Comedy- The Taming of the Shrew FINISHED

Passage: Act 4, Scene 3-

KATHARINA
The more my wrong, the more his spite appears:

What, did he marry me to famish me?

Beggars, that come unto my father's door,

Upon entreaty have a present aims;

If not, elsewhere they meet with charity:

But I, who never knew how to entreat,

Nor never needed that I should entreat,

Am starved for meat, giddy for lack of sleep,

With oath kept waking and with brawling fed:

And that which spites me more than all these wants,

He does it under name of perfect love;

As who should say, if I should sleep or eat,

'Twere deadly sickness or else present death.

I prithee go and get me some repast;

I care not what, so it be wholesome food.

GRUMIO
What say you to a neat's foot?

KATHARINA
'Tis passing good: I prithee let me have it.

GRUMIO
I fear it is too choleric a meat. How say you to a fat tripe finely broil'd?

KATHARINA
I like it well: good Grumio, fetch it me.

GRUMIO
I cannot tell; I fear 'tis choleric.What say you to a piece of beef and mustard?

KATHARINA
A dish that I do love to feed upon.

GRUMIO
Ay, but the mustard is too hot a little.

KATHARINA
Why then, the beef, and let the mustard rest.

GRUMIO
Nay then, I will not: you shall have the mustard,
Or else you get no beef of Grumio.

KATHARINA
Then both, or one, or any thing thou wilt.

GRUMIO
Why then, the mustard without the beef.

KATHARINA
Go, get thee gone, thou false deluding slave,
Beats him
That feed'st me with the very name of meat:
Sorrow on thee and all the pack of you,
That triumph thus upon my misery!
Go, get thee gone, I say.

Enter PETRUCHIO and HORTENSIO with meat

PETRUCHIO
How fares my Kate? What, sweeting, all amort?

HORTENSIO
Mistress, what cheer?

KATHARINA
Faith, as cold as can be.

PETRUCHIO
Pluck up thy spirits; look cheerfully upon me.
Here love; thou see'st how diligent I am
To dress thy meat myself and bring it thee:
I am sure, sweet Kate, this kindness merits thanks.
What, not a word?
Nay, then thou lovest it not;
And all my pains is sorted to no proof.
Here, take away this dish.

KATHARINA
I pray you, let it stand.

PETRUCHIO
The poorest service is repaid with thanks;
And so shall mine, before you touch the meat.

KATHARINA
I thank you, sir.

HORTENSIO
Signior Petruchio, fie! you are to blame.
Come, mistress Kate, I'll bear you company.

This interaction between Grumio (the servant) and Kate illustrates the comedic nature of the play by presenting Grumio as a character who likes to provoke ridiculous arguments and Kate as a very atypical woman of this time period (a "shrew") who also displays some ridiculous behavior herself. The argument at hand here begins with Kate, never living a day of her life in poverty between growing up in the home of her wealthy father to now being courted the wealthy Petruchio, complaining how she was taken away from her wealthy home and married only to be starved by her new husband. In relation to the length of the act and the play itself, this back-and-forth argument (where the two reach no significant consensus) between Grumio and Kate over something as trivial as beef is very lengthy and gives the play a comic tone by showing the ludicrous behavior that is hardly ever displayed in this society by a rich woman such as Kate.

Commentary on the Genre of Comedy

Shakespearean comedies, while they are obviously of a totally different nature from tragedies and histories in which the entire play is presented on such a dark and depressing note, do not really fit the typical definition of "comedy" that we know today, which usually involves stories that provoke actual laughter and are often of a more outward, obviously funny nature than those written by Shakespeare. The element of Shakespearean comedy that definitely sets it apart most from the other genres is the far lighter mood and ending that does not involve the murder or suicide of every major character. Often the subject of comedy in these plays involves courtship, so the focus is on love rather than death. The plays also come with a lighthearted nature that is brought to the audience through ludicrous scenarios that simply offer an enjoyable story that does not provoke any extreme emotion or require any deep, serious thought.

