Essay #4 Proposal

Upon reading through Margaret Atwood’s book, The Handmaid’s Tale, I came out asking a ton of questions. For the basis of essay #4, I chose to base the focus on this one question: Why did the women choose to endure everything they did for the sake of a certain belief? This is going to be a tough topic for me to accomplish an essay on, but I will do the best I could for it. The book was very confusing to me, so hopefully this research paper will help me better understand it.

To attempt to better understand the writings of Atwood, I am focusing the research on cults, and comparing the information I find to that of the writing in The Handmaid’s Tale. Through my research, I will find more information on why the women endured what they did by being used for the process of reproduction.

By choosing to research cults, which is a gigantic topic that could explode if looked too deeply into, I am hoping that understanding the works of cults will help me to see the reasoning for the totalitarian presence in The Handmaid’s Tale and what their basic reasoning was for choosing to have handmaid’s to do their reproduction. This seems very odd to me that others would read the Bible, yet have someone to reproduce for them. I suppose I have a different belief than that of the Commander in the book.

http://www.talktalk.co.uk/reference/encyclopaedia/hutchinson/m0015618.html - Examples of Totalitarianism

Midterm Reflective Letter

To Mrs. Cline,

Being in the English 102 course has been a challenge for me to keep up this semester. Part of the challenge I have faced this semester is having knowledge of the style of teaching that the instructor has, and this is what prompted me to choose this course over another instructor’s course. I knew that the demands were higher than that of another instructor, and it has proven to be more demanding than I imagined. The overall demand of the course would be the biggest challenge I have faced, as I have a pair of other courses that have a high demand as well. This is doing nothing more than strengthening me in my want to attain better grades than I have ever had, so it is pushing me harder to make sure I meet the expectations that are presented to me.

Being an avid fan of war history and books written regarding war, I have thoroughly enjoyed the readings this class has presented thus far. Reading through The Sandstorm was a little tough due to the extra language that I felt was unnecessary in the context, but I do understand that some soldiers use that type of language. The experience that Huze brought into his play was very good, and he did a great job of putting it all together. The details were excellent, and made the play even better. O’Brien did an excellent job in The Things We Carried by putting a person in the place that he was when dealing with all the emotions surrounding the different choices he made.

Doing literary analysis to me is much tougher than any other type of writing I have done before. I usually am able to create my own writing through research, but analyzing someone else’s writing is extremely tough for me to do. I am unsure exactly why it is this way, but I plan on trying to improve on this during the second half of the semester. Any help on this area is always appreciated by me, since this is the toughest part of being in a course which deals with analyzing literature.

Overall, I feel I am doing a decent job, aside from forgetting to turn in assignments on time. This will be changed as I plan on trying to maintain a B grade in the course overall, and this will take some work on my part to complete. Thank you for offering the course for the students. You are an excellent instructor, regardless of what others may say.

Sincerely,

Richard Wagster

Tim O'Brien Response

The Things They Carried

Being an avid fan of war stories, and enjoying reading history surrounding the different wars and conflicts the United States has been involved in, I was extremely excited to be able to read “The Thing They Carried” as part of the curriculum for the English 102 course. As stated in the assignment for week 5, this book does have some graphic parts, and some language. I enjoy the writing in this book more than I did in “The Sandstorm” though. O’Brien seems to be a little better at writing for the reader to understand more than for a play, which is the type of writing I can read.

In the short story, “The Things They Carried,” O’Brien portrays a few different characters that seem to be based off his personal experience. Lieutenant Cross has his infatuation with Martha, who appears to be an old girlfriend of his. This is very interesting, because in the reading I have done on the Vietnam conflict, the soldiers used any way they could to get their minds off of the hell they were in. This was made evident in page 6 where they spoke about “smoking the dead man’s dope” (O’Brien 6). The soldiers used the drugs of the dead man to help them cope with being in Vietnam, while Lieutenant Cross used Martha to cope. All the men had dreams of being back home, which is understandable. I would not personally want to be in Vietnam, especially with never knowing when you would be attacked.

After reading the short story, “The Things They Carried,” I will definitely be reading more of the book, even if it isn’t assigned for the course. This book is well written and has some good detail to help the reader become more involved in what the situations were.

http://www.vietnam-war.info/facts/

Upon reading the play by Sean Huze, “The Sandstorm,” I was immediately drawn to the fact that there was a large amount of language. I had a very tough time reading some parts of it because of the vulgarity of the language, but was pleased at the descriptions and detail that Huze used throughout to describe experiences of Marines in the Gulf War. Mr. Huze was able to really capture the reader with parts that were detailed, such as the description from SGT. Williams when needing to put on the CBR suit and going into the panic attack almost immediately (Huze 7). The thought process, along with his personal experiences after being enlisted in the Marines, are very evident in his writing!
Being former military, and knowing a fair amount of family and friends who have been or currently are enlisted, I was able to relate to some of the thoughts that were portrayed towards LT Smith before he gathered information from his NCO’s (Huze 8). This is a much more common problem in the military than people realize due to the fact that some officers come out of their training and use their rank to get what they need, rather than gaining the respect of their fellow soldiers. The military needs more officers like LT Smith!
Overall, this play is very well-written, and has a decent portrayal of what soldiers would see if they were deployed in the Gulf region. Knowing a handful of people who have been in Iraq or Afghanistan, and hearing their stories, I could honestly say that Huze hit this nail right on the head. This was a great read, language aside.

