Stephanie Andrade - Humanities Literature 121

THE INVISIBLE MAN

2005-04-10T21:05:00.000-07:00

A DIFFERENCE will always be a reason for controversy and disagreement. A personage that was considered different was the main character of Ralph Edison’s novel “Invisible Man.” Edison’s story narrates the life of a man that was considered invisible for society. The Invisible Man suffered the consequences of the biggest prejudices that he had to face. His black race was seen as something rare, as something wrong... The prejudices towards his race in America were nothing else but negative ideas about the African American culture. This prejudices generated a superiority feeling towards a group, in this case towards the white group. Most of the ethnic prejudices existed without even having contact with the other social group. Social influence has always being present. Social influence was the factor that brought all the injustices that the Invisible Man experienced during his life.

La Casa De Los Espíritus

2005-03-25T05:31:00.000-08:00

The subject that occupies this novel reflects without ambiguities the contradictions between the rural area and the city. The fight of classes, and the ideological confusions and uncertainties of one country: Chile. Isabel Allende thoroughly identified, not only the horrors of the military junta, but also the dangers of a Marxist dictatorship. Most of the people from the outside of the city were neither educated nor cultured. Small communities, like the ones described by Allende in her book, are exactly the way rural communities are in South America. They have no schools and no centers to learn about art. In such communities there is neither reading, nor nothing. The poor men from Las Tres Marias did not know how to read or write, and for that reason, there was not much scientific development around their plantations and farms. Nevertheless, the rich had monopolized the schools and all possible access to a decent and cultured life. Since everything was almost governed with money, the rich were the ones with the best education, and greater possibilities of learning and recreating. That resentment was the main originator of the Socialist and Marxist movement outspreaded in Chile. Later generations started to experience the great scientific changes that began to occur and remain until our times.
Blanca is a woman who is quite normal, with a great capacity to love. The fact of having known Pedro gives drama and suspension to the novel. Besides the tragedies between families, love is something that surrounds the whole story: Esteban’s adventures; Alba’s and Miguel’s bond; Pedro Segundo and Clara, and Blanca’s love: the prohibited one.

DUPLESSIS

2005-03-13T21:02:00.000-08:00

“For the past 10 years I haven’t written any poem not called Drafts. Very soon after I began the form, I realized I was in a long poem project. The poems are autonomous but inter-dependent. Each one has closure, but they’re strung together in serial form.” (DuPlessis, 1999)
Duplessis poems presented in class were quite complicated to read. Rachel Blau DuPlessis’ poems are challenging. She has a particular way of writing. She plays with language, still remaining true to what she wants to communicate. DuPlessis does what all good poets must do: She crosses boundaries. The language of her poems makes her different from other poets. She is obsessed with syntax. Her visual imagination is rich, and she has an enormous capacity for wordplay

Question for Rachael Blau DuPlessiss

2005-03-12T05:00:00.000-08:00

What is your favorite place to write? Do you like writing about something in particular? When you go back and read your old poems, what do you see and feel?

ANTIGONE

2005-02-17T20:58:00.000-08:00

Bertolt Brecht presents us the figure of Antigone as a transgressor personage. This character defines herself to go beyond the law. She confronts the tyrant to do what her heart dictates her. She represents the filial love, able to sacrifice her life to honor her dead brother. Antígone fights for the only option that seems right for her: with courage, she confronts the absurd law promulgated by Kreon. Antígone takes reins of the case and follows her impulses of love; she knows that she is doing the correct thing and that soon Kreon will regret.
Bertolt Brecht made some changes to the original story to appeal to modern readers but the principal mythological and fantastical idea of “Antigone” still remains in every dialogue of Brecht’s theatrical work. \

