Pyo’s AP Language Comp blog

1. Why does Hamlet wait so long to kill Claudius? What are the reasons for his hesitation? How valid are they? How many times does he have the opportunity to attack Claudius? What are his reasons for not doing so?
Hamlet waited so long to kill Claudius because he first wanted to make sure of Claudius’s sin hence the play in the castle. His reason seems very valid since he didn’t know whether or not the ghost could be trusted. It could have been a devil in disguise for all he know. He could have attacked Claudius when he was praying, but he reasoned that Claudius, a sinner, would have gone to heaven if killed while praying. Hamlet wanted to catch Claudius doing some sinful acts to make sure that he will go to hell. I wanted to say that Hamlet wanted to show Claudius’s acts to the world and thus ruin his reputation and justify Hamlet’s revenge. But when he thought that Polenius was Claudius, he didn’t hesitate to stab him.

2. Hamlet claims that his madness is feigned, an “antic disposition” which he puts on for his own purposes (I.v.172). Why would Hamlet want to feign madness? How can an appearance of insanity help him achieve his ends? Is he really sane throughout the play, or does he ever cross the line into madness? What about Ophelia’s mad scene? Is it real or feigned? Is there “method in her madness” as well, or is she entirely irrational? Why has she gone mad? (What two reasons do her songs suggest?)

Hamlet wants to feign madness because it supposedly makes him less of a threat to Claudius. While everyone is busy thinking about his madness, he can have more freedom to plot his revenge. Yet Hamlet isn’t very good at playing insane – throughout the play, many characters doubt his “madness” especially Claudius. The jabs that he sends to his uncle and mother, the way he treats Ophelia, the play that he sets – all point to a scheming, cunning person. In this way, Hamlet seems to have cross the line into madness. His lack of control doesn’t fit with his scheming plot. It is strange that Hamlet is not plotting to expose Claudius and makes him face justice or trying to kill Claudius and getting away with it. He stabs Polenius (when he thinks that he is Claudius) without a second thought. Ophelia’s madness is definitely real.  Her muttered nonsense and strange acts are different than the calculated madness of Hamlet. Yet the songs that she sings and her actions contain in it ironies and true feelings that makes sense to the readers. Her first song about true love points to Hamlet as her reason for madness. Ophelia takes Hamlet’s madness as face value and believes that her action causes his madness and also that he does not truly love her as her brother and father has warned her (which is the second song she sings about Valentine’s day). Also we learned later that Ophelia died when the willow tree she was sitting on broke. Willow is a symbol for unrequited and undying love.

3. Pay attention to the treatment of the women characters Gertrude and Ophelia. Is there any basis for the Freudian interpretation of an Oedipal attraction between Hamlet and his mother? Hamlet does seem obsessed with his mother’s sexuality. How old is Hamlet? How old do you think Gertrude is? Is Hamlet’s disgust at Gertrude’s sexuality justified? To what extent is Gertrude guilty? Was she “in on” her husband’s murder? Has Claudius confided in her since the murder? How does Hamlet’s perception of his mother affect his behavior or attitude toward Ophelia? Why does he tell Ophelia to go to a nunnery? Does Hamlet really love Ophelia? If so, why is he cruel to her?
We know that Gertrude is not guilty of old Hamlet’s death since the King to Hamlet to leave his mother alone and let her goes to heaven. Claudius haven’t confided in her either since the murder or else she wouldn’t take that cup of poison. The chief reason why Hamlet is angered at his mother is for her marriage with Claudius. “Frailty thy name is woman” the famous quotation Hamlet said during his early soliloquy. Indeed, throughout the play, the only two women characters seems to be led around by the men for their selfish purposes. Claudius, even Polenius boss the queen around. She is depicted as this sexual, carefree woman who is blinded to the danger that she married.  I don’t believe that there is an Oedipus complex presented in the play. Hamlet doesn’t hate his father, he wants to revenge his death. He doesn’t want to sleep with his mother either, instead he thinks of her sexuality as beastly and disgusting. He takes this perception and applies it to Ophelia. Ophelia is also controlled being. She was told by her father to give up Hamlet and willingly obeyed. It is only when she lost her sanity that she could act as she wished.

4. Suicide is an important theme in Hamlet. Discuss how the play treats the idea of suicide morally, religiously, and aesthetically, with particular attention to Hamlet’s two important statements about suicide: the “O, that this too too solid flesh would melt” soliloquy (I.ii.129–158) and the “To be, or not to be” soliloquy (III.i.56–88). Why does Hamlet believe that, although capable of suicide, most human beings choose to live, despite the cruelty, pain, and injustice of the world?

Hamlet believes that, although capable of suicide, most human beings choose to live, despite the cruelty, pain, and injustice of the world because of fear of eternal suffering in Hell. Even though suicide will release them from suffering, it leads to even more suffering in hell (eternity!) so of course they do not want to accept it. Religiously suicide is viewed as a sin. But aesthetically suicide is actually romantic. Ophelia who commits suicide is allowed a grave because she is mad when she kills herself.

