1984: A Beautiful Conclusion

I thoroughly enjoyed the ending of 1984, albeit it was not what I initially expected. I wrongly expected of Orwell a more generic finish to the overdone storyline. Angry dissenter causes anarchist eruption in face of evil government and overthrows the evil against all odds. Orwell’s conclusion was not at all this. In fact, following a course of logic concurrent with the novel, the end makes more sense. Angry dissenter dreams about inflicting change, yet is conquered brutally by the omnipotent, tyrannical government. As history will often tell us, oppression so powerful as Ingsoc will extinguish opposition. Thus, Winston and Julia are snubbed even before they have a chance to ignite—even before they finish reading Goldstein’s book.

The violent, politically charged ending of the novel apologizes for the monotonous, monochrome storyline up to this point. Throughout the book, Winston has appealed as Hamlet’s foil, acting rashly on decisions which propel him forwards towards wisdom, insight, and rebellion.  However, this never reaches its climax. Instead, we are left with a character more Hamletine in appearance and in impact, a grand disappointment, when Winston is hauled away. In effect, the development of Winston’s promising character is abruptly halted by his incarceration, leaving me with a sort of lingering disappointment. At least we are given a dramatic twist to charge the otherwise lacking plot and set. We are taken from a grey city clouded by Winston’s uncertainties and unelaborated trysts, and we are plunged into a place “of no darkness” where truths are revealed. Through the finale is graphic and grim, the reality of Orwell’s dystopia is revealed in its full, ugly light, and in parallel, we are given a glimpse into the dystopian societies of today.

I am pleased that Winston, at the end of the book, loves Big Brother. Not because of the stunning political commentary framed by Orwell (though indeed it is impressive) but because of the extermination of tension. Throughout the novel there is an undying, repressive tension in Winston’s thoughts, actions, expectations, and from the Party to the proles. Once Winston surrenders, the tension dies and we can breathe a sort of sigh of relief. Yet I wonder, what does this opinion voice about by own tendencies or dispositions? Does it hint that I am a reluctant power, and would rather succumb to the delicious simplicity of surrender? 

"The Book" Blog

"The Book", in my opinion, legitimizes the complaints and assumptions of those opposed to the Party. It causes me to further dislike the Party, much as Winston does, and to see it as a system achieving nothing other than circuitous self-destruction. It is made clear by the book that the wars of the Party are essentially worthless, and that the wars circulate within the society itself, producing a weakened, war-torn population. 

I understand the Party more so now as being a digressive rather than a progressive entity, though to what avail I know not. Technologies have regressed, and the only leaps made have been in technology for the purpose of war. The knowledge of society has decreased; the number of poor has increased; all for a war without a foundation. The Party no longer seems at all like one that propels itself forwards technologically or otherwise, like other futuristic societies are often portrayed as doing. 

What I found interesting that was mentioned in "The Book" was that the distribution of wealth is not quite as disproportionate as I originally assumed. It points out that the members of the Party have only few more possessions than the proles, since it is mere necessities that separate the haves from the have-nots in the society. This is contrary to the societal critique I originally expected from Orwell. I imagined that he would have separated the wealthy from the poor greatly as a commentary about the poor distribution of the wealth. Instead, he seems to be commenting on the poverty of the entire society—still a plausible concern, but not what I would have imagined. 

I was also intrigued by mention of the fighting areas. I wonder whether we will be told more about the floating fortresses. I found it interesting that the fighting happens in the disputed territories only. Since this is the case, do the rocket bombs that frequently fire, killing many proles (yet no Party members) originate from the Party itself? If so, then Orwell is making his commentary on the evil nature of a totalitarian power even more clear. 

Explication of A Considerable Speck by Robert Frost

Frost's poem "Considerable Speck" at first conveys the notion that Frost thinks "idly" of a microorganism; likely a bit of dust dancing across the paper, in all other instances invisible. Frost does not think of the dust's "life," a thing which he later attributes to it despite recognition in the "collectivistic regimenting love with which the modern world is being swept."

Frost conveys a sense of compassion for the speck to the reader by personifying it, giving the thing emotions, anger, fear, and most potently, a desire to continue living. The speck has "inclinations", and "suspicion" of the pen which Frost contemplates using to end its life. Frost, too, makes it apparent his own affirmed belief in the speck's life with strong diction such as "plainly" in describing the intelligence of the organism. We are made to sympathize with the speck when we are alerted that it very much "didn't want to die."

The speck then pauses, awaiting the fate appointed by Frost, pen poised, and we wish that Frost will not terminate it. Frost leads us then to a disclaimer in his disbelief of the love of the modern world, though follows his statement by undercutting it with "But this poor microscopic item now!" Frost is doing precisely what he decried-- attributing life and a love for a piece of dust.

Frost comments that he let it lie "to sleep" for the reason that he knew no evil of it. Here, Frost seems to be making a comment: that we all too often attribute evilness to objects undeserving. In the final stanza, Frost changes the rhyme scheme to signal the close of the poem and his final thoughts. He leaves us with this: that the inanimate object on his paper to him represents a mind, which no matter the size or relevance, is to him worth saving.

