Thursday, May 27, 2010

Assignment #10

The play "Oedipus the King" is an interesting story in which the themes are not always easy to understand, but for sure very facinating. In this story some elements play an important part to give the special mathis that Sophocles intended to put in this story, those elements such as sight, ignorance, truth,and darkness make a net between them. Those elements are presisely important because denotes the opocitions and similitudes in the play. ignorance has the ability to blind a person in the way they persive the live and issues that surendig them, like for Oedipus who got blind with the execive pride of the power he possesed, and the sight and truth made a good match, because over this mix the person can open his mind to the reality, like happen to Oedipus when he descover the true about his origen and the insest he had comited with his mother and crime to his father. well all those elements as I said before made Sophocle's story in an autentic drama.

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Assignment # 9--- free choice.

When I read, that in this blog we could write about anything, my head started to thing in a lot of ideas to post in here but at the end I decide to take the suggestion of professor Vasileiou, and write about my impresion of the play "Oedipus the King".I had the oportunity to watch the play "Oedipus the King" in my Eng101 class, whith all this ancient attires, and masks, and also with this ceremonial language, and I have to contes that I got a little bored with it but also I capture the scence that Sophocles try to project in this master piece of drama. As a piece of literature the drama "Oedipus the King" is an incredible and full of imagination play because on it contents the mix of magic, imagination and lots of fatality. The story emphatize in remark that even the most highest of human pride could be destroyed and punish for the power of the gods, and reafirm that no body can scape to the things that already have been predestinated. But I can say that "Oedipus the King" beside of being a sad and taboo story could be analizes in a more rational way, for example: I the profecy said that he will married her mom he could choose marry a girl younger than him that way he, for sure could avoid marry his mother, and so forth the list is interminable, but as I said before the play is with out doubt a master piece of the classical literature.

Monday, May 10, 2010

"Assignment #8---Poems"

From all the poems we had studied in class I really liked " Those Winter Sundays" written by Robert Hayden in 1962. And I have chosen the readers response critisism to analize this poem. I think this form of critisism best suits this poem because in first place is a veryshort poem and talk in a way that the character on the poem is expresing thoughts and feelings and exist more than one way to analize and interpret thoughts and feelings, as we learnt " The easiest way to explain reader-response critisism is to attemps to describe what happen in the reader's mind while interpreting a text" (1490). That means for me that even when you read the same text or poem or any piece of literature today and the 1 year later the poem or text or piece of literature doesn't chanche but the way we make an interpretation of it, it could change because our mind is changing, and our toughts are changing and our experiences are changing too and all this affects the way we visualize the world soround us. In Robert Hayden's poem "Those Winter Sundays" we all can make a personal interpretation to me this interpretation is as follows: I can imagin an old man or even a mature age man sitting at the edge of his bed, alone, sad, or carting an amount or melancoholia looking at the orizont through his window, with his eyes and sad expeesion he look the outside environent a dark sky in the mist of one cold day of February, two or three bare dry trees, some flakes of snow falling the white vail that cover the grown and evrything, after one sigh he starts remember what his childhood looks like and perhaps now he was repeating his father story ... if he could move the time to the past he could say may be a thanks to that man who did slot for him . Well besides de simbilism that this poem contents also is a psychological features on this actitide of the character of the poem the notorious one is the guilt that take him to a kind of depresion. Finaly I can say that this new form of critisism open up to us the way we can analyze anything we ate doing since a poem on a book till a personal experience in life...!

Friday, May 7, 2010

Assignment #7

Miguel A. Gutierrez
Professor: Luke Vasileiou
Eng:102.0826
May,2nd,2010


Desires That Can Kill



Lierature is an amazing sourse of knowledge and ideas, and a place where we can find stories of all kind, which besides entertain us, also could be a good study case. For example the short story of Kate Chopin "The Story of an Hour" on where the main character, Mrs. Mallard in just a short period of time she herself face a predicament of what to do after she got the news about her husband's death. For one side she has the option of become a sad and humble "good wife", and cry endlessly for the lost of the caregiver of the house, but Goethe other way she has a world of new visualization, and do what she always was willing to do, like if a dream was fullfiled for her, but at thesame time is the fear of the new and unknow what paralyze to Mrs. Mallard to look forward and to go beyond her own dreams.

The most amazing of this Chopin's short story is exactly the title. The story of an hour empathizes presicely that the predicament of Mrs. Mallard occurs in just one hour so. The narrator do not indicates for how long the couple was living together as spouses, and neither also tells us about the afflictions Mrs. Mallard have had during the cojugal life, we assume that she was doing no so happy in her personal life as a woman, because when she got the news of her husband death instead getting the reaction like some other widows, she did as the narrator say: "She said it over and over under her breath: "free,free, free!" [...] "Free! Body and soul free!". She kept whishpering."(317). This constantly thought about freedom was resembling in Mrs. Mallard mind, because she she had the becessity of give up with conveniences and just be free.

But as I said before, something was holding Mrs. Mallard to don't take action like if she was really improsoned in the fear of what could happen to her and her necessities. In psychology exist a theory called "attachment" and it consist in a product of the activity of a number of behavioral systems that have proximity to a person. In Mrs. Mallard Case that person was her husband, as a predictable outcome. "Attachment is also a special emotional relationship that involves an exchange of a comfort, care, and pleasure."(Bowlby 172). And was exactly that bound who tied Mrs. Mallard to her husband who was the comfort, care and pleasure giver of the house.


The story of an houris full of symbolisms which describes the mood state of the main character of the story, for example when the narrator say: "She could see in the open square before her house the top of trees that were all aquiver which the new spring life"(316). This last quotation shows us how she was willing to see for the top of the trees who represents the manly society of her time, and the new spring of life represents the desire to be free in the new opportunity who was presented to her with the news of her husband death . But indeed the narrator said also: "There where patches of blue sky showing here and there through the clouds that had met an piled one above on the west fancing her window."(316). In what denotes inestability and lack of decision. The window represents the desire of freedom, but at the same times represents a barrier where you can see the horizonte but you cannot go forth of that point.

The end of the story tells us that Mrs. Mallard die after known that in reality her husband was not dead, and after all that predicament she was dealing with the husband knocked the door and appear on front of her and even when we don't know what was the reaction of Mrs. Mallard when saw Mr. Mallard's face we can assume that was something that her fragile and already sick heart couldn't handled. The news of her husband death give her a new breath of hope but the news about her husband was still alive takes to Mrs. Mallard as the narrator say: " To the joy that kills"(318). And is ironic how the death for Mrs. Mallard meant a new begins, but the live of her caregiver meant the lost of everything.

The story of an hour was an ironic story on how a woman who was looking for freedom of her own oppresion, found the death after having tasted tv potential of being free regardless her inner fear and insecuritoes she experiment a transformation of. Passive subject to a more independent character.



Work Cited

Bowlby, Jhon. Attachment and Loss: vol I, 2nd ed. New York, Basics Books. Print

Kennedy, X.J., & Dana Gioia. Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing. 6th ed. Upper Saddle River NJ: Pearson, 2008. Print