Personal Reflection

I would absolutely consider the genre of comedy to be my favorite Shakespearean genre, with The Taming of the Shrew being my favorite play that we have read this year. When I found out that we were being assigned something written by Shakespeare that did not involve hundreds of pages of death, destruction, murder, suicide, bloody violence, and suicide, it brought me a huge sense of relief. The reason why I had a negative predisposition to Shakespeare when we first started reading the plays in class is because I had formerly only known the story lines of Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet, both of which I found to be annoyingly and unnecessarily repetitive in their horrific events that take place throughout the entire play, and both of them I found to have extremely disappointing endings. The Taming of the Shrew and A Midsummer Night's Dream, gave me a much-needed break from the tragedy I had known as Shakespeare and actually gave me something enjoyable to read. As for the story itself, I knew right away that I would enjoy the story because the first scene starts out with cross-dressing. Typically, I don't find cross-dressing to be particularly funny, but the fact that it was found in a play that was written in the 1500's I found hilarious. In addition, while I didn't find the actual concept of the "shrew" of a woman to be funny compared to the things in today's world that are funny, the fact that these sorts of things WERE a subject of comedy in Shakespeare's time made me approach it with the attitude that it would be a comedic and enjoyable story, and it helped me to appreciate the play much more.

History- Richard III FINISHED

I love the little chart for this book with the little cartoon people on it.

Passage- Act 1, Scene 4:

BRAKENBURY
Why looks your grace so heavily today?

CLARENCE
O, I have pass'd a miserable night,
So full of ugly sights, of ghastly dreams,
That, as I am a Christian faithful man,
I would not spend another such a night,
Though 'twere to buy a world of happy days,
So full of dismal terror was the time!

BRAKENBURY
What was your dream? I long to hear you tell it.

CLARENCE
Methoughts that I had broken from the Tower,
And was embark'd to cross to Burgundy;
And, in my company, my brother Gloucester;
Who from my cabin tempted me to walk
Upon the hatches: thence we looked toward England,
And cited up a thousand fearful times,
During the wars of York and Lancaster
That had befall'n us.
As we paced along
Upon the giddy footing of the hatches,
Methought that Gloucester stumbled; and, in falling,
Struck me, that thought to stay him, overboard,
Into the tumbling billows of the main.
Lord, Lord! methought, what pain it was to drown!
What dreadful noise of waters in mine ears!
What ugly sights of death within mine eyes!
Methought I saw a thousand fearful wrecks;
Ten thousand men that fishes gnaw'd upon;
Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl,
Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels,
All scatter'd in the bottom of the sea:
Some lay in dead men's skulls; and, in those holes
Where eyes did once inhabit, there were crept,
As 'twere in scorn of eyes, reflecting gems,
Which woo'd the slimy bottom of the
deep,
And mock'd the dead bones that lay scatter'd by.

This passage foreshadows one of the most important events that takes place in the play: the drowning of Clarence after his brother Richard III (Gloucester) orders him killed. In the Tower of London, the same place where he is later murdered by order of his brother Richard III, Clarence (Richard's brother) describes a nightmare he had to the keeper of the tower. In this nightmare, Clarence dreams of escaping the tower and fleeing by ship with Richard, only to be betrayed by his own brother on the journey to France and thrown overboard to die. His conversation with the keeper of the tower shows the trust he has for his brother and the denial that Richard in fact wants him dead. He is refusing to listen to his subconscious that is warning him that he will soon be betrayed. Because of this denial of Richard's evil capabilities (since they seem far too horrible for anyone to believe), this passage contributes to the evil and horror that the audience sees in the character of Richard.

Commentary on the History Genre:

Unlike the fiction-based genres of tragedy and comedy in Shakespearean plays, histories are based on true events, which makes for a unique approach to reading them. Although there are many similarities between tragedies and comedies written by Shakespeare (the main characters almost always die, there is usually a "tragic hero" and clear sides of "good" and "evil," many characters are betrayed and brutally murdered, etc.), the major difference between the two is the way the plays end. With tragedies, the story often ends on a hopeless note, not leaving any room for closure or uplifting events since all the characters, heros included, have inevitably all met their untimely deaths by the end and leave nothing else to be said or done. Histories, contrarily, are based on real events, so the ending of the plays such as Richard III, although the main characters die in this play as well, still leave room to continue the story, as true history never has an "end."