1984: Julia

Julia's declaration to Winston that she loves him is, in my opinion, highly suspect. She knows nothing about him other than what her impressions are, and what his name is. She has also never spoken to him. I don't believe that Julia loves Winston-- I believe she is using him to rebel only. She calls him "dear," a term of endearment usually depending upon the longevity of a relationship, yet she uses the term immediately, removing some of its value. Her falsified love is a rebellion. In contrast, Winston's love for her is a mixture of rebellion and affectionate emotion.

Julia appears to be rash, unguarded, deceptive, careful, and unwise. She said that her first love affair occurred at the age of 16 with a 60-year-old Party member who committed suicide. She does not seem to care for the man at all, since she says to Winston "Better off that he died, since he couldn't tell anyone about me." Winston, on the other hand, seems to show at least slightly more concern for the people around him and for love and marriage. And yet, their outlook on relationships does share a similarity: Winston disregards his wife, while Julia disregards her lovers.

Winston's wife poses another disparity between himself and Julia. When Winston tells Julia that he contemplated shoving her over a cliff, he afterwards modifies his opinions, saying that killing her would not have resolved anything. Julia, on the other hand, argues that killing Catherine at the time-- a rash, dangerous, inconsiderate act-- would have been an excellent decision. This also demonstrates, as Winston pointed out, Julia's lack of wisdom and experience. She seems unable to forsee consequences to her actions.

Winston and Julia share an overwhelming similarity of contempt for the Party. Julia's is, however, much more acute, angry, and vocalized. Winston feels afraid to express his displeasure, while Julia is loud, even swearing about the Party.

1984 Blog and Twitter Posts

Blog English

Winston appears to be significantly diverging from the path the government wishes for him to walk. He not only walks among the Proles, but he goes into a shop to purchase delicacies no longer approved by the government/society. However, he does not do so without trepidation. His guilty conscience wracks him with physical ailments. Also, his desire to discover the past among the proles is not powerfully driven yet; he seems to be merely looking to confirm, or discredit, the words of a child’s textbook out of a latent curiosity. He does not persist long in trying to obtain information from the old man, therefore he is likely not yet motivated to the point of taking any sort of decisive action.

It is clear that Winston is dissatisfied with his government. He writes it in his journals; however, I don’t believe that he yet knows why he is dissatisfied. He knows that the government allows people to live wretched and poor, yet he cannot pinpoint what it is he lacks: he suggests that his bones ache for what they know is missing, yet he can’t trace the desire. Still, Winston has taken active steps to pursue the source of this desire, trying to find what is missing, by wandering among the proles. For this reason, I believe that Winston is beginning to become a rebel against the government actively rather than inactively, albeit he still harbors a significant amount of self-doubt.

Winston’s dissatisfaction is progressing. Where will it end? It is not likely to end soon. My prediction is that he will become a full-blown anti-government character, a sort of anarchist, fighting for the plight of the all-too-accepting proles. He will incite their power, of which he has already alluded to, and drive the masses against the government, a leader. All he must do is leap beyond himself, his fears, and his self-consciousness, to focus on the anger that he feels.

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Hamlet Summary in Newspeak

H c Ghost=ungood, go mad, C&Pol test w/ O, c no unlove. H kill Pol, scr unjoy ma. H-> Eng by C, O selfkill, H goback, ma, C, H dual unlive.

Lear Summary Newspeak

L unluv C, land->G&R. G&R mk L ungood, L->storm unjoy. Edm plot nomore Edg, trick Glou. Corn uneye Glou, Edm Erl, FrXEng, C,L,G,R, Glou die.

Privacy Threats: 1984 and 2013

Thusfar in the novel 1984, there have been a nearly infinite number of threats to privacy expressed. Telescreens invade life at every moment. Spies are a perpetually undisclosed threat. Thought police monitor such private things as personal thoughts, and the repercussions of violating thought policies are extremely harsh.

These violations seem extreme, and clearly suppress opposition, such as Winston. He is intimidated into submission, afraid of expressing thoughts or even facial expressions that betray his displeasure towards the Party. However, these violations are not nearly as extreme as they seem, since they occur within our daily lives, unbeknownst to us.

Call me a conspiracy-theorist, but I believe firmly that the government and police watch us when we do not expect it. We already know that they spy on our emails, phone calls, and other interactions. They also spy on us visually...perhaps even via the tiny camera in our laptop monitor.

I spoke the other weekend with a homeless woman sleeping on the street. She was well acquainted with what transpires on the streets of Boston. She stated that the owner of the store in front of which she slept had had a video camera installed by his front door against his volition, and that he could not take it down with a "special laser that the police bring in" which can take years to acquire. Albeit the woman's words should be taken with a grain of salt, I believe her story is a true representation of what is occurring in our society today. Cameras are everywhere, against our will, watching us. Why? Certainly they are only searching for signs of terrorism, so the officials claim. But my question is, what can they define as terrorism, and will that definition change? Will the definition one day be "thoughtcrime", as in the novel 1984? And, more importantly, will be all submit to the terror of privacy invasion, as Winston does?

