Response to http://jess-gonzalez.blogspot.com/ Question #5

5.Why did the main character resent working on another man's house?

The main character in "Carpenter" dislikes his job because he feels that he is a slave for someone. The character notes that all of the men that hire him and his brother are all wealthy. one man is paying $40,000 for a bathroom, another man wants to add room to his garage for his new motorcycle, and the other is an architect that is adding a three story addition to his home. The character also mentions that they are being hired to do the work that these men don't want to do, like removing a sewer pipe. The fact that the character is doing something that others don't want to do makes the character feel like he is a slave. These people that hire them are of a higher class economically. In the end, this character probably had self-esteem issues if all he was worried about was the type of men he was working for...

10 questions

"little league haiku" in Running after antelope:

1. What affect does the imagery at the beginning have on the story?
2. What is the allusion the author is trying to make when comparing the offense to the defense?
3. Why is it significant that the defense has no coach, and the fact that they make calls at the last minute?
4. Why would the author call himself the "Monster Man" (pg 5) to symbolize himself?
5. What is the significance of the author thriving off of surprising the other team, and having the other team fear their defense?
6. Why does the author refer to the defense as "standing around quietly, minds empty, like twelve-year-old desperadoes waiting for a train."
7. What literary device is used in the following quote, and how does it affect the story? "I was in love with the air, the smell of the grass, the warm light in the cottonwood trees at the edge of the field."
8. What is the significance of mentioning that Bruce Seymour has reached puberty?
9. What is the significance of the author yelling "the wind brings dry leaves, enough to build a fire." when the quarterback starts his count?
10. What does the following quote imply about the author? " It didn't really work out like I thought it would. I'm ready to move on, if you are."

Creative/Literary nonfiction

"Our New Idiot" by Melissa Delbridge... Melissa works for a cafe, Melissa has a coworker named Hardy. Hardy wad viewed as the village idiot. When it came to collecting tips, Hardy would take the nickel rather than take the quarter. When Melissa asks him why he does that, hardy replies with "if I ever take the quarter, even just one time, you'll all quit doing it." and Melissa ended her story by mentioning that they need to find a new village idiot...

I liked this short story because I feel that Hardy made Melissa feel bad for judging him..

A full moon

I just finished taking a very difficult math test, my head is throbbing and my neck feels stiff.. I am irritated with quite a few people because they continuously texted me while I was trying to take my test. Now I am walking out to my car, the moon looks so big and bright. Brighter than usual, the moon is shinning so bright that I can see tiny dark spots on it. Lauryn Hill's "can't take my eyes off of you" is playing through my headphones, and despite the fact that I was very mad a few minutes ago, I can't stand to be upset while there is wonderful music playing and the moon looks so beautiful....

a winter walk

Poor, little, old Mrs. Rosa, diagnosed with schizophrenia at the age of 57. Unfortunately her family was unable to pay for the medication. In order to help Mrs. Rosa with her illness, her family decided to move her into a tiny shack deep inside a forest. Mrs. Rosa’s family thought as long as Mrs. Rosa was isolated, she wouldn’t suffer as much. There Mrs. Rosa was, in her dark, cold shack. She passed time by holding conversations with the voices. Mrs. Rosa told the voices of her family and what they had done. The voices started off by telling Mrs. Rosa that her family didn’t care for her, then they told her that no one cared for her, then they began to yell at her; they yelled that she was worthless and no one would ever love her. The sound of the voices were like nails against a chalkboard, and in need of help, Mrs. Rosa ran out of her home. Mrs. Rosa could not escape the voices, and she felt like she was running around in circles. The voices grew louder and violent, the trees scowled and swayed in ways to hurt Mrs. Rosa as she passed, and the snowflakes whirled around her with the intention of smothering her. After her legs grew tired from her endless journey to escape the voices, Mrs. Rosa sat on the floor and rested against a rock and took her last breath. The voices finally stopped, and Mrs. Rosa was at peace. The following morning Mrs. Rosa’s family found her corpse frozen against a rock a few feet away from the city her family lived in.      

Be Be Your Love by Rachael Yamagata

If I could take you away
Pretend I was queen
What would you say
Would you think I'm unreal
'Cause everybody's got their way I should feel

Everybody's talking how I, can't, can't be your love
But I want, want, want to be your love
Want to be your love, for real
Everybody's talking how I, can't, can't be your love
But I want, want, want to be your love
Want to be your love for real
Want to be your everything

Everything...

