Langston Hughes and Claude McKay

Poems are often written to express emotions and vent whatever is on their mind.  In both Langston Hughes's "The Ballad of the Landlord" and Claude McKay's "America," the speakers show their emotions regarding the government.  In Hughes "The Ballard of Landlord," the speaker describes how they have problems in their tenement, but no one will listen.  When the speaker says "Landlord, landlord, My roof has sprung a leak. Don't you 'member I told you about it Way last week,?" (1-4) he talk about how the landlord never fixed the problem that made the roof leak after telling the landlord about it last week.  This is similar to the government during that time.  The government was not fixing America properly during the Depression.  Instead of fixing problems, they made more problems by going into war.  This also has to do with blacks wanting to get their equal rights.  In McKay's America on the other hand talks more deeply about America's segregation.  The speaker states "I love this cultured hell that tests my youth!"(4) The "cultured hell" in the line refers to America's culture toward African-Americans. This poem also talks about how the government is killing him. The government towards African Americans especially are not well treated.




http://oldpoetry.com/opoem/49026-Langston-Hughes-The-Ballad-Of-The-Landlord

-          http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/america-2/

Rebelious

When people go against an authority or tradition it is called rebellious.  In Lucille Clifton's "Homage To My Hips," and William Carlos William's "This Is Just To Say," both describe rebelling.  Clifton describes African-American women's hip.  Within the lines she was also describing how she wanted to rebel against being a slave.  When the speaker says "These hips are free hips. They don't like to be held back. These hips have never been enslaved" (193), they were referring to being free and how the hips were not enslaved, but they were.  On the other hand, in William's poem, he describes a plum, but every word in that poem has a deeper meaning.  The speaker says "Forgive me they were delicious so sweet and so cold" (345). This is very sarcastic and shows that they did not really want to say sorry, but they did. They both rebel from two different perspectives.     






Clifton, Lucille. "Homage To My Hips." Literature: An Introduction. 6th ed. Ed. X. J. Kennedy. NY: Longman, 2008. 193. Print.

Williams, William Carlos. "This Is Just To Say." Literature: An Introduction. 6th ed. Ed. X. J. Kennedy. NY: Longman, 2008. 345. Print.

"The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas"

Happiness always has a price.  In Ursula LeGuin's "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas," the town was full of pleasant and delightful people.  This town may look perfect, but in reality it really is not.  "Omelas sounds in my words like a city in a fairy tale, long ago and far away, once upon a time" (209).  This describes how the city is not realistic with being all perfect according to the narrator.   In order for people to be happy, they have to make the children miserable.  LeGuin's short story is similar to the movie Pleasantville, directed by Gary Ross.  Pleasantville is about a town from the 1950's that is also perfect, but perfection does not last forever.  Two real people from reality ended up in pleasantville and changed this town forever.  Soon this black and white neighborhood become slowly colorful and not as perfect as they were.       






http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAiyrees0uM


LeGuin, Ursula K. "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas." Literature: An Introduction. 6th ed. Ed. X. J. Kennedy. NY: Longman, 2008. 234-7. Print.

"The House On Mango Street"

Struggling is a way people learn to survive their temporary situation.  Sandra Cisneros's "The House on Mango Street," Esperanza is a girl that lives in mexico that is constantly moving with her family.  "They (her parents) always told us that one day we would move not a house, a real house that would be ours always so we would't have to move each year" (317).  She was also promised that one day she can have her own room and to not have to share it with anybody.  After moving in and out of many apartments, her parents finally bought a house on the other side of town on Mango Street.  Esperanza is proud to finally have a house that she can a least some what call home, but she did not receive her other promise which was her own bedroom.  This house also is not in the greatest shape, but it is a home.  This is a story that comes from true events that Cisneros had went through when she was younger. 


 Michael Lewis'"The Blindside"  had a similar story to the "The House on Mango Street".  Michael Oher's childhood had a lot to do with being poor like Esperanza, but his mother is a hardcore drug addict that neglected and abandoned Michael and 11 other siblings to live on their own early.  Being one of the older children, he had the responsibly of not only care of himself, but having to take care of his other siblings as well.  He was in a dangerous town full of gangs and drugs.  He was sleeping in parks, streets, and alleys and sometimes even a school.  Once he got older, he found a temporary home, but he did not seem to want to live their forever, but he was offered the warmed and love he never received. This lead him to go to Catholic School and eventually meet the Tuohy family who changed his life forever.  People just need to look at everything positively because people never know when a bad situation can go good.   




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKWMRGD_PM0


Cisneros, Sandra. Literature An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama.
     N.p.: X.J. Kennedy, 2008 and 2010. Print.

Girl

Mother and daughters can either have a good  or a distance relationship.  In the story "Girl" by Jamaica Kincaid, its about a mother telling her daughter everything she needs to know to be a girl.  The narrator in the story is the daughter as she is thinking back when her mother would tell her all these expectations she wanted her to have in life.  Her mother would tell her how to clean, cook, even how to love a man.  Her mother did not want her daughter to become a slut so she was stern to her daughter.  According to the story the mother told her daughter "don't squat down to play marbles-you are not a boy" (178).  This shows different times have different rules.  Present day mothers are more open and the topics are not the same as they were in the story.  Mothers today are trying to keep their daughter from becoming young mothers because people are having sex earlier then ever.  It seems as if a mother and daughter relationships are not as close as they used to.     

Kennedy, X.J. Literature An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. N.p.: Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication, 2010. Print.

"The Appointment"

"Running from death is difficult". The story "The Appointment in Samarra" was told in weird and eerie tone, but this story had a great lesson. The lesson was "to not escape death cause it will always haunt you". In this story the servant was to meet death later on and instead death found the servant running away from her in the market.  On the other hand, the video "The Appointment", the lesson is exactly what the fortune teller says to the young man  "you can never escape your future".  In both cases, the future was death and they are trying to escape what destiny has chosen for them.  The story  and video strongly point out that our destiny is written out for us, but we just have to find out where destiny will take us next and not to run away from it.

Welcome Post

I am taking english 102 because I need to take it in order to graduate.  This is required in order to be a teacher.  This semester I hope to learn more on how to improve my writing skills.