Poem Explication: Weighing the Dog

Weighing the Dog commences abruptly, divulging immediately into a sentence without commas during the first two lines of the first stanza. The imagery in the first stanza also creates an image of unease and discomfort and awkwardness in lines such as "small bathroom" and "shaky blue scale". It is possible, also, that Billy Collins chooses the color blue for the scale because it is a commonplace and docile color, not fitting to the discomfort and oddness of the event occurring upon it.

The second stanza is the only one the does not begin with a capitalized word, leading it to serve as an explanatory thought for the first stanza. It is an excuse stanza, elaborating on why he is weighing the dog on a small scale. The author also conveys somewhat of a sense of the difficulty of training a dog to sit on a scale with his use of lengthy syntax, conveying the amount of time it could take.

The third stanza continues with the previous idea of perpetuating the awkwardness and arduousness of the situation and the poet writes out the process of subtraction in relatively expansive detail given to arbitrarity of the task: "with pencil and paper I subtract my weight from our total to find out the remainder that is his."

The third paragraph differs from the rest because there are no commas to break it up, like a run-on thought, only a period at the end. It is a confirmed statement, and this was it is made more pronounced and profound. The poet speaks the message of the poem here, saying that he never knew what his dog amounted to until he was subtracted from the equation.

The final stanza demonstrates the relationship that Collins has with his dog. It also has the same syntax as the previous stanza, preserving the aforementioned profundity, for Collins is saying that the he and his dog have remained important to one another through difficult times.

Poetry Explication: To His Coy Mistress

Andrew Marvell addresses his lover in an argument that is dissected into three stanzas, the first speaking in a sweet, positive, and somewhat hypothetical tone. The second stanza contrasts the relaxed imagery of the first by insinuating an urgency, and the previous positive tone is quickly reverted to one that is miserable. The third stanza concludes with a proposal of a dismal sort, that he and his lover should, instead of basking in time's love, race through time to avoid the consequences of ages: they should "Rather at once our time devour" (39).

In the first stanza, Marvell marvels at how he would love without the bonds of time. To express the infinity of time and the irrelevance of time should he allow his love to drawl, Marvell alludes to biblical stories in referencing "the conversion of the Jews" and "the Flood". He also terms his love as "vegetable," a thing which grows slowly and becomes a round, wholesome food and which requires time and nourrishment. He references empires, which develop over a period of time to become masterful. All this is to emphasize the slow and meticulous "rate" at which the author would love his lover, for it is what he believes she deserves.

The second stanza is a stark contrast to the first. It moves with speed; time's chariot hurries, and eternity is metaphorically linked with deserts, vast and empty. Deserts, here, also contrast the "Flood" imagery of the previous stanza. His diction alludes to a cemetery in this stanza: worms, vaults, graves, and dust all appear in the phrases. The contrast serves to illuminate the urgency which the author feels, pressed by time, that he cannot and therefore should not take his time loving, particularly when the result is represented in the imagery of dark, dust, and crawling worms.

Finally, the third stanza brings about Marvell's concluding proposition to his mistress. The imagery is less dark, indeed, but it maintains the same sense of urgency. Though there is a "youthful hue" in the skin, and fire in the pores, the author also makes the simile that they are like birds of prey, rapidly and aggressively devouring time instead of languishing. Urgency is further conveyed in the "torn pleasures" and the image of the running sun, which serves as a metonym for time itself. By the conclusion of the poem, it is clear that Marvell is opposed the "languishing in time", languish itself a juxtaposition with the language in the first stanza.

The Revealing Final Lines of King Lear: Albany, Kent, and Edgar

In the final stanza's of King Lear, Shakespeare reveals the three true "heroes" of the play, who ironically act predominantly as second-tier characters. Albany, Kent, and Edgar, who are portrayed in the play as lower-level persons-- Albany is a subordinate role to his wife Goneril, Kent to his master King Lear, and Edgar to his powerful brother Edmund, at least superficially. Their powerfully telling roles in the play do not manifest until later in the progression, while the functions of their more "important" counterparts are evident immediately. Goneril, Edmund, and Lear profoundly drive the plot forward, initiating conflicts at every turn. Albany, Kent, and Edgar are their foils. They take what conflict has been formed and purify it in their own ways by acting as the most just and true characters in the play. Their last lines attest to this, and furthermore reveal that Shakespeare prefers these characters over their sinister partners, whom he kills off. 


Albany, always just and honest throughout the play (he realizes quickly that Goneril is despicable and has no fear in telling her so, yet he does not fight her), remains honest in his final lines: "All friends shall taste the wages of their virtue, and all foes the cup of their deservings." He then rewards Kent and Edgar the kingdom, who justly deserve it for the good they have done. Albany's final lines attest to his character and cause him to further be illuminated within the play as being more pure at heart than the other characters. 


Kent, dedicated and deeply loving of his master King Lear, sees him through to his heartbreaking end. He goes as far as to disguise himself to continue serving his senile king out of love for him. Shakespeare sums Kent's character in his final lines as well, as Kent says that he must follow his master to his death. Kent's unbending loyalty, as it is emphasized in the final lines of the play, is placed on a pedestal by Shakespeare, towering over the sentiments of the other characters in purity and truth. 


