death of a salesman

"death of a salesman" was a truely admirable piece of drama by arthur miller. this play explores the downside of the american dream, having always been the most sought after american tradition. this play shows that most cannot acheive and when one does not gain, their attitude becomes different, because the american dream can be related to success. thus when a man whom had always thought of himself as successful and as a role model for his two sons, has his salary taken, one may not know how to carry on, which is what happened to willy loman. with his sons still living at home, without financial benefits he alwaya envisioned them to have, willy becomes malicious towards them, and feels as if he has failed. why, because he was not able to grasp the white picket fence, and now in his 60's still having to work as hard as he did when he was beginning his career, feels as if there is nothing else to look forward to, more so because his sons failed him too.

poetry

during the class we spent a little time on poety, and i greatly appreciated it. i really enjoyed looking over the prose poetry that we studied, after understanding how to write it used my knowledge in my creative writing class, and had good results. not only that but by doing the unpack a poem, i discovered another way to interpret poetry as well. with that i was able to fully appreciate the writers and their works.

streetcar

finally, there is "streetcar named desire" by tennessee williams, which is in fact my favorite story from this quarter. not only for the bold and well thought out characters and storyline, but also the issues that were discussed in such. williams, being a homosexual in a time where being such was similar to having the plague, in this story he discusses the issues with such, but also speaks of addiction and a woman's insanity. after doing my final presentation on williams i am going to be biased in thinking anything negtive about him, because he was such a great playwright, and explored ideas that none other would think to mention. even though some were forwned upon, he never lost his audience, and still has them today!

end of quarter #2

alright, so the next text that i greatly appreciated is the "open boat", which is a realistic novel of four men trying to survive in a row boat. even though most focus upon the storyline, my interest went to the way Crane took men from all seperate societal levels, and had them work together for one goal all wanted, survival. the way that the men interacted with eachother at first was to be expected, however as the story went on, all the men started to understand eachother. they knew that off that boat none would ever speak to one another, that this circumstance was on of odd proportions. i believe the idea and storyline were magnifcent especially for the time that the storywas released.

the end of the quarter

ok, i definately have not been keeping up with this blog, because i completely forgot about it. however i am going to talk about all of the texts in one posting. starting with the yellow wallpaper, which was one of my favorite stories this quarter. i deeply appreciated the idea of this woman suffering from post pardom depression, sitting in a house with nothing to bide her time by except for this yellow wallpaper. this story surrounds itself around this romantic protagonist, whom has even tricked herself into believing there is another world behind this paper, and its sad that her husband has witnessed her insanity, yet he continues to choose work over his loved ones, which ultimately leads to his death. however, the dialogue and actions taken by the protagonist in this story, are so outrageous, one can do nothing but love this chracter.

blog entry #1

in the short story " the white heron" by sarah orne jewitt, the main character is a young girl named sylvia. being a girl from an impoverished family, sylvia is offered a larger amount of money to help a young man, whom is a sportsman, find the nest of the white heron. though sylvia is young, she knows the rarity of the white heron, and the importance of discovering the birds nest. after a few days of scouting out the home of the bird, sylvia remembers a large pine tree that she has seen a few times, and knows that if it is possible, by climbing the tree and making it to the top of the tree, she will have a greater outlook of the land and a better chance of discovering the birds home. after waiting for her grandmother, with whom sylvia resides, she takes off into the early morning in pursuit of climbing the tree. after making it to the top right when the sun is about to rise, sylvia waits. after the sun rises, sylvia sees the most beautiful thing she can ever recall seeing. she sees the sea to the east and woodlands and villages to the west, then finally discovers the secret home of the white heron. ending with sylvia returning, and never telling the sportsman where the bird lives, forever protecting the beauty she saw.
this short story in my opinion is very poetic and elegant. i really enjoyed the imagery that jewitt provided, it felt as if i saw whar sylvia saw, just by reading the text. if i really did see what sylvia saw, also having the opportunity to improve the financial instability my entire family was in; i still do not believe that i would have told the man either. even though i know the scenery took a huge part in her decision, and some might say that it was just a bird. considering the rarity of the bird, i would say that the white heron and the birds nest make up alot of the scenery as well.