Jude's Blog Corner

Time 2021-10-21 08:06:37

Web Name: Jude's Blog Corner

WebSite: http://jbduenweg.blogspot.com

ID:208847

Keywords:

Jude,Blog,Corner,

Description:

keywords:
description:
skip to main | skip to sidebarJude's Blog Corner

Tuesday, March 10, 2009 "A Raisin in the Sun"March 10th, 2009 - Tuesday

This play - written by Lorraine Hansberry - gives an in-depth look at the life of African-Americans during the 1950's suburbian era. Walter Lee wanted the comfortable life of a typical suburb family - wife, children, money, car, house, etc. He most of wall wanted to make money, but as an entrepenur, not as an employee. He wanted it too quickly, and he was depending on his Mother's money to get his liquor business started.

Ruth was his wife, who becomes pregnant and fears that she would not be able to keep her baby because he already has a son, Travis. Benetha is her sister-in-law, who is educated and is proud of it. Her dream is to be a doctor, like her brother's dream to be a business owner. Mama or Lena is a family person who believes similarly like her children, but in a more family-oreinted manner. She is also resourceful and brave when she buys a house in a white neighborhood, and they were non-violently threatened by Karl Lindner to buy their house so they would move out.

Overall, the play was well-written, with a"happy" ending - which is more like "It's not over yet" ending. The ending seems to be begging for a sequel to continue the story on how they deal with their neighbors and be able to keep the house and their desired way of life - and wheather Ruth has a boy or girl.

"An Entrepenur's Story" and "Death of a Salesman" overlap with this story. It relates about the strive for success, for respect, for bettering their standard of living, and for the struggles to achieve those goals. This story seems to end without any indication of the family going up or down in their successes.

The moral of all three of these stories is that money cannot buy happiness.

jbPosted byUnknownat9:14 PMNo comments: Monday, March 2, 2009 "An Entrepreneur's Story"March 9th, 2009 - Monday


This story is a reflection of the author's interpretation of entrepreneurship in China, and how money can change a person's life, and can change his mind. The character of this story does not seem to have much of a change of mind when he made his money.


Before the main character made his money, he was a poor bricklayer who was no well liked - even by the mother of the girl he loves. The mother didn't think he was worthy to marry her daughter, and that he was too poor and she wanted better for her daughter. When the government made it legal to own and operate private business (since communism and socialism can economically implode on a government without some capitalism), the main character opened his business and made plenty of money. He gained respect, women chased him, and even the mother of the girl he loved changed her mind about him. From his perspective, money has changed his way of life, it hasn't changed his personality much. He is surprised when Manshan said to him that he looked like a gentleman - which he had transformed into without his own knowing.



The overall tone of the story sounded like 'I have climbed the ladder of success, and this is how I did it'. He states the facts, and goes into some detail, but not too much to bore the reader. His style of writing was easy to read, and presents a vivid picture in the reader's mind - no long elaborate sentences or words to boggle the reader's mind either.

I found this story interesting, and it showed how the government altered a person's life when it reembraced capitalism (but with limitations as well, of course). Being a believer in Andrew Carnegie's Gospel of Wealth, this story gives some proof that he was correct about the negative effects of Communism. But money does not buy happiness - happiness comes from success.


jbPosted byUnknownat12:54 PMNo comments: "So Mexicans Are Taking Jobs From Americans" and the Baca VideoMarch 2nd, 2009 - Monday

From his own upbringing and experiences during his life, Jimmy Santiago Baca poured his heart into his poems. He pours his anger, his frustration, his revelations, and his beliefs into his writings.

Although "So Mexicans Are Taking Jobs From Americans" seems biased (he seems to be ridiculing Americans for panicking about Mexicans, and their life is so much better than the average Mexican) he is voicing his frustrations. When I first read the poem, I thought "he is such an Anti-American, and he is exaggerating about all this", but then I watched the video, and realized that it is more complicated than that. There is a great polarization of the classes - really rich and then really poor. He seems to despise the rich, and condemn them for their niaevety for not knowing haw hard it is for the poor to live. He may also be attacking his own Mexican government - which I do not blame him. The Mexican government sucks big time, and they need to catched up with the rest of the world.

In the first poem in the video, he talks about the labor. It appears miserable to his description. He says that they are like creatures in a cave laboring away with machines - he appreciates their hard work, and believes that the workers diserve more. With his second poem, it goes even deeper into a much more personal level. From my own perspective - this second poem was perhaps his own biography. He was young and bitter from the abuse he endured from his father (I think) and the opinions of the rich he grew to hate with bloodthirst. He sold drugs, and he used drugs, he was in gangs, and he was shot and stabbed, and he constantly called himself 'no good', which he believed he was. He was told that until hebelieved it, and wanted to rise above it by being 'bad'. He was not afraid of prison or death - until his character in the poem became a father. Then he realized that voilence and anger was not part of his plan any longer - he needed to better his life, he needed to improve the lives of his child that he loved so much. He realized that he was a good person, and he cleaned himself up from the drugs and such.

As for the title - "Healing Earthquakes" - and earthquake is a destructive natrual disaster. Destructive, Disaster. Healing, means that he healed himself of his own self-destruction, and it took much self-control to bring himself out of his mess, and he ignored the inner feeling that wanted to break him away from domestic life, and wanting to live a long, good life as he had mentioned towards the end "healing eathquakes".

jbPosted byUnknownat12:39 PMNo comments: Sunday, February 22, 2009 "Death of a Salesman" (Teach a Piece)February 22, 2009 - Sunday

The Questions from my Teach-a-Piece facilitation:

1. The exposition would be until where Linda told her sons that their father was trying to kill himself. The rising action would be when Linda told her sons that their father was trying to kill himself, and Biff finds the rubber hose - right where Act 1 ends and Act 2 begins until where Willy argues with Biff in the restruant, which is the climax, and the climax spikes again immediately with the second argument in the house when Willy comes back into the house after trying to plant seeds. The falling action is where Willy is sitting in the kitchen after his family goes up to bed after they make up after the argument, Willy is talking to his brother's ghost. Then Willy puts on his jacket and hat and follows his brother outside, where his gets into his car, drives off, and kills himself by crashing it. The conclusion is the funeral scene until the play ends with Linda's good-bye speech to Willy.

2. The movie is better. The movie allows the audience to more closely experience the emotions of the characters in a more realistic form of screen acting. In the play, it is on stage, and even though it's live, the audience is more aware that it is just a story than when they're watching it as a movie.

3. Cell phones, computers, modern cars, clothing of today's fashions - like dress pants for the working women, and a pair of jeans for his wife. The behavior of the characters and the music would be similar to today, but the visuals would be different. Ben would get rich in some other way, and Linda might hold a side job of some sort. The water heater would be different, so Willy would have to have some other plan of killing himself than the rubber hose. The football outfit of Biff's would be different as well. Willy would not be talking about the 20's, but maybe of the 70's, and perhaps the Vietnam war during that time.

4. The poem relates to Biff as well as Willy. They both feel the same way, but their situations are a little different. Willy wants the American Dream, and Biff just wants his own life, but he wants to please his father. He knows he is a nobody, and he minds that - but he will make do no matter what. Willy is more desperate, so I think the poem of Shakespeare's more closely relates to Willy because Willy is dissatisfied to more of an extreme than Biff is.Posted byUnknownat3:08 PMNo comments: "The Secretary Chant" and "Cinderella"February 22, 2009 - Sunday

The similarites of Piercy's and Sexton's writings is that the life of women have changed. Women have to work hard to get ahead in life - even in the Cinderella story. Cinderella in Sexton's poem is like the machine in "The Secretary Chant". Cinderella was the machine on-call for her step-sisters and her step-mother like the secretary is on call for her boss, being worked to the bone and getting hardly anything out of it. Peircy's poem seems to state that even though women are liberated, their lives haven't changed much since the era of Cinderella - just the work situations and/or work place - women (not all women) who are hard-working get exploited in one way or another.

The writing styles of Piercy and Sexton are pretty much the same, with the same sarcastic humor about women's positons, and they refer to modern cultures, although Piercy's poem refers entirely to modern culture - Sexton's poem makes references to modern culture, like Al Jolson (who is he??) and 'Regular Bobbsey Twins' (if they are considered modern, that is). She also makes references to other stories at the beginning of her poem, but I don't know which stories they are.

For anyone who has read "Flapper", it shows how women's lives have and haven't changed over the years in history.

jbPosted byUnknownat2:52 PM1 comment: Labels:Reading Journal Monday, February 9, 2009 "Interpreter of Maladies"Februrary 9, 2009 - Monday



Maladies - 1 : a disease or disorder of the animal body 2 : an unwholesome or disordered condition.



So far, that describes the literal title of Mr. Kapasi's job - an interpreter for doctors.



So far, I have several observations of this story:





1. The title in relation to Mr. Kapasi's current situation.

2. The reason why Mr. Kapasi all of a sudden gets the hots for Mrs. Das.

3. Back to the title but with Mrs. Das involved

4. The author's personal experience with the story.





1. Since maladies means sickness of the body, or an unwholesome and/or disordered condition, it seems that, when Mrs. Das was telling him in detail about Bobby, that her attitude towards her husband and her children, and also about what she did and demanding some sort of answer from him - she perhaps didn't know the meaning of interpreter, but she looked to him as sort of a shrink. So the title is the literal title of his job, and his situation when Mrs. Das was confiding in him.



2 and 3 combined: Mrs. Das showed an interest in Mr. Kapasi's job, and listened and asked questions and for examples. With the children and husband tuned out in their own world, so their conversation was private in its own way. Mr. Kapasi realized that his own wife had little regard to his job since their first child died. His wife called him a "doctor's assistant" as if being something as incredible as an interpreter was a menial and worthless job, so Mrs. Das's comments and interest was flattering, and he begain to like her more than what is proper. Also, he noted that she showed no affection to her own husband, so he felt that her marraige situation was just at stoic as his own, and that also flattered him that she showed the interest that was not directed at her own husband.

4. In all of her stories, Jhunpa Lahiri had a very diverse background. She was an Indian (from India) that was born in England, she grew up the U.S., and then she revisited her root country - India. She felt, even though she never was born or grew up there, she belonged there. So most of her stories related to Indian-Americans becoming familiar with India and their culture. The Indian-Americans in this story showed a tourist attitude to India during the tour. They were very 'Americanized' and were both born in America, and they were proud to be American even though they showed some hidden appreciation of India. Lahiri seemed to vent her own observations of how she felt during her visits there.Posted byUnknownat5:20 PMNo comments: Labels:Reading Journal Monday, February 2, 2009 "Grapes of Wrath - Chapter 5"February 2nd, 2009 - Monday

Happy Groundhog Day!

This story emphasises several things:

1. Loss: The farmer had lost his land to the bank.

2. Poverty: Obviously, the farmer and his family were inpoverished, since they were living in the Dust Bowl area and era.

3. Invasion: The tractors invaded the farmer's land, and his own home.

4. Betrayal: The man who drove the tractor was reconized by the farmer, and the farmer felt betrayed by him because he was a farmer with a family, but he wanted to feed his children over farming, and earning 3 dollars a day is like earning fifty dollars a day (or more if I'm wrong)

5. Despair: The farmer was despaired when the 'land owners' came to tell him that he has lost his farm to the bank. He had begged them to keep it and let him have another chance to make a better profit, but it was refused.

6. Survival: The family will survive no matter what the conditions of their financial situation.

7. Love: This more emphasizes the feeling the farmer had for his land, he could use his strength to make it profitable, he could hold it in his hands. This was something he loved to do, and he was in despair when he learned that that was no longer possible, because the soil was being blowed away by the wind and famine.

8. Strength: Same as Survival for the family.

9. Power: Power of the destructive tractors derived from the ultimate power of the 'monster' or the banks to be able to take lands away from the farmers and remove their homes.

10. Danger: The simple description of how the tractor tills up the land and was able to flatten homes had me concerned that someone could have gotten hurt.

11. Hope: "California" the mirgration to California for work - to start over again by picking oranges to feed his family.

12. The Road Ahead - the impending Journey. The very last few sentences of this Chapter sets the family up to make the desision to go to California to start over.

13. Anger/Revenge: The farmer wanted to kill anyone who is responsible for taking his land. He found out that he couldn't because it wasn't a single man who was responsible.Posted byUnknownat12:31 PM1 comment: Labels:Reading Journal Older PostsHomeSubscribe to:Posts (Atom)FollowersBlog Archive 2009(11) March(3)A Raisin in the SunAn Entrepreneurs StorySo Mexicans Are Taking Jobs From Americans and ... February(4) January(4)About MeUnknownView my complete profile

TAGS:Jude Blog Corner 

<<< Thank you for your visit >>>

Hot Websites