"chacha"

He loves me, He loves me not

Relationships are hard.  One of the hardest parts of relationships is walking away from them.  Love is such a powerful emotion.  After giving your heart to someone there is basically no limit what one will do to bring happiness to his or her mate.  Its weird though because no matter how much he/she cheats, no matter how much he beats you that person still means the world to you.  Extreme examples but that is the reality plenty of our peers are living all in the name of love.
 Now in our roaring twenties approaching the big 3-0 we are in pursuit of our goals and aspirations.  Looking to fulfill like landing a dream job, making that first major purchase of a car or home or paying off those evil student loans some common endeavors of our generation.  While on your journey I have encountered plenty associates of mine who don’t plan on taking a life mate with them on this road.  I don’t think it is weird anymore when I hear someone say, “I don’t think I am ever getting married”.  Life long matrimony has become as irrelevant with our generation but we have no problem exercising our gift of giving life.  But why do we build a life long bond (a child) with a person you cannot see a future with?  I’ll wait…

S

final requirement literary criticismthe pearl

The Pearl is a famous novel by John Steinbeck. The book tells the story of Kino, a young pearl diver, who finds the Pearl of the World. Instead of bringing Kino and his family everything that their hearts desire, the pearl brings only violence, tragedy, and death.

This story is based on a Mexican folk tale, The Pearl explores the secrets of man’s nature, the darkest depths of evil, and the disastrous effects of stepping out of an established system, for bad things will happen if one abuses his/her spot, according to the novel.

The Pearl has a strong moral that people should be content with one’s life, as demonstrated in the book when many unfortunate events happen to Kino, his wife Juana, and their baby boy Coyotito, after the discovery of the pearl later in the book. The novella presents this view through the character of the privileged town’s people, among them the pearl traders, who participate in continuing the oppression of the indigenous people (Kino’s race) by offering Kino an unfair price for his pearl. The book also describes the messages of domination and racial discrimination in a way that shows they are negative elements in life. As it says that the doctor’s race looks at Kino’s race as animals.

The Pearl itself, something that can be held in the palm of the hand, eventually leads to the destruction of a well respected family. At the outset, Kino visualize a better future the pearl will bring as he wants new clothes for his family and himself, a proper wedding for him and Juana, and a proper education for Coyotito. Before Kino undertakes his plans, friends and relatives of Kino wonder whether it will make or break Kino and his family and people question whether he can achieve these goals because Kino would have to essentially break the firm common structure.

QUOTATION 1

1. “In the town they tell the story of the great pearl—how it was found and how it was lost again. They tell of Kino, the fisherman, and of his wife, Juana, and of the baby, Coyotito. And because the story has been told so often, it has taken root in every man’s mind. And, as with all retold tales that are in people’s hearts, there are only good and bad things and black and white things and good and evil things and no in-between anywhere. 
“If this story is a parable, perhaps everyone takes his own meaning from it and reads his own life into it. In any case, they say in the town that… .”

Interpretation        

This quotation is Steinbeck’s epigraph to The Pearl. In introducing his novella as a legend (he first heard the legend of the Pearl of the World in a Mexican village), Steinbeck sets the tone for the story. He also establishes the parable’s moral universe, in which there “are only good and bad things … and no in-between.” Most important, the measured formal language of the epigraph evokes biblical verse and therefore suggests that The Pearl is a parable before Steinbeck himself even alludes to this possibility. Because the epigraph leads directly into Chapter 1 (the first sentence in Chapter 1 effectively concludes the unfinished final sentence of the epigraph), it also creates the sense that we have been taken directly to the source of the legend. The quotes that surround the epigraph give us the sense that someone is telling us a story and that the novella that follows is the storyteller’s tale.

The ants were busy on the ground, big black ones with shiny bodies and the little dusty quick ants. Kino watched with the detachment of God while a dusty ant frantically tried to escape the sand trap an ant lion had dug for him. 
He watched the ants moving, a little column of them near to his foot, and he put his foot in their path. Then the column climbed over his instep and continued on its way, and Kino left his foot there and watched them move over it.

 Quotation 2 

2. These two quotations are from Chapter 1 and Chapter 6, respectively. Kino’s two encounters with ants are not important to the novel’s plot, but they reveal a great deal about Kino’s position and attitude at two key moments in the novel and thus form an important contrast with one another. The quotation from Chapter 1 occurs during the idyllic opening description of Kino and Juana’s life. Kino’s detached attitude toward nature suggests that he is a part of nature but also above it, like God. The description of the ant caught in the sand trap is a subtle instance of foreshadowing, as it mirrors Kino’s eventual experience as a helpless prisoner of his own ambition.

Interpretation

The quotation from Chapter 6 describes Kino after the pearl has corrupted him. He is no longer detached from nature, and therefore he is no longer like God. Yet, as he becomes more animal-like, he aspires to be more like God by trying to affect the ants’ behavior when he places his foot in their path. He does not succeed in changing nature, however; rather, nature simply renders him insignificant, as the ants methodically ignore him and climb over his shoe. As Kino’s greed brings him from his initial human dignity to a plane closer to that of animals, he loses something essential to his humanity, as well as the easy, simple relationship with nature he enjoys early in the novella.

 Quotation 3 

But the pearls were accidents, and the finding of one was luck, a little pat on the back by God or the gods or both.