5. Choose a soliloquy in the play to look more closely at. Paraphrase it and then connect it to the larger themes in the play.

O, that this too too solid flesh would melt
Thaw and resolve itself into a dew!
Or that the Everlasting had not fix’d
His canon ‘gainst self-slaughter! O God! God!
How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable, (135)
Seem to me all the uses of this world!
Fie on’t! ah fie! ’tis an unweeded garden,
That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature
Possess it merely. That it should come to this!
But two months dead: nay, not so much, not two: (140)
So excellent a king; that was, to this,
Hyperion to a satyr; so loving to my mother
That he might not beteem the winds of heaven
Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth!
Must I remember? why, she would hang on him, (145)
As if increase of appetite had grown
By what it fed on: and yet, within a month –
Let me not think on’t — Frailty, thy name is woman! –
A little month, or ere those shoes were old
With which she follow’d my poor father’s body, (150)
Like Niobe, all tears: — why she, even she –
O, God! a beast, that wants discourse of reason,
Would have mourn’d longer–married with my uncle,
My father’s brother, but no more like my father
Than I to Hercules: within a month: (155)
Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears
Had left the flushing in her galled eyes,
She married. O, most wicked speed, to post
With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!
It is not nor it cannot come to good: (160)
But break, my heart; for I must hold my tongue.

Paraphrase
Ah, I wish my dirty flesh could melt away into a vapor, or that God had not made a law against suicide. Oh God, God! How tired, stale, and pointless life is to me. Damn it! It’s like a garden that no one’s taking care of, and that’s growing wild. Only nasty weeds grow in it now. I can’t believe it’s come to this. My father’s only been dead for two months—no, not even two. Such an excellent king, as superior to my uncle as a god is to a beast, and so loving toward my mother that he kept the wind from blowing too hard on her face. Oh God, do I have to remember that? She would hang on to him, and the more she was with him the more she wanted to be with him; she couldn’t get enough of him. Yet even so, within a month of my father’s death (I don’t even want to think about it. Oh women! You are so weak!), even before she had broken in the shoes she wore to his funeral, crying like crazy—even an animal would have mourned its mate longer than she did!—there she was marrying my uncle, my father’s brother, who’s about as much like my father as I’m like Hercules. Less than a month after my father’s death, even before the tears on her cheeks had dried, she remarried. Oh, so quick to jump into a bed of incest! That’s not good, and no good can come of it either. But my heart must break in silence, since I can’t mention my feelings aloud.

Theme: Suicide/Incestuous Marriage
One of the most important theme in the play and a key point to why Hamlet is so angry with Gertrude is her quick marriage to Claudius. This is the beginning of Hamlet’s distrust against women and viewing women as “frail creature.”

Affirmative action is not only unfair to almost everyone. The fact that hardworking and qualified students are denied college admissions because of their race is simply detestable. No certain race should be held to a higher or to a lower standard than the others. Moreover, it is degrading to the minority rather than helpful. The society may view certain professionals of a minority race as less qualified than others regardless of their educational background, assuming that they were accepted into the profession because of their race, not necessarily because they were really fit for the job. As a result, they may receive fewer clients than they would if people were to receive educational opportunities truly because they were qualified. Many intelligent and qualified minority would agree, so that if they do succeed, they will be recognized for their qualifications.

Affirmative action may feel as if it is unfair and discriminatory, but it is certainly necessary. Some people just did not grow up in the same nurturing environment as some of the more privileged. Because of this, it is important to consider each student according to the kind of environment they were brought up in, and how well they managed to make it through. Honestly, people cannot expect those who have been brought up in meager conditions to become successful overnight. It takes time, and affirmative action is one of the smaller steps to improving the conditions for minority by favoring those who may not have been exactly nurtured to become successful, but may have the potential to do so.

In 2007’s synthetic essay question, a lot of the advice that Jolliffe gave we’ve already gone over in class: the ‘conversing’ of the sources, generalizing but having a nuanced claim, and just generally, how to argue. Jolliffe doesn’t really talk much about the practical parts of the essay writing. He talks about reading closely and analyzing, but what he doesn’t talk about is that we’ll have little enough time that all of it really needs to be happening in our heads, automatically, as we read the sources. We don’t have time to carefully analyze after we’ve carefully read the sources; these are integrated into one step. Jolliffe also seems to breeze over the ‘argue’ step, when really, this is you writing the essay. I guess because this is about all the differences, the special parts of the new synthetic essay, but it seems like he should say a bit more about other strategies to use when writing. Whether the five paragraph is a good thing or not. Or something like that, I lost track of the point I was trying to make.

