Tuesday, March 27, 2007

"THE YELLOW WALL PAPER" BY:CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILLMAN

This story is very interesting. The woman and her husband move away into this big house so that she can clear her head have get some fresh air. She believes that she is ill but her husband and brother both think that it is all in her head. Their bedroom is upstairs and has this horrible yellow wallpaper that the wife soon becomes obsessed with. She tries to get them to move to a down stairs bed room but her husband wont allow it. She spends countless hours and nights studying this wall paper, she knows every detail about it. She soon starts seeing things in the wallpaper she sees faces and eyes, then she starts to see this woman creeping out from behind the wallpaper as is she is trapped behind it. She beings to rip down the wallpaper. On the last night she locks her husband out of the house and when he gets his way back in the house he goes upstairs to find his wife creeping around the room like a crazy person. As we all can see the woman is actually insane. Moving to that house did not help her one bit it just made things worse her obsessiveness and nervousness had gotten the best of her.

"WOMAN: MYTH AND REALITY" BY:SIMONE DE BEAUVIOR

I am not a big fan of this story. In the story she further explains her theory about the myth of eternal feminine. Her wording and explanations confuse me; its almost liek she is tryign to show off her intellegence and making her self as a woman better than others. She talks down about women like they are worthless when they put themselves below men. She seems to talk about women as if she is a man tryign to put down a womans self esteem. She talks about women as a whole as is they are all exactly the same and act the same way by putting themself below men.

WHTIE PRIVILEGE (CH. 1-3)

White Privilege defines race as "some intrisically insignificant geographical/physical differences between". It also said that "whites" are not of a certain race and that they are just the "human race". The reading states that whites are the people and the ones that are of a different color are something else "the other". It makes me upset when it talks about how the whites are over the other races: "white people have power and believe that they think, feel and act like and for all people; white people, unable to see their particularity , cannot take account of other peoples; white people creatre the domminant image of the world and dont quite see that they thus construct the world in thier own image. Whitie people set standards of humanity by which they are bound to succeed and others bound to fail". Even tho this is true in some cases it still upsets me beacause in my family we have blacks and chineese that have married in but we dont treat them liek we are better we welcome them as a part of the family.

"GRADUATION" BY:MAYA ANGELOU

This story kind of reminds me of One Friday Morning in that they both start off uplifting and everyone is excited then something bad happens and its all about the color of their skin but in the end they find a way to overcome the devastating news and become proud members of the Negro race. It is graduation time for Lafyette County Training School. Everyone in the town makes a big deal about graduation day. At school the graduating class is admired for their completion and is looked up to by the lower classes. The up coming senior get to practice their seniority for the year to follow. The school was not a rich school but the student body was like a huge family. Only a few percent of the graduating class would continue onto college; where they would be trained to be laborers and women would be baby nurses. Before graduation day the girls would fix up their graduation dresses and the guys would get their second hand pants fitted. Everyone attended the graduation ceremony; some white folks went, the lower classmates, family and friends. Marguerite Johnson, one of the graduating seniors, is the narrator of the story and she goes on and talks about her day and the preparation for the graduation ceremony. She was one of the top students at the school and would be the first called during graduation. A quest named Mr. Edward Donleavy came to give a commencement address. During his speech he starts talking about how will whites are the ones going to have a chance to be somebody; someone that will make a difference. This made many of the graduating students and viewers very uncomfortable and upset. Marquerite did not understand why the black people had to first start out doing labor work before they could even be able to do something they really wanted to do. She felt that all her hard work and accomplishments were for nothing. Her graduation was ruined by the words of Mr. Donleavy. She goes on about how she wishes that everyone was killed or dead; the words that she was hearing from the stage really stuck in her gut and she became very bitter about the world. She states that "it was awful to be Negro and have no control over my life. It was brutal to be young and already trained to sit quielty and listen to charges brought against my color and no chance of defence." After Donleavy left the choir, the minister's daughter, and Henry, with his "To Be or Not To Be" speech, tried to get the graduates feeling happy and exctied again but non of it worked. All of a sudden During Henry's speech he stops and turns his back to the audience and starts singing. The encouring words of that song caused everyone to join in in singing; everyone knew the words to that song. The meaning of teh words never quite ment anything to Marquerite until then. She then became unashamed of her race and was now "on top again".

Monday, March 26, 2007

INTRODUCTION TO SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR

Simone De Beauvoir a feminist taught philosophy. She also wrote the The Second Sex which talks about Enternal Feminine. Beauvior believes that "a person is not born a woman but makes herself a woman". She think that many people are accepting the myth that women are myserious and incomperehensible to men and that in them accepting that myth it is casuing damage to society both men and women. Beauvior thinks that if men accept it then they will fail to understand women as they are. If women accapt it then they are distorting their personalities in order to please the "master". She beieve that equality is impossible and that a transformation would have to occur for it to be possible.

A&P BY:JOHN UPDIKE

I thought that this story was kinda weird and I could not figure out what the point of the story was. It started off with the cashier, Sammy, describing these three girls that same into the store. They looked as if they came straight off the beach, sun burnt, no shoes, and bathing suits on. The one he thought that stood out the most was the girl in the pinkish bathing suit. He seemed to be very interested in this girl. Sammy watched the girls every move as they were looking for some herring snacks that the girl's mom told them to pick up. The girl in the pinkish bathing suit seemed to be the leader of the girls. Sammy called her the "queen". The two other girls followed her around as if she was their idol. Later on before the girls are about to leave Lengel goes up to the girls and tell them that "this isn't a beach" explaining to them that they need to be dressed appropriately when they come into the store. The girls start to blush and get embarrassed and the 'queen" tries to explain why they are dressed that way but Lengel could care less about their excuses. Sammy get mad at Lengel becaused he embarrasses the girls and yells I QUIT hoping that the girls would hear him and be their hero; but the girls keep on with their business. Now Sammy is left with nothing.... no job... no girls. Sammy new from that point on that things would only be harder from there on.