Interpretation

This short quotation is from Chapter 2, when Kino prepares to make the dive on which he finds the Pearl of the World. The narrator contends that certain occurrences that shape human life are accidents willed by a divine power, events over which human beings have no control. It becomes clear that the discovery of pearls is a function of such seemingly arbitrary divine fate. Kino’s eventual downfall can thus be seen as not entirely his own fault. The quotation also subtly alludes to the mixed cultural background of the natives in The Pearl: they come from a culture in which people believe in more than one god but have been governed for centuries by Catholic Spaniards who have built churches in which only a single God is worshipped. As a result, the natives are spiritually somewhat ambivalent, unsure as to whether the higher power in which they believe consists of “God” or “the gods.”

 Quotation 4

4. In the pearl he saw Coyotito sitting at a little desk in a school, just as Kino had once seen it through an open door. And Coyotito was dressed in a jacket, and he had on a white collar and a broad silken tie. Moreover, Coyotito was writing on a big piece of paper. Kino looked at his neighbors fiercely. “My son will go to school,” he said, and the neighbors were hushed… .
Kino’s face shone with prophecy. “My son will read and open the books, and my son will write and will know writing. And my son will make numbers, and these things will make us free because he will know—he will know and through him we will know… . This is what the pearl will do.”

Interpretation

This passage from Chapter 3 describes the moment of Kino’s pivotal decision to direct all his energies toward using the pearl to obtain an education for Coyotito. Kino’s ambition constitutes an attempt to shake the foundations of his society by placing his son on a level with the natives’ European oppressors. The vehemence with which Kino reacts to his vision, as well as the hushed silence with which the neighbors hear it, is a testament to the improbable nature of Kino’s plan not only to improve his son’s lot but to break “free” of a centuries-long cycle of oppression. From this moment forward, Kino remains obsessed with his goal, which he can achieve only by making a great deal of money from his pearl. The image of Coyotito as an equal to the colonists transfixes Kino throughout the novella.

 Quotation 5 

5. And the evils of the night were about them. The coyotes cried and laughed in the brush, and the owls screeched and hissed over their heads. And once some large animal lumbered away, crackling the undergrowth as it went. And Kino gripped the handle of the big working knife and took a sense of protection from it.

Interpretation

This quotation from Chapter 6 demonstrates how Kino’s relationship with nature has changed, symbolizing his personal and moral downfall. In general, Steinbeck portrays the natural world positively in The Pearl, using beautiful language and images of sun-drenched scenery. This scene reverses that trend, as Steinbeck illustrates the dark and frightening aspect of nature. We sense that the universe itself opposes Kino’s course of action. Kino himself reveals an adversarial relationship with nature by his defensive gripping of his knife handle to reassure himself. Where Kino earlier lived in harmony with nature, his ambition has made him nature’s enemy.

full title  ·  The Pearl

author  · John Steinbeck

type of work  · Novella

genre  · Parable, allegory

language  · English

narrator  · The anonymous narrator writes as if telling an old story he or she knows very well. The narrator frequently alludes to the story’s ending and freely describes the inner thoughts and feelings of various characters. Rather than tell the story in his own voice, Steinbeck chooses to narrate in a stylized voice recalling that of a storyteller from a society like Kino’s, in which stories are handed down from generation to generation, eventually losing their specificities and becoming moral parables, as Steinbeck insinuates in the opening epigraph, by virtue of sheer repetition.

point of view  · The narrator uses third-person, omniscient narration, meaning he or she not only tells us what various characters think and feel but also provides analysis and commentary on the story. The narrator shifts perspective frequently, focusing most often on Kino but occasionally focusing on other characters such as Juana and the doctor.

tone  · The narrator tells Kino’s story to teach a moral lesson, and so treats Kino above all as a cautionary figure. At the same time, however, the narrator seems to see Kino as a sort of tragic hero, and is moved by the human weakness Kino’s actions reveal. The narrator often shows a certain respect for Kino’s striving to realize his ambitions—even while recognizing the mistakes Kino makes and mourning his ultimate moral downfall.

tense  · Past

setting (time)  · Unclear, possibly late nineteenth or early twentieth century

setting (place)  · A Mexican coastal village called La Paz, probably on the Baja Peninsula

protagonist  · Kino

major conflict  · After finding a magnificent pearl, Kino seeks to sell it to acquire wealth. He wishes for his son’s wound to heal, and for his son to obtain an education and become an equal to the European colonists who keep his people in a state of ignorance and poverty. When he tries to sell the pearl, however, Kino quickly meets resistance in the form of other people’s greed. Ultimately, his struggle to acquire wealth places him at odds with his family, his culture, and nature, as Kino himself succumbs to greed and violence.

rising action  · A scorpion stings Coyotito; Kino discovers a great pearl; Kino’s attempts to sell the pearl are unsuccessful, and he is mysteriously attacked; Kino beats Juana for attempting to discard the pearl.

climax  · Kino kills a man who attacks him for his pearl, an event that exposes the tension surrounding this object as a bringer of great evil as well as a chance for salvation.

falling action  · Kino and Juana flee the village and find themselves chased by trackers; Kino fights with the trackers, not knowing that they have taken Coyotito’s cry to be that of a coyote and shot him; Kino and Juana return to the village and throw the pearl back into the sea.

themes  · Greed as a destructive force; the roles of fate and agency in shaping human life; colonial society’s oppression of native cultures

motifs  · Nature imagery, Kino’s songs

symbols  · The pearl, the scorpion, Kino’s canoe

foreshadowing  · Coyotito’s name; the discussion of “The Pearl That Might Be”; Juana’s prayer for Kino to find a great pearl; Juana and Juan Tomás’s warnings to Kino that the pearl is dangerous

What do we learn about the pearl’s symbolism from the reactions it evokes?

