The Allegory of the Cave

In The Allegory of the Cave, Plato discusses a group of prisoners that are chained so that they can not move. There is a fire behind the prisoners and others pass images in front of the fire which project shadows on to the wall in front of the prisoners. All the prisoners can see are the shadows in front of them. These objects are just outlines, but to the prisoners they are truth. These shapes are all that the prisoners have ever known.  They believe that they are truth. However, something that is true may not be reality. If someone lies to me and I believe them and then I tell someone else I am still telling the truth. If I believe something is true, then to me it is. The prisoners really believe that the shapes in front of them are real, so to them they are truth. However, the shadows are not what is really true. At that moment, those shapes are also their reality. They are all the prisoners have ever known.

When a prisoner is released, he or she would be uncomfortable. Plato uses the analogy of being in a dark room for a very long time and then entering a room filled with light. At first the prisoner would be uncomfortable. He would want to return to the dark, what was comfortable and familiar and what he thought was truth and reality. When his teacher asked him what certain things were he would not know. Eventually, though, he would become use to the light. The prisoner's reality would change. His reality would become that of the outside world.

It seems that Plato is trying to say that our reality is always changing. What we know and are comfortable with now may change over time. However, real truth, not just what we believe is true, will always stay the same. The shadows were always just shapes. Although the prisoners may have thought that they were the truth, they never really were. When they leave the cave their reality will change. Although, since everything is constantly changing can we ever really say that something is truth or reality? Truth and reality are heard to define and some people do not always want accept them. Sometimes the truth or reality may be to difficult to accept.

Tender is the Night

I have been reading Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald. I love Fitzgerald and found the book for $0.50 at book sale, so why not. I am only about 120 pages in (it's hard to find time to read). So far I am enjoying it. I love the setting of the Mediterranean and the characters in the novel so far. The novel starts with Rosemary and her mother coming to France for a visit. Rosemary is only eighteen, but has already starred in a movie. When Rosemary goes to the beach she meets a group of people, among them are the Divers. Dick Diver is a charismatic, intelligent, American psychologist who is visiting France. Right now he seems to have it all together. People always want to be around him and Rosemary falls in love with him at first sight. However, he is married to Nicole Diver. Nicole is quieter than Dick and not much is learned about her yet. There are little signs throughout the novel that insinuate that the Diver's relationship is not as perfect as it seems.

As the novel goes on, Dick seems to take more of an important role. The reader finds out more and more about Dick and Nicole's past and relationship, however, the whole story is not revealed. The parts Fitzgerald does reveal seem to foreshadow things. When Nicole tells Rosemary a little bit about her past the reader gets the sense that her past was not as good as she made it sound. There are also many other events that seem to foreshadow things that may come. After a while, Dick seems to consider actually having a relationship with Rosemary. Nothing has happened yet, but it seems like something will. Also, when a comment is made regarding Nicole one of the men in their group, Tommy Barban, is the first to come to her defense. This, along with his other actions toward Nicole, makes me think there is something else going on. When the group take one of their friends to the train station there is a shooting. After this shooting Dick seems to change. He seems to be less stable. He was the one that held the whole group together. Now, it seems that he is becoming run down. All of the characters in the novel seem to be acting, even Dick, and it seems to be getting harder for everyone to act like everything is perfect. They seem to live a life of excess, like Jay Gatsby in The Great Gatsby. I hope that many of the characters become more developed as the novel progresses and am excited to see where the story goes.

Youth and Art

Youth and Art by Robert Browning

It once might have been, once only:
We lodged in a street together,
You, a sparrow on the housetop lonely,
I, a lone she-bird of his feather.

Your trade was with sticks and clay,
You thumbed, thrust, patted and polished,
Then laughed "They will see some day
Smith made, and Gibson demolished."

My business was song, song, song;
I chirped, cheeped, trilled and twittered,
"Kate Brown's on the boards ere long,
And Grisi's existence embittered!"

I earned no more by a warble
Than you by a sketch in plaster;
You wanted a piece of marble,
I needed a music-master.

We studied hard in our styles,
Chipped each at a crust like Hindoos,
For air looked out on the tiles,
For fun watched each other's windows.

You lounged, like a boy of the South,
Cap and blouse--nay, a bit of beard too;
Or you got it, rubbing your mouth
With fingers the clay adhered to.

And I--soon managed to find
Weak points in the flower-fence facing,
Was forced to put up a blind
And be safe in my corset-lacing.

No harm! It was not my fault
If you never turned your eye's tail up
As I shook upon E in alt,
Or ran the chromatic scale up:

For spring bade the sparrows pair,
And the boys and girls gave guesses,
And stalls in our street looked rare
With bulrush and watercresses.

Why did not you pinch a flower
In a pellet of clay and fling it?
Why did not I put a power
Of thanks in a look, or sing it?

