"Toads" - Philip Larken

The "toads" of the poem were rather confusing for me. One of the questions at the end asks: The first "toad is explicitly identified as "work". The literal term for the second "toad" is not named. Why not? What do you take it to be? Well for starters, I did not even think the first toad was work; I thought it was a beggar, so I am already off to a great start. I feel like this question helped me come to some understanding of the poem though because I think it sent me on the proper line of thinking. To answer the first part of the question, I believe the second toad was not named because the toad is specific for every person. It is a unique problem that everyone has to deal with such as the narrator's inability to interact with others easily: "And will never allow me to blarney My way to getting The fame and the girl and the money All at one sitting" (Larkin). The first toad is named because everybody has to deal with work, even beggars who have to work to achieve a high enough level of sympathy for money. I believe this second toad is an imperfection in everybody. It is something that is a frequently looming problem in our lives. I can not seem to make any sense of the last two lines that read, "But I do say it's hard to lose either, When you have both" (Larkin).

"Hazel Tells LaVerne" - Katharyn Howd Machan

"Hazel Tells LaVerne" was definitely my favorite poem, so I am a little excited to blog about this. Machan develops this narrator of her story that comes off as a very uneducated, blue collar worker. For some reason, I could not hold back this image in my mind that the narrator is a black woman. Machan uses a dialect that I just instantly associated with a black maid. However, I am going to be a little slow to assume this after seeing the movie The Campaign. In the movie, there is a maid whose voice sounds identical to the stereotypical southern black maid, but a comedic shock comes over the audience when she opens the door and we see that she is asian. This scene stands out in my mind because I think I laughed for a solid minute at that scene, but let's get back the poem. Similar to The Campaign, I thought this poem was hilarious. For me, the dialect contributes to the comedic value of the poem, mostly because I think of the asian maid. The dialect characterizes the narrator too with the way she speaks: "but sohelpmegod he starts talkin" (Machan). In addition to the dialect, the poem has no punctuation and the woman works as a maid, so the reader can assume that she did not have a very good education. I also could not help but laugh when she calls the frog a "little green pervert." This also shows that she was probably not educated because she is unaware of the fairy tale of the Princess and the Frog. Overall, I saw this poem as an entertaining, comedic poem.

"Mr. Z" - M. Carl Holman

The story of this "Mr. Z" has a sense of sad irony to it. Society convinced him that the skin of his mother was inferior. I found it very interesting that Holman chose to say his mother's skin. I am not sure if this implies that his father was a different race or maybe even that he was raised by his mother or some certain circumstance. The reader can deduce from the characterization that Mr. Z is black from details such as: "Disclaimed kinship with jazz and spirituals" and "His palate shrank from cornbread, yams and collards" (Holman). The poems begins with saying that he is an error, but he seemed like he could not do anything wrong.This is ironic because Mr. Z seemed to have everything going for him. He had a great education, a "perfect" wife, and most likely a successful career. Everything about him was the perfect the white man, except for his skin color. Consequently, he was called, "One of the most distinguished members of his race" (Holman). They did not say one of the most distinguished humans. This is a rather sad irony to think of that he spends his whole life trying to escape the labels of his skin color, yet he is still regarded for his skin color in his death. No matter how hard he tried, he could not change his skin color.

"Interpreter of Maladies" - Jhumpa Lahiri

Jhumpa Lahiri's "Interpreter of Maladies" is in my opinion a story of two worlds colliding. The Das family (the Americans) and Mr. Kapasi (the Indian)  spend the day together conversing in English, but there is still a sort of communication barrier. One of the questions following the story asks: How does Mr. Kapasi's job as an "interpreter of maladies" relate to the action in this story? Mr. Kapasi's job title is a good example of a misunderstanding between the two worlds. Maladies could cover a whole range of things from a serious physical ailment to a sort of sickness of the spirit like a social problem such as that of Mrs. Das. Mr. Kapasi sees his job as simply using his linguistic skills to communicate the symptoms of his patients to the doctor. Mr. Kapasi never analyzed the meaning behind his job; a sore throat was a sore throat, nothing more. However, Mrs. Das sees this as maladies such as her own with her son being conceived by a different man than her husband. The word interpreter is also confused. Mr. Kapasi thinks of interpreter of languages; whereas, Mrs. Das thinks of an interpreter as one who can find a meaning behind her situation. The confusion of the words "interpreter" and "maladies" show the communication barrier between Mr. Kapasi and Mrs. Das. Mr. Kapasi, a man who once regarded himself as a talented linguist, has difficulty properly communicating with Mrs. Das who sees a different meaning in his words. Mrs. Das's interpretation of the word malady also shows the difference between the two cultures. In America, people have so few essential things to care about such as proper medical care that this leads the American Mrs. Das to instantly think of a malady as her social predicament. This almost makes it appear that the entire situation was a disappointment to both sides. Mrs. Das expected a social prescription while Mr. Kapasi expected an intimate relationship. This tone of an entire disappointing misunderstanding is shown with the closing of the story: " When she whipped out the hairbrush, the slip of paper with Mr. Kapasi's address on it fluttered away in the wind" (Lahiri).