ANALYSIS FOR MAJOR CHARACTERS

Kino

Kino, The Pearl’s protagonist, is an extremely simple character, motivated by basic drives: his love for his family, loyalty to the traditions of his village and his people, and frustration at his people’s oppression at the hands of their European colonizers. Kino also possesses a quick mind and a strong work ethic, and he feels a close, pure kinship with the natural world, the source of his livelihood.

At the beginning of the novella, Kino is essentially content with his life. However, two seemingly chance occurrences—Coyotito’s scorpion sting and Kino’s discovery of the pearl—open Kino’s eyes to a larger world. As Kino begins to covet material wealth and education for his son, his simple existence becomes increasingly complicated by greed, conflict, and violence. The basic trajectory of Kino’s character is a gradual decline from a state of innocence to a state of corruption and disillusionment. The forces propelling this decline are ambition and greed. At the end of the novella, Kino’s tranquil relationship with nature has been perverted and reversed, a change signified by the fact that Kino finds the sounds of the animals at night threatening rather than reassuring.

Because The Pearl is a parable, Kino’s character can be interpreted in many ways. It can be seen as a critique of colonial politics, an exploration of how good motives can bring a person to a bad end, or even an attack on the idea of the American dream. But on the most basic level, Kino represents the dangers of ambition and greed. Kino’s ruin, caused by his lust for the pearl, illustrates the extent to which ambition and greed poison and jeopardize every aspect of a human’s familial, cultural, and personal well-being.

Juana

Kino’s wife, Juana, is more reflective and more practical than Kino. She prays for divine aid when Coyotito’s wound leaves Kino impotent with rage, and she also has the presence of mind to salve the wound with a seaweed poultice. Juana is loyal and submissive, obeying her husband as her culture dictates, but she does not always agree with his actions. Like Kino, Juana is at first seduced by the greed the pearl awakens, but she is much quicker than Kino to recognize the pearl as a potential threat. In fact, Juana comes to view the pearl as a symbol of evil.

As the novella progresses, Juana becomes certain that the limitations, rules, and customs of her society must be upheld. Whereas Kino seeks to transform his existence, Juana believes that their lives will be better if they keep things as they are. Kino can see only what they have to gain from the pearl, but Juana can see also what they stand to lose, and she wisely prefers to protect what she has rather than sacrifice it all for a dream. Juana thus serves an important function in the novella—she counterbalances Kino’s enthusiasm and reminds the reader that Kino’s desire to make money is dangerous. Juana also symbolizes the family’s domestic happiness; the scene in which Kino beats her for trying to cast off the pearl thus represents Kino’s tragic break from the family he longs to support.

The Doctor

Though he does not figure largely in the novella’s plot, the doctor is an important character in The Pearl because he represents the colonial attitudes that oppress Kino’s people. The doctor symbolizes and embodies the colonists’ arrogance, greed, and condescension toward the natives, whom the colonists do not even try to understand. Like the other colonists, the doctor has no interest in Kino’s people. He has come only to make money, and his greed distorts his human values. As a physician, the doctor is duty-bound to act to save human life, but when confronted with someone whom he considers beneath him, the doctor feels no such duty. His callous refusal to treat Coyotito for the scorpion sting because Kino lacks the money to pay him thus demonstrates the human cost of political conquest rooted in the desire for financial profit. As his interior monologue in Chapter 1 shows, the doctor is obsessed with European society, and European cultural values grip his mind so deeply that he doesn’t even realize how ignorant he is of Kino and Kino’s people.

CHARACTERS

Kino -  The protagonist of the novella. Kino is a dignified, hardworking, impoverished native who works as a pearl diver. He is a simple man who lives in a brush house with his wife, Juana, and their infant son, Coyotito, both of whom he loves very much. After Kino finds a great pearl, he becomes increasingly ambitious and desperate in his mission to break free of the oppression of his colonial society. Ultimately, Kino’s material ambition drives him to a state of animalistic violence, and his life is reduced to a basic fight for survival.

Juana -  Kino’s young wife. After her prayers for good fortune in the form of a giant pearl are answered, Juana slowly becomes convinced that the pearl is in fact an agent of evil. Juana possesses a simple faith in divine powers, but she also thinks for herself. Unfortunately for her and her child, Coyotito, she subjects her desires to those of her dominant husband and allows Kino to hold on to the pearl.

Coyotito -  Kino and Juana’s only son, who is stung by a scorpion while resting in a hammock one morning. Because Coyotito is an infant, he is helpless to improve his situation and thus at the mercy of those who provide for him. Kino and Juana’s efforts to save him by finding a big pearl with which they can pay a doctor prove to do more harm than good.

Juan Tomás -  Kino’s older brother. Deeply loyal to his family, Juan Tomás supports Kino in all of his endeavors but warns him of the dangers involved in possessing such a valuable pearl. He is sympathetic to Kino and Juana, however, putting them up when they need to hide and telling no one of their whereabouts.

Apolonia -  Juan Tomás’s wife and the mother of four children. Like her husband, Apolonia is sympathetic to Kino and Juana’s plight, and she agrees to give them shelter in their time of need.