A Hero's story

Poem Response

To some people, poetry is a way to share their emotions with others. Poetry is nothing more than writing to me. I am very misunderstood when speaking of poetry, so writing poetry is not an option. Jimmy Santiago Baca uses language in his poem “Immigrants in Our Own Land” that is usually reserved for a different context. The use of the word “immigrants” to describe prisoners was quite different than I had imagined. I chose to write about this poem because of the odd use of the language. In his poem, Baca begins by saying, “We are born with dreams in our hearts, looking ahead for better days ahead” (lines 1-2). This start seems fitting for what we would consider immigrants wanting. As the poem progresses, you can start seeing that the poem is not meant for someone migrating from one country to another. The use of the word “temporary” (line 26) was a way to describe that they are not moving to another location. Speaking of keeping all the cultures separated “like the old neighborhoods we came from” (lines 27-32) also has the reader questioning what kind of immigrant the poem speaks of. When Baca said in line 41, “My cell is crisscrossed,” it became obvious this is about prisoners. I can understand the reasoning they may be considered immigrants, but most of the time, the prisoners did something to deserve to be in prison. This is a very intriguing poem because of the odd use of different language.
September 11, 2001 is a day that anyone who was alive and old enough will remember forever. Wislawa Szymborska wrote the poem “Photograph from September 11” as an obvious reaction to the news headlines from that day. This poem is very disturbing in the use of the language describing some of the pictures seen from that day. “Each is still complete, with a particular face, and blood well hidden” (Szymborska 7-9) is very graphic, and you can see the people as they are falling, but then again, they are not in the picture. They are stuck in mid-air. The end of this poem has me confused. I don’t understand why Szymborska ended the poem by stating; “I can only do two things for them-describe this flight and not add a last line” (lines 16-18). I guess I would have to understand her overall feelings on that day to be able to really grasp the reason for ending it this way.

Hamill Response

When reading through the essay by Sam Hamill, “The Necessity to Speak,” I noticed that he had shown many emotions through the writing. One of the strongest emotions I noticed right away was an appearance of anger. This anger pointed to the abusers and rapists in our country. This also was pointing to the government and their willingness to fund what he considered to be “the bill for murder in Nicaragua” (547). Over the course of two years the U.S. government had given $67 million to help one side of the Nicaraguan civil war, so Hamill considered this to be a donation to murder of the other half. In a way, I can see where he gets this idea. The government, by giving the money it did, made it clear that it supports one side of the country but not the other, so they showed a fair amount of favoritism. The deaths caused by the money given would be enough to cause someone to be angered at the government, especially when they are anti-war activists or peace activists in general. With Hamill using this example to begin the essay, he did an excellent job on showing that the government is not out to help eliminate people from being abusers or murderers, but tells them that murder is acceptable in a way.
Hamill had a very unique perspective on abusers and rapists. He had some experiences while in prison and as a child that gave him this perspective. His elaboration on some of the different views of what society shows as acceptable have been determined by what he has seen and experienced. On page 548, Hamill says that “A man who is a man, when all else fails, asserts his “masculinity. It is easy to learn to be a man. I learned to be a batterer without ever thinking about it. That’s the way we learn.” This statement shows me that he never really had a good father figure, because, in my experience, I have seen men who didn’t have good father figures that had the same view as Hamill. I had a good father, and I was raised a lot differently than Hamill, as I never was orphaned, nor was I ever imprisoned as a child or adult. I don’t believe that a man would show his “masculinity” through being aggressive. I feel that a man who is compassionate is more of a man than someone who is aggressive. I understand this was used for the purpose of the essay, but it also is a view that I don’t agree with.
In the end, I see exactly what view Hamill had on this, as I can relate to the view of some of the thoughts he has on war. I don’t particularly agree with someone calling a weapon capable of severe harm a “peacemaker,” but I can see that the government thought that was the only way to keep peace, and using aggression was the way. I was very impressed with the fact that Hamill said that, even if you take the emotion and the words out of the poetry, the poetry is still there. I never thought about it that way. All the words and emotions are is a way to express it to the rest of the world. The real poetry is inside the heart and mind of the poet. This reading was very interesting, as it came across as angry to start, but had a good meaning in the end. I will most likely read this again just to get a better feel for his style.

Welcome vide