Research outline for Atwood's book

To better understand the symbolism and the meaning behind Atwood’s book, it would be good to research the history of women’s rights around the world and the current rights that women have in different cultures. By doing this, it will help to create a database from which the symbolism can be compared to. For example, the white masks that the women are required to wear today may have been derived from the original practice of Christian that women had to have their heads covered in church, and in some cases to wear a veil. It may also be derived from the Muslim tradition of having the women completely cover themselves head to toe in a burka. The different colors of the outfits that the women wear could possibly be derived from the old laws in England stating that what specific colors, fabrics, etc that nobility down to peasantry were allowed to wear. This meant that the color and type of clothing that you wore was an outside display of your place in society. There are other things that could show up in the research that would help with understanding the book. It is possible that Atwood could have created the events in the book from reported instances that have happened or she could simply be using an event that happened as the form for creating the scene and circumstances that the characters experience and go through. Certain areas of focus however would be to look at the history of women’s rights in the United States, China and Muslim countries. These three areas of focus are the most known to popular culture and mass media so there will be plenty of articles and documentation of events that have happened within these three societies. These things that have happened in the past will help us understand the history of women’s rights and help clarify the different things that Atwood speaks about in her book.

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1451439/womens_rights_in_china_today.html?cat=17Article on women's rights in China

Thesis Analysis

1. Thesis A is weak because it simply states what the paper is on and it does not provide a point to argue on.
2. Thesis A is weak because it states a well known fact and it does not provide anything to build a legit argument on.
3. Thesis B is weak because it is too generalized. It has a point to be argued but it is so broad that it would be difficult to build the argument.
4. Thesis A is weak because it is a simple statement that is nothing more than a summary.
5. Thesis A is weak because it is too lengthy and it brings in personal bias that can distort the reader’s perception of the argument.
O’Brien Thesis:
Although O’Brien’s story “On the Rainy River” can be seen as a direct reflection of the typical emotional turmoil the draftees went through during the Vietnam War, it is also a reflection of the basic need of wanting to be understood by others.
This thesis statement is strong for various reasons. First of all, it brings up two ideas; One that O’Brien’s story is a reflection of his times, and the other that it is a reflection of a basic human need of wanting to be understood. This creates a point on which to build an argument that shows the first one but proves the second one. Secondly this thesis is very specific. It mentions the author, the story, and the timeline along with clearly stating the argument. Lastly, it can be easily supported from the text. Often in the story, O’Brien speaks of his fear that his family will think badly of him. He is constantly worried about what others in society would think. He also speaks of how he appreciated the way the old man did not ask why he had come to his place, how long he would stay, etc. He was also happy at the little gestures of kindness that the old man showed towards him. The old man was accepting him and did not strive to find reasons but simply let it be. This is the evidence that supports the above thesis.

Article citation and credibility

Keogh, J.. "NO BREAK FROM THE ACTION. " Worcester Magazine  25 Feb. 2010: Alt-Press Watch (APW), ProQuest. Web.  25 Oct. 2010.

                This article is a short interview with a Marine who went to Vietnam and he speaks of one of the experiences he had and also about how it was like to come home and people’s reactions to the fact that he was a Vietnam War veteran. I think it will be helpful because helps to show that what O’Brien wrote about is not uncommon.

 Article Credibility Evaluation:

Michelle Ye Hee Lee.  "Help for soldiers, kin coping with effects of service. " Arizona Republic  20  Jul 2010,Arizona Republic, ProQuest. Web.  25 Oct. 2010.

1. “Michelle Ye Hee Lee is a state government reporter at The Arizona Republic, covering elections through December 2010. She graduated from Emory University in May 2010 with a bachelor’s degree in English and International Studies. She has interned at the Chicago Tribune, Creative Loafing in Atlanta and the Pacific Daily News in Guam.” (Michelle). The newspaper she wrote this article for is the Arizona Republic and coincidentally the article is about how an organization called Arizona Coalition for Military Families (ACMF) is doing their best to help soldiers and their families adjust to the stress of being deployed.
2. The article was published July 20, 2010. It is fairly recent and I was only looking for an article that was written about deployed soldiers who were in the Iraq war and this article directly addresses that.
3. The author is making a claim that the ACMF is doing a good thing in helping the military families and it is bringing it to light because the author feels there is a need for the community to pitch in and help support the returning soldiers. The argument flows logically and it uses emotional appeal by telling stories about the stressful situations that soldiers living in Arizona have gone through. The author cites about five sources at the bottom of the article one of which is the V.A, which would have credible information about the mental and physical state of soldiers returning from deployment.
4. The only slightly suspicious thing about this article is that it is talking about an Arizona organization and the paper is based in Arizona and is a big news source for the state. It could be that the paper had printed the article in an attempt to get more subscribers and that the organizations mentioned in the article would also get more monetary support.
Michelle Ye Hee Lee. Bio. http://myhlee5.wordpress.com/about/. 10/24/2010

Mid Semester Check In

Instructor Cline,

            This semester in English has been an interesting and somewhat challenging one for me. Literary analysis is not new to me, but I have wrestled with the assignments because I am not used to having to connect in a personal way to literature that speaks basely about the emotions that most people strive hard to conceal and ignore. It is hard to write about a piece of literature like that and not be challenged personally by what it has to say, whether the feeling invokes something good or bad in you. It requires you to look at yourself and often times it invokes questions of yourself such as “why did I react that way?” or “why do I feel so drawn to this character’s plight?”