Thesis:  According to author George T. Kenman, “For reasons highly complex, we Americans place upon ourselves quite extraordinary
obligations of conformity to the group in utterance and behavior, and this feature of our national life seems to be growing
rather than declining.”
I.  First Argument:  In any country, people in groups may act cooperatively to form one solid opinion.
1)  In groups, people who are otherwise obedient, lawabiding individuals may riot or cause mayhem.
2)  Those who are subject to hearing a group’s opinion may side with the group to feel accepted and to lessen the possibility of conflict.
3)  Staying in a group puts pressure on an individual to be accepted in a free community where conformity builds strong bonds.
II.  Second Argument:  Since America is based off of the concept of free speech and individuality, the
need to be in society’s favor becomes a great strength.
1)  Those with connections with those who have the highest popularity will have the highest chances of
doing well in the United States.
2)  The United States is a nation where popularity, looks, skills, intelligence, and fashion are everything; many people latch onto another’s fashion or popularity in order to be more accepted by the general population.
3)  It is based off of social acceptance that shows thriving off of flaunting the rich and criticizing the unfortunate exist.
III.  Third Argument:  The fact that the society of the United States relies heavily on popularity will only make it more dependent on being popular.
1)  There is always the risk of being unpopular or unaccepted by society as well as the possibility of going further up the social ladder.
2)  Since individuality is being disregarded in a search for being socially accepted through conformed thoughts and actions, it will become more severe as individuals desire to stay popular in a society that constantly changes what is popular and accepted.
3)  Since acceptance by a group is desired, and since it is power in this society, there will be fewer and fewer individuals who keep their individuality and fewer still who stand against what may be popular.

The purpose of “A Modest Proposal” is to make fun of the way many talk about the poor and of the kinds of solutions that people come up with to solve huge political and social problems. What the satire does is not just say, “to say this or that is ridiculous,” it shows the reader that the certain point of view is ridiculous. It does so by over-exaggerating, by making obvious the logical fallacies that the other side uses, and by suggesting to the reader that, “if I can be so obviously wrong when I act like the other side, the other side must then be wrong.”

Swift’s essay begins very ordinary, and builds up support for his persona. When he says, “It is a melancholy object to those, who walk through this great town, or travel in the country, when they see the streets, the roads and cabbin-doors crowded with beggars of the female sex, followed by three, four, or six children, all in rags, and importuning every passenger for an alms,” his persona seems to be showing good character and sympathy for the poor, connecting to the reader’s own emotions of sympathy. This sets up a credible character so that when it is dashed in the ninth paragraph with cannibalism, it is even more shocking. By structuring his essay like this, Swift is showing his readers how those who say they care about the country and its people, especially the poorer citizens, can really feel quite the opposite, if you were to look at what they think should be done with the poor.

One of the specific attitudes that Swift is attacking in his satire is the attitude of treating the poorer people of the country like animals. His persona comments that, “I do therefore humbly offer it to publick consideration, that of the hundred and twenty thousand children, already computed, twenty thousand may be reserved for breed, whereof only one fourth part to be males; which is more than we allow to sheep, black cattle, or swine. . .” Humans should not be talked about in terms of “breeders” or in conjunction with animals, but by doing so and with the extreme situation of cannibalism, Swift shows that this is violating all morals, and that you should be careful to recognize these instances in other arguments.

Chesterton most notably uses humor in his essay, to connect with his readers, establish his credibility as a smart but down-to-earth person, and to create a humorous, positive tone that will encourage the readers to more likely agree with what he says.

First, he uses understatement as an element of his humor, such as when he says of his broomstick-pencil invention, “this, however, is not generally a part of the domestic apparatus on the premises.” Of course it’s not common in houses, it’s something he just made up, and this makes audience laugh along with Chesterton, and more readily go along with his slightly unorthodox views. Similarly, Chesterton acts very serious while commenting on a quirky topic. “Then the light of that white heaven broke upon my vision, that breadth of mere white which is indeed almost the definition of Paradise, since it means purity and also means freedom,” sounds like it is coming from a philosophical revelation, but it is talking about him realizing he could draw on his ceiling. By doing a bit of self-mocking for taking himself so seriously, Chesterton establishes a more humble, and through that, a more credible person.

Chesterton quotes others twice, but each is for a very different reason. The first time, he says, “Paper is much too small for any really allegorical design; as Cyrano de Bergerac says, “Il me faut des géants” [“I need giants”].” This is close to being completely serious, and it supports his claim well. The second time, however, it is for comedic effect. It would be the truly foolish person to believe that “The Bible must be referring to wallpapers…when it says, “Use not vain repetitions, as the Gentiles do.”” Instead, he is continuing his other funny lines, and being mock-serious to connect with his readers through humor.

Basic rhetorical strategies such as parallelism are also employed by Chesterton.  For example, he repeats the first phrase’s structure in the second in “If there is one thing worse than the modern weakening of major morals, it is the modern strengthening of minor morals. ” This gives the essay a good base and organization, and makes it easier for the reader to understand.