"Everyday Use" - Alice Walker

The narrator of  "Everyday Use" reveals many things about herself throughout the short story. Sometimes  direct characterization is used, and other times indirect characterization is used. The narrator came right out and said, "I never had an education myself" (Walker). This is a form of direct characterization which the author uses to clearly display a detail about the narrator. Related to the detail about being uneducated, I was really confused about a narrator being uneducated. I understand that the speaker and author are not the same person, but it is difficult to think that someone writing a story with flawless grammar never had an education. This detail just made it a little difficult to understand the character in my opinion because I would not expect an uneducated farm woman to be writing or telling such a well constructed story. In addition to the direct characterization, some indirect characterization is present.  The race of the narrator is revealed through details scattered throughout the story. An example of such indirect characterization is when Dee (Wangero) says that she does not want to have a name that was given to her ancestors from the slave masters. From this detail, it is pretty easy to tell that the narrator and her children are African Americans. Given this detail, it gives the reader a perspective from which to view the story as one of a black family probably living in the south.

Perrine Poetry

I believe that Perrine has a very valid point in determining the "correct" interpretations of poetry. Although I am a believer that there should be many equally correct interpretations of poetry, Perrine's argument is much more sound than mine. I definitely agree with Perrine's first point that an interpretation should account for every detail of the poem; however, I do not agree with the point that the best interpretation has the fewest assumptions. I disagree with this point for two reasons: I do not believe there is a best interpretation and I believe that these assumptions are what helps the reader personalize the poetry to himself by allowing him to identify with it. Perrine presents an excellent interpretation of Emily Dickinson's untitled poem, but the whole time I read his point I was thinking, "why can't it still be a garden?" Of course, there are those the details such as the daffodil being singular and being unable to explain the wharf. The explanations, though not as reasonable as Perrine's sunset, I believe are still valid. The garden could look like the color daffodil and the the butterflies and bees could very much so have stopped "mingling" when the wind stopped. I would not be so quick to call the garden explanation "incorrect", but I do agree that Perrine's sunset explanation is a very good interpretation.

Perrine surprised me with the interpretation that the Melville poem was about the stars. His interpretation is excellent, and this interpretation definitely helped make sense of the poem for me. He clearly showed that the  interpretation of it being about an army is wrong and I agree with this. However, I believe he went a little too far with disproving the interpretation about the army when he said, "...no legions ever 'stream' in perfect order." This is a detail made it seem to me that he is being a little too hostile towards this interpretation and that he is so determined to bury this interpretation. I think that the perfect order is an innocent detail. We call many things perfect without them actually being perfect because nothing is perfect, so why would stars be the  exception? I also agree with Perrine's point that everything should be taken in context. I believe this article presents a valuable point towards the interpretation of poems. In the future, I will definitely consider whether my interpretation fits every detail, rely on few assumptions, and that the meanings of words are taken in context. However, I still believe that these stipulations can not limit poetry to one perfect answer because nothing is perfect.

Gatsby: the Ending

I am definitely glad I read F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. Fitzgerald closed the novel in such a fascinating series of events. I like crazy endings. The deaths of Myrtle, Gatsby, and Wilson were nothing short of a great way to end the novel. However, it did not end there. The final chapter goes through Gatsby funeral. The real tragedy of the ordeal was that Nick was the only person who stood by Gatsby after his death. People enjoyed Gatsby's hospitality but could never actually call him a true friend. Wolfsheim, the closest thing Gatsby had to a friend before he met Nick, did not even want to attend the funeral because of some danger involved in attending it.

Some insight is given into what was being planned between Gatsby and Wolfsheim when a man named Slagle mistakenly calls Nick. Gatsby must have been running some sort of a bond scam, so Gatsby's money did come from a somewhat criminal past. As expected, Tom sold out Gatsby which is how Wilson found him so fast. Fitzgerald concludes with: "Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that'st no matter--to-morrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther....And one fine morning---(180)." To Gatsby, the green light symbolized the hope of attaining his goal of being with Daisy again. Fitzgerald juxtaposes this with the Dutch settlers of America who saw the shores  of America as a promise of new hope. Now I can finally get back to watching the Olympics.