I did look, sharp as a lynx,
(And yet the memory rankles,)
When models arrived, some minx
Tripped up-stairs, she and her ankles.

But I think I gave you as good!
"That foreign fellow,--who can know
How she pays, in a playful mood,
For his tuning her that piano?"

Could you say so, and never say
"Suppose we join hands and fortunes,
And I fetch her from over the way,
Her, piano, and long tunes and short tunes?"

No, no: you would not be rash,
Nor I rasher and something over:
You've to settle yet Gibson's hash,
And Grisi yet lives in clover.

But you meet the Prince at the Board,
I'm queen myself at bals-paré,
I've married a rich old lord,
And you're dubbed knight and an R.A.

Each life unfulfilled, you see;
It hangs still, patchy and scrappy:
We have not sighed deep, laughed free,
Starved, feasted, despaired,--been happy.

And nobody calls you a dunce,
And people suppose me clever:
This could but have happened once,
And we missed it, lost it for ever.

When I was choosing which poet to write about for my English paper I came across this poem by Robert Browning. While I decided on another poem and poet, I still really like this poem. The poem describes two people who fell in love, but could never be together. When they meet and fall in love they are both very poor and very much involved in art. She was a musician, his business was "song, song, song." The man was a sculptor, her "trade was stick and clay." Browning also makes allusions to a famous sculptor, John Gibson, and a famous singer, Giulia Grisi. However, their relationship does not last. He becomes a knight and she marries a lord. The good thing about their love and their relationship is that they were not together for long, if at all, so they will never grow bored with each other. The woman in the poem, Kate, is comparing and contrasting her current life with the life she had when she was an aspiring singer. She is thinking of what her life could have been like if she had stayed with the other man. She knows now that it once could have happened, but now they have missed it, "and we missed it, lost for ever."

The end rhyme that Browning uses helps add to the light-hearted tone of the poem. Because Browning keeps the tone happier and lighter the reader gets the feeling that she is almost happy that the relationship did not last. Browning could have made the poem very somber and sad, but he decided to go a different way. Because it did not last they did not have to endure all the hardships that came with it. They did not have to experience the heartache of it ending. The fantasy provides her with something to think about when times are bad.

The poem contains man references to birds and other animals. Browning refers to the man and woman as birds, the man a sparrow and Kate a she-bird. He then goes on to describe Kate's singing as chirping and cheeping. The references continue throughout the poem. Birds and the singing of birds were often connected with love. The two people in the poem could be described as "love birds." In my opinion, when people think of birds they think of happiness and people in love and that seems to be what Browning was trying to evoke when he used this type of imagery.

Insomnia by Dana Gioia

Insomnia by Dana Gioia
Now you hear what the house has to say.
Pipes clanking, water running in the dark,  
the mortgaged walls shifting in discomfort,  
and voices mounting in an endless drone
of small complaints like the sounds of a family  
that year by year you’ve learned how to ignore.

But now you must listen to the things you own,  
all that you’ve worked for these past years,  
the murmur of property, of things in disrepair,  
the moving parts about to come undone,  
and twisting in the sheets remember all
the faces you could not bring yourself to love.

How many voices have escaped you until now,  
the venting furnace, the floorboards underfoot,  
the steady accusations of the clock
numbering the minutes no one will mark.  
The terrible clarity this moment brings,  
the useless insight, the unbroken dark.

When I heard Alexis give her poem for the class back in December I really liked it. I love the way it is written and really enjoyed how she delivered it. The poem seems to be about the regret the narrator has for caring more for the material things in his or her life then for the people in his or her life. The speaker laments all of the things in the house that are falling apart, the clanking pipes and shifting walls. "All that you've worked for these past years, the murmur of property, of things in disrepair," the speaker realizes that all of the material things he or she has worked for over the years are falling apart. The narrator of the poem is regretting not spending more time with his or her loved ones, "the faces you could not bring yourself to love." He or she avoided all the things that would have brought happiness in favor of material things. 

The personification of the house really allows the poem to make an impression. I envisioned the house as the person speaking. The things in disrepair were the aspects of the speaker's life that were falling apart. I could hear the noises in my head as I read the poem. Gioia rhymes the last three lines of the poem. I think this is to emphasize the "unbroken dark" and loneliness the speaker is feeling at the close of the poem. The last three lines help the narrator to understand that the "minutes no one will count" are the more important things, not the things one owns. 

The Quiet American

I have almost finished my third Graham Greene novel, The Quiet American. I have also read Our Man in Havana and The Power and the Glory, but I have to say that this one is my favorite so far. The book is about the relationship between two men, one American and one British, and their love for the same woman. Although, the book is not directly about religion there are still many references to the Catholic religion and many others like many of Greene's other novels. The main character, Fowler, repeatedly states that he does not believe in Gold. However, his friend Pyle claims to be a unitarian.