One way that Downe convinces his wife to emigrate to the United States is by showing her all the ways in which the United States has been wonderful for him so far. Downe was at least relatively poor in England, as seen by his comment that, “I should not have left you behind me, if I had money to have took you with me;” he was poor, otherwise he would have taken his family with him. When Downe runs into a kind farmer while looking for work, the farmer gives Downe a dinner that has, in Downe’s words, “everything that a person could wish.”A description of all the food to be had in the United States would especially appeal to his wife, back in England and still in at least some poverty, because she wouldn’t get the “pudding, pyes, and fruit of all kind” that Downe goes into raptures over. Because Downe’s wife is from the same environment that Downe is, she too is likely to be amazed at the riches of the United States described, and want to live their herself.

What is one worldwide issue that goes among the most largely ignored? It is poverty and hunger. Often, one hears a story covered in the news where a young child is kidnapped or has fallen in some other grave danger and there are massive rescue efforts to save that one child. However, the world remains passive and almost blind to the thousands of children who die every day from hunger, which can be relatively easy to solve, which is quite an irony.
The victims of poverty and hunger shown above together are what bind the two images together. The first image is of Cambodian refugees. There is a mother gently holding her child who is unusually thin. Apparently, the child is only two years old and hasn’t eaten for five days. The child is so weak from hunger that it is actually “unable to move in her arms.” Though it may be a little hard to notice, the mother in this picture is crying.
This photograph was taken on October 1st, 1979. This was a time when the Vietnamese Army invaded and gained control over Cambodia. This military move was made following reports of abuse on those Vietnamese who took up residence in Cambodia. Many Cambodians at this time relocated to the area along the border with Thailand to seek refuge. This hungry mother and child were among these refugees and the photograph was taken in the refugee camp along the border.

The surrounding refugees act as the framing in the photograph of the Cambodian mother and child. Clearly, the mother and child are the focus, or the center-of-interest in this picture. The attention immediately focuses on the mother—and the child in her arms—who stand(s) out most predominantly. There is symmetry and balance in this picture, since the refugees that this photograph captures are dispersed quite evenly on either side of the center-of-focus. In terms of perspective, the faces of the refugees who were in the back of the group appear smaller than the ones closer to the camera, and the tree behind the refugees was scaled to size as well. However, at the same time, there isn’t much depth to the photo, because the faces of other refugees and the tree were not obscured to highlight the center-of-interest. Instead, they were equally as distinct in terms of focus. In addition, this was a not a color photograph, so there wasn’t much of a color contrast. As a result, the whole impression or mood appears to be very dark and gloomy.

The second image is that of a young child in North Korea. This young child is a victim of the severe famine that officially struck North Korea in 1995 and lasted until 2001. In this picture, he is getting his arm measured by a U.N. member with measuring tape. This photograph was taken on May 14th, 1997 in Kangwon province. The U.N. Children’s Fund team was sent there at this time on a mission and ended up finding many malnourished children.
In this photograph, the center-of-interest is the starving young North Korean boy who is getting his arm measured by a U.N. member. There is a lot of color contrast in this photo. The young boy has his top off and his pale skin is showing. In the background, the U.N. official’s arms are stretched out to measure the boy’s arm, and are in dark colors to contrast against the boy’s skin. The measuring tape is in bright and bold colors, which attracts attention to the fact that the boy is being measured for his thinness from starvation. There is symmetry to the left and right of the boy. The hands measuring the boy are placed one on each side, and since the U.N. member is standing on the left side of the picture, his shadow was captured on the other side, which creates balance. There is depth to this picture, more than anything else, the hungry boy stands out most predominantly against the objects of dark and faded colors in the background. As for framing, there are a lot of surrounding empty space and dull colors like grey around the boy. This creates the effect of making the boy appear even more lonesome and helpless in appearance.
Both images are similar in that they clearly show emaciated young boys. Though each boy is from a different area of the world and circumstance, they have one thing in common. It is that they are both victims of poverty and hunger in third world countries. Both of those children appear to have expressionless faces, as if to suggest that they have become almost numb to all of the pain. However, their bodies composed of just about skin and bones tell about their sufferings.

Neither photograph seems to express its victims as anything but innocent and helpless beings. There is no indication that they could have done anything to help their situation or alleviate their suffering. Specifically, the victims are shown as though they have nothing. Neither of the boys have any clothing to cover their upper bodies. Even the Cambodian mother does not seem to have any belonging with her whatsoever (at least from the picture alone).
However, differences that distinguish one photograph from the other do exist. There seems to be more victims in the first picture who are huddled around the mother and child. As a result, it’s easier to tell that these are displaced people and are looking for a place to stay. In historical context, these victims were caught in conflict. The Cambodian victims appear to have suffered hunger because they could not settle and actually obtain food to eat. However, the North Korean child in the second picture is not exactly a refuge in need of a place to stay, but rather the problem seems to be that he is fixed to his place and has no way out of a place that does not have enough food to go around.