The doctor -  A small-time colonial who dreams of returning to a bourgeois European lifestyle. The doctor initially refuses to treat Coyotito but changes his mind after learning that Kino has found a great pearl. He represents the arrogance, condescension, and greed at the heart of colonial society.

The priest -  The local village priest ostensibly represents moral virtue and goodness, but he is just as interested in exploiting Kino’s wealth as everyone else, hoping that he can find a way to persuade Kino to give him some of the money he will make from the pearl.

The dealers -  The extremely well-organized and corrupt pearl dealers in La Paz systematically cheat and exploit the Indian pearl divers who sell them their goods. They desperately long to cheat Kino out of his pearl.

The trackers -  The group of violent and corrupt men that follows Kino and Juana when they leave the village, hoping to waylay Kino and steal his pearl.

schools

Psychoanalytic Criticism

As Long As you’re near

the first time we met, I could see,
that you and I were meant to be.
Your eyes were so gentle, your smile so true,
When you first held my hand, I just knew.

Now the time has gone by, through laughter and tears,
these days I shall cherish, for years upon years.
Those memories we have, shall never fade,
for those are the steps that we have made.

That was the past, the future is near,
and I anxiously wait, for what will appear.
New homes, more laughter, and children so dear,
everything will be wonderful, as long as you’re near.

- Cristy Smith –

It is a rhyming poem as we can see the rhyme scheme is “aabb” as simple as that. The words that end with letters E, S, and R.

The length of the poem are in 8 for the first and second line, then 10 and 9 for the third and fourth line Counts.11,10,10 ,9 for the second stanza ,9.11,10,13 for the third stanza. The voice used was first person it discusses about all herself. It is a descriptive poetry.  The mood of the author is mixed emotions though there are times of struggles in their life still the feeling of mad change to happy. The theme is all about their life.

The punctuation marks  are well understood with clarity.

- The first stanza represents the author’s happiness, when they are together sharing her emotions without hesitation but full of ambitions that they both lived happily ever after till the end. She’s dreaming of the right man for him and feeling assured that they loved one another and meant for each other.

-As year’s passes by leaves do dry but it seems their loved grow stronger and stronger. And the memories are unfading for both of them.

–The feelings and actions of the author are very happy from the beginning until the end of the stanzas. 

Formalism

I think that I shall never see

A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest

Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,

And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in summer wear

A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;

Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,

But only God can make a tree.

I choose this poem not because it shows being formalism but as we tend to read it with understanding we realized that aesthetic beauty of our nature that we need to protect and give more importance. Alfred Joyce Kilmer (December 6, 1886 – July 30, 1918) was an American journalist, poet, literary critic, lecturer, and editor. Kilmer is remembered most for a short poem entitled “Trees” which was published in the collection Trees and Other Poems.

“Trees” 

Though a creative poet, Joyce Kilmer is chiefly known for his poem, “Trees”, published in the 1914 collection, Trees and Other Poems, Kilmer wrote “Trees” on February 2, 1913, at his home in Mahwah, New Jersey. The poem was dedicated to Mrs. Henry Mills Alden (Ada Foster Murray Alden), his wife’s mother and a poet in her own right. “Trees” has been given several musical settings that were quite popular in the 1940s and 1950s.

It was not inspired by any specific tree but about trees in general was written “…in an upstairs bedroom… which served as Mother’s and Dad’s bedroom and also as Dad’s office…. The window looked out down a hill, on our well-wooded lawn - trees of many kinds, from mature trees to thin saplings: oaks, maples, black and white birches, and I do not know what else.” However, a 1915 interview with Kilmer “pointed out that while Kilmer might be widely known for his affection for trees, his affection was certainly not sentimental - the most distinguished feature of Kilmer’s property was a colossal woodpile outside his home. The house stood in the middle of a forest and what lawn it possessed was obtained only after Kilmer had spent months of weekend toil in chopping down trees, pulling up stumps, and splitting logs. Kilmer’s neighbors had difficulty in believing that a man who could do that could also be a poet.”

 “Trees” has twelve lines of eight syllables in strict iambic tetrameter. The poem’s rhyme scheme is rhyming couplets rendered aa bb cc dd ee aa.

Despite its misleading simplicity in rhyme and meter, “Trees” is notable for its use of personification and anthropomorphic imagery: the tree of the poem, which Kilmer portray as female, is depicted as pressing its mouth to the Earth’s breast, looking at God, and raising its “leafy arms” to pray. The tree of the poem also has human physical attributes — it has a “hungry mouth”, arms, hair , and a bosom.

Moral Criticism

DREAM HORSE
By:  Grace Edwards

A wonderful horse, waiting for me
As beautiful as horses can be
A chestnut, red as Mars
When she jumps up, she hits the stars

A deep brown eye, like jarrah wood
When I give her aids, she does what she should
This horse is the only one for me
I’ll ride her from Queensland to Northern Territory

This horse and I, when we meet first
I will ride her for all I’m worth
She’ll gallop so fast, it really is frightening
This horse goes by the name of Lightning

 The horse is a beautiful magnificent creation made by God.

To see a horse in your dream, symbolizes strength, power, endurance, virility and sexual prowess. It also represents a strong, physical energy.  You need to tame the wild forces within. The dream may also be a pun that you are “horsing around”. Alternatively, to see a horse in your dream, indicate that you need to be less arrogant and “get off your high horse”.

