TPCASTT Themes

Sonnet 130: Love may go beyond beauty. The Passsionate Shepherd to His Love: Passion can drive people to do awesome things. Death Be Not Proud: Everyone dies; their is no pride in death. To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time: Youth is fleeting, prosper and multiply while you have it. The Author to Her Book: People shouldn't let anything go that their not ready to. To His Coy Mistress: Time is a villain. Sound and Sense: Inspiration and work can get someone through anything, not the chance of talent. The World Is Too Much With Us: Technology is overrated and nature is underappreciated. She Walks in Beauty: To be beautiful one must be equally so on the inside and the outside. Ozymandias: People live and die, but mother nature lives on and prospers. When I have Fear that I may Cease to Be: Sometimes it may be best to be rid of fear because it may cause downfall. The Children's Hour: Take time to enjoy love and stow it away forever in the heart. Annabel Lee: Jealousy is never fruitful. O Captian, My Captian: Life has a cruel sense of humor. I Heard a Fly Buzz When I Died: Death is unavoidable, life ends and its not pleasant or dreamlike, it just happens. Dover Beach: People must enjoy the Earth because they are slowly destroying it. Dulce et Decorum Est: Its easy to judge something that one has never experienced and to decide what is right. Mending Wall: Good fences may make good neighbors, but not good friends. Mirror: Listen to what is true, not the false statements of others.

American Eagle Outfitters:Disappointment

It took me awhile to think of a company worth calling and a question worth asking. I was shopping last week and noticed that all the clothes I looked at were made in a foreign country. I decided I would call American Eagle Outfitters and ask why more of their products are not made in America. I decided that I would call on Monday to see where that got me. The first time I called the woman that answered was very pleasant, but when I got to the point of my call she simply hung up on me. I was astounded. I could not believe that she had hung up on me. I had expected a practiced answer that they were supposed to give everyone. So I called again a few minutes later and another woman answered. She was also very pleasant, but when I asked my question her cheery attitude disappeared and she gave me a standard answer that did nothing to answer my question, told me to have a nice day, and hung up. I decided that I would try again the next day. For the next four days I called everyday and received the same treatment as the second time I called. However, I received different levels of kindness and hostility. One woman asked me why I cared, another woman said that she could not agree with my question, but that she wondered the same thing. I found it interesting the different opinions and attitudes that people gave me when I called. In the end every person refused to transfer me, saying it would get me nowhere. In the end I found that this experience was a lot like The Grapes of Wrath. Throughout the book there is a constant search for where to place the blame. On the banks, on the land owners, on the East or on the men that drive the tractors through their homes. Its the same as trying to reach the CEO of a large company like American Eagle Outfitters to ask a simple, yet important question. Who do you blame if you can’t get an answer, where do you go to find the answer if they don’t help you? I think that perhaps the reason for this project was to help us understand, if only in a small way, what the people in The Grapes of Wrath went through. How frustrating it was for them to have no one to blame, to have no one to answer their questions. I was extremely annoyed and frustrated simply by calling and asking a question, it’s hard to imagine how the people in the Dust Bowl felt when they had no one to explain what had gone wrong in their lives. Once I determined that I was going to get nowhere with my phone calls, I decided to try a different avenue. So I sent an email to the company. They sent me a standard response that explained to me where their clothes were made, where they sold clothes and that they employ so many people in the United States as well as the products that they sell. Overall the answer gave me no answer, but proved to be a further annoyance because in both the phone and email responses they did everything to avoid my question and they danced around a real answer. Overall I think that my attempt at reaching the CEO was a complete and utter fail. It was not from lack of effort however. American Eagle Outfitters simply made it impossible to go anywhere with my question. However, I think that as a whole my project was a success, maybe not the actual assignment itself, but what it was supposed to teach us. I find that I have a greater appreciation for the situation that the Joad’s and all the other people went through. It goes right along with the who do you shoot? In this situation do I shoot the women who answered the phone when I called or the people that told them what to say? Do I shoot the stockholders of American Eagle Outfitters or the CEO? Or maybe other executives? Where does the blame lay? I think that maybe this is why we did this assignment, to better connect with the book, the characters and the situation. Something else that I noticed was the different levels of kindness and hostility I encountered. Some people were cruel as if saying it was my problem and they were just doing their jobs, just like the men who drove the tractors across the farmers’ fields. Then there was a woman who tried to help me as best she could just like May when she sold candy for those little boys. I think any situation is based off of how people work together and act to one another. They can either be helpful to those around or just look out for themselves. I have a greater respect for the people who survived the Dust Bowl and the struggle that they went through. Not only physically, but mentally. They had no one to blame when their lives fell apart, no where to give forgiveness, so how could they come to terms with their situation and the new life that was forced upon them? How could they decide who to trust and whether they should look out for those around them or just themselves?

