A Doll House

While reading this play it became very difficult to follow the closer to the end that I came. In the end I was very confused and after reading and re-reading quite a few times I believe I have figured out what is so difficult for me. Nora is completely insane. She loses all recognition of logic and reason and forgets all ethics and morals that seemed to me to be natural for a person to have.

                In the beginning of the play Nora is talking to her childhood friend Kristine Linde about how wonderful her life is with her lovely children and wonderful husband and all of the security of the money and home they have together. On page 867 she tells Kristine that she doesn’t want anything to ruin their “beautiful, happy home”. She is willing to sacrifice wearing the fine clothes that she enjoys and giving up some of her luxuries just to be sure that her husband was alive and well. He means that much to her, but then by the end of the play we see that he feels the same way about her and wants her to be happy and peaceful and is willing to accept that she was willing to do her duty to try to take care of him and love him “the way a wife ought to love her husband” and he loves her even more in that moment than he had previously. For some reason she is unable to accept his love for her and his forgiveness. It makes no sense that after he realizes that he can talk to her and will be able to have her as his equal and tells her that he will “guide her and teach her” that she should be unhappy when earlier in the story she was happy with knowing that she had contributed to the household with her copying! Then on page 908 she tells her husband the reason she is leaving her husband and children is because she has a duty to herself because she is not less than him, yet he has just admitted that she is worth more than what he previously thought and would like for her to be able to have more responsibility. The only thing I can possibly imagine is that because she has never really had to run a home and try to work enough to pay the bills and pay for everything for herself and she is used to a certain way of life she will come to her senses sooner or later and come back and accept his love and forgiveness for lying to him about his money that he worked for so he could provide for his wife and children, although that would seem to be the logical way of thinking and it seems that where the story left off she is missing the common sense way of thinking.

To my Dear and Loving Husband

This poem is interesting but overall very unrealistic to me. Although it does not state the length of time that the two that the poem is about have been together it seems impossible that this is not an exaggerated telling of the way that she feels. It seems as though to me that true love is more calm and peaceful in its knowledge of itself and it does not have the need to boast of itself or to give any repayment to the other. The poem repeatedly talks about the love that the author has and does not really talk about the love that the two of them share with one another which is contradictory to the first line of the poem which states that the two of them are actually one. I also feel that if the author is not exaggerating then there is still a problem only for that eventually that kind of passion and emotion has to change over time and that if it does then either one or both sides of the relationship will be disappointed about what it changes into and may feel resentful. It is very difficult to base a true relationship and partnership for life on what the author talks about. None of the poem is about a life together or any sort of reality of marriage and the life you must go through together. It says that they must persevere together but it makes me wonder if the author really has an idea of the things they will have to persevere together through. Not just the big events in life such as actually raising children and such but the everyday problems of money, home, family, work, changes in selves and boredom and time in general. It seems as though the author is trying to live in this idealized world where nothing is going to be different or change from that specific moment in time. To me true love is the kind that starts out as a slow gentle love, not a passionate one, and grows and changes over time and it becomes more beautiful and interesting over time because of those constant changes is always interesting to those that can see it and cant wait for it to change and evolve into the next phase, it is not stagnant and still. Many of the most beautifult things in the world are things that change and move over time and through the earth.

Claims

I was extremely surprised and upset by this poem. At first I really respected the grandmother for carrying eight children and then being able to sleep in comfort and to accept with her old age the idea of celibacy and all that has happened in her life and then I made the “mistake” of continuing onto the rest of the poem. I then felt some pity for her knowing that she had lost three of her children, her flesh and blood and how hard that must have been to get through yet she managed to do it and raise the other children until the author showed us exactly how she raised them. Telling your daughters that they steal your days and that they become your life as a prayer, the author gives the phrase very negative feelings and it may have to do with the italics making it seem insincere. When the author talks about the pact made with man and nature it almost seems as though the grandmother did not want to have any more children simply because she did not really want to be a mother and had never really wanted to be a mother and it was then that I lost the respect that I had had for her in the beginning of the poem. The idea of her dying was not a surprise but it was interesting that the author decided to use the images of the children that had passed away unwanted to show that the grandmother passed away the same way, at least to me, the same way, unwanted. All of their deaths were in some way related to the sea and the sea can vary from being very calm or very rough and is usually referred to, at least in my experience, as a feminine entity. This seems to make sense in this poem because it begins one way and then changes like the tide. I found it interesting that the last line talks about her “claiming back her territory” which I believe is talking about those babies that she had lost before. I would like to believe that she has regret for the way she treated her living children because she did not want to go through the pain of caring about them and then having them die like the other and now that she has died she can “know” her other children as she has all eternity with them, but I just can’t believe it.

