Journals

A Ballad of John Silver - by John Masefield
Published in 1902
My initial reaction to the poem “A Ballad of John Silver" was what in the world is this? I can't understand a word that is written, but once I opened the dictionary and started looking up most of the words I did not understand. They ended up only being plain old technical terms (only known by ship men). Knowing what these terms finally meant I could understand the plot line of the poem more clearly the next time I read it compared to the original struggle to comprehend. This poem apart from the before unknown terms in the text, what added difficulty to the passage was that the author used language I wouldn't/ don't use on a daily basis since it was written at the beginning of the 20th century. Looking more deeply into the poem I discovered the poem was really and could possibly be most likely about a old ship man telling his story to his fellow shipmates or to some young men on the dock. The main idea that I perceived of the poem was that the narrator had been imprisoned in a ship and was glad that he did was imprisoned instead of having to walk the plank of the ship. The narrator seems to do this in a rather interesting fashion, by using slang instead of proper words or dialect of the era.

INCVICTUS  By William Ernest Henley
Published : 1875

The poem "Invictus" by William Ernest Henley was written in 1875, one of Henley's first works of literature. The language obviously being from the 3/4  of the 19th century, was difficult to understand the context and what the plot was about. After looking up the many words I did not understand, for example like the phrase: under the  bludgeonings of chance, translated to : under a very big pressure of misfortune, in the current language used by our society. After reading the text a couple of times I finally could understand the real meaning of the plot/ context.  I finally could understand that the narrator had been through an amputation ( or was going through ), and was trying to fight off the sharp pain. The title causes the reader to infer that the literary piece will be about responsibility, destiny and self will. In the end the poem does end up being about these things and about fighting for what you want, in this case, the narrator not wanting his foot/ leg amputated, suffering and self control.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer

The main ideas that are presented in “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" are trying to find something out that is very complex and a tiring voyage throughout one of the biggest cities in New York. Oskar basically does this to prove to himself that everything in this world has a meaning, even those that may seem to be the least obvious, may have the most interesting and complicated reasons for being and what their past, present or future may be. When Oskar mentions such things related to his father, who died 1 year previous to the story, he tends to get emotional and closes himself up from the world. The reader can  tell automatically that even though he is uptight the only person he can really talk to about his real feelings of what is happening to him, of his sadness for his father's death is his grandmother who lives across the street from him. His emotions appear to be steady around when he is surrounded by people he doesn't feel very confident around, but when he is by himself, all his emotions of sadness all come out without a worry of being judged or asked why he is so sad. Oskar although being very reserved he doesn’t really belong to any particular type of characteristic except for being determined to whatever he sets his mind to. Oskar's social status after his father's death is considerably lower but he and his mother are still in the middle lower class of society  and Oskar doesn’t seem to have any really close friends at all. Oskar overall is quite pessimistic and realistic and very alert. Oskar is usually pretty well oriented of his own neighborhood, but when he walks into the surrounding neighborhoods, he has no idea where he is, but instead he just pats his tambourine as he walks slowly. When Oskar is around other people he has full self-control over his emotions and thoughts, but when alone, he lets everything out. Oskar's language can get pretty complex, which helps in hiding what he really feels inside. Oskar is characterized by his love for science and complex words.

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

One of the many ideas expressed in the fictous novel of "Catching Fire" were the idea of survival, the spark of a revolution evolving and developing trust in people after being confronted with lies for an extended period of time. The feelings Katniss tends to express in the novel are distrust, dread, hate against President Snow and the Capitol, trust towards and family, depression etc. These feelings are recurring during the novel and play a part during almost every other scene. Katniss seems to have molded into a very different person to who she was in the first book “The Hunger Games" and has become more closed off to everyone including her family and Gale, but in an odd way her relationship is trying to redevelop to what it was with Peeta. The way Katniss acts "social wise" is, now that she has won the games and lives in the victor's village (meaning she doesn't have to starve anymore), she seems to act as if she is very important and is starting to get a little snobbier than in the 1st book. Katniss seems to be more aware of the evil and corruptness in her society, mainly in President Snow and in the Capitol, in the novel Katniss dramatically gets more and more pessimistic as the days pass. Katniss is sometimes too aware of her surroundings and develops a paranoia with everything around her, and everything bad or horrible she sees or encounters joins her collection of nightmares. Katniss is slowly losing control over her emotions and becomes more sensible to what people say, for example when Peeta teases her after training for the Quarter Quell, Katniss takes his remarks more seriously than she should. Katniss characterizes through the text by one small change at a time woven into her personality carefully after Katniss goes through a fairly traumatic event.

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

The book of Jane Eyre is based on a romance between Mr. Rochester and Jane Eyre and  a mystery, meaning the reader will never know to what extremes  the author will go and a surprise at every corner. The novel is more of a novel about social comment, commenting on various things that can happen to one person during a lifetime, All of the events in Jane Eyre are very realistic except for when Jane Eyre is placed in the "red room", but then again this book was written in the mid - 19th century, so maybe it was common back then to"discipline" children in this manner. Jane Eyre is a novel mostly of "coming of age" as a sub genre wrapped into the plot.This idea of "coming of age" is shown throughout the book when the author (Bronte) describes her as she grows up and shows her growing ethics and morals to the reader constantly. Bronte isn't very descriptive with the setting but more on the characters and persuading the reader to whether like them or not.

The Professor by Currer Bell (a.k.a Charlotte Bronte)

The main "genre" seen in " The Professor" by "Currer Bell" (a.k.a Charlotte Bronte) is that of hardships of William's (the male protagonist) life and how he has to cope with the pressure of following his father's footsteps of life. William has very hard times during his life that are expressed very clearly in the passage. The novel comments a lot on how people live an din areas criticizes their way of living.  The novel is more realistic than non realistic. The "genre" uses the setting in a very deep and descriptive way, so that the reader may feel/ understand what the character going through crisis is feeling inside.