"Lady Lazarus" Commentary

Based on the first 11 stanzas and the first line of the 12th stanza.

Link:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3qIclUmQO4NTjJMSUpzNTRMQmc/view?usp=sharing

"This is Water"

David Foster utilizes the idea of getting up for work and doing grocery shopping in order to deliver a message that freedom and self-fulfillment is achieved through empathy and mindful awareness of people and their situations. A perfect example is used to develop his argument when he mentions that a phrase so simple from the checkout worker such as, “have a nice day” can completely change when one is sympathetic and conscious.                                     

            Many of us have encountered situations where we jump to conclusions about someone without considering situational factors. Instead of getting angry at the lady taking too long at the cash register or getting angry at traffic, think of how that lady’s life may be or why the traffic is caused and the effect that it’s had on other people. Once someone is able to be more mindful and view the world with a different lens, life won’t be a difficult thing to get through every day. Being self-centered is the only thing that opens the gate for someone to feel as if they are going through the day with the same routine trying to find self-fulfillment when in reality self-fulfillment comes from focusing on other people and having a more conscious awareness of life.

            One of our inquiry questions is directly related to this essay: “How can literature develop empathy and emotional intelligence?” Because it’s important to know other people’s lives and be more aware of surroundings in order to develop empathy, literature can do the same. When reading about others’ lives and engaging yourself with a character with self-awareness and consciousness, you can start to develop empathy for the characters and become more mindful about their situations. That can then transfer onto real life into the reach for self-acceptance and full peace.  

Royal Beatings IOC

Link:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3qIclUmQO4NYXdBRThCbUxCVTA/view?usp=sharing

I accidentally said that the passage is from "Boys and Girls". It's actually from "Royal Beatings". 

Boys and Girls IOC

Link:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3qIclUmQO4NM2Z2VERxanFGa3M/view?usp=sharing

Google drive may say that there is a problem playing the file. If that happens, click the download button and it will download the audio file for you.

Here is the following annotated passage from the group:

Women's Literature

The purpose of studying literature is similar to studying anything: to learn about the world and learn how to function with everyday life. Literature can resonate and relate with people from all over the world for decades. Great literature leaves us more mindful and aware about other cultures and their customs and struggles and allows us to understand ourselves as human beings and individuals more. Women's literature focuses on the lives of women as they go through their everyday lives with family and home and personal relationships. Women's literature is often targeted with a certain plot that achieves a goal of raising issues and situations that often confront women in their everyday lives. It's necessary to study literature because it is prevalent in society today. During the Harlem Renaissance, a time of empowerment for blacks, black literature and black music was highly studied and very popular. Today, the fight for equal rights for blacks and whites is not as prevalent. Instead, 50% of the worlds population deals with similar issues everyday and finds comfort and power in literature. Women's literature is necessary to study because it allows more people to understand struggles that they may not go through and strengthens the bond of women with women and men with women. Munro's work that often targeted the struggles of women was very significant during the 50's to the 80's because it was an important time for the empowerment and high achievements of women. Similar to the Harlem Renaissance with black literature, second wave feminism brought rise and request to literature similar to Munro's. Women had basic rights at this point but there was hidden sexism and a hidden hierarchy between men and women at this time. Munro was one of the famous authors that challenged social norms and brought these issues to light. This resulted in two things: it empowered women to speak up against their injustices and it made the general public more aware of personal problems that no one could speak up against at the time. Although she does not identify as a feminist, just the fact that Munro's work brought to light the problems that women face contributed significantly to the feminist movement. The first step of solving a problem is recognizing that there is one, and Munro was able to heavily impact the feminist movement with her work. Her work was able to tackle vest specific feelings that women face that every woman around the world could relate with. She was able to explain and empathize certain struggles in detail through her literature and it brought rise to newly found womanly empowerment thoughout the fight for gender equality. Throughout reading the short stories, all of Munro's work was able to resonate with me on a personal level, something that I enjoyed the most. It is rare that literature can relate with so many people and can bring feelings and experiences to mind when someone is reading. Every word and every experience that Munro writes is able to reach out and connect with any audience of any culture and any time. 

Why do we Study Literature?

Script

Shakespeare was widely popular at his times because his plays and characters were able to connect with his audience at the time and showed feelings and experiences that they could all relate with. He crafted the English language and was able to take his audience to another world where they could come out of the play with a better understanding and appreciation for life. He is popular today because the plot can still be related to experiences in the modern world. This brings people to question why we even study Shakespeare today. Going beyond that, people begin to question why we study literature. The first thing that needs to be understood before going on to answer this question is the fact that literature mirrors life. I would not have known the effect the Taliban had on Afghanistan before reading The Kite Runner. I would not have known how colonization affected people until reading Things Fall Apart. I would not have known the importance of language and identity before literature such as The Joy Luck Club. Great literature is able to resonate with audiences all across the world for decades. Literature helps us know the world around us and allows us to be more mindful and aware of other cultures and their struggles. It allows you to empathize and sympathize with characters who are not real and yet mirror the lives of many humans around the world. After being able to empathize with characters and books, that feeling extends far beyond literature. You gain a better understanding about human beings and their feelings and allows you to communicate and connect more efficiently. Life’s most important lessons and morals can be taught and shown throughout books and literature. Having other characters and other people go through life experiences in literature and then witnessing and being able to read about their lives shows what is morally and ethically acceptable and unacceptable. It is not rare that someone says the book was much better than the movie. When reading literature, you step into another world and you make the characters in your head and you mimic their actions and associate your own feelings with their feelings. When reading literature, you are living the plot and you are creating the perfect story, as if you are narrating it. When watching the movie, it is nowhere close to the perfect world that you have imagined and the empathy and feelings you associated with the book are no longer there. By living through other characters and their emotions, we discover ourselves and slowly become shaping our identity. We gain a moral compass and we are able to see our lives and our identities written down on a piece of paper as if it was designed for us. We question our actions and understand that no matter the time or place, human beings have the same emotions, experiences, and downfalls. It bonds us as human beings and it allows us to gain a better understanding of us as people. 

Summer Blog Post 2

This blog post will be in the form of a newspaper article from the point of view of an immigrant Mexican protesting against Donald Trump’s speech.

I have recently heard that Donald Trump has announced that he is running for the 2016 presidential elections. In his presidential election announcement speech, he basically targeted every race except the white. I emigrated from Mexico when I was 11 years old with my parents. I am now 22 years old and work as a construction worker. While watching this speech, I heard an entire group of people, my people, be generalized and reduced to drug lords, rapists, and criminals. My drug is my work. I work every day for 12 hours nonstop. I do not have time to rape or distribute drugs. I do not understand how a man can run for president of a country if he does not acknowledge the backbone of that country. Mr. Trump, who do you think builds your beach houses and fixes your sports cars and serves you at your 5 star restaurants? I would hope that they are not rapists or criminals. Being in the 21^st century, I assumed that stupid and ignorant generalizations were something of the past. I assumed that we can stop categorizing one country negatively because of the actions of a few. In one of Mr. Trumps later speeches, he proclaimed Mexico as “the enemy”. As far as I know, Mexico and the United States are not enemies. This country would be in absolute ruins if it is handed to someone who is not aware of simple politics and attempts to implement his ignorant and right wing opinion on the general public.