Blog Portfolio Quatre 2

Coverage

1) A Passage

2) Fighting The Bull

3) What Do I Gotta Do To Make You Love Me?

4) Look At Me Now

5) Take It All

6) The A Team

7) I Can't Make You Love Me (If You Don't)

8) The Only Lonely One

9) Any Other World

10) People Help The People

11) She's Got You High

Depth

She's Got You High

In this post I adressed the allusions in the poem Escape and did some further research to find the meaning and the story behing these allusions.

Interaction

A Passage

I referred to Becca's post in this blog post, and responded to her ideas. I linked her post, and she referred to my blog post in hers.

Discussion

Comments on The A Team

Anuraag and I got into a discussion after he commented on my blog.

Xenoblogging

Anuraag's post on Greater Love

I commented on Anuraag's post and showed him my idea of the poem Greater Love and Before The Mirror. 

Wildcard

Complicated

This post is very rude and probably inappropriate, but blogging is writing about what you're thinking; And that's what I was thinking.

Complicated

In response to

A Message to Women From a Man: You Are Not “Crazy”

It is true that boys, especially our age, use this line on girls all the time: You're crazy, just relax, you're imagining things!

It has become a part of every woman's life.

Ok honestly I don't even know what to write about this. I'm under so much stress to finish my theatre research investigation for tomorrow, I have finals coming up, and everything is just going wrong with my university stuff. If guys' language towards me was the biggest problem I had to worry about, I would probably end up selling headbands in the street (no offense to those who do). We're all supposed to choose our future right here and right now and I frankly have no idea what I want to be. I may have chosen Psychology as a subject I want to apply to, but nothing seems to help me towards this direction. I don't get the grades for it, I don't even know how to deal with my own problems. I'm seventeen years old, and if I'm lucky I could have sixty or seventy or eighty more years to live, but still I'm supposed to know what I'm going to do with my life NOW. The pressure we're put under every freaking day from all the advisors and counsellors and teachers to do this right, and hand this in, and not to forget this and this, is not helping me in any way. Take CAS for example. WHAT is it for? Why can't we just be part of service clubs and do sports without someone forcing us to fill out a form about it and write a reflection about it every second week? There is absolutely NO point in writing in a bad written paragraph about which learning outcomes I've achieved. The IB is supposed to help us towards a hopefully bright future, but instead it complicates every single thing we try to do right. Things that were decided I'd do for a subject last year, are now being refused. A course that I really wanted to take as a higher level... I WASN'T ALLOWED TO TAKE. Why? because I speak the language too well. Instead, I have to take courses that will give me bad scores on the IB, which then won't get me into Uni... and I won't even go on with that thought because I'm getting ridiculous. In conclusion, if you can even say that because I believe there is absolutely no structure to this rant, education has failed me. I used to be very eager about school, and I was considered to be TOP of the class. HA! Then I had to move around and all the adaptation hindered me from sticking to one thing. The only thing I got from that were languages and even that I'm not allowed to do. 

So yes, boys, or some boys anyways, have a very condescending way of talking to girls. I have come across many of those but it taught me how to be stronger. Life isn't easy and there are many mannnyyy obstacles we all have to overcome, and a guy referring to a girl as crazy to shut her up, is an obstacle you go around instead of overcoming it. 

She's Got You High

Robert Graves' poem Escape came out on August 6, 1916 and is about an Officer that was previously reported to have died of wounds, and that was now reported wounded, that seems to be Graves himself. The poem holds a lot of allusions, interesting punctuation and a powerful theme.


The allusions in this poem are overwhelming. Most of them refer to Greek mythology, like 'Ceberus' and 'Lethe'. Ceberus is mentioned several times. In the Greek stories, he's a three-headed hound who guards the doors of the underworld to prevent those that have crossed the river Styx to ever escape again. He describes Ceberus to 'stands and grins above me now, wearing three heads - lion, and lynx and sow'. He then goes on and fights Ceberus by cram its mouth with army biscuit smeared with ration jam', symbolizing that he conquers death and goes back to the living. Lady Proserpine, who is also mentioned in the poem refers to Persephone, the queen of the Greek underworld. He describes that she's the one who saves him by sending him back to the world of the living, even though that makes the hosts of the underworld very furious. The Greek mythology in this poem is very pertinent, and Graves uses it to put his near-death experience into metaphores and images.


The punctuation in this poem helps creating an image of helplessness and being lost. A lot of elipses are used like 'I said. ... Cerberus stands and grins above me', and 'Stolen!...No bombs...no knife. ... The crowd smarms on,...[...]'. By using all these elipses, he creates a sense of suspension and gives the poem a breath pattern. It is very possible that Graves wrote this poem to read to his little daughter, which would explain the fact that he would make it more suspense-full and entertaining to her by adding all these pauses and halts. He even starts the poem off with three points, creating the notion of being dead and awakening in another world after an hour of thinking he was dead.


