Pub 5: Poetic Lyrics

Poetry and music are meant to inspire. They are meant to evoke emotions in the listener and get a response. Whether it be happiness, sadness, or hope, a feeling is present when listening to poetry and when listening to the lyrics of music. Poetry and music is a spilling over of emotions through words and language. Poetry specifically is meant to use language in an unusual manner to create a rhythm.

Poetry and the lyrics of songs are meant to convey powerful human emotions through words that are said out loud to evoke a specific feeling in the listener. The song Through the Years by country singer Kenny Rogers and the two poems My Light With Yours by Edgar Lee Masters and Let me not to the marriage of true minds (Sonnet 116) by William Shakespeare are similar in the emotions and messages they portray. The theme and tone of the lyrics of the song and the two poems comparatively relate to one another.  The theme shown throughout all three is what love should be. They convey overwhelming emotions of how people in love think and feel during their experience.

In both poems, love is depicted as something that cannot be broken regardless of the circumstance. In the poem My Light With Yours, Masters wrote “When folly and wisdom are no more, And fire is no more, Because man is no more; When the dead world slowly spinning. Drifts and falls through the void—My light with yours In the Light of Lights forever!”. Along with this quote, the quote from the poem Let me not to the marriage of true minds (Sonnet 116) “ “Love's not love. Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove: O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark.” relates directly to the theme found in the song Through The Years by Kenny Rogers. In the song Rodgers sings that “Through the years When everything went wrong together we were strong I know that I belonged right here with you through the years I never had a doubt we'd always work things out.”(Rogers). All three of these quotes share the theme of staying in love despite unfortunate circumstances. These quotes show the strength of love and create a tone of the overwhelming power of love and the happiness associated with being in love.

The song Through The Years by Kenny Rogers shares the theme of overwhelming love and

the power that is has over a person especially during hard times. For example, “Through the years Through all the good and bad I knew how much we had I've always been so glad To be with you Through the years It's better everyday you've kissed my tears away.” (Rogers).This quote demonstrates the theme shown through the poems and the song.

Both the artist of the song and the poet use rhyme scheme to deliver a message to the listener. In the poem “Let me not to the marriage of true minds (Sonnet 116) Shakespeare uses the ABAB rhyme scheme and the poem seems to flow (Norton). An example of this ABAB scheme is relevant in poetry to create rhythm and it interested the reader. Also, in both poems and the song as well, I noticed the theme of time. That time is not capable of diminishing love, that no one and nothing can take away love. The quote “Within his bending sickle’s compass come; Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks” from the poem “Let me not to the marriage of true minds” (Sonnet 116) is an example (Norton). Another example of the same theme in the poem “My Light With Yours” is “When folly and wisdom are no more, And fire is no more,Because man is no more”. (Shakespeare).This quote shows how love cannot go away no matter how much time passes. In the song Through The Years by Rogers his example of this theme would be “Can't imagine needing someone so but through the years it seems to me I need you more and more” (Rogers). This quote relates to this theme because no matter how many years passed the love that’s explained in this song won’t unravel. It stays strong and becomes even stronger. Both the two songs and the poems demonstrate exaggerated love. Love that is so powerful that it overcomes all.

Paper 2: Above the bar

Higher Expectations

As the American writer and photographer Diane Arbus once said “You see someone on the street, and essentially what you notice about them is the flaw.” This is an idealist concept in its entirety that all people notice is flaws because everyone is searching for perfection. The human flaw of longing and dreaming for perfection when it is unobtainable has been a reoccurring theme for many authors as well as the dangerous mindset of a majority of Americans depicted in popular culture music.This flaw proves fatal to characters such as Alymer in  The Birthmark by Nathaniel Hawthorne and the woman in Hills like White Elephants by Ernest Hemingway. It also deems disastrous to Pink in her hit song “Who Knew?” when her unrealistic expectations of her relationship shatter.