            In light of this, I will strive to improve my writing in a way that addresses the issues brought up within the literature in a more personal light rather than analyze it in a purely detached and apathetic light. I have learned also that though it is difficult to express the emotional response that one experiences without using “I” the paper flows better and seems more professional if you avoid the use of “I” or “you” and simply explain the emotional response as one outcome that could result from the reading of the particular piece of literature. This way you do not alienate the reader and you also don’t directly bring to the reader’s attention that this experience is a reaction of the author, who may look at it in a certain way due to his/her own personal biases.

            Therefore, I hope that my papers will steadily improve in these areas and be worthy on an A. I like to think that I am capable of writing good papers and so I will definitely work hard to keep that. I hope that you have enjoyed my papers as well and that the change in my papers will be apparent to you as well.

Sincerely,

Julie Holmes

Thee emotion of "The Sandstrom"

The play “The Sandstorm” is a look at the intricate role that emotions play in the mind of a soldier. Each character switch in the play is basically a monologue of a soldier recounting a memory of a skirmish that he encountered. Each soldier either speaks about the emotions that were (or were not) evoked during the experience and the emotion that followed afterwards. The playwright’s purpose in doing this is to get an emotional response of his audience. The play is very successful in doing that, and furthermore, it gives great insight into a soldiers mind.
One emotional response that came out of the play is fear. Fear in the fact that anyone who either knows a soldier or is a soldier may look at the emotional turmoil that all the soldiers seemed to have gone through and feel an apprehension about it. Each soldier lives with some regret or memory that they wish they could rid themselves of, yet it is an irreversible thing. The regret stems from having killed an innocent person that in many ways, they had no control over. Yet mixed with this apprehension that the audience may feel there is hope from one character who speaks of a man who even though the marine had just blown up his family in a car and burned him, the man is thankful that the U.S military had come. The character then explains how that became his anchor in the war. This helps to ease the apprehension, but at the same time it also was only one instance, and so the fear comes back that the audience may have the same haunting experiences as the members in the play did.
This emotion of fear is there so that the audience would understand that war isn’t pretty nor is it glamorous. It has drastic consequences on the emotional state of those involved, especially the ones left to do the “dirty work.” Yet through all the play you get the sense that the playwright is unsure as to whether he thinks that war can be justified but he leaves it up to you to decide if it can, or even if it should be.

http://www.curtainup.com/sandstorm.html

Poem Response

The poem “Rite of Passage” by Sharon Olds is a simple poem that both shocks you and saddens you, all while providing an insight to a common place occurrence. It speaks about her son who is having a birthday party. Her son, who is turning seven, has his friends over whom immediately start sizing each other up by saying who they could beat up. They threaten each other and near the end of the poem: “We could easily kill a two-year-old, he says in his clear voice. The other men agree they clear their throats like Generals, they relax and get down to playing war, celebrating my son’s life” (Olds).This poem shocks you because seven and six year old boys are deciding they could kill a two year old. However this simply comes because men no matter how young they are feel that they have to assert themselves in a physical way and thus say things that sound unreasonable or shocking. This also is insightful for the very same reason and yet it also shows how much a mother takes in and how she feels when she hears her son say things that he doesn’t truly understand.

                The second poem gives off the feel of someone being brutally honest about their feelings. The poem speaks of how his letter home will have the marks of war on it, and how it was only during a lull in the battle that he was able to write part of his letter home. It makes you feel sad to realize that a soldier’s life is really just spaces between battles they are fighting. Yet it also gives you a glimpse into what being in battle is like because he describes the different sensations and things that he is doing. As an example he says: “I tell her how Pvt. Bartle says, offhand, that war is just us making little pieces of metal pass through each other” (Powers).This tells us what he is currently hearing and what another soldier thinks. I really liked its simplicity and its brutal honesty about what he was going to write home about.

Olds, Sharon. Rite of Passage. http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=176440 September 10, 2010

Powers, Kevin. Letter Composed During a Lull in the Fighting. http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=182821. September 10, 2010.

The Voice of Poetry

Ever since the invention of the written language, words have been used to convey thoughts and emotions to others, often in unique ways. One of the unique ways that is commonly used is poetry. Poets have used rhyme to protest social injustices, to speak of hardships common to all humanity, and many other such things. One prevalent theme is that of violence, either in war or at home.  In America today, violence in all its forms is still present and a huge issue today.

                In his essay, Hammil speaks about how he believes that poetry is a window and in a sense, a cure, to violence in America. He believes that violence is fueled by three different types of people: victims, beaters, and the silent. These three people are all interwoven with each other. The victims are beaten by the beaters, who often used to be victims. The beaters are allowed to perpetuate the violence by the silence of the victim and by those who do not speak up about the matter and just let it be.  However, poetry can be used to speak up about this. To make his point, Hammil speaks about a woman who took his class and when her husband learned that she was learning to express herself through poetry, he killed her “fearing that she would tell the truth.”  This makes a strong point as to what writing can revel about the situation in the world and how it can be eye opening.

                To this end, there is a genre of poems called “poetry of witness.” Most poems of this nature are spoken from the first person about an event. The poet is trying to convey a scene that they have either witnessed (thus the name) or have personally experienced. One such poem is called “The Woman Hanging from the Thirteenth Floor Window.” This poem speaks about a woman who lives near Lake Michigan. It expresses the woman’s despair about how her life turned out, how she feels lonely despite having kids and parents. She is thinking about jumping from the window to her death, and it also speaks of those watching, how some can relate to what she is going through. The poem is an expression of pain and the way things can be in life.  These poems are a way into the soul of others and should be read more closely. If that is done then perhaps the violence that so invades the world can be a little more easily understood and perhaps even absolved.