Edgar's truthful character reigns too over others in his last lines: "The oldest hath borne most, we that are young shall never see so much, nor live so long." He, unlike the other characters (predominantly Regan and Goneril), honors rather than degrades the elderly (Lear and Gloucester). Edgar, though deemed a traitor by his father, faithfully revives his father and leads him to safety in Dover. Again, the fact that he speaks the final, truthful lines of the entire play demonstrates that he, according to Shakespeare, is one of the most valuable and respectable characters in the play. 

King Lear with Nature

King Lear evidently has a close relationship with nature; he screams to the vicious storm in Act III, challenging the storm clouds as Deities. As said by a gentleman, Lear is "contending with the elements" in Act III scene i, in rage addressing nature. He also laments his grievances against his daughters to the storm, personifying it in the process.

It is apparent that Lear initially resents nature for making it possible that his daughters are ungrateful: "Crack Nature's molds, all germens spill at once, That make ingrateful man!" He challenged and despises nature. However, his emotions shift as he tells Nature that he is weak and despised, and that he does not heap his unkindness on it; in this light, Nature seems to become a sort of therapist for Lear. It seems all the more a "therapist" when Lear, in a brief monologue in Act III scene iv, "This tempest will not give me leave to ponder on things would hurt me more." Lear admits he is preoccupied by the raging storm so much so that he is distracted by what troubles him most, therefore the storm-- and nature-- benefits his wits.

Lear's perceptions of nature lean in two separate directions, depending upon the state of his senility at different points in time. When most furious and senile, Lear does not fear the wrath and cold of the storm-- he stands hatless in the pouring rain, and once with Edgar, tears at his clothes despite the pervasive cold mentioned previously. When his wits are about him, such as when he is lead by Kent to the hovel, Lear seems to recognize the perniciousness of the brutal storm. He comments on the chill and even dives into a speech about how unfortunate people are forgotten and beaten by the storm while others carry on about there lives. His recognition and humility by the storm comes only infrequently, however, and in general, the senile old man neither fears nor reveres the storm, and in effect, Nature. He instead treats Nature as a venue to which he can emote and bemoan his life.

Frost Explication: Bereft, with King Lear

Robert Frost's poem Bereft is a duality of a storm's brutal reality and a metaphorically berating loneliness, working side-by-side in uses of extensive imagery and other rhetorical devices. The imagery depicts a storm, in "somber clouds" and the angry, "frothy shore." Yet, the underlying theme of loneliness is insinuated by the personification of the elements of the storm: leaves hiss and strike like a serpent. The personification detracts from the realistic depictions of the storm, allowing the reader/listener to expect that the storm is also a metaphor for Frost's loneliness. 

Through personified imagery, Frost addresses the roaring winds and coiled leaves tossed by the storm as being able to receive "word" of his loneliness, and the anger and brooding that the storm appears to possess, shown in particular choices of diction such as "roar" and "frothy", mirror what Frost feels towards the fact that he is bereft of human company or perhaps love. He, emoting vicariously through the storm, expresses his displeasure as well as his apparent unease at his state, reflected in his reference to the "sinister" tone of the storm. 

Lastly, it is possible that Frost, revealed by the final line of the poem, is addressing God in referencing the storm. His tone is somewhat accusatory towards God, as he transitions from speaking of being "in the house alone" to being in his "life alone," apparently pointing towards God that he is alone in the metaphorical house of life, battered by a storm of loneliness and anger. 

The themes of this poem closely mirror King Lear's experience during Act III in which he, disillusioned, angry, and possibly even frightened, cries to the raging storm-- and in effect, to his gods. Lear is also accusatory and distressed over the fact that he feels betrayed by his daughters, loveless, and lonely-- emotions likely similar to those bemoaned by Frost in his poem Bereft. Lear, like Frost, personifies the storm around him, revealing that for him, the storm presents as a metaphor for his own troubled emotions and as God. 

King Lear: His Daughter's Differences, Act I

Thus far, two of King Lear's three daughters-- Goneril and Regan-- are largely lumped together, and are not specifically differentiates as characters with differing motivations, emotions, or personalities. However, the youngest, Cordelia, differs greatly from her two sisters in most regards.

Cordelia is evidently hailed as the most morally pure and lofty of the three. She, unlike her sisters, loves her father in a way that is deep enough so that she recognizes the nature of her love for him. She understands her love enough such that she knows she cannot degrade it by putting into words her immense love, and she knows she must be honest in that her love will divide to include a future husband. This her sister's neglect.

Goneril and Regan may be perceived as having selfish personalities since their outward motivation is to obtain a dowry by declaring their love for their father. However, the two sisters may simply have personalities which value obedience and conformity, unlike Cordelia, which could be viewed as positive. Alas, their benevolently obedient personalties are undermined by their determination to 'do something' about their senile father. In this way, Goneril and Regan appear to be hypocritical, for after having expressed their boundless love for their father, they conspire against him. Cordelia, at least, is quite the opposite of hypocritical, as she takes her loving stance towards her father and remains firmly by it despite the consequences.

