Feb. 11 Homework

Piano by D.H. Lawrence

Softly, in the dusk, a woman is singing to me;
Taking me back down the vista of years, till I see
A child sitting under the piano, in the boom of the tingling strings
And pressing the small, poised feet of a mother who smiles as she sings.

In spite of myself, the insidious mastery of song
Betrays me back, till the heart of me weeps to belong
To the old Sunday evenings at home, with winter outside
And hymns in the cosy parlour, the tinkling piano our guide.

So now it is vain for the singer to burst into clamour
With the great black piano appassionato. The glamour
Of childish days is upon me, my manhood is cast
Down the flood of remembrance, I weep like a child for the past.

Response:
I chose this poem because when I read it it had a really big impact on me. I could connect with the person that the woman is singing to while playing the piano. Even though I am not old yet, I am still past the years where I was carefree and a child. Somedays I really wish I could go back to being that child because life is so beautiful and when you are that young things are all so new and exciting. So, even though I am not an old woman yet I still miss and at times even weep for that child from the past. As I get older each year I am faced with new challenges and new obsticales that affect my personality and eventually mold me into a mature young adult. At times I really don't like this new way of life but sometimes I just can't wait to get even older but as I read this poem I really thought about a lot of my memories and I tried to forget the future.
I personally really enjoy listening and playing music so I was really touched by how this person was moved by the woman's music. I also have had similar experiences where a type of music at the right time will bring me to tears and evoke so many emotions that I would never have thought I would have felt.
Therefore, I can really connect with this poem and the emotions/theme/message that it is conveying. I didn't mean to find this poem, it was a kind of accident but it is one that I read over and over because there was something unique about it that stuck out to me.

3 Questions:
1) What feelings/emotions do you feel when you first read this poem?
2) Do you connect with the poem in anyway? And how?
3) When you read this poem do you connect with the person listening to the music, or to the person playing the music?

2nd Poem and Reflection~

I chose a poem by Maya Angelou. I really like a lot of her poetry and decided to pick out a poem by her to put up on my blog for English class. 

When I read this poem a lot of emotions and unique thoughts came back to me. Some things I have never been able to fully express or describe and to me, this poem did that perfectly for certain things in my life. I really appreciate this poem and as I read it I feel like I am floating, I feel like I become whatever the poem is talking about, I get swept away into another world. A world of freedom and love. A world of compassion and expression but, above all a world of hope. 

So, for all of these reasons I chose this poem to post and respond to. It captures a lot of what I was looking for and I can really appreciate and connect with it. 

Touched by an Angel: By Maya Angelou

We, unaccustomed to courage

exiles from delight

live coiled in shells of loneliness

until love leaves its high holy temple

to liberate us into life.

Love arrives

and in its train come ecstasies 

old memories of pleasure 

ancient histories of pain.

Yet if we are bold,

love strikes the chains of fear

from our souls. 

We are weaned from our timidity 

In the flush of love's light

we dare to be brave

And suddenly we see

that love costs all we are

and will ever be. 

Yet it is only love 

which sets us free. 

Poem and 1-2 paragraph reflection~

Poem: 

What keeps us alive, what allows us to endure?

I think it is the hope of loving,

or being loved. 

-Meister Eckhart 

Reflection:

I chose this poem because I find it to be sweet and simple. It isn't long and drawn out but instead is precise and no words can be taken out. Personally, when I first read this poem I got a little smile on my face because it expresses a type of hope, a hope that we as humans look and long for. Although, many people put their hopes into material items and false gods there is something deep down inside of us that we all long for and that is love. This type of love can come from other people, material items, or even false gods but, true love that is deep and sincere will come from God and God alone because he is the one that created love or the feeling of love in the first place.  That is hope and for me, I believe that everyone lives for hope of loving or being loved. :)

Question 8: 1984

* entry of your choice: My Room 101

The part of the book that left the most impression on me was Room 101. Room 101 is a torture chamber where the victim gets tortured by their worst fear. Since the party knows everything, they would know your biggest fear no matter how hard you tried to keep it hidden. Room 101 definitely brought about very strange feelings for me. I ended up thinking about myself and I imagined that, if I were in the place of Winston, what would I do??? I am sure I would do the same thing that Winston did, and betray my companion, although I cannot make that decision without actually being there and going through the events that Winston faced.