Chinua Achebe

I quite enjoyed this article simply for the passion that Achebe puts into it. He says what he means and his dislike for both Conrad and his Heart of Darkness are quite clear. Most intellectuals hide behind words. They dance around the subject hinting, but not out right saying. It was refreshing that Achebe just came out with his opinion. I chuckled quite a few times during his article, the way Achebe uses sarcasm is quite brilliant. Achebe made some very interesting and persuasive points about, not only Conrad, but society as a whole. He spoke passionately of the unfair rap the continent of Africa gets from people and when you think about it, its quite true. Africa is sort of like the world’s scapegoat. The world looks at Africa and says look at how far we have come, look how barbaric they are. Its quite true and equally sad when you think about it, because when thought about simply what country doesn’t pity Africa? My favorite part of the entire article however is when Achebe turns the title of Conrad’s own book against him. Achebe says “Unfortunately his heart of darkness plagues us still”. Achebe is referring to the contents of Conrad’s heart. All the hate that lives within him for people who are different, and all the racism that Achebe so strongly believes flows through his veins. Achebe sees Conrad simply as a racist man who has no excuses. I love the pun subtle pun that Achebe uses to gt his point across. Conrad’s Heart of Darkness is supposed to be about his own experiences on a trip along he Congo. Maybe when Conrad wrote his book he knew that the “heart of darkness” was his own. Maybe Conrad was referring to Marlow’s heart throughout the book and not the continent of Africa and it’s natives as we have all assumed. Or perhaps Achebe has it wrong and Conrad wrote the book about the “heart of darkness” in all people. Perhaps Conrad had the same views as Achebe, he just went the round about way of saying them.

Edna, Goddess or Human?

My article was about Edna and her likeness to the Goddess, Aphrodite. The author's main point was to say that Edna was in fact a recreation of the goddess of love. However, the author, Sandra M. Gilbert, is very unclear throughout the essay. She hops from one topic to another. Her phrasing is slightly off obscure, but it adds to the charm of the article. She did use a few to many references to other books, designating half the essay to books that were similiar to The Awakening in some way and she did not make the importance of the connections clear. Overall I thought she could have gotten to the point a little more directly and with far less references. To make her point Gilbert spoke frequently of the sea. Aphrodite was born from the sea and symbolically so was Edna when she took her first swim alone. The new "goddess" like Edna was born in the water that night. Another point that Gilbert makes is that Aphrodite is created as an adult with no childhood. Now, of course, Edna had a childhood, but in a sense she did not, because she was forced to grow up at such a young age. Gilbert uses a lot of quotations throughout her essay to support her thesis. Gilbert uses an interesting quote to tie in her theme of Edna being a goddess. She talks about the story that Robert relayed to Edna the night of her mid-night swim. The story of the spirit who rises every 28 of August in the hopes of finding someone worthy to talk to. In the book Chopin says that Edna is the only one ever found worthy of this spirit with her "divine presence". This again characterizes Edna in a higher manner than all the other characters in The Awakening.
I think that this article was a little unorganized and frenzied, but interesting all the same. I think that Gilbert is right in the sense that Edna was trying to overcome what seemed impossible. However, as Gilbert states, I don't believe that Edna is as Aphrodite was. Edna is someone who seems restless and looking for something to fill that void for freedom. Edna was a strong person throughout the novel, but she was also frenzied and confused most of the time. I think that Edna was simply her own person not the recreation of a goddess. An idea that Gilbert discussed I fully embrace, however. As Gilbert went off on thoughts that had little to do with her thesis, she spoke of an idea that Edna did not die or runaway, she was running to something and that we, as the readers do not know that she died. She was going back to the days of her carefree youth, a place where she could truely be a strong person and be content with herself. A place where she could embrace the kind of woman that she is: strong, independent and willing to love freely.

