No Love in Return

"Heaven knows we would never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth, overlying our hard hearts. I was better after I had cried, than before--more sorry, more aware of my own ingratitude, more gentle." In the novel, Great Expectations, love is displayed in many different ways—love of power, love of money, love of pain, love of self, and love of fear. Pip’s love is not like the other types; he has love for others, but he doesn’t get any love in return. His love for Estella grew on him ever since the day he met her. In the beginning he seemed to be forced to love her when he really did not feel any love towards her, but as he got to know her he noticed his feelings for her had changed. Maybe it was love. Maybe it was infatuation. Pip is just a young boy, a young boy with a complicated life, a young boy still experiencing innocence, a young boy with a great expectation. Sometimes what you expect is like taking things for granted. Things are not just sent from the sky and dropped right into your hands; love is not an expectation. It takes effort and heart to love someone, and you can’t assume that they love you back. Pip knows what it is like to have his heart broken, and the best thing you can do is leave it behind you and get back up on your feet again and move on.

Opposite Personalities

After reading about Pip's visit with Wemmick, I suspected a keen sense of strange behavior on Wemmick's part. At work Wemmick is all about hard work and focus, whereas at home he becomes more loose and sympathetic to his surroundings. That being said, I am not very sure what to make of this. How come people act with two completely opposite personalities depending on the setting they are in and the faces around them? Even though Wemmick comes home from work each day like any other business man would, the world he enters is not what you would suspect; a fantasy filled world. His house supposedly represents a castle with a bridge that is at the entrance of this castle and a flagpole right outside. Wemmick is always talking about his flagpole, and how he pulls it up and down at a certain time each and every day. By him doing this action shows his true pride and love for his home life. He acts with innocence which is not something you appear to see very often. Labor, hard work, and the drive to do so is what makes a grown man a success. The only way to get his mind off of work was to enter his comfortable state of what we call "home". Kids our age can relate to what Wemmick is experiencing, but not for the same reasons that is. Rather than being exposed to the business world, we experience homework and drama. School--a place where you can have fun when necessary, but seriousness is key when you want to succeed and achieve. Once that bell rings at the end of every school day, do you get a sense of relief--all of the pressure and stress has been lifted from your shoulders and you feel the need to just take in your surroundings with a deep steady breath? When you step off the bus and open the door to your home what do you do? Do you go back to the mindset of school, or relax and enjoy your few moments of peace and freedom before the next day creeps up and your fantasy ends and reality hits once again? What you make of your fantasy world is up to you, but for Wemmick it means staying calm and collected while expressing love to his family. Do not judge a book by its cover, because what you see on the outside is definitely not everything. What matters the most is the inside. Wemmick may not look to be an innocent gentleman to the human eye, but his actions express what his mind is really imagining. Wemmick, not only has the love to be successful, be the love for his family as well.

Pip's Life At Home

Life at home for Joe is definitely not like the lives we live today. He is just an innocent young boy that doesn't know much about how life works yet; he doesn't know right from wrong. His sister and her husband are definitely very hard on him and get annoyed with every little thing he does, if Pip would ask a question his sister would just tell him to go away, or not speak of that, The time when his sister went out looking for him after he was out in the churchyard, she got very angry. I think this is because she is very protective of him since they are the only ones left of Pip's family. She feels she needs to fill the responsibilty that her mother left her with of caring for Pip. If I were to be gone from home for awhile my mom would definitely come looking for me, but not the way his sister did. She went with a tickler--an abusive tool--so that if she found him he would experience this device. It is against the law now to abuse children, but back then it wasn't. Life was a struggle for little Pip; not being able to have a mom or dad to care for you. All he wanted was a few questions answered, and all he got in return was ignorance and disrespect.

Two steps in front of me I cannot see, nor two steps back of me can I see. With one look into the far distance there is nothing but a blur of grey fog covering my surroundings. The sun trying its hardest to break through the thick moist cloud, but it doesn't. Miles and miles, the road goes on, but to where, you don’t know because all you can see is the grey fog. With every long stride that I take, my heart beats twice as fast. My lungs so tight and empty as I gasp for air. Afraid of what is around me, I just keep moving forward. No matter how much I want to stop and no matter how hard it is to breath with the air this thick, I still keep on pushing myself to make it to the end. I am running out of endurance to keep myself going and my body so cold from the brisk air. My legs begin to give out but I know its not over until you reach the finish line.

