Gotta Love Poe (Blog9)

The Raven

Edgar Allen Poe

The emotions that I believe Poe is trying to convey in "The Raven" are fear and a level of hysteria towards the raven that was sitting above his chamber door. It's almost as if he's being haunted by it and there's a level of psychotic-ness, for lack of a better term, being pushed through multiple different lines. 

"'Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!' I shrieked, upstarting-

'Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore!

Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!

Leave my loneliness unbroken!-quit the bust above my door!

Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!'

                                                                  Quoth the Raven, 'Nevermore.'"

This quote especially, he's basically talking to a bird and imagining the bird is up there taunting him, refusing to leave him in peace, reminding him of everything he's trying to forget, or more specifically a certain woman he's trying to forget. Usually when someone doesn't want to be reminded, there's a level of angst and pain, as well as an undertone of regret.

"'Respite-respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore!

Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!'

                                                                  Quoth the Raven, 'Nevermore.'"

It's obvious by the punctuation alone that he's pleading, begging, crying out, for this bird to leave him alone but the bird, calm and nonchalant is just like, "Nah, I think I'll stay here awhile."

 Maybe he did something to Lenore, and the raven represents his conscience coming back to haunt him?

Annabel Lee

Edgar Allen Poe

The overall tone of this poem I would say is sadness, loss. It's all about losing a great love to one of the worst fates, death. There was no undertone, it was all spelled out pretty nicely. 

"For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams

     Of the beautiful ANNABEL LEE;

And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes

     Of the beautiful ANNABEL LEE;

And so, all the night tide, I lie down by the side

Of my darling--my darling--my life and my bride,

    In the sepulchre there by the sea,

    In her tomb by the sounding sea."

The rhythm of the poem definitely helped make this piece not just a beautiful love letter to a lost loved one, but also a beautifully sounding piece of literature. The flow of the piece and the repetition helps deliver more emotion and have a bigger impact on the reader.

Happily Ever After's Are Overrated (Viewing Blog 3)

Ever After

Viewing Blog 3

121 minutes

The Cinderella fairy tale touches on a lot of different fears and expectations. Alike all other fairy tales, there is this expectant "happily ever after" ending.

That is why fairy tales are so well-known and liked, because they represent something that human beings crave, eternal happiness. If a fairy tale showed a true ending, the prince dies of cancer and the princess grows old alone and eventually gains a large sense of dementia and is no longer the person she used to be, it wouldn't be as well liked. No one wants to be hit with the harsh slap of reality of how life really ends for the majority of us. No one lives forever, and fairy tales are a symbol of eternal love and happiness.

Cinderella stories, especially, cover a lot female reliance for a man to come and "rescue her". That's the one thing I really liked about this version of the Cinderella tale, on at least two different occasions, Danielle (Cinderella), proves that she can pull her own weight, or better yet, even the prince's.

Love Knows No Gender (Blog8)

"Day Million"

Frederik Pohl

(1966)

There is something to be said about a love that doesn't need touch, or physical contact of any sort to be pure and true. What greater love could there be than connecting at the mind? Men and women get so caught up in physical looks, they forget when all is said and done you're left with who a person is, not what they look like. This story greatly advertised this aspect of any relationship.

"Adrift on a sponson city a few hundred yards over her head and orbiting Arcturus, fifty light-years away, Don has only to command his own symbol-manipulator to rescue Dora from the ferrite files and bring her to life for him, and there she is; and rapturously, tirelessly they ball all night. Not in the flesh, of course; but then his flesh has been extensively altered and it wouldn't really be much fun. He doesn't need the flesh for pleasure. Genital organs feel nothing. Neither do hands, nor breasts, nor lips; they are only receptors, accepting and transmitting impulses. It is the brain that feels, it is the interpretation of those impulses that makes agony or orgasm; and Don's symbol-manipulator gives him the analogue of cuddling, the analogue of kissing, the analogue of wildest, most ardent hours with the eternal, exquisite, and incorruptible analogue of Dora."-p.384

"When It Changed"

Joanna Russ

(1972)

This story reflects on the inequality that women face, the message is loud, clear, and bold. Although, I also think that even though there will be men coming into their world that the only way they (the women) would feel belittled is if they let men make them feel that way. Though having men around in general is likely to have some impact on the younger generations.

Just like now, in the human race today, if you want your daughters to grow up strong and independent and never feeling less than a man, you, as her parent, must instill those thoughts and ambitions. No matter what there will always be someone in life who will try to make you feel less than what you are, who will try to take what you've worked for. It doesn't make you the weak one, it makes them the weak one.

"This too shall pass. All good things must come to an end. Take my life but don't take away the meaning of my life."-p.515