Everything's falling, and I am included in that
Oh, how I try to be just okay
Yeah, but all I ever really wanted
Was a little piece of you

And everybody's talking how I, can't, can't be your love
But I want, want, want to be your love
Want to be your love, for real
Everybody's talking how I, can't, can't be your love
But I want, want, want to be your love
Want to be your love for real

Everything will be alright
If you just stay the night
Please, sir, don't you walk away, don't you walk away, don't you walk away
Please, sir, don't you walk away, don't you walk away, don't you walk away

And everybody's talking how I, can't, can't be your love
But I want, want, want to be your love
Want to be your love, for real
Everybody's talking how I, can't, can't be your love
But I want, want, want to be your love
Want to be your love for real

And everybody's talking how I, can't, can't be your love
But I want, want, want to be your love
Want to be your love, for real
Everybody's talking how I, can't, can't be your love
But I want, want, want to be your love
Want to be your love for real

I want to be your love, love, love

Rhinoceros or Berenger?

When I was in high school, I had a English teacher, who happened to be pregnant at this time. There was some sort of miscommunication between her and most of the students in the class. There was a large amount of low grades in the class, and she was unhappy with it. She asked our class what she was doing wrong. There was a pause, then a girl started to scold and criticize our teacher. Soon after others followed along, criticizing our instructor... A small group of students (including myself) did not give in, we did not join the rhinoceros'. Instead we remained Berengers...

Mothers

Life without a mother is like a beehive without honey...

My life

Without him, I wouldn't be me...

"The White Snake" -Sexton

Question #6!

"In 'The White Snake' Sexton uses a number of unusual similes "a king as wise as a dictionary" (20) "the animals spoke up like puppets" (44) "the princess smiled like warm milk" (76). What do these similes have in common? How do thy contribute to the meaning of the poem?"

When I think of wisdom I would like to say it is normally gained through experience, in my opinion a dictionary is not wise at all. A dictionary is a book of words created by other people. I think Sexton might have compared this king's wisdom to a dictionary's wisdom as a form of contradiction because he did not earn the right to his kingdom through his experience, this king has accomplished all he did due to the work of others.

When thinking of puppets I think of objects that do not think or do for themselves, Sexton compares these animals to puppets as another form of contradiction because anyone would love to hear the thoughts of an animal, but when given the chance these animals are a joke.

The princess with a smile like warm milk..... Sexton contradicted the stereotype of a princess.. NORMALLY a princess is happy and excited when men are competing for her hand in marriage. Sexton's princess seems like a SNOB (not very princess like)!  

These similes contribute to the meaning of this poem because the whole poem is full of contradictions. The servant gets away with stealing the kings food (not typical in a fairy tail), normally the thief would be punished or face some sort of problem. Then the Princess and the Servant build a relationship on lies (contradiction to normal fairy tales), the servant did not win her over through hard work, everything was handed to him...

Grimm Fairy Tale's Rapunzel

RAPUNZEL

"There were once a man and a woman who had long in vain wished for a child. At length the woman hoped that God was about to grant her desire. These people had a little window at the back of their house from which a splendid garden could be seen, which was full of the most beautiful flowers and herbs. It was, however, surrounded by a high wall, and no one dared to go into it because it belonged to an enchantress, who had great power and was dreaded by all the world. One day the woman was standing by this window and looking down into the garden, when she saw a bed which was planted with the most beautiful rampion (rapunzel), and it looked so fresh and green that she longed for it, she quite pined away, and began to look pale and miserable. Then her husband was alarmed, and asked: 'What ails you, dear wife?' 'Ah,' she replied, 'if I can't eat some of the rampion, which is in the garden behind our house, I shall die.' The man, who loved her, thought: 'Sooner than let your wife die, bring her some of the rampion yourself, let it cost what it will.' At twilight, he clambered down over the wall into the garden of the enchantress, hastily clutched a handful of rampion, and took it to his wife. She at once made herself a salad of it, and ate it greedily. It tasted so good to her—so very good, that the next day she longed for it three times as much as before. If he was to have any rest, her husband must once more descend into the garden. In the gloom of evening therefore, he let himself down again; but when he had clambered down the wall he was terribly afraid, for he saw the enchantress standing before him. 'How can you dare,' said she with angry look, 'descend into my garden and steal my rampion like a thief? You shall suffer for it!' 'Ah,' answered he, 'let mercy take the place of justice, I only made up my mind to do it out of necessity. My wife saw your rampion from the window, and felt such a longing for it that she would have died if she had not got some to eat.' Then the enchantress allowed her anger to be softened, and said to him: 'If the case be as you say, I will allow you to take away with you as much rampion as you will, only I make one condition, you must give me the child which your wife will bring into the world; it shall be well treated, and I will care for it like a mother.' The man in his terror consented to everything, and when the woman was brought to bed, the enchantress appeared at once, gave the child the name of Rapunzel, and took it away with her.

Rapunzel grew into the most beautiful child under the sun. When she was twelve years old, the enchantress shut her into a tower, which lay in a forest, and had neither stairs nor door, but quite at the top was a little window. When the enchantress wanted to go in, she placed herself beneath it and cried:

'Rapunzel, Rapunzel,
  Let down your hair to me.'

