This Semester

At the beginning of the semester I was really unsure about doing blogs and gists. I thought they were going to be lame and a lot of work.Now it's strange to say I kind of like them. The blogs and gists are a great way for me to share my ideas on a story. Sometimes I don't like to say what I think in class because it may sound stupid. It's way easier to type it out and just fully explain what I'm thinking without having everybody hear.They aren't really all that hard to do either. It's not like you have to do hours of research you are just writing about your own thoughts and feelings so it makes it easier. This class is way different than any other literature class I've been in before. In this one we spend more time talking about what we think an author is trying to symbolize and what it means to us. It's nice because it's not some cookie cutter answers it's more about diving deep into the text and extracting your own thoughts. Some of the stories we have read aren't really my type but they have all made me think. Sometimes authors don't come right out and explain their theme and you have to seek it out which is something I'm not really used to having to do.

"The Little Mermaid"

The setting at the beginning of "The Little Mermaid" is way deep down in the sea where the mer-people live.Strange red and trees grow at the bottom of the sea and fish swim through the branches like birds of the earth. I think this part of the setting is important because it talks about birds which do not live in the sea. This shows the infatuation the little mermaid had with life out of the sea.There is a very beautiful castle made out of coral where the mer-king, his mother, and his 6 daughters live. The sand was blue and everything down there had a blue tinge.The sun is described as appearing like a "crimson flower" when the sea was calm. I think this is important because the little princess loved flowers and planted crimson ones which reminded her of the sun. This part of the setting shows how much she longed to be on land. She could only feel the suns warmth if she was on land so she planted flowers that reminded her of it.In her garden she had a marble statue of a boy. I think this an important part of the setting because it shows how she wants to find a man that walks the earth. When the little princess turns 15 she goes up to the top of the sea.There she sees the ship and the handsome prince so she decides to watch him.A storm comes up and she saves the prince. She thinks he looks like the statue in her garden and so she kisses him.While there she sees tall mountains with snow on them, green forests, and lemon and orange trees. The setting of this part of the story is important because all theses things interest her. She hasn't ever seen green forests or mountains with snow and it makes her want to come back.After visiting the sea witch where no seaweed or plants grew and it was really creepy the setting moves to land. The little mermaid lives at the castle and falls more in love with the prince. The next setting of the story is on a ship where the prince is marrying another woman.I think the story takes place in maybe the late 1800s or early 1900s because there is no mention of cars and there are like kings and queens.
The point of view is third person limited omniscient. You can tell because it only really gives the point of view of like the little princess and her sisters. Also, most of the action only takes places where the little princess is and it doesn't switch back and forth from point of view to point of view.

"The Birthmark" and "Bartleby, the Scrivener" Compare and Contrast

"The Birthmark" is about a husband and wife. The wife is pretty much perfect but she has this birthmark on her cheek that her husband hates. He is so disgusted by it  and his wife only wants to please him so she asks him to get rid of it for her. The potion he gives her gets rid of the birthmark but it ends up killing her. "Bartleby, the Scrivener" is about a man who starts working as scrivener but only does what he wants. Anytime he is asked to do something he doesn't want to he simlpy says, "I would prefer not to." Eventually, he decides he doesn't want to work. The boss tries to be nice and lets him get away with it but eventually he asks him to leave. When he doesn't the narrator/boss moves his office and Bartleby gets sent to like a jail thing. The narrator tries to save Bartleby but he ends up dying. The characters in both stories are believeable and the plots are plausible.In both stories the characters had motivation. In "Bartleby, the Scrivener" Nippers had indigestion and stuff in the morning so he was cranky and later in the afternoon he was well behaved. Turkey behaved in the morning and in the afternoon after dinner he was crabby. In "The Birthmark" the husband hated his wife's birthmark that's why he wanted to get rid of it. They had reasons for doing what they did.In "Bartelby, the Scrivener" Bartleby was a foil for the narrator/boss. He shows a side of the boss we might not have seen. He showed us the caring side of the boss. I think the wife in "The Birthmark" is a foil for the husband. She shows us how uncaring the husband was.I think what we learn from these stories that people don't take enough time to really care about those around us.In "Bartleby, the Scrivener" the narrator/boss feels sympathy towards Bartleby. But the boss wasn't empathatic towards him. Bartleby needed somebody to try to understand him.The boss was just trying to make himself feel good about doing a good deed. He never really went out of his way to understand Bartleby and really take care of him. Bartleby's actions were a cry for help. In "The Birthmark" the husband didn't really care for his wife. He didn't look past her imperfection to see her real beauty. The husband is almost like the boss from "Bartleby,the Scrivener." He acts like he's doing his wife a big favor by getting rid of her birthmark. He would have done a better thing if he would have cared about his wife for who she was and accepting her flaws.People feel good when they believe they did a good deed. They just got to figure out if what they are doing is more beneficial for them or the person they are "helping."

