home.  The situation of encountering Jim O'Connor is ironic because he was the last person Laura expected to see.  She thought that he was engaged when they graduated high school 6 years ago, so she assumed he was already married.  Unfortunately the situation doesn't end up how Laura would have liked, but I think that seeing Jim again was a positive experience for Laura.  He helped motivate her into finding self-confidence.  Because of this, the ironic situation had a positive outcome.