Madame Change the World

The poem My Tea with Madame Descartes was an interesting read, that really made me stop and think. The poem starts with a reporter running late for an interview. Her interview was not with an ordinary famous person, star or politician. Her interview was with a photographer who had been all around the world taking pictures that opened up the world to those who could not travel. Her photos included pictures of heartache and joy, but she was remembered for those that created the gasps and heartache. Throughout the poem we learn a lot about the characteristics of the photographer, and what her character and personality resemble. Madame Descartes initially comes off as a hard women, her first impression display that she desires to meet in a bar, with an alcoholic beverage, and sits against the wall where she is unseen smoking a cigarette. As soon as the reporter sets eyes on Madame, it is almost as if the reporter was mesmerized by her appearance. As the poem starts, Madame describes to her experiences and almost seems frustrated. She knows everyone has their opinions about her work and she addresses these ideas. As Madame continues to talk about her experiences and work, the reporter almost turns into a child listening to a story, rather than asking annoying questions. The reporter is all ears to what Madame has to say. As the reporter listened to what Madame had to say she is taken on an adventure to the secret place of what Madame felt through all those years. The interview is not long, but is intense in the way that Madame describes her experiences. By the end of the interview Madame has taken the reporters picture and now she is part of Madame’s story.

My first reading of this poem made is seem simple and up front, but the more I read it, the more I realized it was not that simple. Madame wants to come across as hard and not amused with others around her. Through this story we see that she is a complicated woman with hurt. The part that I was really surprised by was when she was talking about her husband. She describes his as “a sweet but stupid man”. My first reading of this was to laugh, and then think she was mean for saying such a harsh thing about a man she married. Then I took a step back and it made me think she did not mean it in a harsh way, she just was not right for him. The point that she said he was sweet, and a lawyer meant that he was a good man, I just believe he was to boring for her. I do not believe she meant to say he was stupid intellectually; in fact he was a lawyer. She intended for the word stupid to imply he was dull, annoying, pointless, and tedious. She had an adventurous side to her and she was not okay with doing nothing with her life. She viewed her husband as to simple for her, not as he was intellectually stupid.

I believe this poem is all about misunderstandings. Everyone has their own story and their individual personality. Through this poem we see a woman who followed her heart and fulfilled her destiny. She was a gifted photographer who wanted to enlighten the world. But through this she came across hardships, and at many points people talked down about her work. Not a lot of people understood her work, but many did respect it. She was viewed as different, but whenever people were around her they would get consumed by her, and then her talent could flow. This poem really reminded me that I need to be me, and we need to follow our hearts, not what other people say we need to be. We can see this when the story starts by the reported being consumed with Madame as soon as she sits down with her, the reporter says “her beauty was singular, volcanic, viscous, and inevitable”. The she talks about the war and how she was just floating through life, so she married a man who did not fulfill her, but that was what people told her she needed to do at that point. When she finally decided to follow her heart and invest her time in something she loved, photography. Madame said “no one could say no to me……the woman with the famous eye”. She followed her heart and got the world.

Another aspect that I loved about his poem was that even though maybe a chapter in her life was over, she did not act as though her life was over. As the reporter sat there and listened to her story she took every word in. When Madame decided she had shared enough she pulled out a camera and told the reporter she was going to now taker her picture. Not many times the person being interviewed takes the picture of the reporter. This only solidifies who Madame is, and what the poem represented, no one could say not to her. It was as if her story was always continuing. She was telling about her life, but by the end of it she was adding to the story of her life. This was an important reminder that our lives are never complete. We are always adding to our life story, and experiences. We should never give up on ourselves, we never know who is going to walk through the door and start asking questions about our life, and maybe our story will begin theirs.

Symbolism

Symbolism is an important part of literature. Without it, literature would be missing a certain zest. Symbolism is what creates a picture in our head for us to view. Symbolism is what creates a picture, or can also be a picture. Symbolism is not always illustrated in picture format. Sometimes the reader is responsible to create the symbolism. During the times where the reader creates the picture, it is important for the writer to use a lot of descriptive words to create the vision the world they are trying to create. Other times authors use pictures to show the meaning. So the saying goes ‘a picture is worth a million words’. An author could at times us a picture or symbol to get readers to use their imagination, or to imply something generally assumed by an image. Symbolism can sometimes be a messy situation. Not everyone has the same thought with every symbol. An example like a stop sign often brings the same thought, to stop, but something like a painting of a leaf might bring different thoughts to different people. Maybe the author wants to imply different mysteries for different people. For example an artist rarely explains their painting because they want to viewer to receive the excitement about using their imagination while viewing the painting. Symbolism reminds me of silent movies. These movies solely relied on symbolism and imagery. The director needed to be creative to get the story line consistently across to the viewer. Imagery is a tricky thing, and sometimes people fail when they are presented with an image. And other times and image can mean a few different things. It is important to keep an open mind when looking at objects around us; I believe we will be surprised with what they say to us.

Pass Blog

I will be using this blog as a pass entry.