Writing Goals

• use Synactic Devices- Style
• use Literary Devices
• Work on sentence variety
• Take time editing and revising
• Vocabulary variety
• Sounding more mature in my papers

The Good Earth "Wang's uncle and the city"

In the novel, The Good Earth, Wang Lung-- on top of working in the fields--has new life, or as Wang Lung says "another mouth to feed", in his family. For these many children that he now has to care for, Wang also celebrates and welcomes them into this unpredictible place we call Earth. To this party, Wang's uncle was invited. The first impression I got of this young farmer's uncle was that he is disrespectful and unkind. All he talked about was how he only has daughters and no sons of his own. It was as though he was there to talk about his problems more or less Wang's new child. Complaining about his unattractive wife, it was as though nothing was going right for him in his life. He had no respect for his wife and only pointed out the flaws about her. Wang--being the thoughtful man he is--thought it was wrong to disrespect such a person. Wang knows he is not the richest man in the world, but what he does know is that he has a decent home that he and his family can live with no fears, unlike his uncle.

When a famine hits Wang Lung's town, he had no other choice but to head for the city in the south hoping to find a better lifestyle for his family. They came to the city not knowing what to expect, but praying for good fortune. When he and his family soon reached this city, Wang seemed a bit lost and confused. The only place he could go was by The Wall. The Wall was a wall that stretched far down the city where many homeless and unwealthy people lived. The only way to survive was to beg for money from pedestrians in the area. From living in the city, Wangs attitude changed. He had to learn how to adapt to the lifestyle of a poor city man. The one thing Wang stuggled with was there not being any signs of nature or earth. Wang loved his land he owned back in the town. Labor and hardwork was what he was used to. Many people today are living a life like Wang now. You need to learn to be without something you love sometimes because life is filled with unexpected changes. Wang had to learn how to be without his land, the land that heals him. By being away from it he was slowly fading away.

Biography on Robert Pinsky

Robert Pinsky--an American poet, essayist, literary critic, and translator--was born on October 20, 1940 in Long Branch, New Jersey. Currently 68 years old, he has written many poems. His influences are Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Matthew Arnoid, T.S. Elliot, and W.H. Auden. These poet have inspired him in some of the writings he has done. In 1997-2000 he served as Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress. Robert is also an author of 19 books most of which are collections of his own poetry. He now teached at Boston University and is the peotry editor at State.

Never Ending Mountains

The rough terrain

Beneath my feet

I can feel it

Pressure of the air

Strong and powerful

I climb up the ridged piece of land



Sweat drips from every part of me

Exhaustion and pain

Yet, I still have that drive

The drive to make it to the top



Hours and hours role on by

I am still pushing myself on

Smoldering hot sun beating down on my weak and tired body

Making the agony even worse




No water in sight

Just dry lifeless ground

It feels like Im not getting anywhere



My body so dehydrated

Nothing left in me

I think to myself....

How am I ever going to make it to the top?

To Television

By: Robert Pinsky

Not a "window on the world"
But as we call you,
A box a tube

Terrarium of dreams and wonders.
Coffer of shades, ordained
Cotillion of phosphors
Or liquid crystal

Homey miracle, tube
Of acquiescence, vein of defiance
Your patron in the pantheon would be Hermes

Raster dance,
Quick one, little theif, escort
Of the dying and comfort pr the sick,

In a blue glow my father and little sister sat
Snuggled in one chair watching you
Their wife and mother was sick in the head
I scorned you and them as I scorned so much

Now I like you best in a hotel room,
Mayne minutes
Before I have to face an audience: behind
The doors of the armoire, box
Within a box-- Tom & Jerry, or also brilliant
And reassuring, Oprah Winfrey

Thank you, for I watched, I watched
Sid Caesar speaking French and Japanese not
Through knowledge but imagination,
His quickness, and Thank you, I watched live
Jackie Robinson stealing

Home, the image--O strung shell--enduring
Fleeter than light like these words we
Remember in, they too winged
At the helmet and ankles

The Calming River

The rush of the water
Goes on and on and on
Never ending
The water hits the rocks
A calm soothing noise to the ear
A sense of purity
Crystal clear water
Giving rememberance of a new life
It shows how gentle the earth really is
Water has glimpses of sparkle
Here and there
Fog from the forest so moist
Rises through the dew-filled air
How can nature be so beautiful?
How can nature be so refreshing?
One deep breath
Taken to a place unimaginable
Once you get there
You don't want to leave

