Paper 1

I. Introduction
A It is often said that when it comes to true love, a bit of a person remains with their partner even if they go astray. This saying is tested in the poem "The Voice" by Thomas Hardy, an example of pondering over the ghostlike-presence of a past lover.
B. Thesis: Hardy uses fading diction and a sing-song rhyme scheme to highlight the uncertainty of the speaker as to the true presence of 'woman,' an integral part of the theme of lost love never truly disappearing.


II. Body Paragraph One
A. The waning diction chosen by Hardy provides strong inference as to the true uncertainty of the speaker within the poem.
1. 'Listlessness', 'dissolved', 'faltering'
2. This could be used to say the longer the amount of time since the speaker lost his/her lover, the more faint the sensation of the woman's presence.

III. Body Paragraph Two
A. The diction also contributes to the styling of the poem, starting with the emphasis of a melancholy to jubilant fluctuation of tone.
1. First Stanza- Questioning
2. Second stanza- Hopeful, jubilant
3. Third stanza- Pessimistic and disintegrating
4. Fourth stanza- Questioning, underlying hopelessness

IV. Body Paragraph Three
A. Change in the personification of various things within the poem and verb tense highlight a conflict of reasoning of the speaker.


V. Conclusion

Cash Character Analysis

In William Faulkner's novel As I Lay Dying; the use of stream of conscienceness to highlight characterization by the namesake and the characters around them. Cash is one of the most complex characters of the novel, often described as the quiet child of Anse and Addie Bundren, never without a hammer or nails in his hands. Cash is dealt the task of building his dear mother's coffin when she falls ill, a task that could not be assigned to a better person.
It in no secret that in the novel Faulkner chooses to have Addie show affection only towards her illegitimate child, Jewel, conceived with the reverend Whitfield in a fit of passion, probably to escape her chosen (or forced) life with Anse. Cash is the second eldest of the children, and one of the most ignored by his mother, perhaps because he is also Anse's son. Indeed, Cash is not given a chance to speak by Faulkner for the first 81 pages of the novel, during which he is consistently described as 'sawing the boards that look like sulphur' a peculiar choice to describe wood. Cash's sawing is 'like snoring,' and the steadiness is uninterrupted until Addie calls to him through the window and he holds up a board for approval by the future occupant.
Cash is often described with a gaunt face, one that 'is a composite of him since childhood' that reflects the pain and tiredness of his body although he is young. Cash comes into the house looking like an outdoorsman with the sawdust from the coffin covering his arms to make them appear as sand. Cash's first chapter only describes the way he cut the boards for the coffin, as on the bevel to make a cleaner job for the last residnce of his mother. Cash drills into the coffin, nailing the final nail into his mother's coffin, cementing her death.
His emphasis on the construction of the coffin hints at carpentry as a possible method to substitute the affection he needed from his mother that never came his way. Carpentry is Cash's method of expressing himself and escaping from the hustble and tired causing household in which he resides. When Cash is thrown into the river and breaks his leg, he does not object the puring of cement on his leg, although common sense would have told anyone that it was a bad idea to put a somewhat corrosive material on human skin.
Cash is the most neglected besides Darl and instead of bottling it up like his brother he shows himself as a presence within the household when they arrive in Jefferson, stepping up as the eldest child in presenace when Darl is sent to the institution. Cash is pitiful, and although not one of my favorite characters, his unique interactions with his family make him a standout.

Atwood Blog

YOu're sad because you're sad.
It's psychic. It's the age. It's chemical.
Go see a shrink or take a pill.
or hug your sadness like an eyeless doll
you need to sleep.

Well, all children are sad
but some get over it.
Count your blessings. Better than that,
buy a hat. Buy a coat or pet.
Take up dancing to forget.

Forget what?
Your sadness, your shadow,
whatever it was that done to you
the day of the lawn party
when you came inside flushed with the sun,
your mouth sulky with sugar,
in your new dress with the ribbon
and the ice-cream smear,
and said to yourself in the bathroom,
I am not the favorite child.

My darling, when it comes
right down to it
and the light fails and the fog rolls in
and you're trapped in youroverturned body
under ablanket or burning car,

and the red flame is seeping out of you
and igniting the tarmac beside your head
or else the floor, or else the pillow,
none of us is;
or else we all are.

In her poem, A Sad Child, Margaret Atwood uses flashback and metaphor to highlight the transition of a child into a woman and the subsequent loss of innocence by the speaker of the poem. Using slight metaphors without giving away the explicit details of what transpired during what can assumed the female speaker's childhood, we can see the social feminist commentary Atwood wants to give through the plight of the distressed speaker.
A first evidenced in the first stanza, Atwood uses the cataloguing of excuses and material cures to the deep sadness felt by the speaker to give the reader an idea of how children are given the quick brushoff, with hormones at the blame for everything, resulting in what could be true sadness as merely of the age. The doll, hat, coat and pet mentioned in the first and second stanzas showcase the material things the female speaker received as a substitute for the true attention the speaker desires. This flashback gives insight as to how the speaker's view of her life's problems was shaped by the treatment of her true feelings.
The second use of flashback to the day of the aforementioned lawn party brings insight into what can inferred to address the first menstruation cycle of the speaker, a disturbance to the metaphot of the purity and innocence of the new dress and sugar around the mouth of the small girl. " I am not the favorite child" Atwood writes, the menstruation cycle and it's dismissal as chemical and of the age merely registering as a destructive agent of her innocence. The flashback to the fog rolling in is a metaphor to further this event as fog is somewhat disturbing and consumes all of the light around it, drowning the speaker in her sadness. The red flame, or blood, is seen three times with the use of flashbkac, once when told to lie down, once, the first day of menstruation, and the third when the speaker is consumed by her sadness and crashes, seeing the once dismissed blood and realizing it is only a part of being human, and things happen to everyone, ending in the final two lines, " none of us is; or else we all are" meaning the favorite child. Atwood serves to address the discriminatory dismissal of women's emotions by society