More importantly, the Cambodian child was photographed while in his mother’s arms. As a result, this photograph captures not only hunger and suffering victims, but a relationship as well. The photograph taken in Cambodia shows that the hungry child at least has a mother who cares and weeps for her young one. This implies that though the child may be hungry for lack of food, money and shelter, it is not short of love. The fact that the child in the first picture actually has someone to embrace certainly distinguishes it from the North Korean child. The North Korean victim in the second picture is basically shown standing all by himself. Though the arm of the U.N. member stretches a helping hand from the background to indicate that he is not, in fact, deserted and all alone, it is far from the intimate relationship as portrayed in the first picture. Without the indication familial love and care that any child needs, the victim seems even more lonely and desolate.

These victims of hunger live in countries where the human condition has yet much to improve. In contrast, the developed countries of the West and even South Korea have come quite far in terms of human condition improvement. The people of these nations do not currently do not suffer from hunger nearly to the same degree as North Koreans or Cambodians. North Korea and Cambodia are still considered some of the poorest nations in the world, who are not fully capable of tending to the needs of its people. However, with the help of U.N., these nations may someday catch up to the developed nations of the world by improving upon human condition. Clearly, to be able to eat and satisfy hunger is undeniably an important human condition as shown in these pictures. However, the first picture also shows that love is also a human condition that cannot go ignored. Even though money, shelter and food may come and go, love does not fluctuate so easily. Love persists and becomes the source of comfort and power even during some of the hardest times in life.

Bill starts another day of his second semester senior year at Lazy High. He walks into the building and goes to class, only to fall asleep hunched over his desk. At home, all he does is play games on the computer until he falls asleep. He receives his report card, and his grades are low, especially compared to the grades he received early on in his high school career, which were all A’s across the board. Even though he should be disappointed, he appears rather indifferent. He believes the work has done thus far would be sufficient enough to get him into his top choice schools. However, when the acceptance letters arrive, he is faced with nowhere left to go except for his backup schools. Though he has been quite a confident and complacent person, he is truly devastated for the first time. He suddenly feels that his life has come to an end and that he will get nowhere. However, his “backup” school sends him course catalogs, brochures, a DVD and other material to show him what kind of college he will be going to. He finds out that the college that he has never placed at the top of his list is actually a very good school, much better than he thought. He takes a visit to this college and ends up falling in love with the school. He has become much more optimistic since. He feels he can certainly see himself going there and suddenly cannot wait until college.

My impression was that the photographs were taken and displayed to evoke sympathy for the blacks suffering from racism and segregation. The pictures were primarily taken of blacks at inopportune times, especially when they were in grave danger. A black lawyer was attacked by white teens who even used the American flag as a weapon and later showed an image of the man’s face heavily bandaged. It’s ironic that the American flag, considered the symbol of freedom and justice, would be used as a weapon of racism and discrimination like shown in this picture. The teen who was using the flag as a pole/weapon most likely didn’t realize the significance of what he was doing, that momentarily in his anger or hate or whatever he forgot that the flag was a huge symbol, sacred, and probably not something you should use to attack someone. The American flag is one of those sensitive topics that people should not mess with. There is nothing we would hate more than to think that our nation’s symbol could embody something like weapons, the means to kill and do harm. We consider it a threat when our enemies burn the American flag, but even they do not use it as weapons. Other black people were also attacked all because the whites were enraged by the busing policy trying to desegregate schools in Boston. Not only that, the picture of a fire escape collapsing shows a young woman and a child falling to their death were also of black people. They were not even

Canaday uses descriptive language to talk about the Peale family portrait in a very analytical way whereas he analyzes the effects of Edgar Degas’ painting through the emotions emanating from the characters depicted. Canaday’s description with the Peale family portrait talks about how the painting is divided into different groups and the subdued tones of the colors, among other things. He takes a look at how the characters are divided and how the little details add to the overall picture. In the end, Canaday says that it’s a good conversation piece, but that “Peale’s style has a suggestion of dryness in it, like a pinch of salt in a dish that might otherwise have been too bland.” However, what Canaday said about The Bellelli Family involves the family. He completely ignores the textbook aspects of the painting to tell the reader what he finds from the use of the techniques. “The temperament of each of the four members is individualized for us, and, beyond that, their interrelationshiop is analyzed.” In this way, Canaday analyzes the meaning behind both illustrations, and it is for this reason that I believe that he is an effective critic of the two artists’ work. He stated that “The composition of The Peale Family might be adapted to any number of group portraits, but that of The Bellelli Family could not.” I agree. Canaday broke down Peale’s family portrait because there was no special meaning behind the painting, and thus, he could only talk about what made it a “conversation piece.” Canaday also concentrates a lot on the dynamics of the relationships between the people in the portrait. He argues that these are what make the portrait important to people outside the family circle, other than being a pretty decoration. He first starts with the Peales, and describes the piece and the many good components of it; how everyone in the picture is united, the place of the nurse shown well. But after going into this, he reveals what the artist is not doing–he is being superficial in not showing the relationship between the family members other than being nice. This single emotion, not varied for any of the people present, is all that is there. The point of the painting, although informal, is for a formal setting, a conversation piece that should not have the intimate details of the family’s life in it.