The Good Earth

The novel, The Good Earth, is taken place in the early 20th century. Wang Lung, a farmer, had a very hard life compared to the lives that we live today. Now, in the 21st century, we take short cuts and use our modern technology rather than doing hard labor. The way Wang lives is just the opposite. They didn't have the ability to use powered machinery to do there work for them. Everything was done with bare hands. Wang may have been poor, but he had enough money to survive and be happy. The way the women were treated in the Chinese culture, though, was horrible and appalling campared to the men. We have so many rights of freedom being women now adays in the United States, but back in the 20th century of the Chinese culter, women were treated like slaves. The only way for women to have loyalty and respect was to be wealthy. Most were not of this high ranking. O-lan was not treated by the old mistress the way she should be treated. It was like O-lan had no meaning to the world. Marraige did not mean much because you did not know the person. O-lan was just given to Wang as if he bought her. No woman deserves a life like the one that O-lan has to go through.
Nature seemed to be a big part of Wang's life. " Now it was as if Heaven had chosen this day to wish him well. Earth would bear fruit." (page 2) Rain is what Wang had been praying to come so that his crops could finally grow. It was going to come and Wang could feel it. Nature is what has been guiding Wang this whole time. It is what is keeping him happy. Nature can throw you curveballs sometimes and later in the novel, situations are going to happen where Wang is going to have to rely on fait to get him through it.
Symbolism was all over the place as I read the first chapter of The Good Earth. It went from spring and kitchen, to rain and wind. It is too early in the book to know exactly what the mode of this novel is going to end up being. From what has been said so far I get the feeling that this is going to be a tragedy. It starts off with Wangs life being full of hardships. His father giving him no freedom or guidelines in life. He was, in a way, a slave to his father. He did anything for him when he needed it. When his father told him to make him food, he did. He had no company other than his grouchy father who was always sick. Maybe the reason he needed a wife was for the company and pleasure of having someone in his life. This is just the same as A Jury to Her Peers. Minnie just wanted freedom and company. She was tired of being trapped in a life with big boundaries holding her from the outside world. This is exactly how Wang is feeling.

Beach

I fiddle my toes in the comforting sand and dream about nothing....nothing at all. The calm feeling of nothing....just listening, not thinking. I set my head back and shut my eyes. Now I am not worried of my surroundings. I can just dream of nothing. The water comes crashing along the shoreline, but I don't notice. All I hear is the still nothingness in the air. As the clouds pass the shadows give me a cold chill, but as the clouds move on and the sun appears again, I get a warm feeling that goes up and down my spine. I open my eyes once again and look at my surroundings. The wind creates a hush sound against the branches as the trees begin to sway. As I sit in the warm mushy sand i think about all that is good. All that is nothing.

A Jury of her Peers

"It looked very lonesome this cold March morning. It had always been a lonesome-looking place. It was down in -a hollow, and the poplar trees around it were lonesome-looking trees." In the short story, A Jury of her Peers, Minnie Foster was a lonesome lady living in a house of mistreatment until, that is, her husband suddenly died. Minnie Foster owned a canary. This canary was all that she had to represent her freedom. When she discovered that her bird was strangled to death by her husband, she found that her freedom had been gone. Her husband, Mr. Wright, took that only freedom that she had away from her. The only thing Minnie could think of doing was getting back at Mr. Wright. Minnie wanted him to struggle and suffer just like she did without her bird, and she wanted him to die the same way her bird did. She knew that a gun would be to fast and he would be gone in an instant, so she decided to make it slow and painful by strangling him like her bird.
After the physical murder,the Peters family and the Hale family came to investigate. Throughout the course of the story the women,Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters, seemed to be treated unfairly. The men did not respect them and let them help in the investigation. Maybe they believed that the women were on Mrs. Wright's side. The women decided to work separately from the men in finding out what really happened to Mr. Wright. The clues the ladies found were good, though not on purpose. When the men asked Mrs. Wright questions about Mr. Wright's death she didn't seem to interested and caring. That showed me that it was Mrs. Wright who killed her husband. It was as though she killed him because it was like she had been trapped in this cage full of mistreatment and neglection for all these years just like her bird. All Mrs. Wright wanted was comfort and freedom and getting rid of her husband was her way of getting it.