Rapunzel had magnificent long hair, fine as spun gold, and when she heard the voice of the enchantress she unfastened her braided tresses, wound them round one of the hooks of the window above, and then the hair fell twenty ells down, and the enchantress climbed up by it.

After a year or two, it came to pass that the king's son rode through the forest and passed by the tower. Then he heard a song, which was so charming that he stood still and listened. This was Rapunzel, who in her solitude passed her time in letting her sweet voice resound. The king's son wanted to climb up to her, and looked for the door of the tower, but none was to be found. He rode home, but the singing had so deeply touched his heart, that every day he went out into the forest and listened to it. Once when he was thus standing behind a tree, he saw that an enchantress came there, and he heard how she cried:

'Rapunzel, Rapunzel,
  Let down your hair to me.'

Then Rapunzel let down the braids of her hair, and the enchantress climbed up to her. 'If that is the ladder by which one mounts, I too will try my fortune,' said he, and the next day when it began to grow dark, he went to the tower and cried:

'Rapunzel, Rapunzel,
  Let down your hair to me.'

Immediately the hair fell down and the king's son climbed up.

At first Rapunzel was terribly frightened when a man, such as her eyes had never yet beheld, came to her; but the king's son began to talk to her quite like a friend, and told her that his heart had been so stirred that it had let him have no rest, and he had been forced to see her. Then Rapunzel lost her fear, and when he asked her if she would take him for her husband, and she saw that he was young and handsome, she thought: 'He will love me more than old Dame Gothel does'; and she said yes, and laid her hand in his. She said: 'I will willingly go away with you, but I do not know how to get down. Bring with you a skein of silk every time that you come, and I will weave a ladder with it, and when that is ready I will descend, and you will take me on your horse.' They agreed that until that time he should come to her every evening, for the old woman came by day. The enchantress remarked nothing of this, until once Rapunzel said to her: 'Tell me, Dame Gothel, how it happens that you are so much heavier for me to draw up than the young king's son—he is with me in a moment.' 'Ah! you wicked child,' cried the enchantress. 'What do I hear you say! I thought I had separated you from all the world, and yet you have deceived me!' In her anger she clutched Rapunzel's beautiful tresses, wrapped them twice round her left hand, seized a pair of scissors with the right, and snip, snap, they were cut off, and the lovely braids lay on the ground. And she was so pitiless that she took poor Rapunzel into a desert where she had to live in great grief and misery.

On the same day that she cast out Rapunzel, however, the enchantress fastened the braids of hair, which she had cut off, to the hook of the window, and when the king's son came and cried:

'Rapunzel, Rapunzel,
  Let down your hair to me.'

she let the hair down. The king's son ascended, but instead of finding his dearest Rapunzel, he found the enchantress, who gazed at him with wicked and venomous looks. 'Aha!' she cried mockingly, 'you would fetch your dearest, but the beautiful bird sits no longer singing in the nest; the cat has got it, and will scratch out your eyes as well. Rapunzel is lost to you; you will never see her again.' The king's son was beside himself with pain, and in his despair he leapt down from the tower. He escaped with his life, but the thorns into which he fell pierced his eyes. Then he wandered quite blind about the forest, ate nothing but roots and berries, and did naught but lament and weep over the loss of his dearest wife. Thus he roamed about in misery for some years, and at length came to the desert where Rapunzel, with the twins to which she had given birth, a boy and a girl, lived in wretchedness. He heard a voice, and it seemed so familiar to him that he went towards it, and when he approached, Rapunzel knew him and fell on his neck and wept. Two of her tears wetted his eyes and they grew clear again, and he could see with them as before. He led her to his kingdom where he was joyfully received, and they lived for a long time afterwards, happy and contented."



 

I believe Anne Sexton chose to remake the Grimm Fairy Tale's version of Rapunzel because her style of writing is very different. Rather than retell the story of Rapunzel as a nice fairy tale, Sexton reveilles a dark gruesome version of the story.

William Blake's "Auguries of Innocence,"

"He who shall hurt the little wren
Shall never be belov'd by men.
He who the ox to wrath has mov'd
Shall never be by woman lov'd."

 1. The meaning of my stanza.... 

Auguries is an omen or prophet. Blake reviles some of the harm done to animals. In this particular stanza Blake reviles that no matter which animal, small and beautiful or large and frightening, there are consequences behind hurting something that is innocent.

2. Literary devices used in the stanza..

Blake uses hyperbole's to exaggerate the consequences of hurting the wren and moving the wrath of the ox. His parallelism balances the stanza, making it flow easier, the first and the third line start with "he who" and the second and fourth line begin with shall never be".