The theme of this poem is very personal, as he talks about his near-death experience that is very close to his heart. He might have written this poem to his daughter, which explains the punctuation, as well as the entertaining diction and words such as 'poppy', 'snore' and 'apple', which a little kid can easily relate to even if she doesn't understand the true meaning of the poem. This poem is very interesting in terms of allusions, punctuation and theme and it is a good representation of Graves' usual writing style. 

People Help The People

Wilfred Owen's Athem For Doomed Youth and Siegfried Sassoon's Picture-Show have a few similarities. First of all, they have a similar structure, then they share some similar dictional elements and last of all they talk about a similar theme.
Structure:
Wilfred Owen's Anthem For Doomed Youth has a weird structure. The first stanza is larger than the second stanza, containing 8 lines, while the second stanza has only 6 lines. It has an ABABCDCD rhyme scheme in the first stanza, and a different one in the second: ABBACC. This leaves the poem to having an overall attempted rhyme scheme. Every second line, including the last two lines begin half a centimetre before the other lines, giving them some special importance, as he doesn't do this in his poem 'Strange Meeting' for example.
Just like Anthem For Doomed Youth, Siegfried Sassoon's Picture-Show has an odd structure. The first stanza has 6 lines but the second stanza has only 4 lines. It seems as though it was in style to get away from the traditional stanzas that contained an equal amount of lines. Just like in Owen's poem, Picture-Show changes the rhyme scheme from first to second stanza. The first one goes: AABCBC and the second one: AABB, an heroic couplet. Both authors liked to play with an attempted rhyme scheme to convey a message or to portray a certain mood or idea. This poem starts its lines at the same level, so that must be something specific to Owen's poems.
Dictional elements
What was very recurrent in Anthem For Doomed Youth was the repition of the words 'Only' and 'no/nor'. He uses very powerful and dark diction to talk about the scenery, saying 'monstrous anger', 'stuttering', 'hasty orisons', 'shrill, demented choirs', 'sad shires' in the first stanza. Then in the second stanza he takes over a much softer diction, writing 'In their eyes shall shine the holy glimmers', 'their flowers the tenderness of mind'. Another element that stood out was alliterations. 'The stuttering rifles rapid rattle' is the main alliteration in the third line but there are also the 'sad shires', 'glimmers of good-bye' and the 'dusk a drawing-down'.
Picture-Show shares some of the dictional elements of Anthem For Doomed Youth. There is a repition of the word 'And' in terms of starting off an additional thought in a new line with this word: 'And still...', 'And still...' and 'And life...'. Both authors use this strategy to put emphasis on a certain idea or word. Repition of a word seemed to be a modern way of getting the most important ideas across. Sassoon uses rather neutral adjectives and descriptions in comparison to Owen. Instead of portraying something 'good' or 'bad', he describes a neverending cercle, using words such as 'come and go', 'endless picture-show', 'listless faces' and 'ever the same'. It can be said that when it comes to the use of diction, each poet has their own style of writing. Just like Owen, Sassoon likes alliterations such as 'faces flicker', but they're not as dominant as Owen's.
Theme:
Both poems are obviously about war.
Anthem For Doomed Youth is about death, as well as Picture-Show. They both share the notion of something passing by, in forms of bells or pictures. They're about people that pass by or away mentally and physically. They talk about loss and the pain it brings on their families and loved ones. Both authors have suffered through the war, and they've become close friends. They're styles of writing are similar to other WW1 poets, but they still guard their individuality.

Any Other World

The poem Trench Duty by Siegfried Sassoon is about a soldier being on guard at night, witnessing a bombing and the death of a chap. Sassoon's satirical tone depicts the unnecessary prolongation of war. If a certain disapproval was present in Sassoon's words at the beginning of this poem, the last words of the poem bring forth his frustration and cynical disgust with war and the fact that people die for no reason. 

The setting of this poem is very important to the meaning of it. The poem is set in the midst of a battlefield, in 'the trench'. It is set off almost like a nightmare, like a surreal situation that seems absurd to the narrator. The words 'Shaken from sleep, and numbed and scarce awake' create a scenario where the narrator is stumbling half-awake through the dangerous scenes of war, highlighting his bitter feeling towards fighting by making it seem like the narrator doesn't care about what's going on. The alliterations at various moments in the poem give the setting a sense of repetition which reveals the bored, but at the same desperate tone like: ‘… the men crouching in cabins candle chinked with light.’ This alliteration in particular could mean that the narrator is so annoyed with the fact that the soldiers have to crouch like animals in small rooms with only the light of a candle, or that the narrator is trying to give the whole setting a bit of a humorous side which makes the situation absurd.

