Poetry

Well, we're finally back on track with the blogging! :( Haha
And this week's topic is poetry! Unfortunately, I realized that poetry is not my thing. I never had
a very clear understanding of poetry pieces I read in previous classes, but having to analyze them
word for word made it even more obvious to me that I had no idea what I was supposed to be looking for
in these works. Honestly, it wasn't HORRIBLE. Some of the poems that we read made complete
sense to me, and I was able to feel and see the emotions of the speaker. However, there were other
ones which completely lost me and put me in a state of confusion. Of course, when we went over
it in class, Ms. Graham going over it sentence by sentence, I was able to see what the poem
was about and understand it. It frustrates me that I'm not such a great analyzer. So many
of my fellow AP Lit students are very insightful and able to pick out the important points of the
literature pieces, but how come I'm like the one lost sheep?
I tried to figure out the answer to this question and the I came up with 2 answers. One is confidence and the
other is lack of time and effort spent on analyzing. There are times when I find myself insightful and find really interesting points. But then, I start to wonder and think if what I found actually makes sense or if I'm not stretching the meaning too much. I back out from putting my thoughts into words and wait for someone else to come up with a different or similar finding. Also, when we had the activity of using class time to pre-read and
break apart the sample essay, I was actually able to understand the prompt and separate the important
sections from the rest, leaving me with important details. The guidelines Ms. Graham gave us
helped me a lot and I think it will be able to take me to a good place as long as I take the
time to practice and put it more to use.
Sometimes, I want to give up and just write whatever BS I can come up with. Maybe it'll make sense
on paper because literature doesn't always technically have only one meaning, especially poetry.
But the problem with that is, I suck at BSing. If only I was good at BSing.........haha not.
I really wish I had the skills to critically look at each piece of literature we read in class,
have some more confidence in my findings, and word my findings with sophisticated wording.
I wonder how much practice and time it would take me to do as good as I should be doing.

The Awakening

We finally finished The Awakening by Kate Chopin in AP Literature. Overall, the novel was great! However, I found the protagonist (which I suppose is Edna) not very likeable. Although I am a female, Edna's awakening wasn't one that I could not agree with. Yes, I did admire the courage she had to stand up against the stereotypical roles that were assigned to each women during her time. She had the guts to go against her husband and show unwomanly characteristics to the males in her town. The way she stood up for herself and her independence was respectful, and as a woman, I don't know if I would have been able to do that if I was in her shoes. Nevertheless, a lot of the respect I had towards her disappeared when she commited suicide at the end. I hated the ending and believed that the life that Edna boldly stood up for, was broken and gone by the lame act she committed.
It frustrates me that Edna was killed, not by others, but by herself. I believed that Edna was a strong and very powerful female who had control over her life. Her previous acts showed that, and that was what I liked about her: her dependence on herself. She didn't rely on her husband, her friends, her family, but only herself. However, this view changed when I read that she was unable to stop her physical desires and irrationally filled those desires with another man. She was even angry with herself for kissing a man, not out of love, but of lust. These sort of later actions of Edna made me question her actual desires. Did she really want to free herself from society? Or did she want to go and live happily with the one she loved, Robert? If it was really to free herself from society, why did she kill herself by drowning? Her actions showed me that all she wanted to do was free herself from her current husband to live and freely love with the one she had an affair with. Her claim, that an awakening had occured to her, and that her actions were supported by the fact that she had the right to live without societal pressures, seemed only like an excuse to be with Robert. If I looked at it in one way, Edna was never free from the society. Although she wasn't under the control of her husband, it seemed pretty obvious that she was under the control of Robert. She was in an emotional breakdown when Robert said his final good-bye, leaving her forever, which led her to commit suicide. She was always under the rule of a man. That's how I saw Edna after all the later events that occured in the novel. She was tired of not being able to get things her way, realizing that the world didn't revovle around her, and that she was just a weak woman, who was unable to change the way life was. Maybe if she was more courageous, and lived until she was naturally put to death by an outside force, but not by her own will, maybe then would I have a more positive view of Edna Pontellier. This would show that Robert wasn't the only reason for her change and the only reason she lived. This would show that she was a woman of courage, one who fought for her freedom until the end.

The Awakening

We finally started reading the Awakening this weekend for AP Lit! 

I am excited about the novel. I think that there will be a lot that I can relate to and understand.

Before we started reading, we first learned about literary criticisms. Out of the ten that 

we learned about, I personally liked the Psychological (Freudian) Criticism, Marxist Criticism,

and Feminist Criticism. They made the most sense to me and if I were to write a critical piece

on a novel, I think that I would be able to write the best and most effective criticisms

with these those 3. I also thought that the Reader Response Theory was interesting. This critical

approach was different from the rest in the perspective that the reader was the most

important part of the text. They created the meaning of the novel; each could hold a 

very different and contrasting view of the book and both would be correct. This thought or 

idea was kind of difficult to grasp because I believed each novel had a selected meaning to it

which was created by the author. However, this type of literary criticism looked at it differently.

Also, I like definite things in everything. I like definite answers and stories that have a definite

story plot, not one that is up to you to decide upon, sort of like the movie Inception. 

The Awakening has a general theme that involves females. We haven't read that far into the novel yet

but I am excited to read further to see the gender stereotypes that have existed and

still exist today. I wonder what the story's content holds that cause so much trouble for Kate Chopin.

We learned in class today that she lived a difficult and lonely life, yet with easiness as she freely

"smoked in the front porch while letting her 6 children run free." It is a shame that she didn't get

enough credit for her work during her time, making three dollars one time, especially because

her novel has gained such a huge audience now, and is one of the top books read by college students. 

I don't understand how she was able to survive with her six children. 

We concentrated more on the feminist criticism because the novel had so much to do about 

the uprisings of women and how a single individual woman tries to stand up independently

in society, which was thought to be absurd in the late 19th century. This type of criticism's 

purpose is to raise readers' consciousness about sexual exploitation and alienation. Kate Chopin

at her time of living, said that she did not intentionally write this novel to cause disrupt. She didn't

have other thoughts or intentions when she wrote this novel. However, this novel obviously

holds so much content that was controversial in her time. A feminist critic would

have so much to write about. 

I honestly hope that I will enjoy this novel as much as I enjoyed reading Winesburg, Ohio. I have

high expectations for it and hope Kate Chopin doesn't fail me!