The artwork above is “Pearblossom Highway,” created in the modern art form of cubism. Cubism is a type of pop art, which emerged in the 1950s. For the most part, there is formal balance in this picture. There are road signs along the highway on the right side, with trees or more like cactuses placed on the left to balance. There is writing on the right side of the road that says, “Ahead Stop.” To balance this, there are bottles, cans and other junk littering the road on the left side. Proportion is another important element to note in this artwork. As the road moves away from view, it becomes narrower. Likewise, the road signs and cactuses become smaller as they go, indicating that they are located further along the road than the larger ones that are nearer. There is a slightly obscure vanishing point along the highway. The two bold, yellow lines along the middle of the road disappear into the vanishing point. This painting uses mostly cool colors. The sky is painted in a dim blue color. This artpiece has a unique perspective. Aside from cubism, there are many other aspects that appear distorted in this piece. For example, There are signs cluttered only on one side (the right) of the road, while the other side has none. On the other hand, there is litter all over the left side of the road, while there are practically none on the right. Logically, it doesn’t make sense that these items are bunched together only in certain areas. it would make more sense to have signs and litter more spread out over the area. The meaning of this artwork seems to be that one road actually leads somewhere, to an important location. After all, the signs indicate a “stop ahead,” a destination of some sort. The other one, however, appears desolate and seems to head virtually nowhere, with no signs to even indicate where it leads.

One of the major rhetorical purposes of the Fog of War was to get you to see MacNamara in a new light, beyond “MacNamara’s War” and into his experience before the Vietnam War, and that perhaps, MacNamara actually wanted to draw out of the war, when people thought he wanted to keep going. Another rhetorical purpose of the Fog of War is to relate the Vietnam War to what is going on now, the Iraq War. It shows that war was a necessary evil and that mankind can come, time and time again, to the brink of destruction. Many people will die, but in times of crisis, choices must be made and he was the one who made the choices when the time came.
McNamara is an experienced government official who has seen what war can mean and how close things can come to complete destruction. As such, it implies that the viewer should listen to his words and take them as the absolute truth. The movie also talks about a lot of McNamara’s past, showing the viewer the evidence that this man is educated and knew what he was doing when he was running Ford and also when he was the Secretary of Defense under the Kennedy and Johnson presidencies. This makes it an even more concrete idea that McNamara’s opinion and memories of those times are accurate and strong. One of the strategies for achieving this end was the Phillip Glass music. I thought it was very well chosen. It couldn’t be anything with words, because that would be too much information with all the rest that was going on in the movie. Glass music, however, gave it a dramatic quality that wasn’t overstated, it let the words and pictures speak for themselves. I agree with LaSalle when he says, “His knowing yet visceral take on the material is supported by Philip Glass’ score, which emphasizes the relentless nature of war, as well as the relentless human yearning for something better.” Rosenbaum, however, believes that the music dupes the audience into thinking that we’re “doing something serious” and thinking critically, when we’re just gaping. I think that Rosenbaum has a lot of trouble with the movie in general, and is taking that out on the music choice. I believe that however well the movie turned out, the music choice was the best possible for the subject matter and movie itself.
I personally believe that the movie wasn’t that strong. It may be because I never felt the horror of losing someone important in a war; it may be because the subject of war doesn’t interest me much; it may be because I was half-asleep; it may be because I thought that McNamara’s story was too broad. I don’t know which of these contributed the most to my opinion on this movie’s effectiveness, but I felt that McNamara’s overall presentation of the material wasn’t that strong. I am not even entirely certain of what McNamara was trying to get across to the viewers. To me, it felt as if McNamara was just talking and talking and talking about his past and the wars he’s looked over without much of a central point at all.

Donald Ray Pollock’s debut collection of short stories, Knockemstiff, depict some of the most heartbreakingly original characters and situations of recent memory: the father who juices his son with Mexican steroids in an attempt to relive his failed glory days as a competitive bodybuilder; the hapless woman compelled to drive her aunt around town in search of men to bed; and the woman who roams the streets and forces people to eat the supply of fish sticks that she keeps in her purse. Knockemstiff is not an easy book to recommend. It contains some of the finest writing I’ve come across in a very long time, but there are some genuinely shocking scenes that are rendered quite graphically. However, these aren’t cheap thrills. Pollock is giving voice to an underrepresented segment of Americans. If you’re tired of reading the plights of overprivileged Manhattanites, Knockemstiff is the perfect pill. These stories are the literary equivalent of the LOVE/HATE tattoos on Robert Mitchum’s knuckles: terrifying yet fascinating.