Goneril's character is delved into further in Act I, and she appears to be increasingly hypocritical in her conspiring against her father-- or, is Goneril nobly and cleverly fighting against her unjust father in an active way, which Cordelia could not do, having been banished? Goneril drives her father to guilt and great agitation by means of trickery. Cordelia, meanwhile, drives her father to agitation by honesty. Here, the personalities and emotions of Goneril (and Regan, though she is less expressed in Act I) are, to my belief, most clearly juxtaposed with those of Cordelia. Cordelia is honest, fair, loving, and realistic, and resolute, motivated by love and virtue, while her sisters are irresolute, hypocritical, and conspiratory, and are driven by motives of much lesser nobility: want of possession.

Poetry Explication: Meeting at Night

Meeting at Night, a poem by Robert Browning, is a brief poem which recalls a meeting at night between lovers. First and foremost, simply the time of day itself suggests excitement and the forbidden. Shrouded by the dark of night, the narrator is freed to mention his love and to experience it freely through the poem.

Evidently, a great deal of imagery is implicated throughout the poem, in part demonstrating Browning's unsaid assertion that being in love transforms the world into a beautiful thing. As a whole, Browning interlaces warm, fiery imagery with cool, dark images in order to create a mood of the poem which is excited yet quieted at the same time.

The poem commences with "the gray sea and the long black land,"(1), the first of the darker images which imply secrecy in the romance. A yellow half-moon which appears in the second line, large and low like a lantern, reveals the rendez-vous of the lovers warmly, by contrast. The narrator proceeds to personify the "little waves", which leap with a start, a combination of secrecy (for the waves are startled by the presence of the narrator, supposedly) and excitement. The last image that concludes the first stanza indicates that the narrator is willing to trudge through "slushy sand" in order to reach his lover, demonstrating his devotion.

The second stanza is a continuation of alternating images between secrecy and loving excitement, intermingled with indications of the narrator's dedication in crossing "three fields" and "a mile," all to reach his lover. The beach is "warm-scented," while excitement appears with the "tap at the pane," and a "blue spurt" from a match lit by his lover. Line 11 condenses the primary themes of the poem by mentioning the "joys and fears" of the lovers, intermixing the two to define the nature of love. The final line of the poem, telling that their hearts beat together loudly, exemplifies their excitement and nervousness and their passion as well.

Rating of Characters of Hamlet from Most Loving to Least Loving

The character in Hamlet most devoted to love is outstandingly Ophelia, who ultimately goes mad and possibly commits suicide due to love. After Hamlet frightens her away with his madness and her father is murdered, Ophelia becomes delusional and sings of lost love. Her love is uncompromised, for she displays no ulterior motives for her despair.

Laertes follows behind his sister due to his undivided love for his family. His singular goal of revenge in the end of the play and his rage and distress over the deaths of his father and Ophelia demonstrate that his love for them is not only strong, but uncompromised. He, unlike other characters, does not follow motives that are selfish, but instead follows pursuits, such as fencing with Hamlet, that are for the purpose of avenging his family.

Polonius follows his children in terms of being loving. He, like Laertes and Ophelia, has strong concerns for his family. However, his love is marred slightly by his mistrust for his children. He orders Ophelia not to see Hamlet, and also sends someone to spy on his son as he questions Laertes morals. Nevertheless, I believe his love is stronger than the love that Gertrude and Claudius’ love for each other or Hamlet’s love for his late father and family because unlike the remaining characters, Polonius’ love is not heavily clouded by ulterior motives.

Gertrude follows Polonius because though she apparently loves both Claudius and Hamlet, her love for the two is split. Her loyalties and love towards Claudius and Hamlet are divided: she disguises Hamlet’s threats from Claudius as a form of protecting her son, however, she also alerts Claudius to Hamlets’ murdering, betraying her son to her husband.

Claudius is one of the least loving characters in the play, not only because he murders his brother, but because he marries Gertrude not merely for love, but for ambition and status. Claudius is self-centered and consumed by guilt and fear that someone will discover him and shows little or no concern when he discovers Ophelia’s madness and death. Instead, he worries that her death will disrupt his and Laertes’ plans to murder Hamlet. Claudius, due to his self-absorption and lack of concern for others, barely loves. Nonetheless, his love is redeemed slightly by his small amount of love for Gertrude.

Hamlet is the least loving of all the characters despite his apparent concern for his mother and dead father’s ghost because of his lack of consideration of his loved ones during his madness and actions. He frightens his mother and Ophelia and friends in his madness and he does not consider forgiveness of Claudius despite doubts he has about the validity of the ghost. 

Explication of One Art by Elizabeth Bishop

Bishop’s poem “One Art” commences with a much-repeated phrase throughout which will undergo a metamorphosis in its connotation. Initially, the phrase is hopeful and optimistic. The presentation of “losing”, though traditionally negative, is positive, as it is deemed to be an “art”, and that mastery of such art is not difficult. Bishop’s personification of “things” in the second line further contributes to the lighthearted nature of the first tercet. By describing “things” as having a desire to be lost, the act of losing does not seem dismal, but instead as the fulfillment of something’s intent.

