The Handmaid’s Tale

            So far this has been a provocative and rather strange piece of literature.  It is a whole new style of writing for me; I usually read books of a different nature.  I am not having a lot of great success in reading this book as fast as I would like to.  I just can’t seem to get into the story.  That being said the most intriguing thing so far for me is the form of government.  I have enjoyed learning about the way this government operates.  I feel that I would like to write my essay through the eyes of this government.  I think that in doing so it will give me a very non-bias view of the writing and the messages that the author is trying to portray.  For me the government seems to want good things, it just has a warped sense on how to accomplish them; Very similar to the Nazis of Germany before and during the World Wars.  I am fascinated with opinions that differ from mine.  I thoroughly enjoy trying to see things through the eyes of another.  This will simply give me another opportunity to do just that.  I hope that I can get a grasp of what the author is trying to tell me. 

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This class was an extremely big struggle for me.  I have had a very hard time with some of the assignments.  The main reasons that I have had such a hard time are, I am too logical and literal for poetry; I don’t like saying “this is what the author means…” and I just suck at comparing two different types of writings.  These are some of my biggest weaknesses, so English 102 is just about the limit of my patience.  I have been stressed since day one of this class.  I am not a writer, I do not aspire to write, and I do not want to judge what other people write.  For me this is just another class that I need to pass so I can do what I enjoy.  That is what has challenged me so far.  I would have to say that my greatest success has been the fact that I didn’t drop the class.  I would also say that I have been successful in getting a good grade. 

The readings in this class have very much been outside the realm of my typical reading.  I really enjoyed Tim O’Brien, his book The Things They Carried has really opened my eyes to some realities of the Vietnam War.  I think I will keep that book so my kids can read it when they get older.  I have never liked poetry and I still dislike it.  As far as the play we read, I am not sure that I will seek out anything else by Sean Huze.  Literary analysis is very different from the other types of writing that I have done in college.  I think the big difference is that with the other writing I have done it has been factual writing and literary analysis is more of using the writings to support your opinion.  I am not a fan of writing, let alone writing my opinion of another’s writing. In the second half of the year it is my goal to continue with good getting good grades and to become more comfortable with analyzing writing.

Sean Huze Response

            My initial response to this is not very nice.  I think that there are a lot of great stories in the play that have a right to be told.  We all know that soldiers at war can out-swear a sailor any day of the week and twice on Sunday.  I think that the use of profanity in this play is far beyond excessive.  The very same message could have been portrayed with way less than half of the profanity.  I don’t mind reading the foul language every now and then, but to have some conjugated form of the word “fuck” every five or six words is no less than repulsive.  I felt like I had to take a shower after I read it.  I remember the stories having a huge impact on those that they involved, but I don’t remember the stories, just the language.  I feel that the writer, Sean Huze, was not a writer, rather someone who wrote some words and called it a play.  I know that war is abrasive, cruel, and uncaring but move onto something other than the swearing.  Yes I am an adult and I have heard and said all of these profane words before; that doesn’t mean I want to read them.  Language of this nature stays in your head, now and I am sure in many years to come when this play or Sean Huze come up in conversation all I will think of is the nasty language.  The characters in the play seem very real, as I am sure they are.  I felt that I could connect with the characters because they were people have similar thoughts and feelings that I think I might have in similar situation.  There was one character in one of the stories that I felt bad for.  Private First Class Weems.  In the story there are two other soldiers gambling and one says he is done.  The other is egging him on to keep playing.  PFC Weems says, “Don’t listen to him man.  He is just trying to get the rest of your cash.” (Huze 11).  After this comment is made both of the soldiers that had been throwing dice laid into him with harsh comments.  He simply made a remark of an obvious nature and he was ridiculed for it.  This made me feel bad for him.  All in all I think that given future chances to read Sean Huze, I would have to decline them.  This is only my opinion, there are other opinions of Sean  Huze. 

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The Things They Carried

The two poems that gave me strong feelings

I am going to be frank; I don’t understand poetry in the least degree.  I am, however, going to give it my very best effort.  I really enjoyed the poem titled “Letter Composed During a Lull in the Fighting” by Kevin C. Powers; it is one that I can relate to.  I have never been a soldier as the author obviously has.  The first line was very moving to me, “I tell her I love her like not killing” (Powers line 1).  I understand that kind of love.  From this line I assume he is married.  It appears to me that he hates the fact that he has to kill to protect.  From what I gather the author wishes he could send a better letter to his loved one, “I tell her in a letter that will stink, when she opens it, of bolt oil and burned powder” (Powers lines 5-7).  The closing lines are awesomely powerful, yet simplistic words, “war is just making little pieces of metal pass through each other” (Powers lines10-12).  I can’t even imagine having to be in that situation.  I am grateful to those who fight and who have fought to keep this country safe.

            The other poem I am passionate about, but for some odd reasons.  I don’t follow the storyline at all, it confuses me, and I don’t like it.  I do like a challenge; for that reason I am going to write about “Compendium of Lost Objects” by Nicole Cooley.  I had to look up the definitions to a couple of words so right off the bat I am not liking it much.  To me this poem just seems to be a collection of random thoughts.  The way that it moves around if confusing to me, “not the cabinet of curiosities built with secret drawers to reveal and conceal its contents, but the batture, the rope swing, the rusted barge sunk at the water’s edge”(Cooley lines 4-6).  I just have a hard time following where the poem is taking me.  I guess I just don’t get the point of this poem, and that is why is has affected my so deeply.  I don’t like things that I can’t figure out; I am an extremely logical person and I just can’t find the logic in this poem.

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Few Truer Words

            I have many of the very same beliefs that Hamill expresses in the essay.  I agree whole heartedly that people become what they see in their upbringing.  I know that I am an exception to the rule so to speak; I took the bad things I saw my dad do when I was young and I used that to fuel my fire in becoming a better man.  I have seen exactly what he is talking about I had a friend who was beaten as a child by his step-father, once he had children of his own he abused them as well as his wife.  He makes the subtle hint that there is a certain amount of corruption coming to us through our televisions; I could not agree more.  My wife and I do not allow our kids to watch mainstream TV for that very reason.  My kids get to watch two movies per day, and the movies that they watch are mostly Disney. I think that is more important that my kids go outside and play or play a sport rather than a video game.  He went on a little tangent in reference to homophobia; I cannot say that I condone the lifestyle of homosexuality, but I do believe that people have free will and if someone chooses to be gay it is not my place to tell them to be different than that.  I do not think people should be feared or persecuted for a belief or a lifestyle choice, even if it is one that I disagree with.  I have never been much of a writer and he obviously was.  I think that writing my thoughts could be an avenue that I might explore.  “Writing is a form of human communication expressing ideas regarding the human condition.”  I think that I have neglected this form of communication for too long, time to stretch my limits.

http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/733