To see a black or dark horse in your dream, signifies mystery, wildness, and the unknown. You are taking a chance or a gamble at some unknown situation. It may even refer to occult forces. If the horse is white, then it  signifies purity, prosperity and good fortunes. To dream that you are being chased by a white horse, may be a pun on chaste. Perhaps you are having difficulties dealing with issues of intimacy and sexuality. 

To see a dead horse in your dream, indicates that something in your life that initially offered you strength is now gone. This may refer to a relationship or situation. Consider the phrase “beating a dead horse” to indicate that you may have maximized the usefulness of a certain circumstance. 

To see a herd of wild horses in your dream, signifies a sense of freedom and lack of responsibilities and duties. Perhaps it may also indicate your uncontrolled emotions. If you are riding a wild horse, then it represents unrestrained sexual desires. 

To dream that you are riding a horse, suggests that you are in a high position or position of power. Alternatively, it indicates that you will achieve success through underhanded means. You lack integrity. If you are riding a horse that is out of control, then it means that you are being carried away by your passions.

To see an armored or medieval horse in your dream, refers to your fierceness, aggression, power and/or rigidity. You may too confrontational. Alternatively, you may be trying to protect yourself from unconscious material or sexual desires that is emerging. 

To dream that you are bathing a horse, represents a renewal of strength and vigor. You are experiencing a burst of energy in some aspect of your life. 

This poem is a rhyming poem aabb. The authors mood are excited and really interested with her dreams about the horses.this poem is a quatrain in lines.

Marxist Criticism

Remember When

A computer was something on TV
From a sci fi show of note.
A window was something you hated to clean
And ram was the cousin of goat.

Meg was the name of my girlfriend
And gig was a job for the nights.
Now they all mean different things
And that really mega bytes.

An application was for employment.
A program was a TV show.
A curser used profanity.
A keyboard was a piano.

Memory was something that you lost with age.
A CD was a bank account.
And if you had a 3 1/2” floppy
You hoped nobody found out.

Compress was something you did to the garbage
Not something you did to a file.
And if you unzipped anything in public
You’d be in jail for a while.

Log on was adding wood to the fire.
Hard drive was a long trip on the road.
A mouse pad was where a mouse lived.
And a backup happened to your commode.

Cut you did with a pocket knife.
Paste you did with glue.
A web was a spider’s home.
And a virus was the flu

I guess I’ll stick to my pad and paper
And the memory in my head.
I hear nobody’s been killed in a computer crash,
But when it happens they wish they were dead.

 This is a free verse poem. The author’s mood is he reminisce the traditional machine and the modern technology we have. It really relates in our economic status where in it rapidly change from time to time. We make to control the growing of technology but it totally grows more because we can’t stop the effects of it to the lives of each and every one.

ABCD.ABBB, ABCD, ABCB, AABA, ABBA, AAAB, ABCB it contains different rhyming scheme plus the different length of the poem. It uses simple words. lines are in quatrain.

Reader-Response Criticism

Life’s Tragedy
It may be misery not to sing at all, 
And to go silent through the brimming day; 
It may be misery never to be loved, 
But deeper grief’s than these beset the way.

To sing the perfect song, 
And by a half-tone lost the key, 
There the potent sorrow, there the grief, 
The pale, sad staring of Life’s Tragedy.

To have come near to the perfect love, 
Not the hot passion of untendered youth, 
But that which lies aside its vanity, 
And gives, for thy trusting worship, truth.

This, this indeed is to be accursed, 
for if we mortals love, or if we sing, 
We count our joys not by what we have, 
But by what kept us from that perfect thing. 

The greatest tragedy is not to fall short of perfection but not to try for it. 
Should it not be: ‘And by a half-tone lose the key.’

This poem is a free verse poem. Containing the sorrow of the author about our life why and how it was like that. It has a different length. First stanza contains rhyming schemes are: A, B, C, and B. Second stanzas contain A, B, C, B. until to the third and fourth.

Post-Structuralism/Deconstruction

GOVERNMENT

THE Government—I heard about the Government and
     I went out to find it. I said I would look closely at
     it when I saw it.
Then I saw a policeman dragging a drunken man to
     the calaboose. It was the Government in action.
I saw a ward alderman slip into an office one morning
     and talk with a judge. Later in the day the judge
     dismissed a case against a pickpocket who was a
     live ward worker for the alderman. Again I saw
     this was the Government, doing things.
I saw militiamen level their rifles at a crowd of
     workingmen who were trying to get other workingmen
     to stay away from a shop where there was a strike
     on. Government in action.

Everywhere I saw that Government is a thing made of
     men, that Government has blood and bones, it is
     many mouths whispering into many ears, sending
     telegrams, aiming rifles, writing orders, saying
     “yes” and “no.”

Government dies as the men who form it die and are laid
     away in their graves and the new Government that
     comes after is human, made of heartbeats of blood,
     ambitions, lusts, and money running through it all,
     money paid and money taken, and money covered
     up and spoken of with hushed voices.
A Government is just as secret and mysterious and sensitive
     as any human sinner carrying a load of germs,
     traditions and corpuscles handed down from
     fathers and mothers away back.