The Yellow Wallpaper

This short story starts out relativly normal, but there is that hint of the ever so strange. As we travel through the story in the mind of the narrator, the wife of a doctor, things start to head to the crazy way. The narrator's husband treats her more and more like a child as the short story goes on. He see's her as a responsibility instead of a wife. He locks her away in a house that she doesn't know, in a room that she doesn't like and leaves her there with the yellow wallpaper. I understand that his wife was on her way to being unstable, but that doesn't mean that he can treat her as a child and leave her in a room where children before her had played. In fact, in a way, her husband is cruel. Instead of recognizing that she has a problem he pretends as though making her sleep all day and do nothing is making her better. Yet at the same time he hides her away in a secluded house to hide her away from the neighbors. The poor narrator is left the waste away in a lonely house with only a maid for company. As time passes the narrator starts losing her sense of reality. She can't follow the pattern or fathom the color of the wallpaper and at night instead of seeing a pattern, she see's bars and a woman trapped behind them. Sometimes she see's several women behind the bars and at other times she see's just one woman prowling and prowling for freedom. By the end of the short story the narrator becomes that woman. The woman prowling around for freedom from a mind that keeps her enclosed in a world that doesn't exist. She is trying to escape from a husband who keeps her hidden away and from a life where she has no purpose, but to lie around and stare at yellow wallpaper.

contined....

Although all Killoran's thoughts were backed with logic some of it was a bit of a stretch stemming from Stoicism. Most of her points her based around the beliefs of this one Faith. However, what I did enjoy about this articule was that Killaron didn't just use quotes, but also little details of from the book. For example Zeena's name ,Zenobia, starts with the letters Z-E-N-O. Zeno was the founder of Stoiscm. I really enjoyed Killoran's attention to detail such as this. Overall I thought the essay was eye-openning and I quite enjoyed her fresh point of view.

"Under the Granite Outcroppings of Ethan Frome"

This essay was a very interesting point of view on Ethan Frome. During this esay, titled "Under the Granite Outcroppings of Ethan Frome", the author Helen Killoran disputes the critique Lionel Trilling by stating that Ethan is not the moral center of this book, but that Zeena is. During this book Killoran uses the metaphor of the "granite outcroppings" as a reference to Zeena. During this essay everyone sees Ethan as the tragic hero of the novella instead of seeing Zeena as the moral center of the book who is "under" the story. One technique that Killoran uses is attempting to make Zeena human by explaining the way that she is. In attempting to make Zeena human Killoran explains that Zeena is a Stoicist, that she is not cold, but logical. Killoran uses qoutes from the book as well as little hints to back her conclusions about Ethan Frome. She explains that, possibly, Zeena had a miscarriage and thats why she is so distant from Ethan. Another one of her main points was that according to Stoicism Ethan was not a tragic hero, but a coward. This she got based off the Stoic definition of a coward being one who doesn't make decisions. I thought that the arguments were presented logically and understandably. Her thoughts were calm and collected. She backed all her facts with a logical explanation. I agree with the viewpoint of this essay because its a nice twist on the viewpoint. I think that this is how I look at Ethan Frome. Not through the turbulent emotions of Ethan, but through the cool recollections of Zeena.