Stop all the clocks

A very gloomy poem I encountered in my English Major class was one by W.H. Auden called "Stop all the clocks". In the poem, the speaker is talking about a lover that has died. They are calling for the halting of time, and asking for the silence that should come with death. They want the airplanes in the sky to write out the message of death, and for everyone to know what has been lost. 

I can see how many people would be able to relate to this. When a loved one dies, it is impossible. Life seems impossible. You ask yourself how you can live, how you can function, without that one person in your life. The last line of the poem, "For nothing know can come to any good", is the perfect phrase for how somebody feels when they lose someone so close to them. I think that's why I enjoyed this poem, because it's so real. With the arrival of death, you want everyone around to know how good the person was who is now gone, and sadly, you want everyone to know what it feels like, because that way someone else will know how hard it is to move on from loss. 

My Papa's Waltz

One of my favorite poems that I've read in the English Major course was "My Papa's Waltz" by Theodore Roethke. I loved this poem because it is so sweet yet so sad, and because of that bittersweet-ness, it reminds me of The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls. It's one of my favorite books, because the story of a girl who came from a neglectful home in Welch, West Virginia and made it to Park Avenue as a renowned author inspires and fascinates me. In the poem, the young boy is talking about the "waltz" he does with his father each night. Really, it seems as though the father is simply coming home drunk and horse-playing with his son, but the boy sees it as a dance. Sometimes, it even sounds like a beating ("At every step you missed, my right ear scraped a buckle.")

It's very sad, because it is obvious at the end that the little boy only wants to be with his father. He doesn't realize that he isn't a priority to his dad, only someone to send off the bed after a night of drinking. The father, however troubled he is, does seem somewhat loving. That is the part that reminds me of The Glass Castle: Jeanette and her father loved each other and had a very close relationship, and even when he tried to ruin her (by stealing the money she planned on using to go to New York City), he loved her and cared about her. Even though he was a very disturbed man, like the man in the poem, he was also a loving father. Not a good father, but a loving one.

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun; 
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
 If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun; 
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head. 
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks; 
And in some perfumes is there more delight 
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
 I love to hear her speak, yet well I know 
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
 I grant I never saw a goddess go; 
My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.
 And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
 As any she belied with false compare. 

-William Shakespeare


I loved this poem. When I read it, I was laughing, though I'm not sure if that was Shakespeare's intended reaction or not. I laughed because he is basically saying, "I love her even though she is ugly."

"Coral is far more red than her lips."
Normally men compare women's bright lips to that of a rose or coral, but good ol' Will just says plainly, "Yeah, coral is definitely a nicer hue than your lips."

And her breasts are "dun"? OUCH. According to my anthology book, "dun" means mouse-colored. 

So her breasts look like they have mouse fur on them? That line reminds of the movie "The Witches", based on the book by Roald Dahl. A sneaky maid uses a bit of one of the witch's perfume, not knowing that it is meant to turn little children into mice. The reaction her secret lover (her BOSS!) displays when the two attempt to have an intimate moment in the maid's closet is of utter disgust. It's hysterical, and I love that William Shakespeare talks about this as if it's not really a big deal. It is pretty nice though that he loves her even though she's not pretty. Either way, I really like this poem, and found it sweet, yet very comical.

Bartleby the Scrivener

During the first week of the Intro to the English Major class, we read Bartleby the Scrivener by Herman Melville. I really enjoyed this piece, although I also found it incredibly frustrating. The narrator of the story is a lawyer who employs Bartleby as a scrivener at his firm, someone who will copy the lawyer's important documents. The whole time Bartleby works at the firm, however, he outright refuses to do anything other than copy; soon, he even refuses to do that.

Bartleby's "catch phrase" in the story is "I would prefer not to." I love this statement that he repeats several times, but it is also really irritating. I feel this way because if I were Bartleby, I would never say no to my boss, and I would never keep an employee like Bartleby if I were the lawyer. Their whole passive aggressive struggle throughout the story is quite amusing until the end, when the scrivener dies in prison. The conclusion gives the story a darker feeling instead of the light silliness it maintained while watching Bartleby and his boss go back and forth.

Overall, I very much enjoyed this story. A friend also told me that she has a t-shirt with Bartleby's line on it, "I would prefer not to." I plan on getting one immediately. :)

The Sick Rose

For my oral poetry presentation, I chose to focus on "The Sick Rose" by British author William Blake. I really am not the type of English major who is well-educated in the area of poetry. I am the type of English major who loves books like The Glass Castle and The Help. I had no idea what the poem meant, until I got some insight from a friend. 

In my opinion, the poem is about the sexual corruption of innocence in young women. The worm that Blake speaks of is obviously a phallic image that creeps into the "bed" (plant bed or literal bed) of a young woman and corrupts her. It makes me think that the poem is actually about rape, about young women who fall into lustful romances with men and are taken advantage of. 

I loved looking into the poem and finding deeper meanings within it. It was fun exploring and researching to see what others thought about it, and interesting learning about it. I'm glad after all that I chose this poem to research. 

Death of a Salesman

Recently in class we read the famous play "Death of a Salesman" by Arthur Miller. I wasn't sure at first how I would feel about the story, but after reading it, I really enjoyed it. Arthur Miller did a fantastic job of displaying a family living in America, chasing the "American dream" but getting caught up in the material aspirations of life. It made me sad, actually, because Willy Loman's life is exactly what I always worried  that my life could be. Thinking of the future, like picking a college and a job, always (and still does) scare me, because I don't ever want to be a person who wakes up in ten years and despises my job, my spouse, or my life.
Pretty cynical, I guess, but that's what worried me. I'm more content now, but they still pop into my head now and then.

I also enjoyed the movie version of the play, starring Dustin Hoffman as Willy Loman. Dustin Hoffman is a phenomenal actor and played Willy quite well, depicting him exactly as I imagined he would be in real life. The mother, Linda, frustrated me, though, because she stuck with Willy for so long, even though he blatantly disrespected her in front of their two sons and even in private by not allowing her to speak and claiming that she was taking the side of her son, Biff. She never once stuck up for herself when he snapped at her, instead just sat there calmly and put the blame for her husband's strife on her boys. Still, it was a great story and film, and I enjoyed discussing it with my class.

Hills Like White Elephants

One of the stories we read in our Intro to the English Major course was "Hills Like White Elephants" by Ernest Hemingway. I read this short story in high school, and for some reason I really liked it. I think it's because the entire story is so annoyingly confusing, because no one has any idea what the man and the woman are talking about at the bar; that is, until about the second and third page. One could interpret the story in many different ways, but I believe that their conversation, and therefore the entire plot, is about abortion. The man is trying to be comforting to the woman, but only comes off as putting the entire weight of the responsibility on the woman's shoulders, somewhat forcing to her to choose. It is obvious, however, that the man is putting pressure on her to abort the baby, claiming that he's "known lots of people who have done it." The woman acts as though she wants the baby, but then decides otherwise at the end. "Hills Like White Elephants" is told from a very misogynistic way (since Ernest Hemingway was also a known misogynist).

The thing I like about the story, though, is that the woman refers to the baby in the vaguest way possible, by claiming that the hills across the way from the bar in Spain look like white elephants. Although white elephants do exist, a white elephant is often referred to when discussing something burdensome, like a child out of wedlock. By referencing this idiom, she is hinting to the readers to not just stop on the surface of her conversation with the man, but to look deeper and question what is really going on. Hemingway makes people really think when reading this, instead of seeing the meaning immediately and easily, which I think is fantastic.