Bishop transitions, then, to direct communication with the reader, by saying “Lose something every day. Accept the fluster of lost door keys.” Here, Bishop seems to counsel the reader to accept loss, in effect removing some negative connotation of the word “lose”.

The second stanza marks a shift in Bishop’s tone. The words “faster” and “farther” contribute a sense of urgency to the act of losing, increasing the anxiety within the mood of the poem.  Furthermore, the objects lost in this stanza are of greater importance than the keys and hours in the previous one. They have become places and names and traveling destinations. Concluding this stanza is the repetition of the assertion that loss will not bring disaster; however, where this repetition was previously counseling the reader, it seems to become excessive, causing the reader to question whether the author believes what she counsels, or whether her repetition is her trying to convince herself.

The lost objects in the third stanza contain yet more gravity: a mother’s watch, and houses. It is here that the connotation of the word “lose” may be reconsidered, for “loss” here does evidently not mean misplacing, when referring to the houses. Loss takes on a more serious connotation of either losing from possession or losing control of. Again, her repetition of “losing isn’t hard to master” insinuates that the author does not believe her own assertion. The sheer weight of losing something as important as a house, followed by the previously lighthearted phrase now repeated, transforms the phrase to become something sarcastic.

The fourth stanza carries this pattern on. The amount of loss escalates—cities, rivers, continents—contributing to the reader’s disbelief of what the author asserts, that losing is not a disaster. Also, at the end of this tercet, the author for the first time admits regret at her loss, taking away from her assertion, when she says “I miss them.”

The remaining stanza begins with the word “Even,” expressing that the final loss—losing you—is of greater significance of all previously mentioned items, including a continent. The author then adds, in parenthesis, as is diverging from her poem, what will go with the loss of what we may assume is a loved one or lover. Finally, she repeats that losing is not a difficult art to master, though this time she inserts the word “too”, emphasizing her growing disbelief in her own claim. Then, in parenthesis again, and italicized in a way that is potentially overdramatic and that stand out from the rest of the poem, the author seems to cry, “Write it!” which carries with it a note of despair and hopelessness, quite contrasting the beginning of her poem. This last stanza overwhelmingly demonstrated that Bishop does not belief loss of a loved one is surmountable, as it a more grievous offense than losing a country or treasured item. Evidently, Bishop’s repetition, combined with her final cry of “Write it!” is in fact her own self attempting to convince herself that she will overcome the disaster of losing a loved one. 

To Think or to Do, or Perhaps Neither in My Case

I am a thinker and doer both in the worst of times for each. Today I hit a car, because I did do and did not think; I sent an angry email, because I did not think; and today, I missed a treasured opportunity to catch up with an old friend, because I thought of all the complications of the meeting, rather than taking the minuscule risk to do, and to speak to the friend.

Not only are thinking and doing unrelated, but I seem to suffer dismally from a disconnection of the two in some region of my brain. They say I am "book-smart" and deprived of common sense, brutally so, and the statement could hardly be more accurate.

Today, I thought excessively, and yet despite all my cluttering thinking, I did and did wrong. In foods class, I misunderstood directions, and while berating myself in my mind for not questioning my teacher as to the procedure, I began to think so hard that I decided to do would be preferable. I was wrong. The result was my giving the wrong amount of egg to another group baking muffins, causing their product to be like a leather shoe. In a sense, my fruitlessly intense thinking, in complete disconnect with my mindless doing, sabotaged them.

I am a doer when I should not be, and a thinker when I should not be, all at the same time. I had a part-time job once at a cut-throat pizza shop. My initial reaction to a peeved customer would be to think: what should I do? Should I tell my boss? Maybe I shouldn't. Maybe I should just hang up. Maybe I should just run away... and through that whirlpool of thoughts would emerge a deed that was altogether stupid. I would tell the customer to please, wait a moment, and I would hand them some other customer's pizza. Oops.

Alas, I am a thinker and doer in the worst senses of the words. My memory with words and names is infallible; my fingers are dexterous; my test performance exceptional at times. But what I lack is that impossibly crucial, even lucrative, connection between my thoughts and my actions, leading me to oftentimes look like an utter bozo.

Break of Day: An Explication

Foremost, it is intriguing that the poem, written by John Donne, should be in the perspective of a woman. By taking on the persona of the opposite gender, the poet emphasizes his contemplation and comprehension of what a woman might suppose. 

Additionally, the poem is divided into three stanzas, each presenting a slightly different variation of a plea from the woman speaker that her partner stays. The first stanza is playfully entreating, while the second is more earnest, and the last results in an agitated resignation to defeat.

The jocular nature of the first stanza is apparent in the first line alone, as the speaker dismisses daytime lightly: “what though it be?” (1). The speaker also reasons with her lover here, with playful logic, asking why light should entail departure when it was not night that “brought us hither,” (5). The speaker also mentions love, without restraint, and that it should keep them together, and it is this freedom of emotional declaration accompanied by the toying with juxtapositions of light and day that indicates the speaker’s initial pleasant emotion as she asks her lover to remain with her.