Waiting For Godot and Seinfeld

Waiting for Godot, Act 1, was an interesting read. By the time I was done reading I thought to myself, ‘what did I just read?’. The story opens up with Vladimir and Estragon trying to get their boots off. These two boys are best friends and have been together for a long time. Their life is simple, as far as the reader can tell thus far. They spend their days stealing, and then waiting for Godot. On the current day they have been waiting for a long time near a tree. The boys seemed bored while they are waiting. Vladimir is playing with his hat, while Estragon tries for a long time to get his boot off. Estragon falls asleep and has a dream. Vladimir wakes him up because he feels lonely. When he wakes up he starts to tell Estragon his dream. Estragon does not want to hear about the dream and Vladimir gets mad and decides they would be better if they were a part. But before long Vladimir comes back and sits with Estragon. The boys can’t figure out what they should do while they are waiting for Godot. One suggests they hang themselves, but then the other says they should just wait for Godot and ask him what they should do. Soon they hear a cry from and the distance and decide to wait and see what id heading their way.

As I was reading this it reminded me of watching an episode of ‘Seinfeld’ or ‘Friends’. There was a lot of talking, but nothing really going on. The story was a lot about nothing. The two close friends are defiantly dependent on each other, and cannot do anything without the other being included. For example when one was sleeping the other woke him up, when one was taking off his boot, he wanted the other to help. I am not sure what this story is about yet, hopefully there will be more understanding in the future acts.

Dr. Horrible

Dr. Horrible’s sing along was very interesting to say the least. It was had a drastic spin to a sad story. Most of the story was about this crazy scientist who was crazy about this girl, Penny. He had never talked to her once, and he only knew her from the laundry mat. When he wasn’t at the laundry mat, he was thinking about her in his science lab. He had just gotten the chance to talk to her, when she approached him during one of his secret scientist missions. Due to the fact that he was in the middle of a mission this caused him to appear rude, therefore Penny walked away. Even though she walked away, they were both excited that they had finally talked to each other. As she was walking away Dr. Hammer, Dr. Horrible’s opposer showed up and saved Penny’s life. Although it appeared that Dr. Hammer saved her life, it was really Dr. Horrible. As the story continues there is a constant battle between Dr. Hammer, and Dr. Horrible. Penny thinks she is falling in love with Dr. Hammer, when all he is worried about is sleeping with her and making himself look good. By the end of the story Dr. Horrible shows up to kill Dr. Hammer, but accidentally though a chain of random events, Penny gets killed.

The ending of this story really surprised me. Yes, there was drama though the entire sing along, but I never saw the death of Penny coming. I would not have been so surprised if one of the Dr.’s would have been killed, but Penny did nothing to deserve the death. This made me think of how crazy life is. Dr. Horrible had this elaborate plan to kill Dr. Hammer, but instead, he killed the only women he ever loved. I guess sometimes life just isn’t fair.

A Squirrel and a Tree

"I went to Lake Bonny Park for this assignment, and I stayed there for at least 50 minutes." When I arrived I will be honest, I was frustrated from a busy, crazy day. I started walking around the path just thinking about my day, and everything I had to do later. As I started my walk I was surprised when I squirrel jumped over my head into another tree. I laughed right out loud because it was so cute. That squirrel got me thinking, it seemed not just happy but joyful. It was just minding its own business jumping from tree to tree. It seemed as though it did not have a care in the world, just enjoying life and doing what he wanted. But then I started thinking, what if I was wrong, what if the squirrel was running away from a predator. What if he was right on the brink of death, and not knowing where to run to next? Suddenly, I felt bad for the little squirrel, I could have easily saved him from a predator, but he didn’t know I could help him, if anything the squirrel was afraid of me to.

The next thing I noticed was all the dead trees. I felt like so many of the trees were half barren, and almost as if they were falling apart. But then I looked to the other side of the path and there were plenty of green flourishing plants. I thought it was so strange that in the same place there could be so much life and death. At first it made me sad, to see all the dead trees, but then I thought but what about the life. Why aren’t I rejoicing about the living trees?

These two things; the squirrel and the trees changed my thinking. There is so much we don’t see in life, and don’t understand. We may not always know why a situation is what it is. But we need to be able to see the whole picture and point out the positives and enjoy life for what it brings, not takes away.

Prayer and Sorrow

For this week I have read two more poems and found them very insightful. The first poem was Praying. This poem was beautiful. It took nature and turned it into something religious and spiritual. It referenced how when we pray it can be something simple or easy as weeds in a parking lot, or small stones. This gives a whole new approach to praying. So many times a lot of us are fearful to pray in public because we feel inadequate, or not spiritual enough. We think that the only people who can pray out loud or those who are leaders in the church. This cannot be correct because in fact, Jesus tells us himself to come to him with child-like faith. Child-like faith does not require big words or anything extravagant, it just requires trust. This poem does a great job explaining the simplicity Jesus wants when he asks us to pray. The second poem, The Uses of Sorrow discussed how to take something positive about being in a dark moment. This poem was short, but very to the point. The poem gives off the feel that we all understand what it feels like to receive a dark moment. It even specifies that we can, and often do receive dark gifts from the people we love the most. For me personally it is not that we only receive dark gifts from the ones we love, but these are often the only dark gifts I notice, because I only am hurt when the gift is from someone I love. If a stranger does something mean I almost expect it, but when someone I love hurts me, it crushes me. But then in the second stanza of the poem it discusses how even from our hardest heartbreak we can find the positive from it, something beneficial, or a lesson learned.