Michelle’s Weblog

I feel that this class has ultimately brought me to a place in my writing experience that I have never been before. I write and read actively now. I always thought of papers as just introduction, body, and conclusion. Boy was I wrong. Now I have realized that writing is best when everything can be tied together. So from this class I have taken that papers are more than just three major parts. Sure, Introduction, body and conclusion is the main format but what really matters is the content and how well it connects to the thesis. I never realized how important a thesis statement is until this year. The thesis statement is the basis for the whole paper and is the key factor in making everything in your paper overlap. Kind of like those pieces of art where someone takes like 20 pictures of something and combines them all to make one gigantic picture. That is sort of what writing is and each of my papers has grown because of my new revelation.

The first paper I wrote was “Repetition: Annoying or Helpful?” I feel this was my best work in this class, which is kind of weird because it was the first big writing assignment we had. But I felt it was easiest to make all the connections overlap. I really enjoyed writing this essay so it was easy to make it a fun paper and add a little personality. My biggest problem with this paper was my thesis statement not being elaborate enough. As I said before, the thesis statement was a big step for me this semester and you said I was missing the how and they of my thesis statement. Those are two very big points for the thesis statement that I could have easily come up with but for some reason was too wrapped up in other parts of the paper. It took the next paper to beat it into my head to cover all parts of my thesis.

My second paper was “Selfish Risks” which was not as great as my previous work because the book was harder for me to follow and stay interested in. It was hard for me to make my thesis statement carry all the impact I wanted it to. Once again my thesis was not narrow enough for the paper which made my evidence cover a range of arguments when I could have just stuck to one. I feel like I made so many connections in the book I didn’t know which ones I wanted to write about. But I learned a lot from this paper about stating evidence to reinforce my thesis.

The last paper was “Beauty and the Beast”, a creative collaboration between myself and Rachel. At first, I was terrified to write with someone else but after we started I found it A LOT easier to write a creative piece with someone else because we could collaborate and bounce ideas off each other.  I think the most challenging part of this assignment was to come up with a creative story, so Rachel did most of the creative thinking whereas I handled a lot of the description. With this kind of paper I did not have to worry about a thesis but more an underlying message, we knew that we wanted our message to have to do with outside influences on our opinions. And the more I think about it I find it easier to get a point across through a story rather than an analytical essay, I guess that is because after this class I love actively reading and I find it more fun to have to hunt for a message rather than hearing someone tell me what the message is and why.

Since the theme of this class was risk I did realize a lot about how risk is involved in writing and just life. I found most risk and most of my interpretation of risk to come from the PowerBook section of the semester. There was so much risk in the PowerBook because it crossed so many lines about identity, sexuality, writing, and personal comfort. I found a little risk of my own in the last paper writing with another person because I have always been very protective of my writing. So to have another person influence my writing was a little different but a good experience. All in all I have realized that risk has brought me to where I am in writing my papers because I had to take risks in all of my papers to see what works and what does not work.

I have decided to give my thoughts about a poem I heard from Natasha Tretheway. I have decided to analyze “Genus Narcissus”. Of course, this was a poetry reading so the first time I heard this poem I was a little confused when I thought the title was “Gina’s Narcissus”. But through some research on the web I was able to find the poem and reread it with the correct title. 

Natasha’s poems are very descriptive and tend to have a lot of metaphors and personification. “Genus Narcissus” is about when Natasha would walk home from school and pick daffodils for her mother because she could see herself in them. But daffodils live a short spring and Natasha made that connection with her mother’s early death. I did some research on the word daffodils: its scientific genus is called Narcissus. I found it very clever for her to make the title of this poem from the scientific name of the flower she uses. Only people who choose to research or know that daffodils are Narcissus will know. They otherwise might think that since the Greek god Narcissus was vain with his own beauty that the same connection is made with Natasha and seeing herself in the flowers. She called her actions her “Childish vanity”. Showing that as a child she vainly thought of the flowers to represent herself when she gave them to her mother. Also, she says that she would “She put them on the sill and I sat nearby, watching light bend through the glass, day easing into evening, proud of myself for giving my mother some small thing”. This portrays how engulfed she was as a child in these sweet flowers and the fact that she was able to give her mother something so small that she would love so much. Another important aspect of the poem is the thick description she uses “The road I walked home from school was dense with trees and shadow, creek-side, and lit by yellow daffodils, early blossoms bright against winter’s last gray days”. I love this line because she describes the daffodils to light up the path she would walk from school but then she also has a darker side towards the end of the sentence anticipating a sad ending when she says winter’s last gray days. But my ultimate favorite line from the poem has to be that last one: “‘Be taken with yourself,’ they said to me; “Die early” to my mother.” This line proves the different interpretations two people can have on one topic. To Natasha, these flowers were beautiful and bright and narcissusly reminded her of her slender self with their “blossom held high”. To Natasha’s mother, the daffodils spoke of an early death because they bloom in late winter and die soon into the spring. Lastly, I think it is important that she gives the daffodils personification because it seems like the daffodils have this higher power since they are nature and they say to her that she is too involved with herself and that her mother will die soon. The flowers represent so much more than is originally brought to the eye and I’m so glad I decided to analyze this poem because I found so much from it than I was expecting.

