Your Inner Analysis

Reflection

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            English has never been a “difficult” class for me. However, I always find ways to improve.  In this class I have improved greatly in the poetry analysis section.  In previous courses I haven’t paid much attention to analysis because I didn’t think it was important.  Now that I understand what it means to analyze a poem or a piece of writing, I have gotten much better. 

            There were some readings in this class I didn’t find helpful.  The Sam Hamill and Carolyn Forche readings were a couple of examples.  I did enjoy reading a few of the Poetry of Witness poems.  It definitely made me think and ask more questions than normal.  Reading all of the blog posts about what analysis meant to the blogger, helped me as well. 

            Not only has my ability for analysis increased but I believe my writing has benefited as well.  It takes practice and trial and error to improve writing.  Some have a natural talent to make papers flow.  In the past my papers have been straight forward, to the point and boring.  In the last year I have learned a lot about my writing style.  I have had many different English teachers and their style of writing, and even personal views, have affected my grades.  I had an English professor in the fall who didn’t agree with any of my personal views or morals so he gave me very low grades; it didn’t matter whether my writing was up to par.  Even though that doesn’t seem like a good experience, it pushed me to try harder and make my writing better.  Through this class my writing has done nothing but improve and continue to grow stronger with each edit from the professor.  Feedback has been the greatest teacher of all. 

I found a fun, helpful list of 10 simple things you can do to improve your writing.

Annotated Bibliography

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Huze, Sean and Seabrooks, Mark.  The Sand Storm.  2004.
The play written by Sean Huze and Mark Seabrooks takes place in 2003 in Iraq.  The soldiers each have different stories to share throughout the play.  The themes of love, friendship, and hatred are all touched.


Literature Online biography.  O'Brien, Tim.  2002.
The biography of author/soldier Tim O'Brien.  Fact of his Military days, and life before being an author.


O'Brien, Tim.  The Things They Carried.  1990.
The collection of war stories from Tim O'Brien himself.  Also with themes of love and hatred, but also self conflict and personal demons. 


Wetmore, Kevin J. Jr. The Sandstorm: Stories from the Front.  2006.
His take on The Sand Storm.  Link here.

Close Reading of a Passage

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                  “I raised myself out of the vehicle and surveyed the scene.  All over, packages and letters from home were strewn about on the ground next to our vehicles.  I jumped down and began collecting what letters were still there.  I never did find the picture of my little boy’s first hair cut.  It figures you know.”

-          Sean Huze, The Sand Storm

            This passage caught my eye because the visualization was so clear and relatable.  I know many people in the military and their families.  Reading this I thought about them.

            Before the passage stated above the soldiers were having a problem getting mail.  It was the one thing they looked forward to everyday.  With the mail not coming through it was all they thought about.  Once it got there it was the highlight of their day. 

            The soldier behind this scene finally gets letters and packages from his parents and wife.  He received audio tapes of his wife telling him what was going on and a picture of his son’s first haircut.  All of the soldiers were enjoying the glimpse of the outside world when they were attacked.  When he says “it figures you know” it’s like he has been there so long that nothing is sacred anymore.  Nothing can be enjoyed the same way.  There is no joy that goes unpunished.  After the attack he tried to salvage the remains of the only part of his family he has over there and can’t find the one picture he most likely enjoyed the most.  That is just the topping on it all.     

A Story of Two Poems

                I was intrigued by The Woman Hanging from the Thirteenth Floor Window and Charlie Howard’s Descent.  While reading each I kept relating the poems back to myself.  I’m not sure why, but it made sense to me when I put myself in the position of the people in the poem. 