Terminal Resemblance

This poem was very hard for me to read because it is talking about something so realistic in many people’s lives. I have heard the saying, “you don’t know what you have until it is gone” and this seems to fall perfectly into that. The narrator does not realize that those memories of conversations and interactions are the bond that the father and child share. In the beginning of the poem it talks about the fact that this is the last time they see their father. It seems from their description that the father is looking healthy and has come to terms with the medical problem he has. He is calm and is talking to his child to reassure them that there is nothing to be scared of in death. Whether we as the audience can trust that the child sees the truth and is talking to us as if denying it or actually doesn’t see the truth is a problem when it comes to any writing with a first-person narration. In line 25 the narrator recounts what it was that they said to their father but never in the poem do they actually talk about any emotion or thoughts they have. This seems to allow the audience to come to one of two conclusions: either the narrator has no bond with the father and no emotion towards him or they are trying to keep them well hidden because the emotions are that strong that one slip and they will fall into their emotions. It seems to me that the second conclusion is the more accurate one for a few reasons, but the main one is the subtle regret that shadows the words and shows through in the fact that the narrator wanted that connection to be stronger and wishes that maybe they would have had more time later to be able to strengthen their relationship. The hardest part is seeing that the narrator talks about the fact that there is “no embrace, nothing dramatic”. It is mentioned for a reason and it seems as though the child has regrets about the way the last interaction went even before it ended, which explains the trembling of the hand and not knowing how to show their parents how they feel. If I could talk to the narrator there is only one thing I would explain and that is the fact that their parents, both of them, probably knew the truth and felt a bond with their child that made it worthwhile for them.

A Raisin in The Sun

         I enjoyed reading this play greatly. In the beginning of the play much of Beneatha's family made fun of her for having pride in herself and her schooling, but in the end they all began to have pride in themselves and believed that they could have the life that they wanted. Although at one point Walter gave away a lot of money by accident, he still ended up trying to make his family proud and to give them everything that he could to make them happy and to move into a better home and better neighborhood, even though they were not welcome really into the neighborhood. When Walter is talking to his son Travis, the pride and belief in a good future comes out when he asks his son what he wants to be when he grows up and then gets upset when his son is not dreaming big enough. It is interesting that at one point Walter wants to invest in a liquor store so he doesn't have to work for anybody anymore and not have to work as hard as he had been, but once he made the mistake of giving the money away, his wife was willing to stand up and say that there are four grown adults in the house and that she will work even harder than she already does to be able to have a house. After listening to the arguments of the women and knowing that he is the only man in the house and that he has to show his son what a man does to be a good role model, he decides that he needs to be a different kind of man and not one that is always trying to get more money to spend but rather one that has something real to show for his money and life even though the money that was used was from his father’s death. On page 493 the character Asagai and Beneatha begin talking to one another and the conversation becomes extremely philosophical as to the reason why people bother to learn things and care about themselves and the world that they may or may not be able to change.  He explains to her that sometimes it is not about one person changing the world, but about many people changing their own world and spreading what they have learned to the people who do not have access to it. That for me is the most important part of the story. When you think of yourself you lose what you think is most important, but when you think in terms of family, community and home, you will always be able to have something to offer and to help with.