In Hills like White Elephants written by Ernest Hemingway, the female character depicted is fantasizing about a perfection that they will never be able to achieve. “And if I do it you’ll be happy and things will be like they were and you’ll love me?”, “But if I do it, then it will be nice again if I say things are like white elephants, and you’ll like it?”, and “If I do it you won’t ever worry?”, These quotes are a classic examples of an idealist view (Mays 116-117). This woman is constantly trying to put her mind at ease and is creating an alternate reality in her head of what is to come of her relationship after the abortion. This woman repetitively worries that the man she loves won’t love her anymore unless she gets rid of the baby. She is reassuring herself and the man that their relationship will still be lovely and magical it was before they found out. This woman is trying to think of the perfect scenario after she gets an abortion. She thinks that getting rid of her baby will please her husband and they will be the ideal couple again like they were before the realization she was pregnant. In reality, they would never be able to be the ideal couple again because everything would be different for her. She does not really want the abortion but she believes the only way to get their “perfect” relationship back. “I won’t worry about that because it's perfectly simple.” “Then i’ll do it. Because I don’t care about me.” When the man states that he will not worry anymore if she aborts the baby because it is simple, the girl says she will do it because she does not care about herself, in her ideal world the man whose baby she is pregnant with would say that she should. However, he never does and her vision of their perfect life after the baby is aborted is shattered (Mays 117). She realizes that they could not get rid of the baby and still be “perfect” after. It is unrealistic of her to believe it could all be the same after but she does because she wants that perfection.

In The Birthmark by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Aylmer was content with Georgina's birthmark before their marriage. After the couple got married, the birthmark became an omen for Aylmer. He thought of the birthmark as an evil sign his wife was not perfect and he proves he will do anything to get rid of it, even take her life. Aylmer refers to Georgiana’s birthmark on her cheek as being a “ visible mark of earthly imperfection”. This “mark of earthly imperfection" needs to be removed from his wife’s face because it taints her soul, as Aylmer put it. It is a sign of death, sins, sorrow and decay (Mays 213). Aylmer wanted to be the one to perfect his wife so he created a potion, the potion in which later would kill his wife. Aylmer wanted to badly to make this innocent blemish on her face go away, he disregarded the obvious warnings that it would end badly. His wife warned him, his experiments failing warned him but he wanted to change his wife to make her perfect regardless of the cost. His blatant disregard for his wife’s feelings and disregard for her life was a direct result of his need to perfect her.  

Despite evidence from both short stories, Some may counter my argument in saying that perfectionism is good because it gives one something to strive for and a goal. However, this goal is tainted by the desperation. This is demonstrated in both the Hills like White Elephants when the woman is debating on having a dangerous abortion regardless of the risk and also in The Birthmark when Aylmer will do anything to rid his wife of the birthmark on her face despite the possible issues associated with his experiment.

In Pink’s song “Who Knew”, She sings about a broken dream and how she thought her life would turn out. In “Who Knew”, Pink says “You took my hand, you showed me how. You promised me you'd be around. Uh huh, that's right. I took your words, and I believed in everything you said to me”. Pink sings about how she believed her relationship would last and they would be the perfect couple (Pink). But, the perfect dream of having him and believing him when he said that he would stay with her was too good to be true because perfection is not obtainable. Also in the song Pink sings “If someone said three years from now. You'd be long gone.I'd stand up and punch them out. Cause they're all wrong.I know better 'cause you said forever, and ever. Who knew?”. Pink sings about how she never thought he would leave her (Pink). She could not imagine that scenario because in her mind they were the ideal couple and they would be together forever. The ideal relationship would of lasted but it does not and this is where idealism is proven to be fatal. Unrealistic expectations generally end up the exact opposite of what is longed for.

Perfectionism in definition is craving the ideal in situations where the ideal is not realistic nor able to be achieved. Aylmer in The Birthmark by Nathaniel Hawthorne and the woman in Hills like White Elephants both strive to obtain some sort of justification in their lives. They want to perfect the situation and\or their partners. Aylmer wants to perfect his wife Georgiana and the woman wants to perfect her relationship with the man who is the father of her unborn baby. This woman wants to secure their relationship and make it the ideal situation after the baby is aborted. Pink, the singer of the song “Who Knew?” sings similarly about the idea of craving an unrealistic perfection. Many people yearn for something they cannot have because the situation they are in is not the best. Everyone is searching for the best and the most pure but this goal is imaginary.  