This poem talks about the discrepancy with regards to the ordinary people, people in a high class and the people under the government. They treated different depends on their status in the society.  It only shows that the government doesn’t have any fairness but rather a wrong doing of serving the people.  He discussed why the government is unfair. It is a free verse poem. It is a reflective poetry wherein the authors deliver his own reflections about the government way governing people. 

I think it`s a real poem, but not boring, just need to get the idea the author tried to deliver. in life it goes bit different way than in mathematics. Bright and memorable work!

I’m overwhelmed by the words on the poem, its more like the writer was emotional, sad, and consent about what life has/have in these days. 
I may have to say life has a destination no matter what it is and what would be the outcome of our doings… 

I am proud of this man, or to the author beautiful poem…and what essence this poem contains!

Cultural studies

Some Things Had To Go

Robotic flowers,

Glistening with the morning dew,

Rise up their faces to the sun.

Tiny solar generators make lights

Twinkle and glitter.

A man looks over these flowers.

He sighs, reminiscent of the days that flowers were organic.

Things had to go, flowers were one of them.

No longer does pollen lace the air.

No longer do sweet scents drift.

Only the slight smell of rust remains.

The man decides to end it,

it was what he came to do anyway.

He takes a small vial of water and opens it.

A tentative sip, then he downs the contents.

The man shudders, and falls to the floor.

His metal carcass lies among the robotic flowers.

The vial contained only water.

Some things had to go.

Humans were one of them.

More people should approach this topic. It may not be totally relevant today but there may come a day when we must decide “what makes us human?”

It only shows how human lives in their daily life… nothing in this world live just for their own we need to have the help of others not just meant for people but also with the use of different gadgets that we have in our modernize world.

As we can see in this poem if time and people are changing even all the things we’ve seen in the society are also changing. From the smallest things up to the biggest things it comprises changes. People and things are evolving as time passes by.  As I have noticed this poem referring to the traditional way of life up to the modernize way of life.

If before we smell natural flowers in everywhere, today we can smell natural flowers if we go to a place wherein the location is not polluted and the people that are there living there gives value to the natural resources. We people appreciate these things if it’s already too late we don’t give value instead we don’t even care.

If our nature returns what we’ve destroy for sure our lives become more complicated.  Before of all the things we’ve use are all in naturals in today’s time we use pure preservative… How people may survive in this way of life? How long we’ve going to say in this kind of lifestyle…

MARXIST

DEMOCRACY

Democracy, the Fat One cried -
It’s ours, you lot haven’t a clue !
We’re big, we’re the best, your way is all lies,
For only OUR vision is true.

Democracy! The Fat One yelled,
We’ve worked at it ever so hard !
We’re goanna make sure our democracy stays,
And we’ll start by controlling our back yard.

First we’ll begin by stealing all your gold
So OUR lifestyle stays pleasantly high;
Then we’ll manipulate, cheat, to maintain a firm hold
Until your hope eventually dies.

Then we’ll seek power, because you are all fools,
And not to be trusted with dreams:
We’ll find the depraved and use them as tools
And block off our ears to your screams.

Now one day you’ll rise and the monsters will go,
And this rebirth will be a new dawn -
We’ll stifle your trade, watch your despair grow
And undermine you with our scorn.

Oh! The Fat One is best, our democracy’s strong,
We’re Masters – for that is our Fate !
You’re way out of line, your ideas are all wrong,
Let us substitute misery and hate.

For this is the price that you have to pay
To maintain OUR greatest ideal:
Democracy’s easy when done our strange way -
Just trample on others and steal.

*Making others weak makes themselves strong that is a challenge to other nations’ that’s what they believe in. democracies are just to live in a freeway. To live without doubt just do whatever you want to do. To live without fear in mind but with ease in mind. Why other countries wants to Steals other wealth? Is it for them to be stronger or maybe because they need to do it for them to have whatever they wanted even in a wrong way. In this sense democracy is bought via the dictatorships and poverty of other countries.

Democracy shouldn’t stop at a nation’s borders. When we start giving some sort of voting rights or a say in how our nations are run because powerful nations affect weaker nations to individuals in other nations, then we can say that we live in democracies.

The fact that I live in a third world country this only show we live our life with our own decisions. Colonization gave the so called great nations the power they yield. They took advantage of our permittivity and they pretend to come to our rescue.

COGNITIVE CULTURAL STUDIES

Poverty

Lot of hunger and having no food is poverty, 

Not having spare cloth to take bath is poverty, 

Needing a shelter but not having one is poverty, 

Child’s sick but can not buy treatment, is poverty, 

Fainting child dreaming a mouthful of rice is poverty

Searching warmth in cold flesh in winter nights, is poverty, 

Sitting with umbrella on wetting bed in showering night, is poverty, 

Thoughtful mother, two mouthful of rice and three children, is poverty, 

An ill, deserted mother selling her child wishing it will survive, is poverty.

A defeated and desponded mother poisoning and killing her child is poverty, 

*The content of this poem is exciting and a lot of people need to understand the strategies of improving poverty. I’M HAPPY to see that even the poets are dedicated to help the world about expressing their feelings. Well done and keep on working very hard for this poor world. Even that was so unpleasant to read it only shows what was true.
It is very touching and it shows how great the writer is. The writer tuned realistic and expresses two shades of poverty.