            “Her hands are pressed white against the concrete moulding of the tenement building” (Harjo, lines 2-3) tells me that this woman, whoever she might be, is holding onto her life by just the tips of her fingers.  Maybe she really does want to keep living and is looking for a sign, or someone to stop her.  Why wouldn’t she just jump if there weren’t any doubt?  The poem tells that she is “her mother's daughter and her father's son” (Harjo, line 12).  She was an only child and meant everything to her parents.  She was the beautiful, girly, perfect daughter that her mother had always wanted.  She was the baseball cap wearing, little leaguer that her father had always wanted in a son.  She was “a woman of children, of the baby, Carlos, and of Margaret, and of Jimmy” (Harjo, lines 10-11).  Clearly, this woman was not alone.  She had loving parents and children who depended on her.  Why is she hanging from the thirteenth floor window?  Is she surrounded by all of these people that she has given a piece of herself to but still alone? Does she feel as though she can no longer live up to the standards all of these family members have set for her, or perhaps she thinks she isn’t deserving of so much love and affection?  “The woman hangs from the 13th floor window crying for the lost beauty of her own life.  She sees the sun falling west over the grey plane of Chicago.  She thinks she remembers listening to her own life break loose, as she falls from the 13th floor window on the east side of Chicago, or as she climbs back up to claim herself again.” (Harjo, final stanza).  The woman has taken her last look at her life and her beautiful surroundings and in that final instant decides to never look at any of it again in the same way.  Once she let go, she was refresh, renewed, and free of any mortal battles.

            Charlie Howard’s Descent was different.  He hadn’t given up on life.  From the poem I gathered that this man was battered and mocked for the lifestyle he had chosen.  “He took the insults in and gave them a place to live” (Doty, lines 25-26).  Whenever someone insulted him he didn’t say anything, didn’t stand up for himself.  He took the insults in and let them fester within himself.  The boys surrounding him saw that he was a decent man and wouldn’t bow down to the horrors of the world around him.  Not even in the end did the boys get the best of him.  

Here is another writers analysis of The Woman Hanging from the Thirteenth Floor Window.

Summary Versus Analysis

Merriam Webster defines analysis as a “separation of a whole into its component parts”.  This goes along with what the lecture had said.  I translate literary analysis to mean finding meaning in the background of a piece of literature.  The meaning of any story would most likely be different to each person who read it, but each would have their own reasoning as to why they found the theme they did.  The literary analysis would cause each person to state what they thought the underlying theme was in a story and facts from the story as to why they came to their individual conclusion. 

A summary does not indicate that each individual may have a different perspective.  What events take place is nonnegotiable and will be the same no matter who summarizes it.  The summary is meant to take a brief overview of the whole (whether it be a play or a movie or a book or anything else in which a sequence of events takes place) and cut out all of the details until only the brief and overbearing events are left.  The reader of a summary is usually looking for an idea of what the book or movie is about, the ending is usually left out for spoiler reasons.     

Here is a website that shows both the summary and the analysis of How to Kill a Mockingbird. 

http://zeldalily.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/to-kill-a-mockingbird-at-intiman-theatre.jpg

Good Readers and Good Writers

In order to become a good reader Vladamir Nabokov believes that the soon-to-be reader must decide to see the writing through an impersonal imagination as well as seeing the artistic delight in the writing, and develop a combination of artistic and scientific temperaments.  Taking in the writing through an impersonal imagination allows the reader to stay neutral to the story and not be biased one way or another in believing how the story will turn out.  The reader will also need to see the artistic way the story is written in order to understand where the author of the piece is coming from. If a reader reads too much of his or her own emotion into the story they will not comprehend the actual emotion the author was attempting to portray.  However, if a reader stays completely unattached to the story and judges it from a scientific point of view they will not understand the author's portrayal either.
I believe that the traits of a good reader develop through practice.  I have always been an avid reader but I am still learning to read textbooks.  This is difficult because when reading a text for school, such as biology or history, I become distracted easily and don't comprehend the multitude of the reading.  To be a good textbook reader I believe that the reader must go inside the subject itself to understand what is being said.  Meaning, if the subject is World War II the reader should place himself, or herself, in the position of being in the war while reading.

Here I have attached a link to the College Board website where I found a helpful article on becoming a better reader:  http://www.collegeboard.com/student/plan/boost-your-skills/189995.html

                                             http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/34/Vladimir_Nabokov.jpg
 "A writer should have the precision of a poet and the imagination of a scientist." 
-Vladimir Nabokov
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/v/vladimir_nabokov.html#ixzz1P8AlJ7jS