I'm going to finish and start all of these blogs tomorrow

I originally wrote this blog entry on Jaunary 8th, and it's now January 25th. Even though I started them 2 1/2 weeks after I said I would, that doesn't matter now, because they're done.

Done with exams, done with blogs. AP Lit exam on Monday and then I am completely worry-free... until teachers start assigning homework again. Hooray.

Heart of Darkness- FINISHED

I have the idea in my head that since I put little to no effort into doing the questions for this book that were assigned as homework, it's acceptable for me to use the symbols and quotes from the assignment papers since I didn't do much (or anything) with them anyway. I'll try harder this time, I promise.

Analysis of Quote:

"You don't talk with that man-- you listen to him" (insert page # here).

This quote is representative of the "inner voice" that everyone possesses that only they can hear and understand. Kurtz is a human symbol of the inner evil of Marlow, so Kurtz's voice represents Marlow's inner voice. By saying "you listen to him," the narrator is explaining how one cannot speak aloud with their inner voice but can only listen to it for themselves. Because of this, Marlow can only to listen to Kurtz, the personification of his own "inner voice," but he cannot use his own voice to communicate. By saying "You don't talk with that man" (meaning, you don't talk with your inner voice) the narrator could also be explaining how one cannot talk to or reason with their inner voice since it "says what it wants to say" and there is nothing a person can do to control their thoughts.

Analysis of Symbol:

Evil spirit in the boiler

The evil spirit in this scene is a symbolic representation of tribal African culture. It is referring to the rituals done by different tribes regarding faith, good and evil, morality, etc. By other cultures, European colonists in this book, these rituals are viewed as strange and foreign, and they are not understood for what they are. The boiler containing the evil spirit symbolizes the destruction of the culture of the native people by the European colonists whose main goal is profit through the sale of ivory. It represents the evil selfishness of the colonists, Mr. Kurtz in particular, that he has the capacity to destroy a culture with complete lack of regard for his own personal gain.

Reflection:

I think I actually like this blog assignment because it gives me a place to talk about the extreme amount of dislike I have for this book and get credit for writing it. First of all, I read the book legitimately from beginning to end twice, and I still am basically clueless about it. It took me an entire day to read it through the first time, and I had to set my alarm every 20 minutes so I would wake up since I fell asleep about after every two pages. I just could not grasp the story at all and I spent most of my "reading" time just staring at the words on the pages. The word choice, the plot itself, and the tiny ancient-looking font all made it incredibly painful to read. I don't know if it was vague or just worded in a way that didn't make sense to me, but I just could not seem to see a point to the story at all. The only reason why I'm able to write this blog is that I remember some of the things we discussed in class. The best thing that I found about this book is that after reading it, I will never complain about another book we read in class. It gave me a much greater appreciation for the other books that I didn't necessarily enjoy reading.

Invisible Man- FINISHED

Quote Analysis-

"I took the cup and sipped it, black. It was bitter. She glanced from me to the sugar bowl and back again but remained silent, then swirled her cup looking into it. 'Guess I'll have to get some better filters,' she mused. 'These I got just lets through the grounds along with the coffee, the good with the bad'" (323).


This quote, like the endless other references made to color and race in this book, symbolizes the differences and relationship between black people and white people. The black, bitter tasting coffee represents how the narrator is viewed by others as a black man. Black people are seen as a "bitter" race of people as they are stereotyped to be lazy, violent, unintelligent, unimportant, etc. The sugar in this quote is also a racial reference: the sugar is white and sweet-tasting while the coffee is black, impure because it is full of grounds, and bitter-tasting. Most people prefer their coffee with sugar in it because it makes it sweeter and better to drink, which is a reference to the white superiority in the novel. Mary's dialogue about needing to get better filters to separate the good from the bad is symbolic of racial segregation and black inferiority that is present in American society at the time in which the novel takes place.

Symbol- The Briefcase

The briefcase is a symbol of the narrator's journey from the South to the North, during which he searches for an identity and undergoes many character changes and faces many conflicts both with himself and with other people that he encounters along the way. Everything that he works for in order to establish a place in society and a life for himself, from his school in the South to the work he finds when he arrives in Harlem to his involvement with the Brotherhood, is carried in the briefcase. It contains his temporary successes as well as his struggles and disappointments. When he burns the briefcase at the end of the novel, his purpose for doing so is that he needs a light source for the hole that he is living in. The destruction of the briefcase for light represents him ridding himself of the false hope that had been present ever since he left the campus and made his way to Harlem. With this light, he is able to come out of the darkness of the hole, which is ironic since it is the false hope and lies that he carried around with him that enables him to get out of the darkness. He develops as a person as he works to overcome the struggles of false hope that he faces throughout the novel, and this gives him the ability to see the difference between truths and lies.

Reflection:

The length of this book and the, well, ridiculous, amount of symbolism and allusions made it exhausting to read, and by the time I was halfway done with it I was very ready to just hand it back in and not finish it. However, I found it to be an easy book to analyze and discuss, and it was much less stressful trying to comprehend it than it was trying to get through Heart of Darkness twice. Although I thought the book was written very well and the use of symbols were very effective, I do think it became a little excessive. I would have enjoyed reading it much more if it were half the length that it is, because I would have not lost interest in it from reading it for too long a period of time. Also, I did like the themes present in the story and I thought it conveyed a much stronger, clearer message than the majority of the other books we have read this year.

Player Piano- FINISHED

Analysis of Quote:

"Anita slept-- utterly satisfied, not so much by Paul as by the social orgasm of, after years of the system's love play, being offered Pittsburgh" (135).

This quote describes the relationship between Paul and Anita, and what Anita is truly concerned about. In a world where material objects and social status are the only important aspects of life, Anita is much more focused on Paul as a high-status business man than as her husband. The use of the words "social orgasm"and "system's love play" show that economic and social status are synonomous in Anita's mind with human interaction and affection. Paul would be nothing to her without his career. Although she and Paul say "I love you" to each other, it seems rather automatic and like it's not a genuine statement. It is as if they only say it because it's what's expected of them by societal standards as husband and wife.

Analysis of Symbol:

I think I should get extra points for having this picture of Ipecac on my phone and sending it to my email during class.

EPICAC computer system:

The EPICAC computer system is the functional basis of the entire city of Ilium. It represents the systematic society where interactions between people are not so much on an individual personal level as they are on a level concerning their place on the social and career ladder. Everyone in the career world (especially Anita, about Paul's career) is concerned with being the best and outcompeting everyone else for status. The EPICAC system is claimed to be such a high-tech system, with no other system coming close to its power and level of technological advancement. The name EPICAC alludes to a substance called Ipecac used to induce vomiting in people who have swallowed something fatally poisonous, and this reflects the nature of the impersonal, robotic society of Ilium as the people in it are allowing their lives to go to waste by having them revolve around things that are ultimately nothing but materialistic value.

Reflection:

After what I've heard about Kurt Vonnegut as an author from several people, particularly about his work Cat's Cradle, I expected to enjoy this book a lot more than I did. Although it was one of the easier ones to get through and understand, especially compared to Heart of Darkness, I found it to be rather uninteresting and uneventful, and I had a very difficult time getting into it when I picked it up to read it. There were no events in the book that really captured my interest and made me want to continue reading on. The part of the book that I found more entertaining than anything else was when the cat got shocked on the fence which made it pop and glow bright green. It was the only image in the book that I could actually get a good picture of in my head, and it made the book a little more enjoyable. Overall, I liked this book more than the other two we read this marking period, but I would have liked it to have a little more action throughout the book.