My biggest fear is of SPIDERS and DEATH. I am terrified of both of these things to the extreme and I can't imagine what the party would do to me with spiders or death. :O It is a very scary thought!! I do not know how the party would portray death but I presume it would be in a terrifying way.

What caught my interest was that Winston was not really frightened by Room 101 at first but more intrigued and interested in the room. He witnessed people doing anything to escape from going to Room 101, yet when it came time for his turn to enter Room 101 he did not show any resistance like some others had. Winston is a very confusing character at times but I enjoyed learning and coming to understand some of his complex characteristics in the novel 1984.

Question 7: 1984

* are there are any current situations in the world that relate to the novel? what are they, and how do they relate? does the novel shed any light on how current situations could be resolved or "fixed"?

There are many current situations that relate to the novel 1984. Some current situations like what is happening in North Korea can relate to the novel 1984. The situation in North Korea is not as extreme, in some ways, as in 1984. For example, North Koreans are not observed by telescreens and thought crime doesn't exist, but children and adults are being killed for their beliefs and actions. This is unjust and wrong.

In 1984, people who commit thought crime or rebel against the party are either put to death or sent to the Ministry of Love. In the Ministry of Love most people are not killed but, instead, are tortured and corrupted into loving the party. This is almost the exact opposite in North Korea. Most people in North Korea are not put on trial but are immediately killed if they oppose the government. Some similarities between the North Korean situation and 1984 are things like the government having complete censorship over the entire nation, abusing power for their own glory, not letting people believe or spread their own beliefs about religion and not being able to escape from the country or to escape from the false reality they are trapped in. I do not think that the novel 1984 sheds any light on solving the situation in North Korea.

Question 6: 1984

* are there any settings in this novel which you have found to be beautiful? or disturbing? or memorable?

I found many settings in this novel to be memorable. In particular I found the scene in which the refugee woman shields her child from being hit by the bullets to be very memorable. This was a helpless effort by the woman but she still held her son to her chest as if that would help save her son from being showered with bullets, along with herself. Pg 11: " There was a middleaged woman who might have been a jewess sitting up in the bow with a little boy screaming with fright ad hiding his head between her breasts as if he was trying to burrow right into her and the woman putting her arms around him comforting him although she was blue with fright herself. All the time covering him up as much as possible as if she thought her arms could keep the bullets off him."

Throughout this scene the whole audience is laughing and enjoying this brutal massacre. I found this to be very disturbing. How could people actually find it funny to see other people being killed and murdered in grotesque ways?? How long did this process take to change people's minds so they found tragically heartbreaking events funny? These were some questions I asked myself when reading this passage. I did not understand at all how a human of any kind could find something like this humourous. Today there are some people who are mentally sick and just completely weird who might find this kind of thing funny, unfortunately. But in this scene EVERYONE is laughing and enjoying this murder. Therefore, this is why I found this scene to be memorable and very disturbing.

Question 5: 1984

* please choose one passage from the novel that is significant to you. why is this passage meaningful?

Pg 69: "The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was the final, most essential command. His heart sank as he thought of the enormous power arrayed against him, the ease with which any Party intellectual would overthrow him in debate, the subtle arguments which he would not be able to understand, much less answer. And yet he was in the right! They were wrong and he was right. The obvious, the silly, and the true have got to be defended. Truisms are true, hold on to that! The solid world exists, its laws do not change. Stones are hard, water is wet, objects unsupported fall toward the earth's center. With the feeling that he was speaking to O'Brien, and also that he was setting forth an important axiom, he wrote, Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two makes four. If that is granted, all else follows."

This passage was a real eye-opener for me. I found this passage to contain so much about life and free will. Winston makes a complete 180 by the end of the book. At the end he agreed with everything the party said. After finishing the book and then re-reading this passage, I was very discouraged because in this passage Winston seems to be so strong and firm about what he believes and by the end he doesn't believe in anything. His brain becomes an empty shell filled with all of the Party's ideas and laws. I hated to see this happen to Winston.