Feminism  

A Loving Man    

If you say you love me, why do you feel above me?
You insist you’re straight, or that’s what you claim,
But if you love only women, why don’t you treat them the same?
Why won’t you listen to the things that bother me
about the world we live in and the lack of equality?
Why don’t you care about our rights, if you have me in your sights?
You want to hold my hand, but you can’t understand
that the world treats a woman as less than a man.
Don’t you see that my depression is worsened by your oppression?
Sexism is septic and it all starts in the domestic
Please realize the truth about the things I’ve told
A man who practices equality is worth more than gold.

Some men do seem to act and think this way, that they are greater than the females and that we are meant to sit in and do all the household chores because that is what happened in the past. I felt that this was a rather thought annoying topic and it actually made me sit back and think about the way that the world has changed, grown and develop. I think that today men are more laid back about what females do, but there are still those who think the same way that they did back a long time ago. There was a lot of power to your words, it really brought me in to make me sit back and think, and it almost made me feel as if I was in the situation myself.

Women’s are no longer useless because we transformed to be a powerful. Men always underestimate what the things that women do they don’t know what man can did can be done by a woman. 

Darwinian literary Studies

Original text

Unofficial English translation

Sa aking mga Kababata

Kapagka ang baya’y sadyáng umiibig
Sa kanyáng salitáng kaloob ng langit,
Sanglang kalayaan nasa ring masapit
Katulad ng ibong nasa himpapawid.

Pagka’t ang salita’y isang kahatulan
Sa bayan, sa nayo’t mga kaharián,
At ang isáng tao’y katulad, kabagay
Ng alin mang likha noong kalayaán.

Ang hindi magmahal sa kanyang salitâ
Mahigit sa hayop at malansáng isdâ,
Kayâ ang marapat pagyamaning kusà
Na tulad sa ináng tunay na nagpalà.

Ang wikang Tagalog tulad din sa Latin
Sa Inglés, Kastilà at salitang anghel,
Sapagka’t ang Poong maalam tumingín
Ang siyang naggawad, nagbigay sa atin.

Ang salita nati’y huwad din sa iba
Na may alfabeto at sariling letra,
Na kaya nawalá’y dinatnan ng sigwâ
Ang lunday sa lawà noóng dakong una.

To my Fellow Youth

If ever the country will fall in love,
To the language the heavens had gave upon her,
The compounded liberty will have on cherished,
Like a free bird that flows freely through the skies.

Since words are mirrors of judgment
To the villages, towns and countless kingdoms
And to its man, which look partaking
Of any forms done by a compatriot love.

One who does not love his own language
Definitely worse than an animal and a putrid fish
It is more proper to use it and prosper it
Comparable to the mother[land] which gave that to us.

Tagalog language is similar to Latin
In English, Spanish and angelic dialects
This is so the Lord who granted this thing
Is equal and thoughtful in giving it to us

Our wordings, is same as others
That have own alphabet and pictured letters
That once lost because of an unnoticed typhoon
That drenched and washed our language in the first place.

The poem “Sa Aking Mga Kabata” (To My Fellow Youth) was the very first poem written by Jose Rizal. It was written in his native Tagalog while he was yet 8 years old.

The poem is about love of one’s native language, in this case, Tagalog.

First stanza: When a country loves God and its God-given language, it also wants to attain freedom—freedom like that of a bird flying in the sky. 

Second stanza: By its language, a nation is judged or assessed. 

Third stanza: Anyone who does not love his native tongue is worse than an animal and stinks like a dead fish. 

Fourth stanza: This is why a native tongue or language has to be cultivated. 

Fifth stanza: The Tagalog language is like any other language—Latin, English, and Spanish. 

Sixth stanza: Tagalog has its own alphabet.

And for the picture

I think it’s a Beautiful work. It’s rare to see our languages being written in the ancient alphabets. But, First of all, it is doubtable if Pepe ever wrote that during his childhood, let alone wrote it at all. He was still young, and Spanish was the language of the Mercado/Rizal household, just like most of the well-off families at that time. It would to too good to be true to believe that he could make a comparative analysis of Spanish, Tagalog, and English, even.

Second, the idea that Tagalog is the native language of all Filipinos is silly and unfair. We have 151 languages, Tagalog being the langauge only of the Tagalog provinces. Everyone had their own language, distinct from each other.

“My Grandmother’s Sweater”

The freshness of the morning

Awaken the sleeping robins

The sun peeks out from the horizon

As I put on my grandmother’s sweater.

I turn and face the body

Wasted of life

Tired eyes looking back

Full of pain.

The other day my sister asked me,

“Which way does the grass grow?”

Down into the ground, I think

As I snuggle deeper into my grandmother’s sweater

“What’s life all about?” she asked me next

Love. Death. Pain. I think,

As they lay her into the ground.

I feel nothing

As the sun shines down

Upon the crosses in a row

Only in comfort in my grandmother’s sweater.

This is a Free Verse poem wherein the author have the freedom from fixing the meter or rhyme of her own poem. In moving from line to line, the poet’s main consideration is where to insert line breaks. Some ways of doing this include breaking the line where there is a natural pause or at a point of suspense for the reader. It doesn’t have any rhyming. Haiku doesn’t have rhymes the authors uses a simple words and grammar and so if anyone will read it, its not as easy to interpret but its not as hard too. Because there are lots of things to consider before the reader understand its main point. It wrote about everyday things happen in a life of people so we people must maximize the time we are spending.