Birthmark

I think a major theme of the story is we have to look beyond the imperfections of the ones we love. The only thing physically wrong with Georgina was the birthmark but Aylmer became obssessed with getting rid of it.In the end she says he got rid fo the best thing on earth. Maybe she was the best thing he ever had. She loved him so much she was willing to do anything to get rid of the birthmark he hated so much. She was willing to take some potion that could kill her in order to please him. If that's not love I don't know what is. Nothing was good enough for Aylmer.If he would have loved her he woulda looked past a silly imperfection. I don't know if he truely loved her or saw her as science experiment. At the beginning, it said something about how it was unclear if he loved Georgina more than science. If he loved science more maybe him doing that experiment on her was like him showing his love for science. That was the first angle I took on this story. The other was maybe she cheated on him or something. He kept saying the the birthmark was not superficial and that it had a hold on her heart. Maybe she cheated on him and the birthmark is like an ugly reminder day in and day out what she did to him. Kind of like the scarlet letter. Maybe that's why she was so willing to drink the potion. She wanted to fix things with him. She wanted him to forgive her so much that she would do anything.

Extra Credit Blog- College Article

I don't think students are necessarily learning less in college. Maybe they are just going into college better prepared; therefore, there test scores aren't changing as much. If they are better prepared maybe the students don't find it to be as much work. I guess if students are learning less now it could be because with times like they are it's hard to find a job. The more education you have the better chance you have of finding a job. Maybe colleges are just trying to push their students through so they have a better chance of getting hired.It could also be because colleges want it to look like their students have higher GPAs. Students with better grades might attract more students to attend the college.College to me is harder than high school. It's not as hard as I thought it was going to be but it is definitely more challenging. Maybe I was just prepared more than I thought I was or maybe like this article suggests college is just easier now. I really hope students are just more prepared now because I don't want to be paying thousands of dollars for nothing! I want to be as prepared as possible for when I become a teacher.

Fake Twitter Accounts

The article about the fake Twitter accounts are slightly alarming. Somebody could make a fake Twitter or Facebook account on you. They could make horrible allegations about you and you could get in trouble. A fake account could say your selling drugs and you get in trouble with the authorities. They could use a fake account to get close to your friends and family and find out personal information about you. They could steal your identity, your personal records, your money, EVERYTHING. It's not hard to get pictures of people off the internet or read their wall posts to know enough about them to trick others. Many people bank online. They could use that information to hack into your bank account. Another thing that is troublesome is that some people get all their information online. They could read these fake Twitter pages and think it's the real person. It could ruins somebody's campaign. Also, if you were trying to get a job the employer could check Facebook and see the fake account and be horrified with what they saw. You might lose out on a job because of it. I think it's important to keep your Facebook account private and clear of anything that could cause accusations.

Help With Next Paper

I think something that would help with our next paper is if we went over analyzing. I tend to summarize instead of analyze. I think if we went over how to properly analyze or tips on analyzing it would really help. Analyzing text is a big part of writing a literary analysis. I need to figure out how to dig deeper into text. Maybe if we could also do more free writing exercizes to get creative ideas flowing. Sometimes I have a hard time generating creative ideas. Other than that I don't know what else could help.

Metamorphosis

In "Metamorphosis" Gregor's family treats him horribly. Gregor took care of his family. He worked all the time to provide for his family. His family didn't even work which is lazy. When Gregor turned into a bug, which I believe is a metaphor for going crazy, his family should have been there for him. They should have taken care of him. His sister acted like she cared about him but when things got hard she called him a burden and wanted to get rid of him. Even his dad wanted to get rid of him. Your parents are supposed to love you no matter what happens especially when you are sick. I think it's his family's fault he  went crazy. All he did is work, work, work! Even when he was a bug all he did was worry about working. No matter what happens I hope my family will always be there for me when I'm in need.

Works Cited

Horan, Thomas."Revolutions from the Waist Downwards: Desire as Rebellion In Yevgeny Zamyatin's We, George Orwell's 1984, and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World." Extrapolation:Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy 48.2 (2007): 314-39. Web. 31 January 2011.

Fitzpatrick, Sheila, and Slezkine, Yuri. In the Shadow of Revolution. Princeton:Princeton University Press, 2000. Print.

Roberts, Adam.The History of Science Fiction.New York:Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.Print.

Zamyatin, Yevgeny. We .New York: Modern Library, 2006.Print.