The second stanza introduces an air of more urgency to the speaker’s tone: “And that I loved my heart and honor so, That I would not from him that had them go,” (11,12). The mention of honor intensifies the nature of her pleas. Furthermore, the relationship between the speaker and her lover is insinuated in line 8 to be scandalous, if not adulterous, when the speaker personifies the light so that it might “spy”, an action which could be conducted only if there was something unusual occurring to be spied upon.

The final stanza marks a transition in the speaker’s words, namely a shift between positive emotion and clearly negative emotion. In line 14, “Oh, that’s the worst disease of love,” parallels some of the diction in line 2 of the poem, where “Oh, wilt thou therefore rise from me?” first introduces “Oh”, serving to highlight the contrast between the emotions in the two stanzas, the first being cheer and the last being the opposite.

Also, line 15 lists several plights that might usually be considered unforgivable by a prospective lover, including “the poor, the foul, [and] the false.” The harshness of such characteristics, which are deemed to be acceptable by love, contrasts the apparent   of a “busied man,” and emphasizes the speaker’s deep contempt for the latter.

The last two lines of the poem serve as summation of the speaker (and author’s) predominant points and also as a revelation of the scandalous relationship between speaker and lover.  Line 17 shines light on the term “business” as meaning preoccupation, rather than laboring, which is told by the speaker to be foul in relation to making love. Line 18 compares the atrocity of business intertwined with love to an adulterous male, again foretelling that the relationship is adulterous and also demonstrating the speaker’s belief that full attention ought to be paid to a mistress, else the preoccupation be as sinful as the deed of cheating itself. 

x

To College, or not to College?

To college, or not to college?  That is the question—

Whether it is braver to face a new life and all the barriers you will encounter,

Or to avoid the barriers by choosing the quick path, striking away higher education.

To be living and learning in the world—for that is what life without schooling is,

That is a worthwhile endeavor. To not attend, and to learn by living, and maybe to explore the world as innocents.

Ah, but that’s the issue. Innocence and ignorance are siblings, crab bodies without shells in the ocean, and who knows how to survive defenseless? Certainly, that’s cause for concern. That fear is why we scrape clean our pockets to pay for college.

After all, who would stand for all the bitterness of going to college—the competition, the lofty tuition, the terrifying transition, the lack of air conditioning in the freshman dormitories—when you could simply opt to survive, maybe thrive, on only a high school diploma? Who would choose the awful fears and sacrifices of college, unless they were afraid of what would happen without, the limitless world with its limitless facets, intricate and unknown, which we wonder about without receiving answers from and which makes us cling to the traditions we know rather than initiate ones of our own? Fear of the unknown makes us all cowards, and our bravery is weakened by our over speculation. Choices that should be made quickly are over-processed, ground until they are the dust that floats away with the air. 

Hamlet Act I Scenes iv-v: Hamlet’s Transformation

Hamlet is introduced in the play as a man who appears to be genial and considerate, at least at an average level. He, unlike his mother and uncle, mourns appropriately for his father. Says Claudius of Hamlet’s sorrow, “’Tis sweet and commendable in your nature Hamlet, / To give these mourning duties to your father,” (I.ii.90-91). Hamlet is gentle towards his friends in his words as well: “I am glad to see you well…Sir, my good friend,” (I.ii.166, 169).

Hamlet begins to stray away from consideration of his friends by his “toys of desperation,” in scene 4, upon seeing his father’s ghost. He explains that his “fate cries out,” (I.iv.91) and resultingly does not heed the pleas of his friends for him to stay. Here, too, is the first sign that Hamlet’s disposition is being affected by his pursuit of what he perceives is his fate, when he threatens to “make a ghost of him that lets me!” Horatio’s following remarks foreshadow the metamorphosis that Hamlet will undergo, marking that “he waxes desperate with imagination” (I.iv.97). The prince imagines that his destiny lies with the ghost, as indeed it does, only he will become desperate with the knowledge he will acquire.

Upon Hamlet’s revelation of his father’s murder, he insinuates at the drastic change ahead, telling the ghost that he will surrender his previous beliefs and memories, clinging to nothing but what he has been told. Hamlet is releasing his beliefs and with them his disposition in a full embrace of revenge. His demeanor and tone towards Horatio and Marcellus become those of sarcasm, mocking their concern for him. When Horatio appropriately asks what news has been brought, Hamlet jabs, “O, wonderful!” (I.v.128). He also mistrusts his friends, demanding repeatedly and forcefully that they swear on his sword to be silent. Hamlet’s development upon his encounter with his dead father begins the course that he will follow for the remainder of the play. 

Kitchenette Building: An Explication

The first noteworthy feature of Kitchenette Building is the banality of the title, which mirrors the commonness of the life in which the speaker is revealed to be living. Furthermore, “Kitchenette Building” is a somewhat contradictory grouping of words, seeing as kitchenette is merely a small kitchen while a building would presumably encompass much more than that. This reveals that the speaker may see the kitchenette as a building unto itself due to its prominence or importance in her life.