Trifles revisited

Susan Glaspell was really good at dropping hints throughout the story about other things than directly mattered. for example, we can decide why Mrs. Hale defended Mrs. Wright. When the county attorney is talking about the mess in the house she is quick to point out that there is a lot of work to do on the farm. She says this stiffly as if it was towards her which as a reader makes me believe that her house is probably in the same condition and with this little bit of information I can imagine that this is the connection between them. Maybe she begins to think to herself about what would make her do something like this because these two women used to be so much alike and had the same life on a farm with the same responsibilities. Because they were so much alike Mrs. Hale feels even more guilty for not making time to spend with her neighbor when they may have been good friends and they could have talked to each other about their problems. Mrs. Hale also understands that Mrs. Wright did not have a chance to clean the house before she left even if the police had given her time to do it they would not have let her because of evidence.
           Mrs. Hale begin to tell Mrs. Peters about Miss Minnie Foster, who thirty years ago became Minnie Wright after marrying John Foster. That she used to be happy and lively back then and now she stayed to herself and didn't feel that she could help anyone. She was even so off of herself that she was not sewing well and Mrs. Peters was putting together that she was upset about something. So both women had some sort of proof of the kind of life she may have lived and her mind the day that all of this happened. Both women begin to purposefully look for things that in their minds would show not if Mrs. Wright had done it or not, but if she did, why she would have and if she had reason. Mrs. Hale said one thing that did strike me a little on pg. 919 "I could've come. I stayed away because it wasn't cheerful-and that is why I ought to have come." This made me think of those, and I am guilty of it, of staying away from people who seem depressing or down because we don't want to be down, instead of trying to bring them up a little and show them what hope looks like. It was bad enough in the house that the neighbor stopped coming over. Then the women begin to talk about the kind of man that Mr. Wright was. From context clues I can believe that he was very serious and liked routine and did not want anything extra in his life. Almost like he just wanted to get through life as quickly and quietly as possible. Because he was so quiet and "cold", they deduced that he was the reason she wanted a bird. They had no children and women love to have something to take care of to feel important. When Mrs. Peters begins to talk to the men about the bird she begins to understand more about how Mrs. Wright felt by a mutual event that took place in both of their lives and even admits how upset it made her and she begins to understand that Mr. Wright may have taken the only little bit of love his wife had and killed it himself. She implies that he killed her spirit because "She used to sing. He killed that too." This entire story is not necessarily only men against women, it is about love and life and allowing each other to live it and to enjoy it together with your friends, family, neighbors, and community. That we are stronger when we are many and together than we are alone and vulnerable.

We did not fear the father...yet

We did not fear the father really touched me. Out of all the poems we read in this section I think this was the most real and true to the life of a man in the early 1900's. I know it wasn't written that far long ago, but it gives the feeling of this time to me. A man back then provided for his family and worked all day everyday if that is what it took to feed and clothe his family. In this poem the father works as a barber six days a week in order to pay for the extras in their lives such as "licorice, filled the offering plate, and paid for the keeper who clipped our grape vines under his own pageant." I think it is important also to see that he took care of the people that worked for him and made sure that he was able to pay them by working other jobs. A farm job is difficult to do all on your own or even  with the entire family helping it can be hard. When The father has help he made sure they knew they were appreciated.
           The father also had turned their home into a three-story tenement in order to make or save money and would have had to have been available to his renters at any time day or night if there was a problem. It mentions that the house was over a hundred years old before they began living there so there was probably a lot of work that would have needed to be done, yet he kept it in good condition for his family and renters. This is a lot of responsibility already and then the poem goes on to describe a third job of working nights in a factory. It was loud and probably a little dangerous "shaping molten metal into ball bearings". It certainly seemed dangerous to the son and narrator as he talks about the noise and fear they felt in those eight hours he was gone. Throughout this poem he is doing all of these jobs but he is also being a father and a provider. He is strong and continues day after day to do what is expected of him as all four positions demand it. He was always strong and never complained about his work he just continued on day after day to make sure that everything was taken care of. The children were never scared for him because he stood strong and brave and faced each day with pride and his head up. but it is not until they see their father stooped and tired and in the twilight of his life and losing his strength and youth they they begin to get scared of there father himself. As I look over the poem again I realize that they probably see what is expected of them in their father and when he begins to get older and weaker, they begin to understand that this is what is going to happen to them and they begin to fear not only their father but what their father symbolized. Life goes on and the one day it does not.