a quick thought about the fiddle strings and music since i forgot to analyze that before. “she will string the old fiddle with five single stings of ash brown hair.” when i read this i realate it back to how the erlking is the head of the woods and so when she kills him she will be able to control the woods with this guitar like contraption with the hairs of the erl king. the fiddle will be her power. and when she plays the music she has control of the woods since she killed the erlking.

it is obvious that the narrator is in an intimate relationship with the erl king. and we know that he is basically the king of the woods. but in order to understand what is really going on we need to know what is an erl king anyway? An Erlking often exercise a fatal influence, especially on children by means of alluring promises or visions that led to destruction(Wikipedia). My interpretation of this story is that the woman fell in love with the erl-king because he was so perfectly one with the nature around her. she was overwelhmed by the amount of power he had in the woods. She falls so much in love with him and then finally sees that his intentions are false she is terrified and plans to kill him by strangling him with his hair. And i was a little thrown off at the end when the narrator goes out of first person format and into third person for the last three paragraphs. i don’t recall there being any other woman in the story so i was a little confused when i saw “she” instead of “i”.

i will rewrite the end of the tiger’s bride story because this was the story i liked least because of the ending. i prefer when familial ties are strong, and when the girl no longer loves her father it makes me sad since i am a huge daddys girl. to change the ending and have a positive relationship with the girl and her father i would take out the fact that he gambled her away. perhaps she might have been taken away from him and he uses all his efforts to get her back. but when she, in the end, decides to stay with the beast the father understands and lets this happen but he is still able to see her all the time. when she looks in the mirror instead of seeing her father in the bad times she would see her father in good times and love him more.

“With a flick of the magic wand the pumpkin turned into a sparkling coach and the mice became six white horses, while the seventh mouse turned into a coachman in a smart uniform and carrying a whip”

this exert is an example of figurative language that we talked about in class. it is a hyperbole because it is obvious that a pumpkin and seven mice could not turn into a coach and six horses and a coachman. most of the time in fairytales hyperboles are everywhere because that is what makes them fairytales because they would not happen in real life. the conditions are emphasized to give it that fairytale feel. when you are a child you dont think about how outrageous that thought is all you can think is wow and realize that cinderella can now go to the ball and she can be beautiful the way she is meant to be.

http://www.bgfl.org/bgfl/custom/resources_ftp/client_ftp/ks1/english/story_telling/cinderella/cinderella7.htm

i feel like i have a ton of quotes from the novel, and im having a hard time explaining how i think they connect. the reason could be because i was not in the most creative mood when i was writing my essay so hopefully when i go back and reread it and make corrections i will be able to give my paper a deeper analysis. i am connecting the red fox story to the relationship ali and her lover have and i feel like a lot of the language i use, like sentence structure, is confusing and the reader gets lost. im going to try to straighten out all those loose ends and really tie all parts of my paper together. i also need to work with having each paragraph relate to my thesis to make it more believable. and i want to talk about the relationship ali and her lover have in a couple sentences in my introduction.

so ive changed my mind. i’m no longer doing the “SEARCH” chapter of the book. instead im going to do the section called “HELP”. this chapter made more sense for me to base my paper on because the subject of my paper came to me as soon as i started reading it.in this chapter there is a reference to both mallory climbing everest and the lancelot/guinevere sub-story.my sub-story is about the red fox.I see risk when she has one of her men kill the fox even after the hunter said he would bring her the red fox if she did not kill it. It is risky that she deliberately disobeyed his wishes.It is risky of the hunter to dedicate all his time to the Princess even though she did not care much for him. It was risky that he wanted nothing but her love.I argue that risk operates in the red fox story through blindness of others feelings and selfishness of each individuals feelings

My essay will focus on the Lancelot and Guinevere sub story in the “Search” chapter.

One very risky line is on page 78 when the narrator states how he has rescued this woman several times but has only fought against the King’s knight and not the king himself: “Many times have I rescued you, through combat with your accuser, for the King, who is judge of all, cannot fight for his own wife.” It is risky to accuse the king of such cowardice acts.

Also, stating that the narrator does not care if the woman he is interested in is married, let alone to the king, is a huge risk by outrightly saying he would commit adultery.

Another part of this chapter i find risky is the deep meaning and explanation the narrator puts on love and what love does to two people. It is risky to dig so deep and write about what you believe love actually is.

One part i feel is risky but i am a little confused about is the part where it gets deep about their bodies on page 80. “My breasts weigh under your dress.” I thought Lancelot- the narrator- was a man. but i’m not sure if he is just saying this to show that he and his lover are one in the same body at this moment. or if this is maybe one of the moments where they switch to reality instead of being in the story.

Lancelot risks being killed for being with the Queen and the Queen risks being burned at the stake. pg 82 “As the soldiers were tying your hands and packing the dry straw under your bare feet…”

I argue that risk, in this sub-story, operates to make the reader want true love to prevail over the love of the King and his Queen.

the connection i see between the power book and elic are that the main characters are looking for something and devote their time to this object. it says “you had run out on the story. run out on me. vanished.” this is just like how oskars father died during 9/11. it happened so fast and just like that- at the snap of a finger- oskars father had vanished, not purposefully however. it later says ” im looking for something, it’s true. i’m looking for the meaning inside the data.” this is just like how oskar was looking for the meaning of the key he found. the data in this case would be like oskar’s key. it also talks about how she set the search engines to find the person just like oskar used a less technological way of searching for the meaning of black written on the envelope.