A second element that is crucial to a development of understanding of the poem is the narrator. Given a few indices in the text, it can be assumed that Sassoon is telling a true story that has happened to him. The fact that the most important thing in the text is the moment where he hears someone shoot a gun and then he’s wide awake and his chap is dead, leads to conclude that the chap is Wilfred Owen. They met in war and built up a true friendship before Owen was killed and Sassoon’s poems adopted a darker tone than before. Sassoon fought at war and was honored for bravery, but he realized how useless it was to fight, which is something that is very well presented in this poem through tone, that was discussed earlier.

The poem is a moment of awareness that arises throughout the lines. In the beginning the narrator has just been woken up, he’s tired and he’s ‘scarce awake’. When he realizes the situation around him, mocks it and then bitterly acknowledges the drama, he finds himself ‘wide-awake’ when his chap is dead.

The Only Lonely One

The poem 'Greater Love' by Wilfred Owen is a response to 'Before the Mirror' by Algernon Charles Swinburne. Before the Mirror is a poem that gradually changes its tone from sad to sadder. The poem is about a young girl that he's fallen in love with but that has deceived him by marrying someone else. Before he knew her he thought of her as a white rose in a red-rose garden, but it turned out that she wasn't so white after all. The words 'Snowdrops that plead for pardon' show that something happened that she's sorry for but that she can't change because she has been told to marry someone else. The hard East is compared to the institution that is forcing her to marry the man she's given. She's not pure and innocent anymore because she's been with someone else, the narrator of the poem.
Greater Love is also about love, but it takes a more sarcastic take on the whole notion of it. Owen's poem is much more war related and relates everything he says about being hurt by love to another level by comparing it to the much worse pains of war. Both poem mention the color red, which plays a big role in the development of the poem. Swinburne writes saying that the red-roses are the used ones, the one that aren't innocent anymore, that are full of love and seduction. Owen writes 'Red lips are not so red' taking a direct take on Swinburne's line: 'White rose in red rose-garden is not so white', and emphasizes on the fact that red is a color of seduction and lust, which isn't considered pure. The girl that Swinburne describes isn't pure anymore because her color starts resembling the color of the red roses. She has experiences life even though she might be better to him than any other woman.
The second phrase in Greater Love that relates directly to Before the Mirror is: ' And though your hand be pale, paler are all which trail your cross through flame and hail: weep, you may weep, for you may touch them not'. Swinburne wrote  'My hand, a fallen rose, lies snow-white, on white snows and takes no care'. Owen comments on the paleness by saying that your hand may be pale and that all that are paler have gone through hell putting shame on religion and your beliefs, and that you can cry about all that you've lost but that you may not touch what you've lost because you lost all right to. Swinburne is saying that his hand has fallen, that he's lost his love and hope and there's a notion of death in the tone.
The styles the poems are written in are similar, if not the same. Owen wrote a response to Swinburne, not to mock him, but to tell him about his own opinion, adopting Swinburne's structure and style of writing. 

I can't make you love me (if you don't)

The poem ‘Greater Love’ by Wilfred Owen compares love to war. It expresses a deep sentiment of dark pain that is embellished with soft words and the notion of love but never loses its sweet bitterness.

The title ‘Greater Love’ suggests that the cruelty of war is an even stronger feeling than love, which is ironic because one says that love is the most extraordinary feeling you could have. Owen is commenting on the fact that war diminishes ones perception of happiness and turns all ones attention of the one and only important thing in their lives: war. Through his writing it becomes very clear to what extent Owen resents everything that comes with war, which can easily be explained by his tragic biography that includes various war wounds.

The way he portrays this lover of his, he almost mocks the whole notion of being in love. In his third stanza he writes:

Your dear voice is not dear,

Gentle, and evening clear,

As theirs whom none now hear,

Now earth has stopped their piteous mouths that coughed.

The first two lines are soft but cynical, and then his words become darker and darker when he reminds everyone of the dead whose voices won’t ever be dear again because they’ve been put to silence by the arrogant hand of man. The first line states that “Red lips are not so dead as the stained stones kissed by the English dead”, giving a perfect example of the constant irony and mocking in Owen’s words.

Personally I really loved this poem, it’s something different and I could relate to it for once. His words are honest and he doesn’t try and twist things in a million ways to make them look and sound good, it just seems to me like simple perfection, something he wrote in a certain state of mind that pushed him to write his feelings down. 

