Searching for the bigger picture

At such a loss for words


To say I'm unsure of what I want to talk about would be an understatement.

So for the record I'll start by saying, I was thoroughly disappointed by my grade on the timed writing regardless of the fact that it was our first one of the year. I hadn't thought I had done as badly as I actually did. But hopefully time and those note cards will change that.

Now to go off only completely different tangent...

Picture this:

A dark Grey sky. A distant rumbling of thunder can can be heard. You're standing outside in your yard by the flowers and trees that surround it. And then the drops falling, slowly at first, then steadily getting faster and faster. It's a warm kind of rain that envelopes you in itself. And you just stand there feeling the rain on your skin, in your hair, soaking your clothes. And then after a few minutes it slowly dies away leaving a cool breeze behind. You absorb all your surroundings.

What do you see? – the trees swaying quietly with drop of rain on their leaves...

What do you smell? -Fresh yet damp air...

What do you feel? -Energized, calmed, refreshed?

Some literary analysis( what is the plural of analysis?!?!) can perhaps be applied to real life without it being completely metaphorical

They (Foster) say that rain is not only a part of a baptism but is also cleansing. Don't you feel cleansed in a way after it rains and you smell that damp air and take in exactly what the rain has brought with it?

Many people find rain dull or feel that it makes them feel sleepy or gloomy. But I like the way it patters on the roof and freshens up the air. It's really



That's all I've managed to come up with.

All the King's Men & Winsburg Ohio

We were given discussion questions for All the King's Men,there were some that never ended up being discussed; most of them are about Jack and his past.
I think Jack works for Willie, because Willie has the ambition that he (Jack) lacks. And so Jack feels more comfortable being told what to do (to put it crudely). Also, working for Willie keeps him from falling back into the cycle of the Great Sleep again.
The knowledge of truth in this novel plays the infamous role of the antagonist. As it is said; “the truth hurts.” The truth in this novel has countlessly destroyed a number of people. The truth that Anne is having an affair with Willie, diminished/ destroyed that image Jack had of Anne. The truth that Judge Irwin's secret is now known by Jack ends up destroying Judge Irwin. The truth that Annabelle Trice and Cass Mastern are having an affair destroys Duncan Trice; and this indirectly destroys Cass Mastern. This leads me to say that the truth definitely does not save any of the characters. In fact it is a lie that saves one of the characters in this book much grief. It is the lie Jack tells his mother. He tells her that Judge Irwin died because of health problems and not any other reason. Jack considers this a present to his mother. When I first read this statement, I didn't really feel the essence of how the lie might have helped her. I understood that it made it so that she didn't face as much grief of having lost the love of her life. But put in the perspective of the fact that the truth had destroyed every other character in some way or another makes it a lot more symbolic and meaningful. Jack called this knowledge of the truth the “end of man” for the obvious reason that the truth really brought an end to more that one man's life. He knows that the truth will also cause the destruction of man.

***

I read the chapter “Hands” today in Winsburg Ohio. There was a lot of irony in the chapter because Wing Biddlebaum is described in few different perspectives. The first he is described as someone who can't keep his hands still. They move so fast the look like the wings of a a bird (an imprisoned bird as stated in the book), hence the name Wing. The Second, he as a schoolmaster was described as white (page 32). And that proves his innocence and his purity. The thing I found most awkward about this story was that he constantly banging his fists on some piece of wood, it was always wood. Never anything else. There is a lot of vivid imagery in the story. It says that Wing was “beating like a giant woodpecker upon the top board,” you can just see what would have happened to his knuckles. This was a really sad story.

All the King's Men

Of all the summer reading books, this was the one I most enjoyed. I found it really interesting how everything was all interconnected. The book illustrated how one single person's actions can deeply impact another's. As in Cass Mastern's impact on Jack Burden; though not in the greatest way Cass's story was the one of the biggest parallels of Jack's life. The fact that he couldn't understand the path that Cass's life took parallels how Jack couldn't understand what was really happening in his own life (or what was affecting him the most). But as the book comes to an end Jack does reflect back to Cass and how he now understands why he did what he did.

The imagery in this book embellishes on the time, the setting and Jack's overall view of his life. The fact that there would be pages and pages of this imagery got a little boring at times but it really helped you visualize and construct the characters in your head.

The flashbacks in this story are what made it so conversational. It was as if Jack had met you and decided to tell you his life story as the reason he came to be the way he is. The flashbacks made the story more interesting and gave it a wide range of emotion. The fact that this is Jacks reflection embellishes the emotions he may have felt then and the way he feels in the present time. You can sense Jack's anger at Duffy when he found out that it was Duffy who told Adam about Anne and Willie. Or sadness when he knows that Willie and Anne are having an affair. You can even his complete helplessness during the Great Sleep. Since the flashbacks consist of multiple mini stories inside the bigger story, it's really neat that these mini stories have their own climax which makes you want to keep reading so that you find out how this mini story has impacted Jack. Also the climaxes of the mini stories make the the climax of the bigger story all the more dramatic and result in a larger catharsis.

It's ironic that Jack's last name is Burden, and that he has to live with the burden of guilt of what he has done and what has happened in the past, especially concerning Anne. It's also interesting that the place is name Burden's Landing for two reasons. (1) the fact that nothing else about Burden's Landing is mentioned except for that it was named after Jack's ancestors. (2) everyone who lives there lives with some kind of burden at some point in time. Anne, perhaps the affair with Willie Stark that she keeps a secret from her brother. Jack's mother, the truth that Judge Irwin is her son's real father. And so on and so forth. All this considered, we, through the course of the book find out that Ellis Burden is indeed not Jack's real father. But this means that Jack Burden is really Jack Irwin, and I am unsure as to what to say to elaborate on that. Mainly, does this diminish the irony of the name Burden?

I also never knew that there were two movies made on this book.