Many critics said that the novel was anti-American. They thought that the character of Pyle showed Americans in a negative light. Pyle seems to be the opposite of the stereotypical American. He is quiet and intellectual. Also, many Americans did not like the character or Fowler, the British man. However, I identified with and liked the character of Fowler much better than Pyle. Pyle wanted to date the woman Fowler was currently dating. He thought that as long as he talked to Fowler about the situation then Fowler had no reason to be mad at him for taking his girl. I think Pyle was very self-centered and innocent.

The novel is mainly about the love triangle between the two men mentioned above and a young woman named Phuong. The woman is a young Vietnamese woman. She switches between the two men multiple times and does not seem to be committed to either man. The woman seems to represent the country in which they are fighting, Vietnam. The fact Pyle wants her represents that the Americans did not want Vietnam to be under communist rule. She is also very underdeveloped. Other then when she is seen with the male characters she is not really shown. She never voices her opinion, just like the country she comes from never states its opinion.

The Great Gatsby

I have started reading Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald. However, I did not get far enough in to write a blog post about it. I chose to start reading this novel because I love Fitzgerald's writing style and what he chooses to write about. I first fell in love with him in The Great Gatsby. Although I really liked the character of Gatsby I still enjoyed the end. I thought that was the way the novel needed to end. I think that Gatsby had already died inside when he realized the Daisy was never going to leave her husband for him. While I was sad that that was the way he had to die I understand why Fitzgerald wrote it this way.

I think that Daisy was meant to represent everything that was wrong with the 1920s. She chose material goods for what was morally right. She had so much that she did not know what to do with it. I do think that she was in love with Gatsby, but I also think that she used him for her own pleasure and when it came time for her to commit she choked. She decided to stay with her husband and all his money and let Gatsby take the blame for killing Myrtle. This is the second time she let down Gatsby. The first being that she said she would wait for Gatsby to come back from the war. She instead married Tom who was from a well off family. She and Tom did not even attend Gatsby's funeral they left. I love the way Nick characterizes her, as a careless person who messes things up the hides behind her money.

I am sorry for ranting about Daisy. I am sure there are good things about her as well, I just do not see them. I have to say that this is my favorite novel I have read for school.

Le Tre Vecchie

"Le Tre Vecchie" is an Italian fairy tale by Italo Calvino. It tells the story of three very old sisters that deceive a young king. The oldest sister drops her handkerchief off of her balcony and the young king finds it. The king assumes that since the handkerchief is beautiful its owner must be beautiful. He goes to the house to ask for what he thinks is the young woman that dropped it. One of the old sisters answers the door. She tells him that there is a young and beautiful woman in the house and he may only see her after he marries her. So the king agrees, despite a warning from his mother. The king goes back to the house and asks to see a finger of the woman. The old women deceive him and show him a fake finger. The next day they are married. The old woman wears seven veils to conceal herself. Even then he is not allowed to see the bride. Finally, that night the king steals a candle and while the old woman was sleeping he looks under the blanket. When he realizes they tricked him into marrying an old woman he becomes so angry he throws the woman out the window. On her way down she becomes stuck on a vine trellis. While she is hanging there three fairies come along. At first, they laugh at her. Then to make amends they make her a beautiful young woman and promise that she will live a happy life with her husband. In the morning the prince looks out the window to make sure the night before was not a dream. He sees the beautiful woman and pulls her up with a sheet. Once he leaves her sisters ask how she became so beautiful. She tells them she went to the carpenter and he used one of his tools on her face. One of her sisters runs to the carpenter and asks him to do the same to her. The carpenter ends up killing her. It is unknown what happened to the third sister. The oldest sister lives happily ever after with the king. 

The story is originally Venetian. The original story has the old woman spitting a wad of jam into the king's hand. Calvino changed it so the woman dropped a handkerchief. This story is part of Calvino's book Italian Folktales. 

I found this fairy tale very interesting. In many of the fairy tales I have read good usually wins over evil. However, in this one that is not the case. The oldest sister should have been punished for deceiving the king, but she is the one that lives happily ever after. There is no moral as many other stories from this genre have. I can tell the story was meant to be humorous, not only from the plot, but also from the writing. When the story is read in Italian, there are many sarcastic lines. For example, at one point Calvino refers to the sisters as young, even though they are in their sixties, seventies, and nineties. This, in my opinion, made the story more enjoyable. I also found it interesting that only one name was mentioned in the entire story and it was not even the name of a main character. The name of the middle sister, the one that dies, is mentioned. Her name is Clementina. I found it difficult to read this story critically. I had to just accept all of the events and not think to hard because some of the events are so ridiculous. All in all I enjoyed it very much.