The A-Team

Siegfried Sassoon’s poem ‘Repression Of War Experience’ is about a soldier that tries to forget his memories of the war that are driving him mad. There is a persistent struggle shown in the lines of this poem that puts the narrator’s thoughts to show.  The narrator talks about the thoughts of war that he’s been trying to put away, but as he says they ‘come back to scare you’. In the first stanza he mentions that only the soldier who has lost control over his thoughts has become a mad soldier, but judging from his constant inner conversation he could very well fall into this category. The last line of the first stanza mentions something very interesting that stood out, which is the phrase ‘among the trees’, as it comes up in the second part as well. The narrator says that only when you’re mad you’re driven to ‘jabber among the trees’ and later on he says that only the ugly ghosts of old people are among the trees. This is interesting in itself, as he first describes a mad soldier to be driven in this mysterious place, but then he says that only old men that aren’t killed in battle are there. At these points it’s easy to detect the narrator’s fears: age and madness.

Another comparison is made in this poem that links the serenity of the narrator to rain. After he’s just talked about the mad men that have lost their stream of thought, he writes ‘Now light your pipe, look, what a steady hand. Draw a deep breath; stop thinking, count fifteen, and you’re as right as rain… Why won’t it rain?’. There are several elements in these sentences that outline the whole theme of the poem. First of all, the fear of being mad. The narrator calms himself down by talking calmly, and using the words ‘look, what a steady hand’. Somehow the fact that he can light his pipe without shaking proves to him that he’s steady as the rain, and normal as the rain. Then something striking happens as the narrator asks ‘Why won’t it rain?’. He begins to question his serenity and his tone hints his panic. Just a few lines after he creates a vivid image by wishing that there’d be a thunderstorm with buckets full of water sluicing through the dark. The dark represents his repressed feelings and fears that he’s been told to hide because he needs the strength of a soldier even if he’s not fighting. He wants the rain, his serenity, to slice through the dark, his madness.

The last part of the poem raises the attention of the reader because it conveys a whole other mood than the other parts. In this part the narrator expresses the wish that he wants the guns to stop shooting in the distance. His diction is quite loving, as he describes the gunshots to be ‘soft’ and the guns to be ‘whispering’. He’s physically away from the war, but the thoughts, the gunshots, are haunting him down which has as an effect that he gets crazy. In his last lines he says that he’s going crazy and start, staring mad because of the guns. He’s finally admitted to himself that he’s got a problem that he can’t ignore. He blames the war, but he praises the soldier that dies in battle. He’s obviously got a psychological issue repressed by the feelings of fear. His personality can be linked to the stereotypical type of the ‘Lost Generation’, as he doesn’t know where he belongs and he doesn’t see the purpose in life, other than to die in war and get it over with before you become old and ugly. 

Take it All

The poem ‘The bough of nonsense’ is about two soldiers that have come back from a battle. They feel like they’ve just lived through centuries and that nine parts of them are dead. ‘S’ seems to be down and exhausted after what he’s just experienced and he needs some comfort. Robert, who is the younger one, cheers him up by telling him to look at the bough of nonsense where nonsense has built its nest. Even though the tone is happy and ridiculous, they look like a hidden cynical cover of their frustration about their lives of a soldier. The bough of nonsense takes away the need for alcohol, the melancholy and the psalms, indicating that God is part of the pain that the soldiers want to get rid of. They feel betrayed and look at the world in a laughing way because they know just how ridiculous it is, and how much nonsense seems to rule the world. Injustices and crimes are the constant in their lives, as shown in the line ‘and whosoever worships in that place, he disappears from sight and leaves no trace’. The regime that has been rising is a temple with no ground, something people admire from the outside, but once they step in and realize what the temple is really made off, they fall and are never to be seen again. This could also mean that once someone has stepped into the world of war, there is no way out and one is absorbed as much as to not belong anywhere anymore and having no purpose besides from falling. The moment the soldiers are spending together is sensed to be unique and of short time, as ‘S’ says that ‘Before this quaint mood fails, we’ll sit and weave a nonsense hymn’. He knows that idyllic moments have become so rare and special, that one has to make the most of them, before they fall in ‘a deep grove all hushed and dim’. Their situation is clearly tragic, but both S and Robert keep their humor when they use words such as ‘monkey tails’, ‘yellow-bunched banana-trees’ and ‘pink birds’ to turn their situation as enjoyable as possible. It can be assumed that they are exhausted from the fight and haven’t had a lot to eat or drink in a while, and are therefore being a bit delusional, or maybe they’re intentionally saying all these things. The poem has a strong emotional message about the soldier’s feelings towards war and it can be interpreted in different ways. 

Look at me now

Bulls verses Steers. Who are the bulls, who are the steers?

The whole world can be divided into bulls and steers. There are those who are in control and those who are only powerful in a group. The bulls and steers are a brutal representation of our daily life. Some kill when they’re alone, but are calm when they’re in a group.

