"Toads" by Philip Larkin

     The poem "Toads" by Philip Larkin uses symbolism to express the two forces in the speaker that are contrasting.  This creates a personal conflict inside the speaker.  The two conflicting forces are the toads.  Each toad symbolizes a conflicting force in the speaker of Larkin's poem.  The first toad symbolizes the working aspect of the speaker, the part that is a hard worker and tries hard to maintain a comfortable lifestyle.  The reader can find this in the first line, "Why should I let the toad work Squat on my life?" (Larkin, 800).  The second toad is slightly harder to find and is at the end of the poem.  Larkin references that the second toad is greed and laziness.  These two toads conflict with each other because one cannot work hard to earn one's living and be lazy and just receive it.  Larkin juxtaposes the two toads throughout the poem.

"Dream Deferred" by Langston Hughes

     In the poem "Dream Deferred" by Langston Hughes, Hughes uses six distinct images throughout the poem to describe the dream.  He uses five similes and closes with one metaphor.  The five similes follow the same pattern of the possibilities of what a deferred dream may do.  The metaphor at the end has special emphasis.  This last image implies that this is what actually happens to deferred dreams.  Hughes' metaphor changes the attitude of the poem.  The metaphor, "Or does it explode," (Hughes) changes the attitude of the poem to a very active sense.  The italics put emphasis on the fact that the author has been festering something deep inside and feel that something needs to be done about it.  The use of the metaphor redirects the theme of the poem.  The other similes help lead up to the bomb that Hughes drops on the reader in the last line.

"Hazel Tells Laverne" by Kathryn Howd Machan

     The poem "Hazel Tells Laverne" by Kathryn Howd Machan demonstrates colloquialism throughout the entire poem.  The use of colloquialism creates an informal scene in the "Princess and the Frog" scene.  Nothing in the poem is capitalized making the speaker lower class and uneducated.  The lack of punctuation in the poem allows the reader to see where the natural pauses are and the way that the reader, Hazel, talks to her friend Laverne.  One place that the colloquialism is especially prominent is when Hazel says, "sohelpmegod," (Machan).  Here she is referring to the fact that the frog told her she could be a princess.  The slur of words exhibits the slang Hazel uses in her daily life.  At the beginning of the poem Hazel indirectly says that she is a maid of some kind.  Maids are sometimes not as educated as the rest of the general public.  In this case the use of the colloquialism, lack of punctuation, and slang contribute to the background of the speaker being uneducated.

Lawrence Perrine's Poem Interpretation

     For the most part I agreed with Perrine's view of how poetry should be interpreted.  I agree that a poem may have different interpretations and mostly all of those are correct.  They only become incorrect when the reader does not take notice of the actual text.  The reader cannot base the entire interpretation off of assumption.  If it was all assumption than the reader would have no insight into the actual poem.  I also agreed that there is no one correct interpretation of a poem.  Everyone has their own  view and insight into the poem.  The interpretation with the fewest assumptions and the one with no contradictions is most likely the closest one to the author's original thoughts.

      I disagreed with Perrine in the fact that the "garden" interpretation of Emily Dickenson's poem is completely wrong.  Each reader views each work differently and the sunset theme seemed more far-fetched to me than the garden theme.  Dickenson mentions daffodils and that fact would lead a reader to think about flowers and that is still a valid interpretation.  I disagree that the sunset theory satisfies every detail of her poem.  I would like to know where Perrine came up with the idea of the poem being about a sunset because it seems made up and a huge assumption.  Although I agreed and disagreed with Perrine's statement that a poem has a set meaning.  Poems have the poet's intended meaning and any interpretation that a reader may deduce with it still making sense with the poem.  Each poem has many meanings with in the parameters of the text of the poem itself.

Gatsby Picture

Workin' hard or hardly workin'?

The Great Gatsby: As a Whole

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald was a novel worth reading.  Although I became very upset at points because of the decisions the characters made, it made me realize that true happiness isn't something you can just have because you want it.  To attain true happiness you have to work hard everyday to help others in their pursuit and if you can just help one person than your life is worth something.  That is what true happiness is, helping others.  If everyone helped everyone around them, then we would all be happy.  The book made me realize that while life is one big party, you still have to be responsible and take responsibility of your actions.  True happiness can only be found if you are not only with the people you truly love, but are doing what you truly love.  Being true to yourself is the first step toward happiness.  If you can be confident in yourself then you will make it through.  I think this book was a really good way to reflect on how I want my senior year to be, along with the rest of my life.

"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past," (Fitzgerald, 180).

The Great Gatsby: Chapter 9

In this final chapter of The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, I realized what this novel had been about the entire time.  The novel was placed in the 1920s where people lived just as the characters did in the book.  They lived in complete bliss.  Deciding that they could have whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted.  They were Americans who live in the home of the brave but more importantly to them the land of the free.  The people in the 20s took no adherence to prohibition.  This was assisted by the fact that they were not enough officials who would enforce this new amendment.  They drank a lot and lived their lives searching for happiness.

" '... Why, my God!  They used to go there by the hundreds,' " (Fitzgerald, 175).

This statement  shows how everyone lived their lives partying wherever they could.  In this novel Gatsby's life symbolizes the 1920s; they were all about the party and doing whatever one wanted and attaining happiness.  Gatsby's abrupt murder symbolizes the stock market crash.  All of a sudden the party was over and people were shocked.  People still drove up to his driveway and were sad that there was no party.  With the Depression people could not believe that the stock market had actually crashed.  With Gatsby's death came the end of a long party, and that is exactly what the Great Depression brought.