Works Cited

Mays, Kelly. The Norton Introduction To Literature. 11th ed. Las Vegas: W.W. Norton, 2011.

Print. 27 Apr. 2015.

Pink -Who Knew Lyrics. 1 Jan. 2006. Web. 27 Apr. 2015.

Paper 1: Gender Discrepancy

Gender Inequality

As the educator and activist Ziauddin Yousafzai once said “In most parts of the world, when a girl is born, her wings are clipped. She is not able to fly”. This quote yields true for many women in other countries such as the Middle East as well as women in major works of literature. Women are often perceived as being weaker than men and less capable. In both Antigone by Sophocles’ and A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams, gender inequality is a universal theme. Although derived from different time periods, gender bias is consistent with both works of Sophocles’ and Williams as well as many aspects of society today in the patriarchal Middle East.

In Antigone by Sophocles’, gender inequality is shown through the characters and what they say throughout the play. A character who portrays the theme gender inequality in its entirety would be Creon and his relationship with Antigone. Creon is the king of Thebes and Antigone, his niece went against his edict. He states “We cannot give victory to a woman. If we must accept defeat, let it be from a man; we must not let people say that a woman beat us” (). Creon shows he is against women having any sort of power and he will punish her accordingly. That is why when Antigone goes against his edict and buries her brother, he punishes her so severely. He does not want to be undermined by a women going against him in a society where women are not supposed to go against men at all.

In A Streetcar Named Desire by Williams, the theme of gender inequality is exhibited through the characters as well as the traits they possess. The relationship between Stanley and Stella Kowalski is a prominent example of two characters who exhibit gender inequality in A Streetcar Named Desire. Stanley is characterized as being domineering and sexual throughout the story. He always wants to be in control over the women in the story, Stella especially. Stanley hits Stella when she would not turn off the radio during the poker scene ( Williams 57). This shows Stanley in his animalistic domineering approach at controlling his wife. He gains control over women by abusing them which is a direct characterization of how Stanley’s character is. Stella, on the other hand, falls to Stanley and lets him abuse her because she feels he has the right to control her. When Stanley hits her she leaves him for only a little while then goes back down to him and sleeps with him because Stanley has taught her that ”there are things that happen between a man and a woman in the dark­­ that sort of make everything else seem ­­unimportant”(Williams 72). In this quote, Stella is creating an illusion that her reality is not as bad as it seems to Blanche. She is saying how Stanley hitting her is okay because their sexual relationship afterward fixes it all. That is a delusion but she chooses to make it her reality in order to get by and keep her husband. “What do you two think you are? A pair of queens? Remember what Huey Long said­ “Every Man is a King” is said by Stanley (Williams 81). Stanley’s character says this in order to demonstrate that he is a man and he is supposed to be the dominant one. From the very start of the play, Stanley is portrayed as beastly and animal like. He wants it to be clear that men are more powerful than women although he is insecure about how much power he actually has. He feels he needs to reinforce it by abuse and rape.

Although Antigone by Sophocles’ and A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams were written in different time periods, they manifest the theme of gender inequality comparatively. The men, specifically Creon, from Antigone have more power over the women in the story. The same goes for the character Stanley from A Streetcar Named Desire. Creon and Stanley both are controlling and feel women have no place going against them because they are men. Even in society today women are treated differently simply because of their gender. Women are still faced with the burden of gender inequality in society today. An example of this is in Arabic countries in the Middle East. In these countries the dominant religion is Islam and in this religion, women are seen as inferior and even as a piece of property. In these countries it is said that women who are raped are a disgrace to their families and they must marry the rapist or be killed (Shalhoub 2). The men that raped them are not held accountable, the women who were raped are held responsible.