If there was one bullfighter in the book it would definitely be Brett. She is the worst heartbreaker and people like her shouldn’t be allowed to walk around and break people’s hearts when they clearly cannot handle another rejection. Just the fact that she lost her love at war, doesn’t permit her to act like she’s just come out of high school, thinking she can break all the high school boy’s hearts. She lets people so close, leaving them thinking that what they have is the best thing that has happened to them, but in the end all the running and racing and fighting of the bull is for nothing and she ruthlessly kills the bull, with not much respect like Romero.

If Brett is the bullfighter, then Cohn is a Bull for sure. He tries so hard, chases her no matter how sneakily she plays with his heart. In this situation, Cohn can be pitied, but I’d also say that he’s the person a lot of heartbroken people can easily relate to. The public thinks he’s pathetic, but let’s take a good look at ourselves because honestly, who are we to talk. Cohn even lets Brett kill him when he goes around beating people up like they’ve got anything to do with his misery, when he’s the only problem there is. His problem is love (never does anyone any good, let’s be honest).

Mike is a steer. He lets Brett play with his heart and doesn’t even care to fight. He just ends up whining about his oh-so-very miserable situation when he’s drunk out of his mind. He would be a weak steer, if there is such a thing. He’s only strong in a group, when he’s got all his friends around or when Brett is sitting next to him.

Jake is a confused bull. He accepts his situation, but still unconsciously races for Brett’s love. This chase might only be going on when he’s drunk, but he still feels these things. Jake and Brett can tell each other that they have accepted that not being together is the better choice, but in the end it doesn’t make them happy either, and they don’t find happiness with someone else.

Who are the bulls, and who are the steers? Well, good question. I suggest everyone take a good look in the mirror because you just might not be who you thought you were. 

What do I gotta do, to make you love me?

Dear indecisive fool,

Listen. You are 37, you’ve never been married and you’re quiet, shy and overweight. That’s a rotten luck you’ve got there, darling. There are a few things that you can change about your situation though:

You’re quiet? Get louder. Drinking helps. Just have a few drinks the next time you’re about to see your boyfriend, and tell him about your feelings.

You’re shy? Stop it. If you can’t change, try drinking wine and you’ll see that you’ll become much less shier.

You’re overweight? Darling, go to the gym. Stop eating and just have a smoke instead once in a while. If you want the men to love you, you gotta start working the booty.

You’re plain? Put on a nice dress, some make-up, and stop feeling sorry for yourself.

Now to your question, if you should wait for your Prince Charming or if you should marry your best friend. Don’t marry. Why would you? Stay with your friend until you’ve found someone better because there’s nothing worse than being alone. Rot! If you can’t have sex with your friend, then have sex with someone else. Who cares? A woman’s gotta do what a woman’s gotta do. You don’t have to love someone in order to feel a little secure and safe. If you want to be sure that you can rely on someone, I’d say marry the guy. Only because you’re married, doesn’t mean you’ve settled, so don’t worry about that. When it’s time for your Prince Charming, you can still get a divorce, it’s really easy, trust me I do it all the time.

Now darling, have a drink, dress up and go dancing. There’s nothing like a good night at a pub, where you can meet a lot of potential Princes.

Brett

Fighting the bull

Emotions are often avoided in The Sun Also Rises. In this book, emotions are commonly related to alcohol, and there aren’t a lot of things that can emotionally shake Jake up. One more thing that has the same effect on Jake is bull-fighting. It says on page 168: “We had that disturbed emotional feeling that always comes after a bull-fight, and the feeling of elation that comes after a good bull-fight”.

The reason why Jake feels so moved is that he believes that no one ever lives their life to the fullest like the bull-fighters. Bull-fighters impress him and he’s the most amazed by them. I think that that might have something to do with the fact that when he went to war, he was always fighting and risking his life, and he sees a part of that in the bull-fighters. They risk everything for the rush of the moment and the amusement of the audience. The bull-fighters have the ability to engage the audience like no theatrical performance can. The aficionados in the arena live each move the bull-fighter makes, with him, and that’s how they evaluate whether or not a bull-fighter is a real star or not. Jake is proud to be seen as an aficionados, and the fact that his friends were far from being as passionate as him about bull-fighting makes him superior to them in one area.

Jake is jealous of Cohn because he can get closer to Brett physically. Cohn has money, and he’s a fairly successful writer. He’s a boxer, which makes him more masculine than Jake by far. Jake needs this superiority of knowing so much about bull-fighting, to make him feel special.  He needs to be part of the audience to feel the passion and the rush of risking your life for something bigger than you.

