Last Blog

My top three posts from this semester (in my opinion):
1. "Big Two-Hearted River"
     This blog was about the imagery and allusions in said imagery in Ernest Hemingway's "Big Two-Hearted River." 2. "Sestina," by Bishop
     This blog was about, again, the allusions in imagery in "Sestina," by Bishop, including how those metaphors revealed what the unsaid trauma really was. 3. Foreshadowing in "A Good Man is Hard to Find"
     This blog post, the most recent, was about the use of foreshadowing in O'Connor's "A Good Man is Hard to Find." This was in preparation for our small-group discussions, in which I answered the same question.

I selected these three posts because I feel in each I was able to most thoroughly understand and discuss the topic at hand. Most of the posts around about metaphors and what imagery and objects really represent. I feel I discuss these best because it's what intrigues me most when it comes to literature analysis.

Before this class, I never knew that these short stories and poems I've heard about for years or have even read before were so full of deeper meaning I never caught on to. I have never been taught to look so thoroughly into text. Now I look for this in books I read outside class, and I feel it truly enriches the reading experience and helps me better understand literature in general, as well as how it applies to other things in life. There are some great messages and lessons to be learned in many of these texts.

I think I've done very well in this class, with both reading and writing. I have an A and feel it is well-deserved. It wasn't hard to earn that A because I genuinely enjoyed the work for this class and enjoyed coming to class and discussing what we had read. My main weakness was getting all the reading done, or understanding all of it. I would usually get most of the reading done, if not all, but there were usually one poem or a couple of things I didn't quite pick up because I didn't have the time to re-read or look closer into the work. My strength has definitely been anything that involved writing, like the blog posts and midterm essay. I feel much more comfortable with collecting my thoughts when I'm writing them down. As a thinker, I feel I am good at bouncing off of other ideas and thinking up new scenarios as ideas build during our discussions.

I think I deserve an A for this class. I've always done the reading and have responded to all blogs with great care and detail. I participate in discussions and ace the weekly quizzes. My midterm was well researched and I prepared thoroughly for and participated in the small-group discussion. Most of all, I've come to class ready and prepared for discussion and eager to learn more. I enjoyed the class and feel I helped push discussion further along with everyone else. This semester has been a great one and English 278 was my favorite class. Every Friday morning (though a tad too early for my taste) was a joy.

The Crying of Lot 49 Follow-Up: Part I

Okay, so I guess this book is kind of cool. And by "kind of cool," I mean cool because when we discuss it and actually make some sense of this massive literary entanglement, it really does have some awesome themes to it. Problem is, when I'm reading the actual book, I kind of want to rip my hair out. Luckily I'm not too concerned with the dozens of random references and out-of-nowhere ramblings per paragraph, so as I read, I'm just letting whatever passes over my head stay there. The idea of this book about books is intriguing, and I like that Pynchon uses a detective plot and maybe crazy conspiracy theory to exemplify how literary critics tear apart literature, looking for meaning behind every little detail. I mean, isn't that what we've been doing all semester long? There never is a concrete answer, and we will probably never know for sure what the author meant by a blue scarf or metaphorical backpack, but here we are, pulling the pieces one by one to uncover some sort of hidden epiphany? It's interesting to me that he was so annoyed by this that he wrote a whole book on it. I'm excited to find out what the second half of the book all really means, because I'm certain I won't catch on to much of it myself.