Furthermore, the structure of the poem follows the flowing thought process of the speaker. The first stanza introduces the life of the speaker as the speaker would typically describe it, and she mentions the fact that the word “Dream” cannot accompany her life. The second stanza follows her thoughts, which migrate to a contemplation of whether or not a dream could even make an appearance, and, if so, could it be kept and examined, the latter piece which is explored in the third, questioning stanza. The fourth stanza is an abrupt departure from the ponderous flow of thought of the speaker when she returns to the current conditions and surrenders all considerations of dreams.

In the first line of the poem, the speaker expresses very much about herself and about her acquaintances in few words by referring to them as “things”, describing their hours as “dry” and therefore dull and wrung lifeless, and terming their “plan” as involuntary, all of which paints a dreary picture of the speaker’s monotonous, forced life. The second line continues this thought with “Grayed in”, an allusion to the dreary entrapment of the speaker within her own life. It also introduces the concept of “Dream” in connection to her existence as something frivolous, since the speaker deems it to be “giddy” and juxtaposes the arbitrariness of Dreams with the necessity of grimmer, imposing words, like “rent” and “feeding a wife”. These lines demonstrate clearly that the priorities of the speaker lie in her daily life duties rather than in dreams.

The second stanza contemplates dreams more fully while incorporating images of the life lead by the speaker, constructing a bleak image for the reader. She mentions dreams sending through “onion fumes” their “white and violet” in lines one and two, highlighting the juxtaposition between the unpleasantness of onion fumes with white and violet colors used to describe dreams, which evoke more of a flowery image. The third line mentions garbage, yet another attribution to the unpleasantness of the speaker’s existence, and the fourth serves as its opposite, with words used to describe dreams like “flutter” and “sing an aria”, all terms of musicality and sweetness.

The third stanza displays the speaker’s contemplation of the possibility of dreams; she seems to be considering their relevance, if only for three short lines, as this stanza is in the form of an incompletely formed question.  It mimics a thought or question that is continuous yet has not completed.

The fourth stanza begins with a brief sentence which illuminates the overarching theme in the poem: “We wonder.” Then, the wondering, which was called “giddy” in the first stanza, is quickly cast aside with “But not well! Not for a minute!” as “Number 5”, perhaps an acquaintance with so little significance in the world such as not to merit a name, appears. Then, in the last line of the poem, the speaker returns to a dismal image, capturing the reality of lukewarm water and finally, in the word “hope” that is used, the bleakness of hope and the desire to dream which has been stifled by reality. 

Hamlet, Act 1, Scenes i-iii
Initial Impressions of King Claudius, Hamlet, and Queen Gertrude

             It is clear that King Claudius accepts fully his position as Dane and embraces his rights as such. He says to Laertes, in a manner of arrogance befitting a natural king, “You cannot speak of reason to the Dane / And lose your voice” (I.ii.44-45). Claudius also appears to be recognizing the necessity of mourning for the late King when addressing his audience (1.ii.1-7), however he contradicts this by justifying his brother’s death in an explanation to Hamlet that it is only natural for him to have died in a way that lacks in compassion and mourning (I.ii.93-94).

             It is a combination of what is mentioned above—a nearly arrogant acceptance of his royalty, his chastising Hamlet for his continued mourning after just one month, and his basic justification for the sudden death of the late king—that lead me to believe that Claudius does not mourn for the death of his brother and instead chooses to enjoy and expect his kingly privileges. This implies at wrongdoing in the death of the late king in relation to his abnormally unwavering brother. 

 Hamlet initially appears to be a good man, honest in his convictions and kind to his friends. He mourns for his father, whom he admires greatly, comparing him to a Hyperion while Claudius is a satyr (I.ii.144). He suspects that something may be amiss, commenting on the fact that his mother mourned for such a short time, yet coming to the conclusion that he must hold his own tongue (I.ii.155-164). He also treats his friend Horatio (and the guards Marcellus and Barnardo) with respect or at least friendliness, promising that he will “requite their loves” in return for their silence (I.ii.272). At the very least, Hamlet appears by no means cruel.

However, these positive perceptions of Hamlet are tarnished by Laerte’s and Polonius’ warnings to Ophelia. Polonius forbids his daughter from seeing Hamlet despite his proclamations of love, comparing them to be “springes to catch woodcocks” (I.iii.124). Laertes advises his sister in a similar fashion, saying that “best safety lies in fear” and that Hamlet’s love is trickery. Given this, Hamlet’s virtue is doubtful.

Lastly, Queen Gertrude leaves little impression other than that she is not saddened by the death of her husband. She calls upon Hamlet to stop his lamentation: “Do not forever with thy vailèd lids / Seek for thy noble father in the dust” (I.ii.72-73), which, given that her husband has been dead only a month, is lacking in sadness. She then asks Hamlet of his father’s death, “Why seems it so peculiar with thee?” (I.ii.78), demonstrating that she does not find the death of the king peculiar herself. This raises yet another red signal that something is amiss in the death given the queen’s mild acceptance of it and her incomprehension of her son’s adequate mourning.