TPCASTT Themes

Sonnet 130: There exists love in which physical attraction is of no significance

The Passionate Shepard to His Love: When one loves an individual and everything about them, particularly their environment, it is then that living together and a greater relationship is plausible.

To The Virgins, to Make Much of Time: Beauty is fleeting and should be enjoyed while it is possessed

Death Be Not Proud: Death, for all its inescapable-seeming nature, isn't permanent

The Author To her Book: In any art, the work is always imperfect to its creator

To His Coy Mistress: In love there is no time for games, seeing as the vigor of youth is very temporary

Sound and Sense: Great writing flows from a nebulous sense and understanding of what makes beautiful art

The World is Too Much With Us: The beauty of nature is so evident and omnipresent that humans do not even realize how beautiful their environment is

She Walks in Beauty: There exists those whose beauty would seem to be a conglomeration of all that is beautiful in this world

Ozymandias: All of man's tests to withstand the passage of time and preserve themselves eventually prove futile.

When I Have Fears That I May Cease To Be: In the end of everything, things like fame and love will not matter

The Children's Hour: Relish play with children always, and hold that love forever; long after those children have grown up

Annabel Lee: Love, if it is powerful enough, lasts well after death

O Captain!, My Captain: Victory sours with the realization that instrumental players in the struggle to win are dead

I Heard A Fly Buzz When I Died:  In death, one realizes the most insignificant things, and that death isn't an experience like people generally imagine

Dover Beach: There exists nothing of significance but an appreciation of the natural splendor of the world

Dulce Et Decorum Est: There is an inherent horror to war, and any beautiful description of it is nothing more than a lie

Mending Wall: There are those that seek seperation so that coexistence might be possible

Mirror: A mirror's true effect isn't to show those that peer into it, but rather to slowly destroy those that over value their own beauty

Action Project!

What I had wanted to do, involved obtaining an answer from a large food corporation on why there are amounts of ingredients, like sugar or fat, in individual servings of certain products which exceed the daily value of that specific ingredient. I couldn't understand how this is allowed and just how those amounts of the specifics ingredients are decided. Ultimately I was left destitute on any answers from actual employees or proponents of my chosen company, Coca-Cola, and really left to analyze the web-site in order to answer my questions. I certainly have figured out answers to my question, and I'm left a bit disappointed afterwards.
During my first ever-contact with the Coca-Cola corporation I chickened out miserably. Then i called back and asked a version of my initial question. "How are the ingredient amounts determined?" Somewhat patronizingly the representative remarked at the high quality of my question. She put me on hold then returned a minute or so later, "Sir the answer to your question is on our web-site. Have a nice day." I was disappointed and then for the first time i checked out the web-site. To my dismay the web-site did indeed have the answers. Coca-Cola extensively tests their products to ensure that their consumers are purchasing products which consist of high quality ingredients composed in a manner which formulates tastes that the consumers have come to know and love. I called after with miscellaneous health questions, but every attempt ended only with the response that the answers to my questions were on the web-site. After awhile I came to realize that almost any question I could ask regarding health and nutrition information was on the web-site if I really wanted to look for it. Initially I thought that this was probably a result of the fact that so many food producers, especially those that produce foods whose over-consumption are most often linked to obesity, have been under fire lately. But then I began to consider the possibility that Coca-Cola almost seeks to gently dissuade consumers from pursuing direct contact with the company in an attempt to ultimately contact those in management positions. If you can have all of the questions answered before they're asked, then you've done quite an effective job of protecting yourself from exposure.
Of course if you analyze the web-site for answers, especially those regarding nutrition you'll be quite impressed and surprised. I was. The company effectively focuses more on what it would take to maintain a healthy diet and habits such as exercise rather than focusing on the fact that many of their products are unhealthy. In fact they never address the high amounts of sugar in their products, but merely what one should due to maintain a healthy lifestyle should they consume high-sugar foods within reasonable amounts. There are guidelines on exercising and brushing your teeth. What I perhaps enjoyed most was the assertion at the end of one section: Coca-Cola can be a part of a healthy lifestyle. I was upset at first because I felt that this was untrue but in actuality it's completely true. Coca-Cola doesn't make people drink soda five times a day. They don't make people drink gallons of soda. All of that is unhealthy. They make a product which many enjoy, and they have written guidelines on how the consumer should consume their products. What the consumer does after that, well, that's their prerogative.
What I mainly think Mr. Currin intended for us to draw from this project was, the fact that attempting to ask questions higher up in management is difficult and ultimately to think about the idea of, "Who do we shoot?" In the Grapes of Wrath the men and women being displaced from their land want to find who's responsible, kill them, and then be let alone. The problem is, and perhaps very few people realize this, there isn't one group or group of people to blame. Everyone is to blame. For example in the novel, the bank displaces the farmers. But the bank must  do so because of the poor economic times and failure in business. I actually think this is what's being referred to when Steinbeck mentions the abstract, "East." The big businesses in cities like New York that were failing at the time. Of course this leads the farmers to search for work which is rare, and the big landholders that own the land are only concerned with profit. The part about burning crops because doing so would lose less money than selling cheaply really brought home this concept. Of course the lack of jobs leads to competition amongst the farmers and each one offering to work for a lower wage than the next man, until you have an intense hatred brewing amongst the displaced men. But in the end everyone has contributed to the problem. This is the same with Coca-Cola experience. So much sugar is put in the products because of the people and what the consumers enjoy. Because the soda is so enjoyed some consume too much and become unhealthy. They want to blame Coca-Cola but the company never made them drink those exorbitant amounts of soda, and can you really blame the company for making a delicious product? Can you blame them for doing what the have to so that they can survive? Absolutely not. And this exact situation is at play in the Grapes of Wrath. Everyone, the bank, the farmers, the East, are all vying to survive the depression that is sweeping the country. But unfortunately for one to survive another must suffer, and that, I think, is a major theme in the novel, and one that this project has really helped to illustrate.