Punishment

Punishment by Seamus Heaney can almost take the role of a social commentary, with it's enphasis upon a ruined beauty that could have defied the laws of her Catholic church. In the poem Heaney uses the death scene of a lover viewing the ruined corpse of a girl gone astray to emphasize the theme of judgement. In the first stanza we see the imagery of viewing the body, with the halter of what could have been a dress distorted around her body so that she appeared naked. The second stanza blows her nipples to bear a strong resemblance to amber beads, something that is reflective of the rosary for the Catholic church. One of the the metaphors shown in this poem can actually come from the econd stanza as well, with the starved ribs of the girl bearing a resemblance to the rigging of a boat, as the corpse is later revealed to be floating upon a body of water, drowned in a bog to be specific. Her physical description is furthered with metaphors bearing that of ruined beauty, a shaved head and a tar-black face. Seamus Heaney saw a lot in his life involving the fight between Protestants and Catholics within Great Britain, and this poem can be a direct commentary upon that. The adulteress, as she is portrayed in the poem was judged by her sisters, who could have the the sisters, or nuns, of the convent, in which all people of God are required to remain abstinent. Heaney's take on this was that of someone who scapegoated her, being the person to bring her into her final judgement.s

The Good Morrow Commentary

The Good Morrow

John Donne

I wonder, by my troth, what thou and I

Did, till we loved? Were we not weaned till then?

But sucked on country pleasures, childishly?

Or snorted we in the Seven Sleepers' den?

'Twas so; but this, all pleasures fancies be.

If ever any beauty I did see,

Which I desired, and got, 'twas but a dream of thee.

And now good-morrow to our waking souls,

Which watch not one another out of fear;

For love, all love of other sights controls,

And makes one little room an everywhere.

Let sea-discoveres to new worlds have shown,

Let us possess one world, each hath one, and is one.

My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears,

And true plain hearts do in the faces rest;

Where can we find two better hemispheres,

Without sharp north, without declining west?

Whatever dies was not mixed equally,

If our two loves be one, or, thou and I

Love so alike that none do slacken, none can die.

Commentary

John Donne could be seen as a hopeless romantic, defying negative sentiments about his marriage to the love of his life. This love that was shared by the two of them was portrayed in his poem, The Good Morrow, which details in metaphor the type of everlasting love they shared, separating themselves from others by sharing a common loving reality world. The diction chosen by Donne only emphasizes the extent of his passion for his paramour, creating a more personal declaration of his affections.

In the first stanza Donne starts off with detailing his life before meeting his lover, including the action of sucking on country pleasures childishly, which can have the indirect connotation of a former life of promiscuity. The fact that the speaker 'got around' in a sense, serves to be ignored, as the addressee is assured in the final line of the stanza that none of his prior partners could compare with the type of affection and passion the speaker has for their lover.The future incorporation of 'our' and 'us' into the second and third stanzas, contrary to the wandering personal 'I's of the first, emphasize the shared feelings between the two.

The good-morrow of the first line of the second stanza(wow, what a mouthful), is welcomed by the speaker, who appears to wake up next to his lover, with the prospect of setting out on a journey of their love. This journey can only be emphasized by Donne's choice of wording when describing the manner in which they will finally be able to fulfill the potential of their love as a team of travelers that sail towards a place without being veered off track.

Lysistrata 10(Final Thoughts)

I believe I didn't like this play as much as I thought I would at the end. There was absolutely not enough conflict in that I wanted more of a clash between the two sexes. I thought the men would be able to hold out longer than they did, although I didnt want for them to. Also, the women caved much faster than I thought they would as it had only been one day since they had slept with their husbands before they tried to come up with outlandish excuses as to why they were not able to keep up their end of the pledge that they swore on. I would have preferred some bloodshed, and little bit of harm done to the men and the women to be a lot haughtier than they were. They quite frankly didn't tr hard enough. Although I like that this was the first play in IB English we've read that did not result in death or a suicide, it did absolutely not but stall the feelings about housewives to their warring husbands. I just could see past the puns to actually merit the tale as one of brilliance.

Lysistrata 9

Lysistrata as a work in translation actually angers me. I do not believe that this version adequately explains the sentiments and true sexual nature of the Greeks. The fact that it has been toned down for modern day audiences could sort of act as a social commentary for those people that are not able to handle to lewd nature of the work without the translation element to it. I believe this could also act as a commentary in that we are not able to actually handle things that should be in that things of a sexual nature are beautiful and natural and should not be suppressed by today's media. The fact that we can't even grasp the true nature of the novel by having some of meaning lost as a work in translation is a true disappointment.