August 2009 Archives

Roberts Chapter 2

I'm better at close reading stories than poems. In fact, I'm really a big fan of poems (no offense to anyone who is). I like to be challenged to think, but I at least want to be entertained while doing it. Most poems just make me go, "HUH? WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO WITH THIS?" I have to really think about it for a while before I get anything. Now some poems I really enjoy and can understand them right off the bat, it mostly depends on who the author is.

http://jerz.setonhill.edu/EL237/2009/08/roberts_ch2/

Thomas Hardy: "The Man He Killed"

War is just such a primitive thing. It's kill or be killed. Even though as a civilization we've progressed so much, there are just sometimes where we can't find a better answer for things than to just kill some people.

The narrator seems very distant when talking about killing someone: "I shot him dead because-Because he was my foe" (page 372). I guess the guy had to tell himself something so he wouldn't go insane from guilt.

http://jerz.setonhill.edu/EL237/2009/08/hardy_the_man_he_killed/

This post is about Mark Twain's story "Luck"

By the end of the story, I was getting tired of the Reverend complaining about how Scoresby is an idiot and still became successful. It was his fault for taking pity on him. And I really don't think it could be possible for anyone to feel as guilty and miserable as Frankenstein (I could write an entry just about that subject). It appeared to me that the Reverend was jealous especially in the line, "Here was a wooden-head whom I had put in the way of glittering promotions and prodigious responsibilities..." (page 361). I also think that deep down, he went to war with Scoresby just to see him fail even though he said that he was "responsible to the country for this" (page 362).

http://jerz.setonhill.edu/EL237/2009/08/twain_luck/

I read "The Necklace" in my French class in high school and the teacher would sometimes ask us the author's name on some of our tests, which none of us would remember. Now on to the actual point of this entry...

Mathilde needed a reality check and she got it when she lost the necklace. I didn't even feel sorry for her when Mrs. Forrestier told her it was costume jewelry. I really think that Mathilde would've started going on a tirade about how angry she was at slaving away all those years. There's no evidence that she changed for the better, she got put in her place.

http://jerz.setonhill.edu/EL237/2009/08/maupassant_the_necklace/

I've already been blogging on Livejournal for about 5 years, but this is the first time I had to blog for school related things. So here goes...

Chapter 1 of Writing About Literature was like a little review for me. I admit that I skimmed over a few parts because I already knew what Roberts was talking about. Writing an essay is like a second nature to me.  I'm not a big fan of writing a first draft, I just sit at my laptop and start typing away. I may do an outline to help organize my thoughts, but other than that it's pretty much a step by step process. I don't like sitting there and writing everything at once (even when I write a story).

http://jerz.setonhill.edu/EL237/2009/08/roberts_ch1/