Personal Reflection:

When comparing the Shakespearean plays in the tragedy genre to those in the history genre (namely Macbeth to Richard III), I strongly favored Richard III to Macbeth. While Macbeth to me seemed like nothing more than a predictable plot filled with certain death for every character involved, Richard III, because of its basis on actual English historical events, left a lot more at the end to consider. Even though I don't have a very broad knowledge of English history, knowing that the events that occurred in Richard III led to so many more stories to be told of different rulers, struggles for power, wars, etc. made it much easier for me to enjoy the play and stay focused on reading it. When reading Macbeth, I found it so difficult to pay attention to the play while reading it because, knowing the events were fictional, it seemed like it was extremely exaggerated and just overdone with the murder and death. Richard III on the other hand, was far more interesting to me since I knew it was based on actual events, giving me more to think about (fathoming how a real historical figure could have been as evil and corrupt as King Richard III).

Tragedy- Macbeth FINISHED

Passage: Act 1, Scene 5

The raven himself is hoarse
That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan
Under my battlements.
Come, you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,
And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full
Of direst cruelty! make thick my blood;
Stop up the access and passage to remorse,
That no compunctious visitings of nature
Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between
The effect and it!
Come to my woman's breasts,
And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers,
Wherever in your sightless substances
You wait on nature's mischief!
Come, thick night,
And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,
That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,
Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,
To cry 'Hold, hold!'

This soliloquy by Lady Macbeth is perhaps one of the most recognized and important passages in the entire play. In this quote, she is calling upon the evil spirits to inhabit her body, to take away her nurturing and compassionate feminine features and transform her into a strong, powerful, ruthless character with the power to convince Macbeth to kill Duncan. It is central to the play's theme of gender role reversal. Because Macbeth is too compassionate and weak-willed to kill King Duncan, even if his own future as king depends on it, so Lady Macbeth must assume the responsibility of plotting and carrying out the plan to kill Duncan to ensure that the prophecy of the Three Witches will become reality and Macbeth will become king. Because Lady Macbeth comes up with this secret plan to have Duncan murdered, she and Macbeth eventually becomes obsessed with it and begin envisioning permanent blood on their hands and seeing ghosts. The significance of this quote is that it shows that the power of Lady Macbeth over the male characters in this novel ultimately contributes to the deaths of everyone involved, includingherself.

Commentary on the tragedy genre:

This Shakespearean genre is characterized by its plots that always involve every major character dying a horrible death by the end of the play. All Shakespeare's tragedies convey a central message that a character's actions cannot be changed or forgotten about; even if all the characters are dead by the end, the events leading up to their deaths will never change. Essentially, tragedies simply dramatize the inevitable reality of every human existence: no matter how rich, powerful, or heroic a person is, no one can escape the defeat of death. While certainly not all deaths in real life occur as they do in Shakespearean plays, through bloody battles, poisoning, or anything else of that horrific nature, the graphic and extreme presentation of the deaths of both heroes and villains definitely emphasize this central message of tragedies.

Personal Reflection:

Tragedies are by far my least favorite genre of Shakespeare plays. The major reason for this is that it is always known before the play even begins that somehow, every single character is going to die some horrible death, and no one will be left at the end to give the play any closure. The two tragic Shakespeare plays that I have read are Romeo and Juliet and Macbeth, and I found both (particularly Macbeth, since I had no knowledge of the plot prior to reading it) to be some of the hardest works of literature to get through reading, not because of the language or the complexity of the plot itself, but because I just found the events to be so ridiculous and repetitively terrible. In Macbeth, Macbeth is portayed as an evil murderer even though he really should have been considered a hero. Macduff should really be the character who leaves his legacy as the villain because he kills the "tragic hero." I found that the play, like most other tragedies, did not give any of the characters justice based on their roles throughout the course of the play, whether they were portrayed as good or evil.

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Analysis of Quote:

(I am far too AP-literature-exhausted at this point to search through this entire book for a quote to analyze, so here's an analysis of the first paragraph of the book. Hey, I'm still making a good effort, right?)

"Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow coming down along the road and this moocow that was coming down along the road met a nicens little boy named baby tuckoo... His father told him that story: his father looked at him through a glass: he had a hairy face. He was baby tuckoo. The moocow came down the road where Betty Byrne lived: she sold lemon platt" (Joyce 3).

