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.

Winter

Walking home from Oak-head really spoke to me. I really related to this poem because it reminded me a lot of home, Western New York. When I think of home, I think of snow up to my hips, and wind so cold and chilling it cuts right to the bone. It becomes dark by around 4:00pm in the winter, and most days are started and ended with cloudy dark skies. On the occasional day when the sun does shine, the world seems to be ignited, as the snow glistens. The author is talking about when she is not at home she feels as though she is in the dark place, between the pine trees in the winter. At home in the winter when I am in a snowy pine forest it is so scary and lonely, which is what I believe the author was trying to get across. As the author continues to talk about the winter atmosphere, such as the snow falling, and the slow wind it gives the perfect resemblance of winter. Yes, there are days when the snow is pouring down, but there are also days when everything is just white and it feels as though the earth is still. I think this really represents our faith in Jesus. Some days we feel as though everything is out of control, but other days we feel peace. My favorite part was the end when the poem discusses what it is like to come inside after you have taken a long walk out in the snow and cold. Once you step inside, the snow begins to melt and everything gets warmer. This relates to when you step away from the weathering of life and into the hands of God, he brushes you off and warms you heart.