ONE FRIDAY MORNING BY:LANGGSTON HUGHES

The beginning of One Friday Morning starts out with exciting new about Nancy Lee, who is about to graduate high school, getting the Artist Club scholarship. She is extremely excited but is not allowed to tell anyone until the award is given out. Nancy was proud to be a "Negro American." and she truly respected her heritage. She had wrote this big speech that she was going to give when she recieved her award. It was about how great America was and the liberty and justice for all is what our flag stood for. She could not wait to present it. Later on in the story Nacey Lee soon finds out that the school had changed their mind about giving the award to her because of the color of her skin. Even though she was devistated about not receiving the award it made her stronger in that seh was determinded to stand up for what is right. Nancy Lee did not let not getting the scholorship discourage her she will still fight on and try her hardest and apply for other scholorships.

Monday, February 19, 2007

ONLIE READINGS

I found the online reading "Stylistic Options" and "Evergreen" very useful. "Evergreen" is about how you can construct an introduction paragraph and make it more interesting so the reader will want to read on further. With have had reading this before writing my essay i believe I could have made my introduction paragraph stronger. In reading "Stylistic Options" it informed me more on different techniques on how i can go about writing paragraphs and how to make them flow together so they are understandable and easy to follow for the reader. I also think that this reading would have helped me in doing my first paper and would have made it more stronger.

Monday, February 05, 2007

THINKING ABOUT DOROTHEA LANGE'S MIGRANT MOTHER, NIPOMO, CALIFORNIA

The picture of Lange's Migrant Mother, Nipomo, California is a very strong picture. It is a picture of a mother with her two children on either side of her with their faces turned away from the camera. There are many questions about the arrangement of the mother and her two children in this photo. Some people think that Lange specifically put them in those positions but there is no evidence to prove that. Lange believed that "it was nobler to show life as it is than it is to invent compositions." From this I believe that she did not pose her subject to make the pictures stronger. When reading the essay by Bruce Dean he mentions that in a picture less is more "more inclusive pictures are less effective- less impressive, less moving". I think that ultimately depends on the picture, there are many famous pictures that are bright and colorful with lots of movement. It all depends on personal preference. Not everyone will have the same thoughts and ideas about the same photo nor will they portray the same meaning to different people. Personal experience, background and beliefs play a big role in what a picture means to each person.

Wednesday, January 31, 2007

OUTLINE OF THE PAPER!

Ashley's "Blog Perfection" paper starts out stating what all should go into making a good blog "structure, style, language, and strength". After that, she begins to go further in explaining the key factors that should be used in creating a blog and gives spacific examples. Then she uses those examples to explain why the blog that she choose makes a "good" blog. In the end she ties all what she has said and summarizes what she had just told us.
I would say the way she organized her paper would be concidered as a "thesis style" of paper used in an inductive way-has a point then gives further examples on that point.

Over all I liked Ashley's "blog Perfection" paper, but I do believe that she could have made it a stronger, more interesting paper by using a different type of outline to go about writing it. If I were to rewrite it i would probably use the deductive style. I wouls start by talking about the general principles that go along with writing a blog and then in the end talk about how all of those things put together in one blog will make it a "good blog".

Monday, January 29, 2007

ANALYZING A PICTURE: NAVAJO DANCERS ENTERTAINING A TOURIST TRAIN

When comparing what I got from the picture with what Zoe Morales got from the picture I found that some of our thoughts about it were the same, yet some were very different. We both thought that the dad walking with the boy seemed not interested in the dancers by looking straight ahead while walking. While Zoe Morales believed that the young boy with the dad was smiling and interested in the dancers, I thought that his facial expression looked confused and that he did not really understand why the Navajo's were dancing around. Morales and I are in agreement that the Indians are only preforming to entertain the tourist while waiting for the train and to receive money in return. The girl standing off to the side is dressed in the Whites style of clothing. "She lives in what we call the real Navajo world, the modern world, which whites dominate. And this world to which the Navajo performers probably will return. After the last performance the costumed men will put on jeans and Cotton shirts, and they will replace their beaded and feathered moccasins with sneakers" (Morales). From looking at the picture I thought the tourist on the train seemed amused by the Navajo dancers because the had their heads poking out of the window and were taking pictures. In contrast, Morales thought that the "tourist on the train are gawking"-staring stupidly or rudely. Yet, we both were in agreement that some of the tourist were not amused and that there was a strong separation of whites from Navajo since many of the tourist walking around were not mingling with the Indians and were walking away with there backs turned.
As you can see, not everyone analyzes pictures the same. Some interpret expressions in a different way and certain things mean different things. So don't just takes someone else point of view on something, make your own!

Thursday, January 25, 2007

THE LANGUAGE OF PICTURES

I was always told that paintings were more than just a piece of art, they actually told a story or had some sort of message in them, but I never new that photographs were the same way until I read The Language of Pictures. Now, looking back at some of the pictures I have taken, they actually do tell a story; who knows? Maybe I just have a natural gift in taking photos! It is amazing how professional photographers use certain techniques in how they take a picture by using different lights, color, objects, and emotions to get a message across to the viewer. Like when Minor White says "I don't take pictures, I make them," he strategically arranges and displays things to make it have meaning and tell a story. Reading this story really makes me want to visit an art gallery so I can analyze pictures and paintings by using the "basic things to look for in understanding the language of pictures." ( Mr. Roesler, I am definitely feeling a class field trip in the near future!)