To summarize, Shelly is praising poetry and poets, saying that they are the ones in the world who deliver to the soul the absolute truth of the world and they transcend ordinary, everyday language to accomplish this. It’s basically where he goes through a long description of the greatness of poetry and he uses that to say that poets of today are as good as those of yesteryear and that their work transcends time because of its unspoken truth. The claim is that poetry and poets are the medium for the truth of the universe, meaning that they comprehend everything and contain wisdom even they may not entirely understand. In his strategies, Shelly is very visual. There are metaphors, especially at the end when he’s saying “Poets are the hierophants of an unapprehended inspiration; the mirrors of the gigantic shadows which futurity casts upon the present; the words which express what they understand not; the trumpets which sing to battle, and feel not what they inspire; the influence which is moved not, but moves.” He builds his ethos by seeming to be very educated and convincing the reader that he knows what he’s talking about and can manipulate the language to demonstrate this. (Hierophant, for example). I personally believe that his claim has some merit in that poets represent truth and nature in ways that speaks an unexplored truth that lies dormant in everyone’s soul.

While growing up, I was always pressured about my faith in God as a Christian. Ever since I could remember, my mother would always enroll me in Sunday school, where I would learn the Bible. Over the years, my definition of faith was developed so that it involved religion and religion only. This actually seems to be the case for many people. People seem to associate the word “faith” primarily with religion and hardly with anything else.

In those days, when I was attending Sunday school, no matter how much I learned about Jesus or God, I had trouble believing wholeheartedly in what I was being taught. So one day, I complained. How was I supposed to believe in God, when nothing could actually prove his existence? Logically, it didn’t make much sense to me.
The chair is often used as a metaphor of faith in Christianity. When one looks at a chair, one does not first take time to carefully examine the chair and to logically calculate whether it is really structurally sound and safe to sit on. Most likely, one would sit on it from the start without much thought as to whether it would hold up or collapse. This is simply called faith. I have heard this metaphor being used, telling people to have faith. If one could have faith in a chair, then one certainly could in God, right?
It was then that I learned that that’s why it takes something called faith to believe in God. Faith is to not fully know everything, yet to believe out of trust. And that is what faith is. Faith is trust. Because Christians trust that their God will help in times of trouble and eventually deliver them to heaven, they have faith. And though it may be contrary to common belief, faith applies to so much more than just religion alone. However, most people often don’t realize that faith could apply to more than just one’s belief in God.
“Most of the time when people discuss faith they are referring to the relationship that they, as individuals, have with their particular God(s). I believe that having faith in a God(s) is important, but faith should not be limited to religious deities”. It is true that it takes faith to believe in God, someone that no one has ever seen before. But having faith in God is one thing, but having faith in other people is another. It also takes faith for people to love one another, to build relationships, and to live together. “Faith can be applied to ‘normal, everyday’ person to person relationships as well”. Imagine where humans would be if we did not have faith in one another.
We vote for a certain presidential candidate out of trust that this leader would uphold duties as president and do well in managing the nation’s affairs. This is faith. Otherwise, if we did not have this kind of faith, we would not exert as much support for a candidate. Though we may have faith in God or president, our faith goes down much further, even as far as to our every day life. “In a marriage, you have faith that your partner will be monogamous and supporting. Of course, when referring to a friendship, family member or coworker one must also have faith that the loved one will be honest and forthright with you. There are so many levels to faith that we should not forget or ignore them. It takes a great deal of faith to have a good relationship with another person”. Basically, we have faith in many people important in our lives, whether in the leaders of a nation or even our family and peers.
Faith and trust go hand in hand. The way we think of faith is often to do with the strength of our belief in religion. Though we may not be aware of it, our faith applies to many others, not just God. The faith people have in a president, though it is in another human, is similar to the faith we may have in God; most of us do not directly know the leader of the nation, but from what we know at least, we trust the president. However, people have faith and trust toward other ordinary people. Most people don’t step outside of their homes worrying that someone nearby would try to shoot a gun toward them. This itself, is a form of trust. It can be as simple as that or the kind of trust we have toward a family member, spouse or friends. Generally, we have faith in those close to us to be aware of our trust in them. As a result, we often do not worry that they will not let us down. This is why it is even more surprising and devastating in the case that we discover that we have been betrayed. Overall, the definition of faith is not just something that is required for one to believe in a God that cannot be proven or a president that we may never get to know personally. Faith can be applied to just about everything, from basic trust in something like a chair to close family members who know our deepest secrets.

