Sunday, June 24, 2007

Twelfth Night Character

The character that I think presents the most change in personality is Feste. During the story he is presented as a Jester but his intelligence is totally different. When talking to people Feste makes it seem as if his comments are just jokes but they are actually really clever remarks. His rebukes always told the story as it really was instead of how each character foresaw their situation. He quickly told how each character really presented themselves instead of how they thought they were! People thought that Feste was funny, a person to make fun of but instead he was really making fun of all of them. This is why his title does not fit him at all. This is how Feste changes so much during the story!

Saturday, June 16, 2007

Sonny's Blues

Sonny really enjoys jazz, but his brother thinks that it is stupid that Sonny likes jazz. Sonny would go into conversations about how he wanted to be a jazz player, but his brother would just dismiss it as if it was nothing. The reason behind this i think is because the narrator wanted to keep his past behind him and not linger but then later in the story he let it go somewhat which changed his opinion some on the jazz. Sonny and the narrator were alienated to each other because even though they came from the same place they each handled the situation of their childhood in a different way. Sonny went to join the navy and resorted to drugs because they were raised in a poverty stricken area with temptations on every corner. The narrator, however, bottled up all his feelings and kept to himself so he could make it. Once he had grown up he had made something of himself, he was a teacher and had a nice family. They were both alienated though from the community, being sheltered children they were apart of a world with drugs and many other bad temptations and had to try to avoid them.I think the name of the daughter was Grace because of the meaning. Grace is peaceful. It describes a tranquility that you receive but haven't earned, and shouldn't be getting it in the first place. Once Grace died I think it brought them together as a metaphoric meaning that she brought peace, or grace, between them. I think from then on they gain a bond and "redeem" each other so that they are much closer than the way they were at the beginning of the stories.

Cathedrals

How would you describe the short story "Cathedral" written by Raymond Carver? I found it to be a story of immense change. As the story, begins we meet a husband describing a situation that his wife has enveloped him in, about a blind man who had given his wife a job. At the beginning, the husband did not appreciate that his wife had told this blind man that he could stay with them. The three characters in this story are blind in different metaphorical ways. The husband is blind because he does not tend to the cares of his wife but is instead selfish. The woman is blind because she does not realize that her husband does not like new things and also that he is there so she should be talking to him instead of the blind man. Robert, however, is literally blind and cannot see through his eyes. In this story the husband is very prejudice against the blind man, he even goes to the point of not saying the blind man's name but instead just replying to him as the blind man. This tells that the husband did not want to give this blind man an existence in his world. I think he probably thought himself better because he stereotyped what a blind person is like. He eventually came over this though, I think, because at the end he kept his eyes closed as he drew the cathedrals. I do not agree with the narrator's prejudice against the blind man because he is a man like any other man. He shouldn't be discriminated against just because he is different! I did find this story to be very prejudice and controversial where you can have many a opinion about it but none of the opinions are necessarily right.