Also, several studies were done in Jordan, a nation in the Middle East, on wife beating. The studies showed that eighty six percent of women they surveyed agreed that wife beating is justified if the women denies the husband sex, goes against the man or “challenges his manhood” in any way (Haj 2­). This shows how even women are going along with the patriarchal view in these male dominated societies and believe that their husbands have the right to control them. This pertains also to Stella from A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams because she lets Stanley hit her and then just goes running back to him. Stella does not want to be without a husband in a time where women were not accepted at her age without one.

 Another example of gender bias in our world today is something called the “glass ceiling effect”. The glass ceiling effect is a sociological term that means a person moves up quick but then gets to a position where he or she can see the top but they are stopped by a “glass ceiling” or inability to move up any further (Pai). This effect is prominent in business world where women are able to move up but once they reach a point just below corporate, they cannot move up any further.

The disparity between men and women in Ancient Greece where Antigone was written and the 1940’s in New Orleans were A Streetcar Named Desire was written portray the gender bias happening in those societies at that time. Even though these stories were centuries apart they put emphasis on this theme. Gender bias is still present in the world today in many aspects of society such as the way husbands treat their wives in the Middle East in Palestine and Jordan. Also in the business world with women being able to move up in large scale companies. Both of these modern examples of the bias toward women in society are present in older works of literature such as A Streetcar Named Desire and Antigone as well.    

Response to 3 lectures

       My favorite lecture was the lecture on Idealism and Trancendentalism. I could truly relate to either one because I do strive for perfection however I love nature. I love the beach and I love going on hikes. I liked how we made a chart of the differences between the both of them because then it was easier for me to connect both and contrast both for my published writing assignments. I am a visual learner so I really loved the chart on the board. 
       Another lecture that I really would like to respond to was the lecture on Oppression. We went over how oppression was in really early works such as Antigone and all the way to some more modern examples such as Martin Luther King and the oppression African Americans faced. I could really relate to the gender oppression shown in many short stories we discussed in class even though they were not from this time period. Something that could relate from my own life would be work, some of the men I work with seem to believe women are not capable of being assertive enough to be managers. This assumption is wrong because women are just as capable. 
      In conclusion, the last lecture I will respond to is one of the last lectures we had. The lecture was about poetry and music. I loved the connection between love poetry and the song Thinking Out Loud by Ed Sheeran. I never thought of music as merely poetry with a beat but now I see it. It makes me feel more content with reading poetry because I have something to connect it too in the world that I know.

Reflection on the class

Professor Brady’s English 102 class this semester has taught me an abundance of important skills that I will be able to take with me all my life. I improved upon my writing in this class as well as expanded my vocabulary. I learned how to incorporate different words and analysis techniques due to the in depth published writing pieces we were required to do. Between the first published writing piece to the very last I feel that I accomplished great improvement in grammar and the development of my ideas. I hope to take these writing skills and apply them to life by using these techniques in other classes.

The most favorable part of Professor Brady’s class was the fish bowls. These fish bowls brought me out of my quiet comfort zone and into a realm of what other students were thinking about the short stories, dramas and poems we were reading in the class. I also enjoyed how our class became  a big group of friends, everyone enjoyed each other company. I gained a tremendous amount of confidence in myself in this class because we were all allowed to voice out opinions without being told we are wrong. In five years I see myself with a degree in Psychology with a specialty in Art Therapy or Animal Therapy helping people to cope with feelings and stress. Something I always had a hard time with before I realized how vital art and animals can be to relieving pain or pressures in life.

The idea that will stick with me most is the idea “Literature is a product of it’s time period”. This quote was said by Professor Brady during one of our class lectures. I never truly realized how important time period was in works of literature til we read many short stories such as The Yellow Wallpaper and The Story of an Hour. The woman in these stories are being truly oppressed by their husbands not because their husbands are doing it on purpose or because their husbands are cruel. They are being oppressed because they are woman and during the time these stores were produced, women were not supposed to have a say, be alone or do anything the man did not approve of.

Harry Potter in 13 minutes (yes I'm a harry potter freak)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgmrMbkVxqM

Good short story

http://americanliterature.com/author/edgar-allan-poe/short-story/the-tell-tale-heart