Postrel defines beauty as the physical appearance of a person, something that others can clearly see and identify. Though different people have different tastes, beautiful people are generally seen as beautiful by most people. Though Postrel claims that it is a pleasant message that Dove is sending out to the public, that every girl is beautiful, she actually seems to disagree. Perhaps every girl can be beautiful in a way, but others are more “lucky” or beautiful than others. She claims that beauty was not exactly influenced by society. Even babies can recognize and would stare longer at those who are generally considered beautiful. Therefore, she believes beauty is biological. Small jaws, larger eyes, and other features considered beautiful in society indicate femininity and therefore, fertility–more female hormones and less male hormones. Though I agree with her claims to some degree, in that most people can recognize beauty without exactly being taught what is considered beautiful and what is not, different societies sometimes seem to have different ideas about beauty. For example, Koreans in the old days used to consider small eyes a sign of beauty, which is contrary to views of today. I have also heard that plump females were once more desirable, for it indicated that she was well fed and pampered in upbringing, though now, females aspire to be thin. These evidence indicate that perhaps beauty does change with time and isn’t always related to things like fertility.

This book starts off with a description of the first known man to have Ebola, Charles Monet. The symptoms of Ebola are horrible and unlike others I had heard of before. The descriptions of how he “crashed and bled out” (basically that he died of Ebola) is so vivid, graphic and disturbing that I actually became frightened. The Ebola virus—among the most deadly agents on the face of this earth—destroys its victims mercilessly, having a mortality rate up to ninety percent. The death is not a smooth one either. In fact, the horridness of death from Ebola is almost beyond imaginable. In fact, they have a special name for a victim’s death from Ebola—“crash and bleed out.” Try to envision a person’s body basically liquefying, until all the blood pours out of practically every opening on the body. “…The body is partly transformed into virus particles…The host is possessed by a life form that is attempting to convert the host into itself. The transformation is not entirely successful, however, and the end result is a great deal of liquefying flesh mixed with virus, a kind of biological accident” (Preston, 14). I couldn’t help but cringing at the thought, while taking in all this information. I am waiting to find out just how devastating this virus really is, the number of people and to what degree they will suffer.

1. Rassalas complains that his sister is over-exaggerating, using extreme examples in general, when they only describe very few cases. He complains she is being dramatic, rather than logical.

2. “Calamity” isn’t so bad because it is less felt by the masses (according to Rassalas). The people directly involved in the wars and such suffer, but the general laborer goes on with his daily life, little touched by the calamity, worried only with domestic troubles.

3. Rasselas believes that “marriage is one of the means of happiness” because “men and women were made to be companions of one another.” His sister’s response is that marriages can cause lots of harm, through differences in temper and opinions, and that even marriage “is rather permitted than approved.”

4. The sixth paragraph first says that the princess has both said that marriage is worse and celibacy is worse, and they cannot both be worse than the other. Rassalas goes on to say something like these two opinions, because of their contradictions, are both wrong.

5. The princess is saying that the fault of that contradiction was in herself, not in the truth. She says that the concepts of things like marriage and celibacy are complicated and vast, and she has only some experience, and as they are similarly bad to her, she has a hard time discriminating between the two of which is worse. As she thinks about one, it seems worse, and when she looks at the other, that one seems worse.

6. Rasselas and his sister are arguing about whether marriage is good or not. Rasselas sees that it is good because it is meant to be. He says, “The world must be peopled by marriage or peopled without it.” and implies through this that it would be even worse to have ‘the world peopled’ without people marrying. His sister, though, sees that it is bad because of all the horrible things that can go wrong and the unhappiness suffered through marriage, and believes this is a normal thing, that generally happens.

7. One rhetorical strategy that Rasselas uses is appealing to the shared goals of him and his sister, that, “We are employed in a search of which both are equally to enjoy the success or suffer by the miscarriage; it is therefore fit that we assist each other.” He wants to convince her to be less argumentive with him, to stop and consider his point of view.

A rhetorical strategy that both of them use is applying what the other says in an example where it is clearly incorrect. Rasselas says, “You surely conclude too hastily from the infelicity of marriage against its institution; will not the misery of life prove equally that life cannot be the gift of Heaven?” His sister says, “. I see no danger that the present generation should omit to leave successors behind them; we are not now inquiring for the world, but for ourselves.”

The general argument made by Mencken in her work “The Feminine Mind” is that men are not worthy of the heroic reputations. More specifically, X argues that the person who is most doubtful of a particular man’s heroicism is his own wife. She/He writes, “She may envy her husband, true enough, certain of his more soothing prerogatives and sentimentalities. She may envy him his masculine liberty of movement and occupation, his impenetrable complacency, his peasant-like delight in petty vices, his capacity for hiding the
harsh face of reality behind the cloak of romanticism, his general innocence and childishness. But she never envies him his puerile ego; she never envies him his shoddy and preposterous soul.” In this passage, Mencken is suggesting that women are of higher emotional character than men are. IN conclusion, her belief is that because no one person can have complete mental clarity nor complete baboonish-ness, every person has a certain degree of male and female in them, at the same time.

In my view, Mencken is right because it seems like she is being fair to both genders. More specifically, I believe that her assumptions about what men are good at and what they are poor at are accurate. The quote in the above paragraph illustrates this, as well. Therefore, I conclude that men, while they are physically stronger and more emotionally sturdy at times, can benefit greatly from having a wife and having some feminine characteristics of their own.