This quote, not because it's the first one in the book, is actually one of my favorites in the novel. It's not often that you read a college-level novel with childish language and imagery in it, and I really enjoy this unconventional use of juvenile language. Despite the belief of many that children are difficult to understand, I believe this actually helps the reader to understand the book better. When Stephen was a young child, as most children at this age do, he used very literal and matter-of-fact terms to describe what he was seeing, without any figurative language or sophisticated vocabulary like a person such as Stephen with a passion for language would use. He repeats the exact same phrase more than once, for example he says "the moocow coming down the road" three times in just two paragraphs. Although this coming from a young child would typically be viewed as a juvenile attempt to express ideas through speech without the necessary experience with words to make a sentence sound intelligent and clear, I actually viewed this as a foreshadowing to the development of his passion for words and writing poetry. A very common and effective literary device in sophisticated and respected poetry, after all, is repetition. (*Sidenote- you can tell I just spent four hours analyzing the literary devices used in poetry)

Analysis of Symbol/Theme:

Birds and flight

There are many religious allusions throughout the entire novel such as the Bible, Latin phrases used in the Catholic faith, Greek mythology, etc. Stephen Dedalus' name itself is an allusion to the Greek god Daedalus, who designed a Labryinth for King Minos and is imprisoned by the king on the island of Crete, but he is able to craft a set of wings and use them to escape by way of flight. This desire of Daedalus to escape from imprisonment in Crete parallels the desire of Stephen to escape from his artistic and expressive imprisonment in Ireland, the home of his family and the Catholic church. At the end of the novel, Stephen sees birds flying freely in the sky, and this symbolizes his finally successful attempt at breaking away from the constraints of the church, the state, and his family to pursue his lifelong passion for art, despite the difficulty of the decision to leave everything he had ever known in life, especially his own family.

Reflection:

This novel was not the easiest one to get through, as we were all warned about before we started reading it in class, but I found that I was actually able to understand it fairly well after discussing it, but not just from reading it. Ultimately, I would say that I enjoyed the book mostly because I liked the uncommon structure used by Joyce (beginning it with Stephen as a young child and changing the style and language throughout the novel to reflect Stephen's changing personality as he ages and develops as an artist and a person). It was definitely no Heart of Darkness, as even though I didn't completely understand it and it was often frustrating to read on my own, I ended up coming to enjoy it the more I thought about it and listened to other people's reflections and interpretations.

Since I haven't done one since the last blog assignment, here's a rant

It's amazing how easy things are to get done once you're under enough pressure to finally start them and finish them in a limited amount of time. These five blogs are due today, and I started them about four hours ago with a few breaks here and there including a drive to Franklin just to get a $2 bagel, a fifteen minute "nap," some time on Webkinz, and of course, some time to write one of these rants that keep me going. I'm doing far better than I thought in my analysis of these poems. Instead of looking at them and going "Huh?" I've been able to look at every single one and write an intelligent analysis of it without struggle. Now that I've had the chance to point out to myself that I'm doing really well with completing this assignment, I'm going to go do my Portrait blog, and then I will be done =)

#238- "Riddle"

Analysis of Speaker/Rhyme/Meter:

Speaker: The speaker of this poem is a victim of the atrocities of the Holocaust. This is made apparent in the third stanza of the poem "My friend Fritz Nova lost his father-" (9), "My friend Lou Abrahms lost his brother" (11). By referring to these victims as his friends, the speaker is able to give the poem a better sense of reality. Like all Holocaust stories, those told by people who actually experienced it are more real, more memorable, and have a much greater impact on their listeners than the accounts found in textbooks and factual information sources. For this reason, the first-person perspective of this poem, although not obvious throughout the entire poem, makes it much more effective in making an impact on the reader.

Rhyme: There is an ABCB rhyme scheme in all but the fifth and sixth stanzas of the poem, the eight lines of which all begin with the same two words "and some" (17-24). In four of the remaining six stanzas that rhyme, one of the words in the pair of rhyming words is "Jews." Each of the lines containing this word is "Who killed the Jews?" The title of the poem is "Riddle," suggesting a mystery, or something that is questionable or unknown. One of the other rhymes in the poem is "engineer" (6) with "Albert Speer" (7). The riddle of the poem is obviously the riddle of who was responsible for the killing of the Jews during the Holocaust, but the other riddle contained in this is who specifically, meaning which of Adolf Hitler's Nazi officials, facilitated this mass genocide? By rhyming one of the names of a Nazi official, and beginning all the lines of the stanza with "not I," the poem expresses how denial of responsibility for murderous and permissive actions was an enormous part of the Holocaust that enabled it to continue for so many years without persecution. By not rhyming the lines of the fourth and fifth stanzas, the stanzas that list the various duties of Nazi officers at the concentration camps, duties that involved doing their part in the extermination of Jews, the poem portrays these jobs as silent, trying to make them as little known by outsiders as possible in order to prevent persecution of the officers for their actions. It places further emphasis on the denial aspect of the question of responsibility "Who killed the Jews?"