Bull-fights, like fishing, are a form of escape for him. It seems as though when he focuses on what’s going on in the arena, he can forget about his inability to have sex, he forgets that he’s lost, and he might for a second even forget about Brett.

If bull-fights are the only thing that mixes someone’s feelings up like this, it proves that they are seriously having problems finding their place in the world. Jake is seen as being part of this ‘lost generation’, and as the story progresses, it is clear that Jake finds some ways of escaping from his ‘not belonging’, which involves things like bull-fighting, fishing, reading, nature and drinking. 

A passage

The passage I chose goes from page 18 to page 19 in Chapter 2 from where Robert Cohn says that "I can't stand it to think my life is going so fast and I'm not really living it", to when Cohn says that "This is a good place.". Robert and Jake talk about 'living life to the fullest', and I think that this passage is important because it conveys two different perspectives on life and it explains certain behaviors of the characters.

Jake says that "Nobody ever lives their life all the way up except bull-fighters."
This explains Jake's fascination with bull-fighters and bulls. The tone of this line is a little melancholic. He doesn't believe that he'll ever live a moment to its fullest. I think that this line also refers to his time as a soldier, because that's the closest he's ever gotten to resembling someone as powerful and reckless as a bull-fighter.
Robert on the other hand is in a state where "[he] can't stand it to think [his] life going so fast and [he's] not really living it."

He believes that if he would just go to some other place like South America, he would find this satisfaction of living everything he could possibly be living. It seems as though Jake thinks that this only comes from the reading Robert has been doing about intensely romantic stories, and that Robert is just looking for crazy love adventures. He even goes as far as to say that the reason Robert doesn't want to go to British East Africa is "Because you never read a book about it. Go on and read a book all full of love affairs with the beautiful shiny black princesses."

The last part of this passage is interesting as well, because just after talking about something so meaningful and  deep as the importance of living life to the fullest, they go downstairs and have a drink at the bar. Cohn then looks at the bottles and says that "This is a good place", perfectly displaying how dependent both of them are of alcohol and Jake is trying to avoid their emotional conversation by offering a drink to Cohn. Once again, alcohol is associated with emotions, which I find is a very pertinent motif of the book.

Becca chose a passage that goes from page 24 to 25.
What I find most important about this passage, is the contradiction in Jake's need for company. He says that he picked her up because he had a vague sentimental idea that it would be nice to eat with someone, displaying that he's lonely and needs someone to love, but then a few lines later he shows that he doesn't care about her at all. He says "Better than you eat in Liège" and she responds, "Brussels, you mean". This shows that he wants company, but he doesn't care who the company is. It could be anyone.

I also found his remarks about the war interesting. Becca thought that Jake hates the war and it should (as he says) have been avoided, but I think that he's just being sarcastic. I feel like the lines about the war (25) are pretty bitter, and it's hard to define whether Jake mocks Georgette's perspective, or if he's talking about his opinion.

Becca also says that when it says that "We had another bottle of wine and Georgette made a joke. She smiled and showed all her bad teeth, and we touched glasses", it reminds him that no one is perfect, which makes him feel better about himself. I find this interesting because it could in fact be related to his injury, but I hadn't thought of it this way. I thought that he was just repulsed of her and that in this moment he realizes that he'd rather be in company of someone beautiful like Brett. I like Becca's interpretation though. In this quote I find the fact that they're having another wine bottle very important, because it relates once again alcohol to emotions.

I find the connection Becca made between Jake and Jacob quite interesting. Seeing it as she described, his name being ironic to his situation, is a very good thought and I hadn't considered that before.

Blog Portfolio

Blog Portfolio

Welcome to my first Blog Portfolio in senior year. Enjoy!

Coverage

1)      Dance in the Dark

2)      We Are Family

3)      Rescue Me

4)      As You Wish

5)      Hey Mr. Thompson

6)      Turning Tables

7)      Comic Life

8)       Blame it on the A-A-A-Alcohol

9)       Director's cut

10)   Allusions

11)   Route March by Charles Hamilton Sorley
And the wildcard: Can girls and guys be friends?

Depth
 Allusions

In this post I went into depth about different key words of chapters 11 and 12, researched them and explained their situation in the text.

Interaction
 Blame it on the A-A-A-Alcohol

I attached and discussed Monique’s idea to my blog post. I found her idea, of nature and reading being an escape for Jake besides alcohol, very interesting. 
I also referenced Saumya's blog, to show her perspective on the matter, and kindly disagree with her point of view. 

Discussion
 Can girls and guys be friends?

Naoise, Anuraag and I had a deep discussion on my wildcard, debating whether or not girls and guys can be friends. We all formed some strong opinions and it was interesting to see that in the end we all agreed a little bit with each other. 
 Blame it on the A-A-A-Alcohol

Monique, Saumya and I had a discussion on my blog about alcohol, which brought up some different interesting ideas.