The authors feeling there was full of sadness, the death and separation of your loveones ones he or she already passed away.  The voice used here was active voice, It is the presence of first person point of view The author sets the mood of the poem in suffering, loneliness and losing someone. The poem is all about the death of his grandmother its a kind of thinking to someone and then reminiscing the past events that you’ve shared at  and how he feels for her grandmother.Throughout the poem the speaker uses different punctuation marks  to separate the words and feelings in her poem instead of connecting them. There are a total of two questions marks, nine periods within this poem, and qoutation marks. The ending of this poem was informal end.

At the beginning of the poem its shows how he start his day with the feeling of loneliness and longingness. The freshness of the morning makes him awaken, He wears the sweater of his grand mother and look into her dead body. And then feeling of a deep pain and a mourning. He remembered something that’s remind when they are together.  And then after a Few days of his grand mother buried, her sister asked in what part the grass will grows. He said Down into the ground, I think and deeper into our grandmother’s sweater.He loved her and missed her so much that’s why when his grand mother died he felt a deep pain, but through her grandmother’s sweater it makes him feel at ease, and then suddenly remembering the great love for him.

desire. ..

Desire Short Story

1.)Genre of the story

NOnfiction or factual short stories, it is an oral tradition of the past and a reflection until this modern day, it is as the personal experiences, thoughts, consciousness, concepts of the author. Filipino women authors have “put pen to paper” to present, express, and describe their own image and culture to the world, as they see themselves

2.) Authors intention

This story was the authors personal experiences, dilemmas and love story this only show the realities in the filipino society.

Authors intention was to clarify things that we people must’nt look to the outside but to the inner personality of a woman, though as we all know the basis of all man  from this modern days was those who are only attractive, that’s the only thing they wanted to love they didn’t realize the fact you love someone or anybody through her outside looks you cant call it as a true love..

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.” This verse describes the characteristics of true love. These qualities can certainly be found in the person of Jesus Christ, and they can be found in all truly loving relationships. The problem with trying to “find” love in our dating lives, is that too often we don’t look for these characteristics. Rather we look at physical appearance, popularity, or wealth. These are not the qualities that God looks at and neither should we.

1. * The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.” SO we ordinary people must be satisfy to what god given to us.
   
   

3.)Reactions Emotions

At first, I was thinking of why does she hate her body, even though its already a perfect one and it’s a gift given by the god. But as I go on reading the story I made to realize that she’s right! She’s just only want to have some changes, like changing the perception of every one whos only intention is to looked at her body.

“But she hated her body – hated that gift which Nature, in a fit of regret for the wrong done to her face, had given her. She hated her body because it made men look at her with an unbeautiful light in their eyes – married eyes, single eyes.”

I am impressed to what she did .. shes a kind of woman who doesn’t uses her outside looks to be loved by man but she something that is the one who will love and accept her the way she is.

4.)    As we can see no. because her belief was right all men in the world was much the same.  the story began.. in manila bay where the main female character will stared by men not in her face but to her alluring body… Boys love to look at pretty girls.  They  just love to look at pretty girls whenever they spot any! Well, who don’t like to look at pretty girls? I mean, human has a very bad perception of only favouring pretty things, right? Well, it seems whenever they saw pretty girls their head and eyes tend to turn to them when they spot one like a magnet. I mean, if anything on them sort of like trigger their interest. 

I assume that the woman inthe story is intellectual and educated woman. The stereotype of a weak woman is notshowed by her.

As we all know all women now are progressing , Filipino women have been receiving recognition and support from non-governmental organizations, libraries, and other publishers, but despite the efforts of these organizations and the writers themselves there are challenges that still confront Filipino women’s literary career. These include literary commercialism that prevents women writers from becoming parallel with so-called “esteemed authors”, the struggle for additional acknowledgment of their status as writers, and obstacles related to economics.

Feminist criticism is a political act whose aim is not simply to interpret the world but to

change it by changing the consciousness of those who read and their relation to what they read.

In the end of Desire, uttered by the woman, “You have just been yourself…like other men.” and with a weary smile the story ends. It is like a hanging ending for the readers to create their own ending. Like if the woman will find love, or will the manprove that he is sincere to her or not. For me, the ending was a hanging ending without having a right solution to a problem.

PLOT

There once was a girl who was actually perfect-her face,her body- 
everything in her is perfect. Every time she passed by people cant resist not to look at her body. the single man and even the married man,even her friends envy her because of her body. 

Everyone loved her body, except her. 
she hated her body very much because every time men look at her, they look at her unbeautiful eyes. she wanted to be loved for herself and not only for her body. 
all men tell her hat they love her, but the only thing they love is her body. 
But there this one guy she thinks is interested with her. 
she doesn’t think that this is the same with other men. At their next meeting, she wore a pale rose filipina dress. they love each others company. they had a nice date that night, and they decided to go to the chapel. then she noticed that all men are looking at her, so she decided to go home. when they got in the car the guy told her that he only love her because of her body. after hearing. she was very disjointed because she thought he was the one, but he was not, he was just like the men who only loved her body. 

I was too amazed with how Paz Latorena wrote her literary pieces. They were written with such simplicity that every piece of her word would definitely struck into ones feeling. 

I’d say the main theme is love. The desire for love is the reason for the title.

Love is best seen as devotion and action, not an emotion. Love is not exclusively based on how we feel. Certainly our emotions are involved, but they cannot be our only criteria for love. True devotion will always lead to action—true love.

‘_’.

i miss spending beautiful days together with you!

:P

.»   thats not what i meant!!!!