Meter: Although each of the eight stanzas has four lines of relatively even length, they are not all the same structurally and rhythmically. The first, third, fourth, seventh, and eighth lines have a similar meter pattern and a common idea of the losses and horrific experiences that the Jews endured during the Holocaust, such as "[...] a crate of gold teeth" (1), "[...] Fritz Nova lost his father-" (9), "David Nova swallowed gas" (13), "Some smelled the smoke" (24), and "[...] gold, [...] shoes, [...] skin" (29-31). The remaining stanzas, the second, fifth, and sixth, have similar rhythm and meter amongst themselves, unlike the previously mentioned stanzas with their own different meter pattern. These three stanzas have the rhythm of stress being placed on the first two words of the line, "not I" in the second stanza and "and some" in the fifth and sixth stanzas. While the previously mentioned stanzas focus more on the victims of the Holocaust, the latter mentioned stanzas focus more on the Nazi officials who caused them to become victims of genocide. By giving these stanzas a more pronounced rhythm than the stanzas focused on the victims, it makes it obvious that those who participated in the Holocaust were most concerned with covering their own tracks and denying all faults than they were concerned with their victims having a voice and an identity.

Analysis of 2 Literary Devices:

Personification: Personification is not used until the last stanza of the poem, but in just these four lines, this device contributes significantly to the overall meaning of the poem. The three things that are personified as having memories, the stars, the sun, and the moon, are elements of nature that are always present in the sky, no matter what the conditions are on Earth. These three celestial objects are present in the most beautiful and the most horrific situations on Earth, and they oversee both situations alike. By personifying them as being the only ones that can always remember the atrocities and evils of the Holocaust, it contributes to the meaning of the title of the poem, "Riddle." The stars, the sun, and the moon may be able to remember the events that happened in the concentration camps, but the last line, the final question "But who killed the Jews?" still remains a riddle, a mystery to humans on Earth who were not there to witness it. One thing the stars, the sun, and the moon cannot do as humans is answer this ultimate question.

Repetition: The three phrases in this poem that are significantly repeated are "not I" (4-7), "and some" (15-24), and "Who killed the Jews?" (4, 12, 28, 32). The first two repeated elements emphasize the secrecy and denial of the aggressors of the Holocaust as well as the enormity of their actions involved in creating the machine that killed so many millions of Jews. "Not I" (4-7) obviously stresses the fact that the Nazi officials want the world to believe that the genocide was not their fault, and they refuse to admit to being the answer to the question "Who killed the Jews?" "And some" (15-24) refers also to the actions of the Nazi officials during the Holocaust, stressing the reality that so much was done to allow this mass murder of Jews to happen, despite the fact that none took the responsibility for this long list of actions such as standing guard (15), dropping the pellets (18), and clearing the rails (24). "Who killed the Jews?" gives meaning to the title of the poem. Despite how many times the answer to the question is repeated with the names of those who committed the crimes "[...] Adolf Eichmann,/[...] Albert Speer" (7-8) and their multitude of duties they fulfilled in taking part in the genocide, the repetition of this question expresses how we still aren't, and perhaps will never be, able to make the perpetrators take responsibility for the murder of the Jews.

Reflection:

After visiting the barracks of the Nazi concentration camp Dachau back in December when I went to Germany, the images in this poem as well as numerous other literary works I have read about the Holocaust, have much more of an impact on me. The mention of specific names of Nazis in the poem, Adolf Eichmann and Albert Speer, and the recollection of seeing their pictures on the walls in the museum at the camp, made the poem so much more effective in the poet's use of specific allusions to historical figures and places. Out of the four poems I chose to analyze, I enjoyed analyzing this one the most because I was most able to see the underlying meanings of the more subtle literary elements such as the rhyme scheme and personification used by the poet.