Xenoblogging

 Ending the day comments (Saumya's blog)

I  commented on Saumya’s blog to show her my perspective of Jake’s behavior towards alcohol. I disagreed with what she said, and gave her some examples in the text that explained why I felt that way.
Naoise's Blog: What's next?

I was lucky to be the first to comment on Naoise's wildcard about the future and the idea of living each moment to the fullest. I hope that I could give him another perspective on his already well developed idea.

Wildcard

 Can girls and guys be friends?

I discussed the question of whether or not girls and guys can be friends. 

Route March by Charles Hamilton Sorley

This is how I would go about approaching to write a commentary about this poem (or prepare for an oral commentary):

Step 1 : Read the poem carefully at least twice

Step 2: Identify the whole and the part

What is the nature of the whole? It’s a poem about war, about marching and singing in the face of death.

What kind of work is it? It’s poetry

Fiction? No. It is a realistic poem about the events of war

What is the audience? Anyone that has anything to do with war, or that just enjoys reading poems about it.

What is the purpose of the poem? The purpose is to bring people to sing while marching towards death, because we walk towards it no matter what.

Where is it set? Most likely in between fields, on the way to a battle.

What’s going on? Soldiers are marching and singing.

Given circumstances: are unclear because it is a poem that has a specific meaning and theme but doesn’t give anything about what happened before or what will happen after. One could imagine that previous battles have been fought and most likely lost because they know they’re likely to die. It seems as though they’re marching towards a failure.

Step 3:

WHO is speaking? A soldier, maybe an officer since he has the right to animate people to sing.

TO WHOM is he speaking? To the other soldiers.

WHAT is their situation? They’re at war, they’re about to fight and die in battle.

WHERE is the setting? In the fields

Tone? Joyous: O sing etc but also a bit cynical: Give your gladness to earth’s keeping, so be glad when you are sleeping.

Diction: positive ‘blossomed’, ‘glad’, ‘joyful’….

What patterns? Structure? Rhyme scheme, not on the same level.

Contrasts: between death and sleep

PURPOSE?SO WHAT? The importance of the above is that the speaker tries to make something sad such as death make sound lighter and more bearable by singing.

Step 4:  Organize the close reading questions.

Step 5: Implication of dominant effect

Step 6: Outline of the commentary

Thesis: The poem shows the unbearable lightness of being of a soldier that is about to go towards a possible death. This is shown through the use of tone, diction and contrast.

First paragraph: The use of diction shows how the speaker is trying to convince his comrades to lighten up and sing even if death is laughing in their face.

-          ‘bursting’ into song

-          ‘singers are the chaps’

-          ‘O sing’

-          ‘gladness’

-          Sing with ‘joyful’ breath

-          All the ‘gladness’ that you pour.

-          Earth that ‘blossomed’ and was ‘glad’

-          Be ‘merry’

Second paragraph: The speakers tone lightens the darkness of death.

-          ‘so be merry, so be dead’

-          ‘little live, great pass’

-          ‘So be glad, when you are sleeping’

-          ‘So sing with joyful breath’

-          ‘On the road to death, sing!’

-          ‘shall rejoice and blossom too when the bullet reaches you’

Third paragraph: The contrast between the death and song as mentioned in the previous paragraphs

Allusions

The Sun Also Rises

Ch. 11-12 Allusions

Please research the following items, including MLA citations and discuss relevance and/or significance to the text.

1.      Basques

The Basques are an ethnic population that primarily inhibited the region of the Basque country, a region that is located around the western end of the Pyrenees (chain of mountains) on the coast of the Bay of Biscary and straddles parts of north-central Spain and south-western France. In The Sun Also Rises, Jake refers to the people on the bus as Basques.

2.      Ronceveaux

Ronceveaux is a small village and municipality in Navarre, northern Spain. It is situation on the small river Urrobi at an altitude of some 900 metres in the Pyrenees, about 8 kilometres from the French frontier. When Jake and Bill are sitting on the bus, they mention that Ronceveaux is ‘way off there where the mountain starts’.

3.      Fratellinis

The Fratellini Family was a famous circus family in the late 1900s and 1920s. An engagement at the Circus Medrano in Paris, France, after World War I was so successful that it sparked a strong resurgence of interest in the circus. By 1923, the Fratellini brothers had become the darlings of the Parisian intellectuals. They were lauded in print and worshiped by adoring fans who would show up at the circus just in time for the Fratellini entree, which sometimes ran as long as forty-five minutes. After Bill begins to the sing the song about pity and irony, a reference is made to the popularity of the Fratellinis.