TFA Reflection

Honestly, this is the first time that I've read a review and felt inclined to exclaim, in the middle of reading it at the kitchen table while a myriad of other family activities were taking place, "Wow! This is really interesting!" Achebe is a gifted novelist, a point which is evident after reading Things Fall Apart, but he is a similarly gifted essayist. I was predisposed in the the first time I heard Achebe's argument to feel as though he was being overly critical, but after reading his essay my opinion has been changed, although not entirely.
What makes Achebe's assertions so provocative and compelling is the fact that he always backs everything he says up, in some way, and, as he did in his novel, he presents a bit of both sides of his argument. I though his comment on the way Conrad portrays the action and humanity of the Africans to be especially interesting. He makes a point of how Conrad only describes the Africans as doing wild things in his work, and additionally he only grants a slightly brighter description to the Africans he feels have "the merit of being in their place." Achebe displays the segment about the African fireman, who is undoubtedly not in HIS place, and Conrad's description of this character is notably disagreeable. As far as Conrad's assertion as to the humanity, or rather the sort of 'sub-humanity', of Africans goes, Achebe reflects on Conrad's effort to elicit a disquieted response from his reader's at his suggestion that even they have a "remote kinship" to the wild Africans which Conrad describes in one passage. While I hadn't considered it earlier, it is especially interesting that Conrad utilizes the words "remote kinship." This as far as he will go in description of his relation to the Africans and what he describes as, "Ugly." This is especially provocative for me, making me almost upset, and I feel it is one of Achebe's most gripping and compelling arguments. Achebe also utilizes a recounting of Conrad's own history in arguing that he was an unwavering racist and again, the evidence is significant. He describes his first encounter with an Englishman, asserts Achebe, in unconditionally positive light while remarking on his introduction to a man of a darker complexion as having quite unsettled him. Achebe's argument that this is undeniable evidence that there was a sort of racist predisposition in Conrad is convincing, as such.
I really also loved Achebe's argument that there is a psychological attitude of Africa, as the portrait is to Dorian Gray. For those unfamiliar with it, the Portrait of Dorian Gray is a novel in, on a most basic level, where a portrait accrues ages and years instead of the novel's namesake. To assert that Africa is a sort of dumping ground for the shortcomings and evils of European society is, to me, innovative, as I have never heard such a thing before, and logical. European society, and as an American perhaps I should lump myself into this, makes the assumption that Africans are inferior and primitive, even prehistoric. As Achebe points out we even assume initially that Africans don't possess a language as highly evolved as our own when in actuality,as is partially revealed by Achebe's novel, they possess a language and culture as deep and which even potentially predates our own.
While my reflection has been overwhelmingly positive up to this point, I'd like assert a few criticisms. I feel that there a moments in the essay where Achebe stretches to assert that everything in the novel is nearly irrelevant in light of Conrad's racism. He describes discourse where someone argued that the intention of Conrad's novel was not to paint a racist image of the Africans, but rather to make a criticism of the European colonization movement in the continent. Achebe glosses over this and states that Conrad's intent only contributes to the fact that the novel is racist, which is a point I think is underdeveloped. What's more is that while Achebe agrees, with a sort of glowing accord, that Conrad was a highly gifted writer he feels that the literary and artistic merit of Conrad's novel is diminished to a point where it has none of other because of either. There is a school of thought which suggests that art should be judged indefinitely independent from intention,  a sentiment that I partially agree with, but the fact of the matter being that Conrad wished to present the concept of the fallibility of the human heart, I feel that his being racist (he almost certainly was in my opinion) does not tarnish the artistic merit of the work.
As I have stated throughout this reflection, I felt Achebe's essay was incredible. It was well written and compelling. While not free from some questionable assertions it was thought-provoking, and in the end: isn't that what any good essay should be?

