April 2008 Archives

Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card

Chapters 1-5

            Rather than picking a quote I thought I would compare the real world to this book (thus far).

            Children are being forced to grow up quickly and take on adult responsibilities like dying for your country.  However, in order to do this, the government (Big Brother, those people inside your head, whatever you want to call the people behind the monitors) is trying to suck the emotion out of these children and failing miserably with Ender who actually shows compassion (he cries after beating up Stilson who, quite frankly, deserved the crap beat out of him). 

            Now it is my belief that Card wrote this story for children who 1.  feel like they are being forced to grow up to quickly 2.  refuse to grow up and take on responsibilities or 3.  need a source to prove that children rule the world.  I base this belief on the fact that I bought this book several years ago in the pre-teen section of Barnes and Noble. 

            As I was reading this, I couldn’t get over the fact that Andrew (Ender), Peter, and Valentine are so young.  They talk like adults and have the mental capacity (if not in excess) of many adults.  Their government encourages this, partly because they want to breed and use these children like robots (or suicide soldiers) to fight a war.  Sadly, they see these children as expendable pieces of machinery rather than precious little gifts from whatever deity you ascribe to.

Hamilton (189-215)

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Scansion

“As noted above [in John Keat’s “Bright Star”], even expert readers vary in scanning complex meters, and some might scan some of these lines a bit differently…All would agree, though, that the dominant meter is iambic pentameter”  (206).

Talk about confusing the poor little dears, just when we think we’ve finally figured out feet and meter Hamilton thumps and stumps us with a final blow to the cranium.  She says that Keat’s poem is a sonnet, which means it is written with 14 lines of iambic pentameter.  If one looks at the scansion of the poem on page 206, you will see a lot of riff-raff.  Stressed syllables are followed by stressed syllables, stresses completely disappear here and there, and dashes are used as excuses for ignoring the stress pattern.  Now if Keat wanted to write a poem this mixed up, he shouldn’t have strived to confuse us by making it only dominantly iambic pentameter.  That’s like making an excuse for why it’s not “gay” or “girly” for some men (ie. football players) to take ballet.

A few choice words from Urban Dictionary

Q-gasm: The sensation one experience’s when cleaning one’s ear canal with a Q-tip

Example:  A female person who goes by the name sexygirl, dedicated an entire webpage to defining strange forms of sex.  In her never-ending list she wrote that, “an Ear-gasm or a Q-gasm is like sex with a Q-tip.” 

I love having my ears cleaned.  For some reason, the inside of my ears are very sensitive, so it feels quite pleasurable.  I wouldn’t say orgasmic, but nice.  It’s like that nice feeling of having your hair played with or your back massaged.  Now there are some people with strange fetishes, like sexygirl, who I can’t speak for.

Y’aight:  ghetto for “Are you alright?”

Example:  The link which I followed to find this was interestingly called “Lock me in the loony bin.”  Needless to say, I had to enter.  Sophiee commented to Baron Von Ginge on his bebo.com profile, “Haha well im not surprised your throat hurts…you muppet. lol. And so you did, much appreciated (Y) lol. Y’aight?”

Isn’t it lovely how alright isn’t even truly a word, yet people find the need to create even more obnoxious inner city jargon by splicing alright and hooking it up with a butchered y’all?

Banging:  slamming, rocks, awesome, great

Example:  FOEKIST said in response to Kanye West’s “Stronger,” “Would everybody be playing this track if Kanye didn’t make it? It’s different nonetheless, but it’s not banging by any means.”

Now if you remember Shaggy’s pop song “It Wasn’t Me,” you may recall the memorable line, “we was banging on the bathroom door,” which does not mean he was knocking loudly.  Besides this meaning, I have heard banging being used to refer to a very attractive woman (she’s banging).

Want to view more.  Check out my peer's word choices.

Busy Buzzing by Jeanine O'Neal

And finding none I fled to the kitchen

To hide away the boiling water pot.

To my dismay, not a pot of steam was there.

Windows standing ajar proved no answer,

Making me question my own sanity.

Not till after I had checked on my phone

Did I realize the buzzing came from him.

His heart beat I heard as he came closer.

Wrapping his loving arms about his life,

I fell softly into the arms of mine.

And for more examples of blank verse, check out my peers poems.

Ding Ding- Round Two

            This portfolio is the second in a set of three, and it compiles all the blogs I have posted between February 25 and April 4, 2008 for Dr. Jerz’s Introduction to Literary Study class at Seton Hill University.

            My first portfolio compiles all my blog entries from the first half of the spring 2008 semester.  It also provides a brief overview of our reasons for writing blogs about literature.

-Timeliness-

The following blogs were posted on time or in advance.

And all your sins shall be washed away…  1 day in advance

I Spy a Foil  2 days in advance

Life in a Bubble  A quote taken from Nickel and Dimed discusses the relation of the book to The Truman Show.

The Coming of Christ 1 day in advance

Punctuation Gets Personal 1 day in advance

-Depth-

And all your sins shall be washed away…  If you are ever in need of a Biblically inspired interpretation of Flannery O’Connor’s “The River,” you’ve come to the right place.

I Spy a Foil  Here is my take on Flannery O’Connor’s “The Life You Save May be Your Own.”  I discuss how the waiter boy and the drifter boy at the end of the story are foils for each other.  They are significant to the story, as I point out, because they lead Mr. Shiftlet to examine his own conscience.

Breaking Through Her Shell  This blog looks at Flannery O’Connor’s “Good Country People” and explains a philosophical/religious reference to evolution.

The Allegorical Wizard  An allegorical discussion ensues as I rip apart The Wizard of Oz and put it back together again.

The Coming of Christ  Flannery O’Connor’s “The Displaced Person” gets a thorough explanation by comparing the coming of Christ to the coming of a Bible salesman.

-Discussion and Interaction-

The following blog entries show an ongoing discussion between a peer and I or several peers and I on our blogs.  This section also contains blogs written by my peers that I have written extensive comments on.

Red Water is Not a Good Sign This is Angela Palumbo’s take on Flannery O’Connor’s “The River.”  I left her an insightful comment the hopefully answers some questions she may have had.  I also provided her a link to my blog (And all your sins shall be washed away…) because it further discussed some points she made.

Punctuation Gets Personal  This is my own blog which generated much discussion outside of class.  Unfortunately, most of the reactions I got from people are not in the comments on the blog page seeing as how they were verbal.

Trusst me. You WANT to read this!  In this blog by a peer, I participated in a lengthy discussion concerning her blog.

-Links Included-

This category includes blogs that contain links to other blogs I have written.

And all your sins shall be washed away…  A link is included to another blog about a Flannery O’Connor.  If you follow the link, I explain “A Good Man is Hard to Find” similarly to my explanation of “The River,” in a Biblical fashion.

Breaking Through Her Shell  This blog contains a link to an additional blog I wrote (Which Came First: The Chicken or the Egg?) that does not have to do with the text but was inspired by the text.

Collards Greens and Baby Dreams  Flannery O’Connor’s “A Stroke of Good Fortune” gets interpreted after I link to VegParadise to uncover the significance of collard greens.

Homepage |  Portfolio 1