4.      Primo de Rivera

Primo de Rivera was a Spanish general and dictator. After he resigned as a dictator, he went to live in Paris, where he died in 1930. When Jake and Bill are sitting in the dining room of their small hotel, Bill wants Jake to make a joke about Primo de Rivera to the servant to see if she laughs.

5.      Dred Scott (case)

 Dred Scott v. Sandford case of 1857, popularly known as "the Dred Scott Decision." His case was based on the fact that although he and his wife Harriet Scott were slaves, he had lived with his master Dr. John Emerson in states and territories where slavery was illegal according to both state laws and the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, including Illinois and Minnesota (which was then part of the Wisconsin Territory). The United States Supreme Court ruled seven to two against Scott, finding that neither he, nor any person of African ancestry, could claim citizenship in the United States, and therefore Scott could not bring suit in federal court under diversity of citizenship rules. Moreover, Scott's temporary residence outside Missouri did not bring about his emancipation under the Missouri Compromise, which the court ruled unconstitutional as it would improperly deprive Scott's owner of his legal property. Bill says that the Dred Scott case was framed by the anti-saloon league.

6.      Anti-Saloon league

The Anti-Saloon League was the leading organization lobbying for prohibition in the United States in the early 20th century. It was a key component of the Progressive Era, and was strongest in the South and rural North, drawing heavy support from pietistic Protestant ministers and their congregations, especially Methodists, Baptists, Disciples and Congregationalists.  Bill says that the anti-saloon league was framing the Dred Scott case.

7.      AEW Mason

Alfred Edward Woodley Mason (7 May 1865 Dulwich, London - 22 November 1948 London) was a British author and politician. He is best remembered for his 1902 novel The Four Feathers. When Jake and Bill go fishing, Jake reads a book by A.E.W Mason; a wonderful story of someone who waits for their love for 24 years to return iced and dead, which displays this notion of a lost generation that is constantly waiting for someone.

8.      William Jennings Bryan

William Jennings Bryan (March 19, 1860 – July 26, 1925) was an American politician in the late-19th and early-20th centuries. He was a dominant force in the liberal wing of the Democratic Party, standing three times as its candidate for President of the United States. Bill says that he loved Bryan and that he went to Holy Cross with him and Mencken.

9.      Mencken

Henry Louis "H. L." Mencken (September 12, 1880 – January 29, 1956), was an American journalist, essayist, magazine editor, satirist, acerbic critic of American life and culture, and a scholar of American English. Mencken, known as the "Sage of Baltimore", is regarded as one of the most influential American writers and prosestylists of the first half of the 20th century. Many of his books are still in print. Bill makes a joke about Mencken saying ‘Remember the woods were God’s first temples, let us kneel and say: ‘Don’t eat that Lady- that’s Mencken’.’

10.  Holy Cross

Holy Cross is a university that Bill claims to have gone to with Mencken and William Jennings Bryan and Frankie Fritsch.

11.  Frankie Fritsch (misspelled in text)

Francis “Frankie” Frisch (September 9, 1898 – March 12, 1973), nicknamed the "Fordham Flash" or "The Old Flash", was a German American Major League Baseball player of the early twentieth century. Bill says that he went to Holy Cross with this person. It is interesting because Franke Fritsch was a boxer like Cohn.

12.  Bishop Manning

During World War One he served as a volunteer chaplain at Camp Upton. Bishop Manning was a chevalier of the Légion d'honneur of France and an officer of the Order of the Crown of Belgium. Bill says that he went to Loyola with this person. He’s obviously joking around at this point.

13.  Wayne B. Wheeler

Wayne Bidwell Wheeler (November 10, 1869 – September 5, 1927) was an American attorney and prohibitionist. Using deft political pressure and what might today be called a litmus test, he was able to influence many governments, and eventually the U.S. government, to prohibit alcohol. Jake says that he went to Notre Dame with Wayne B. Wheeler, and then Bill interferes saying that he went to Austin Business College with Wyne B. Wheeler. They’re all drunk and make fun of colleges and important people in history.

14.  Pres. Calvin Coolidge

Sources:

-          "Basque people - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Oct. 2011. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basques

-          "Roncesvalles - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Oct. 2011. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roncesvall

-          "Fratellini family." Fratellini family - Wikipedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Oct. 2011. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fratellinis

-          "Dred Scott - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Oct. 2011. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dred_Sc

-          "Anti-Saloon League - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia."Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Oct. 2011. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Saloon_League>.

-          "A. E. W. Mason - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Oct. 2011. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AEW_Mas

-           "William Jennings Bryan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia."Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Oct. 2011. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_J

-          "H. L. Mencken - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Oct. 2011. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mencken

-          "Frankie Frisch - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Oct. 2011. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankie_