Cask of Amontillado

In the beginning of Edgar Allan Poe’s classic short story “The Cask of Amontillado” the narrator addresses an audience with a phrase that begins, “You, who so well know the nature of my soul…” This phrase can have two effects, the first being that it causes trust in the speaker; certainly he can be trusted if the nature of his soul is known. At the same time this phrase inspires trust, it also inspires skepticism; nothing has yet been revealed about the nature of the narrator’s soul. Why is the narrator attempting to inspire feelings of camaraderie and trust so early in the story? Very little about the narrator is known, aside from his retelling of the event. The narrator Montresor plots the murder of one of his friends, the duality of his actions and thoughts as well as the pure joy he exhibits from causing pain to another person create mistrust. The narrator of this story, to whom not even a name is assigned until the story comes to a close, cannot be trusted.

The narrator shows his duality in regards to his treatment of Fortunato. Behavior towards Fortunato is described as being the same as it had been in the past; the narrator maintains his friendly demeanor while plotting his revenge against Fortunato. While imagining his revenge, the narrator is able to smile in the face of this person he hates and wishes ill upon. As the narrator lures Fortunato into the Catacombs he is complementing him and bribing him with expensive wine, all the while he is getting the man drunk and leading him to his doom. The narrator also initially pretends that he does not want Fortunato to come with him to the wine.

This ability to plot revenge while smiling in his enemy’s face also shows that the narrator has a truly violent nature. Not only does the narrator pretend to be this man’s friend and smile in his face while secretly hating him, the narrator actually gets pleasure out of planning these horrible acts. Indescribable is the pleasure felt by the narrator upon seeing Fortunato, but this is not pleasure derived from being in his presence it is pleasure derived from the satisfaction that the narrator will finally have his revenge on this man who he perceives has done him ill.

In the end Montresor has walled his friend deep underground and left him to die. A man who would act someone’s friend and later administer them a torturous murder should not be trusted. Upon viewing the narrators words and actions the true nature of his soul is revealed and we come to see Montresor. In the end he is given a name, he is not a mysterious narrator, he is a monster.

image source: http://www.mansioningles.com/lectura15.htm

Intro "That time of year thou mayst in me behold"

Robert Frost once said, “In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life. It goes on.” Unfortunately Frost was incorrect. The lives of everyone in the world will one day come to an end; this is true of the lifetime of every man woman or child that currently walks the earth. Realization that there will come a moment when life ceases to go on will, at some point, grip everyone. A part of life is embracing that man is mortal and life must be lived with the knowledge that one day there will be death; this realization has many profound effects on different people. As life goes on, people are able to see their time left on earth growing shorter. This is not only seen in people’s own lives but it is also seen in the lives of the people around them. Some will see the lives of others growing shorter and appreciate their own time left to live. This point is illustrated in Shakespeare’s poem “That time of year thou mayst in me behold.” Using images such as trees in the fall, setting suns, and fires burning to ash, Shakespeare is able to impose on the reader a sense of mortality and illustrate the futility of life. The procession of images creates this sense of time growing shorter, the poem begins with a season, is shortened to a day, and then a fire, of which, nothing will be left. The speaker describes these images and he says that they can be seen within him. The speaker tells the listener that because he can see these changes occurring, the listener must appreciate life because his life too will one day burn down and be nothing but embers.

Image from: Det Danske Spejderkorps, Jambo, Official Newspaper of the 2nd World Jamboree, 1924 "http://www.pinetreeweb.com/1924-wj2-young-&-old.jpg"

With that Dreadful Iron Hook

No one forgives the things you took,
The sweetness and innocence of many a young boy,
With that Dreadful Iron hook.

The frightening men to you look,
To be their envoy,
With that dreadful iron hook.

Kidnap an Indian princess and he will go look,
He will come to you, a perfect ploy.
No one forgives the things you took.

A ticking crocodile comes and you are shook.
You know he’d pick bones from his teeth with joy,
With that Dreadful Iron hook.

Seeing anger and hurt like words in a book,
Making it hatred and vengeance while looking so coy,
No one forgives the things you took.

The worst thing stolen by this crook,
The only mother of a poor lost boy.
No one forgives the things you took,
With that dreadful iron hook.

I chose to write a villanelle about Captain Hook from the story Peter Pan. I am very knowledgable about the story of Peter Pan I love the books, movies, plays, and the history of the story so I thought it would be an easy topic to use. Never have I written a villanelle before, so I thought it would be interesting to try. In choosing to write a villanelle I wanted to be easy on myself and choose an end word that would be wasy to rhyme. Hook can give away the identity of the character I'm describing while making it easy for me to follow the style.