Critical Essay Critique- The Awakening

In the article that I read the author, Sandra Gilbert, proposes that her intention is to elaborate on the ways in which The Awakening is a work of pure feminist fantasy that projects the idea of Edna as a reborn Aphrodite, in lieu of a contrary image of Jesus and patriarchy. The authors main vehicle for her debate are similarities between the mythology surrounding Aphrodite and the circumstances surrounding Edna Pontellier. Gilbert argues that the similarity in a most sense exists in descriptions of Edna. She is often described, mainly after her swim at the Isle, as emitting a sort of shine and exuberance outward through her physical appearance. Gilbert argues that this is a bit suggestive of imagery often used to detail deities of old, and Aphrodite in particular. What's more is that Gilbert asserts that the dinner party scene, which prevailing lines of criticism hold as being largely insignificant, is one of the, "longest sustained episodes in the novel," and additionally one of the most significant. She argues this because of the description of Edna at the head of the dinner table, her paired regal appearance, and the magical-looking drink of which everyone is partaking. In Gilbert's mind this asserts that Chopin has intended to sell an image of Edna that is both regal and divine, and allusive to the goddess of love. The emotion that the sea elicits from Edna is often cited often by Gilbert. Apparently in mythology the ocean has some central significance in the origins of Aphrodite, and likewise, Gilbert maintains, the ocean is pivotal in the rebirth of Edna. The author goes on to present how Edna feels utterly changed after her first ever swim, and what soon follows within the novel is the first instance of Edna directly defying Leonce, who Gilbert defines as a symbol of the prevailing patriarchal society in the world. In the same vein, and what I found very compelling is that when one considers the piano-playing of Mademoiselle Reisz, the singular phenomena that has any irrevocable significance to Edna outside of the sea, it is images of the ocean and its power that are evoked in Edna's mind. Thus, the significance of the sea cannot be overstated. On an ending note, and what i find to be one of Gilbert's better arguments, is the human impossibility of Edna's eventual aim. Near the novel's controversial conclusion, Edna asserts that she wishes to give freely of herself where and whenever she pleases. Of course if Edna were perhaps, I don't know, a prostitute, this aim wouldn't be at all impossible but given the actuality of the circumstance it is. In mythology Aphrodite solely operated upon this aim however, and Edna's desire to do so as well does give previously unfounded strength to the argument that Chopin wished to present Edna as a newborn Aphrodite.

In my opinion the article wasn't entirely coherent and ultimately the premise, was a bit too far fetched. At one point Gilbert makes an attempt to argue that Edna's dinner party is intended to mirror the last supper and to me that's a bit ridiculous. Of course I am consistently a skeptic, but the fact that Gilbert herself calls her essay a bit, "hyperbolic" didn't help sway me. Also as the essay progresses the author makes a jarring departure from impartiality, especially in the sense of an undercurrent of atheism and sympathy for the amoral actions of characters. A tone arises in which it becomes evident that the author is harbors some disagreement with the theology and dismisses as fiction based solely upon it's patriarchal roots. She sides with amorality, because she dismisses Robert's ultimate departure from Edna as the result of an imagined obligation to what is, "fictionally 'right'," a statement which I was quite taken aback by. What's more is that she condones Edna's final actions on the basis of it being the only manner in which Edna could, "assert her autonomy." In doing so she says that it is okay for a woman to selfishly commit suicide because of an incapability to cope with emotions, and in doing so, to leave children and a husband who ultimately wished her no harm. Of course, Gilbert finally asserts that Edna didn't even die, but rather was more likely reborn in the sense of becoming a new Aphrodite, and embracing a lucid divinity. This last argument I feel is the least compelling of Gilbert's,and additionally one that she rather stubbornly champions, trudging through the mires and pits of glaring unlikelihood. This being said I certainly disagree with Gilbert's ultimate point, although I do believe that Chopin did intend to construct parallels to Aphrodite but in a much less literal or pervasive sense than a full on apotheosis. Sandra Gilbert's essay does have undeniable value though, both as an exhaustive reflection of Chopin's ubiquitous employment of suggestive imagery, and an exercise in attempting to prove a particularly radical viewpoint.