El Corrido de Gregorio Cortez

2005-02-11T06:30:00.000-08:00

The “Corrido” was a very important tradition of the Mexican and Texan culture. A Corrido talked about a community’s history and served as a tool for future generations for the examination of history. Also it was a way to keep and continue a community’s culture and tradition in general. “Corridos” are considered a form of art. By sharing stories and songs, the Mexican culture remained preserved. These fantastical stories used to pay tribute to important members of certain communities that were respected by the Texan-Mexican society. It is important that people can express their opinions and feelings. All corridos have powerful messages that express the opinions of a group of people on an important person or situation. This type of music tells the history of “Mexicanos-Tejanos” in its own words. I believe that “Corridos” were a very useful type of expression and also a good and easy way to pass history, tradition, and culture to their children and grandsons, orally. It was important during its time also because some people could not read the news. With the “Corridos” they could know what it was happening. It was a form of expression to the injustice.

Bodas de Sangre - Gabriel Garcia Lorca

2005-02-10T14:39:00.000-08:00

I believe that the main subjects that appear in this theatrical drama are the life and the death. Both appear in a special way, where the atmosphere is based on myths, legends and landscapes. These characteristics in Lorca’s Blood Wedding, surprise and introduce the reader into a world of loves and tragic betrayals that derive in the jealousy, persecution, and like the book’s tragic end, the Death. In this book, like in many others written by Gabriel Garcia Lorca, he reflects the subject of love as the only force that can win over death. Although death is always present in his stories, the true love will unite the lovers forever.

The Awakening

2005-01-22T21:53:00.000-08:00

Chopin’s story narrates Edna Pontellier’s “awakening.” In the beginning of the story, the author portrays a strong Edna that gets tired of the patriarchal life that she was living in. She then decides to separate herself from the “high class” way of living, and starts following her ambitions. But when we all thought that Edna was going to finally accomplish her desires, and become the painter that she always wanted to be, was when she disappointed us completely by giving up everything that she started to fight for. Edna could not figure out how to live with the complexity of the freedom she fought so hard to adopt for herself. She started getting confused, finding herself with few alternatives. It was obvious that she didn’t want to go back to her old “Creole elite” world, but, was suicide the solution?

The Yellow Wallpaper

2005-01-22T16:10:00.000-08:00

The woman in the story is the author herself, trying to communicate to the reader the suffering that she went through before writing this story. Due to Gilman's illness, she was not allowed to write either. She felt oppressed, just like the character she created in her story. Gilman wrote The Yellow Wallpaper, as a way of comfort and relief; it was her remedy, the only way to free her mind from all the tensions surrounding her. She developed the woman's character according to her own passed experiences. Gilman's purpose was the one of proving herself, and everybody around her, that writing wouldn't make her worst. She kept on writing, she kept on dreaming. The author followed her passion. She did what she thought it would make her feel better, and that is the message that she wants us to get from her reading.

Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglas

2005-01-17T21:53:00.000-08:00

“Master, however, was not a humane slaveholder.” (p. 8; Ch 9)
These words, written by Frederick Douglas himself, represent exactly what slaveholders were: inhumane. After reading the first chapters of his autobiography, I envisioned, once again, all the cruelty and oppression that slaves had to experience and suffer throughout their lives. Though American slavery was mainly based on skin color, it is still very similar to slavery developed in the South part of the continent. Latin American slavery was also based on race, the difference is that Spaniards, in their conquered land, not only took away the native’s rights, they also took away their culture. America, nowadays, holds proudly a big African American population. Unfortunately, Latin America did not have people like Frederick Douglas to take the initiative and fight against the barbarism and savagery that was taking place in their land. In Latin America, the result was terrifying, it concluded in the lost of a complete civilization.
“…fortunate for the multitudes, in various parts of our republic, whose minds he has enlightened on the subject of slavery, and who have been melted to tears by his pathos, or roused to virtuous indignation by his stirring eloquence against the enslavers of men!—fortunate for himself, as it at once brought him into the field of public usefulness, “gave the world assurance of a MAN,” quickened the slumbering energies of his soul, and consecrated him to the great work of breaking the rod of the oppressor, and letting the oppressed go free!” (p.2; Preface)