Picture credit movies.yahoo.com/movie/1808405390/photo/497982
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Lines between good and evil are often drawn in literature. However, in William Blake’s poem “The Tyger” the line is not clearly drawn. This poem asks whether good and evil stem from the same source. The poem introduces the theme that there is a duality in everything. The speaker of the poem is questioning God and his intentions for creating the tiger. Blake also included an illustration portraying the tiger in a different way.
The “Tyger” is introduced in the first stanza as lurking in dark forests. This gives the immediate impression of being something dark and frightening. While the tiger is something to be feared, it is symmetrical, perfect. The poem follows a strict meter which is only broken by the word symmetry adding weight, importance and strangeness to the word. The first stanza introduces the idea of good and evil, the tiger is introduced as being something perfect and frightening. The second stanza then describes the tiger as having a fire in his eyes which lends to the idea of the tiger being fierce. At the same time the author has illustrated the poem with the image of a gentle looking tiger. The speaker also does not know where this fire came from, he attributes it to either a depth or the sky, showing that though the speaker does not know where the fire came from but he believes it to be otherworldly. The otherworldliness of the fire leads the speaker to ask the creator why he gave the tiger this fire.
The internal workings of the tiger are also questioned. In the third stanza, the speaker asks why the heart of the tiger was twisted and made hard. Then the tiger was alive and has hands and feat that can inspire dread. The next stanza asks about the brain of the tiger, which is described as something being created by a smith using hammers, anvils, furnaces and chains. These tools are modern technology which shows that the tiger is created using modern methods, and is more efficient.
Upon viewing the final product, this fierce tiger, the speaker wonders if God is happy. The speaker wonders how the same God who created the lamb, a gentle pure white creature, could have created this fierce killing machine. God has the ability to create fierce and gentle creatures; showing the duality of God, he is able to be fierce and gentle. This explains the pictures of the tiger in which seems gentle while being described in the poem as being something that seems darker.

Pound's Poem

Ezra Pound’s poem, “In a Station of the Metro” describes a scene taking place in a subway station, a place created by modern technology. Because the poem is only two lines long, there is room for interpretation of the author’s meaning and the speaker’s feeling towards the modern world. The poem can be seen as either a work that speaks for or against aspects of the modern world, based upon interpretation.
In the poem the speaker is discussing faces in a crowd, a piece of familiarity in a large group of people. Being in the Metro station, a place made possible by modern technology, has brought him familiar faces. To the speaker, these faces are like “Petals on a wet, black bough,” delicate pieces of beauty, light, and color on a cold wooden surface. The modern world is one of greater togetherness and possibilities for happiness.
Not only does the poem advocate a more modern world, it also acts to show a more modern side of poetry. The poem is made up of two lines without following the specific formulas and guidelines seen in more classical forms of poetry. The briefness of the poem acts to portray the more modern idea of thoughts and actions being quick and to the point rather than following a specific idea.
However the poem can be seen as meaning the complete opposite. The appearance of faces in the crowd could be referring to a huge impersonal throng of people. These strange faces may be the petals on the black bough. The subway station would be a dark underground place and when interpreted in this way the phrase can be seen as the image of darkly clad people in a dark space with only their faces being distinguishable to the speaker. This gives the poem a very somber feeling and leads to the belief that the modern world is one of distance and impersonal faces floating in and out of view.
The form of the poem can also be interpreted to mean that the modern world is bad. While the author may be intending to show the brief poem is effective in illustrating a point, he may also be saying that more modern thinking of being brief is impersonal and ambiguous. It is also possible that Pound was following classic poetic guidelines of having an end rhyme; a slant rhyme appears in the poem which may perhaps show that Pound is trying to hint at a more classic form of poetry, while not completely implying it.
A lot can be seen about modernism within these two lines; but as with any discussion of the modern world it is uncertain whether the shift is good or bad.

Images of That time of year thou mayst in me behold

Images found in Shakespeare’s That time of year thou mayst in me behold

1. Leaves in the fall, yellow or fallen off
2. Bare trees shaking in the cold
3. Empty choirs as opposed to beautiful singing birds
4. Twilight fading into a Sunset
5. Blackness as something that steals light
6. Glowing fire turning youth to ashes

Shakespeare’s poem consists of a lot of images of light versus darkness as can be seen in his comparison of spring and fall, twilight and sunset, night and day, and fire and ashes. This comparison between light and dark occurs throughout the poem and portrays the poem’s overall message that life is fleeting and must be appreciated. Every beautiful image created by Shakespeare of spring, daylight, and fire becomes the thing of darkness that it is being contrasted with. These light images mean life, which is vibrant and bright, but will fade away into darkness, death.
When the poem is broken up into the stanzas of a Shakespearean sonnet it is seen that Shakespeare places one comparison of light and dark in each stanza. Shakespeare begins his poem discussing fall and discussing how it had once been spring. Shakespeare notes that there may still be some leaves on the trees which shows that there is still some life left, it is not yet winter. In the next stanza twilight gives way to sunset and then darkness and sleep will soon follow. Sleep is described as “death’s second self,” meaning that people undergo a form of death at the end of the day. Next fire is described, a short and fleeting light that becomes ash, nothingness. The fire can no longer sustain itself is “consumed” as life is consumed to the point of death. In each of these stanzas the time frame of the image used to represent life is shorter than the one preceding it, showing that people have less and less time to live; people begin with a season but eventually they are left with only a fire as they length of time that they can live.
In his final lines Shakespeare writes that others see this changing from light to dark and how time grows shorter and they cherish their lives and the lives of those around them more because they know that they will soon be gone.

What's in the Name

I believe that, in order to be happy in lifem, people need to have some degree of purpose and honesty to themselves and the world around them. I try to live my life with purpose and meaning behind everything I do or say. It is one matter to say I am going to take a class, go to a school, or travel the country, it is another matter entirely to mean it and do it. The world is being overcome by monotony and blandness, if more people meant what they said and felt what they said the world would be better (or at least more honest). I want to live in a way that is full of passion and excitement, I want to live a life that isn't molded to fit the expectations of others, and I want to live a life full of actions and words that I mean.