#232- "Snow White and the Seven Deadly Sins"

Analysis of Speaker/Rhyme/Meter:

Speaker: The speaker of this poem is omniscient. The lack of a first-person viewpoint helps the poem to be more thorough in its expression of the various allusions it contains. It allows the poem to encompass the meanings of all the biblical references, especially the Seven Deadly Sins. Also, the omniscient speaker connects to the idea of a fairy tale in the poem, as these types of fantasy stories are almost always told in third-person perspective.

Rhyme: The rhyme scheme of this poem, ABAB, is perhaps the most familiarly traditional pattern to readers of poetry and is consistent throughout the entire poem. The familiarity of this rhyme scheme and the fact that poetry is traditionally and stereotypically viewed as rhyming in this way, it emphasizes the idea that the poem is deeply involved with biblical and fairy tale references, perhaps the only two types of stories that can remain this solid and memorable and can withstand the test of time. Biblical stories and fairy tales are familiar to people of every generation, every age, and every historical period, and they never seem to become less effective or valuable as they are passed down through generations.

Meter: The meter of this poem (four lines of relatively similar length in each stanza), like the rhyme scheme of the poem, possesses perhaps the most traditional structure that a poem can have. Both the rhyme scheme and meter give the poem its classic and universally familiar tone, a tone of a fairy tale such as Snow White or a Bible story such as that of Peter, one of Jesus' twelve apostles.

Analysis of 2 Literary Devices:

Allusion: Allusion is the most obvious and effective literary device used in this poem. The two allusions in the poem are to the Bible (the Seven Deadly Sins in particular) and to the familiar fairy tale of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The connection between these two allusions are the significance of the number seven in both stories, and the concepts and corruptions of each of the Seven Deadly Sins and of the tale of Snow White, and especially how they relate to each other. The first stanza of the poem compares Snow White the princess to a "Good little Catholic girl,/ she didn't mind the cleaning" (1-2). Throughout the poem with the brief yet effective descriptions of the Seven Deadly Sins (emphasized with the use of italicization of the name of each sin), each of the sins are applied to Snow White's life and her work, for example "Pride's wall of looking glasses" (13) references the evil queen's Magic Mirror in the story of Snow White, "Gluttony's empties covered half the table" references the dinner that Snow White prepared for the seven dwarves upon their return from a hard day's work in the mines, and "Retrieving several pairs of Sloth's soiled drawers,/ A sweat-sock and a cake of hairy soap" (23-24) references the dwarves' lack of regard for personal hygiene and cleanliness prior to the arrival of Snow White to teach them better ways of living and to clean up after them. The last two stanzas point out perhaps the presence of lust and greed in the seemingly charming, fantastic, and happy ending of the tale when after she awakens, the handsome [lust] prince beckons Snow White to come with him on his beautiful, [and expensive] white horse [greed] and live happily ever after with him, the finest prince in the land, believed to be so because of his looks and his royal possessions. "In time to see a Handsome Prince, of course," (34). "So debonair! So charming! And so Male" (38).

Personification: The Seven Deadly Sins in the poem are described as having human possessions: "Pride's wall of looking glasses" (13), "Lust's magazines lay strewn" (15), "Gluttony's empties covered half the table" (17), "[...]Avarice's cards and chips" (18), and "[...] sloth's soiled drawers" (23). This personification allows the sins to be viewed on the same level with the same importance as the human characters in the loved and respected fairy tale of Snow White, despite the underlying immoralities and corruptions that are present in the people of this seemingly innocent and charming story. It compares the impulsive marriage of Snow White to the rich and handsome prince, "And she was out the window in a second,/In time to see a Handsome Prince, of course" (33-34), to the things defined as the most immoral by the Catholic church, the Seven Deadly Sins. Essentially, the personification of these sins also shows that Snow White the princess and her Handsome Prince are the human representations of these moral crimes.

Reflection:

Snow White and the Seven Dwarves has always been one of my favorite fairy tales, and I have always had an interest in the Seven Deadly Sins and the various different stories and metaphors written about them, but until reading this poem, I never made the connection between the two. I like how the poem is able to effectively compare two very unlike things, one of which is a childhood fantasy story and the other is a collection of the seven worst moral evils of the Christian faith. I really enjoyed the complexity of language and the parallels between these two familiar allusions. My favorite line of the poem was "No poisoned apple needed for this Princess" (29), showing how because there are already so many sins hidden beneath the innocence of the fairy tale, Snow White doesn't need an apple to be poisoned with evil.