"Beowulf the Movie" aka "nooooo hahaha no please no stop"

              Firstly, if you have ever seen Beowulf the movie, please join me in a quick laugh followed closely by a terrified and disgusted groan: hahahahaaaaaaa ughhhhhh. Thank you. Now that we have gotten that out of our systems, we can discuss how absolutely ridiculous that movie is. In Beowulf the epic poem, Beowulf is a strong hero who has come to boast and destroy the evil in this forsaken land, but in the movie, Beowulf is a half naked liar, who seems to be strong enough, but insists on wooing Wealtheow and shutting down Unferth. I feel like there is not much to analyze in this movie, but I still need to talk about it you know? Like why did the director decide to make the movie only 2% like the book? That 2% being that Beowulf is the guy, Grendel is the first monster, and Hrothgar is the king. However, while those characters kept their names and basic roles, none of them kept their traits or characteristics. I almost don't even want to talk about Grendel. For the first half of the movie I honestly had to continuously repeat to myself  "this is not my Grendy, this is not my Grendy", because like seriously come on mr director what is going on. The first seen in this movie is seriously Grendel, who is a huge, seriously deformed, human type thing, ripping his head open with his hand/claw because his disgusting exposed eardrum is being hurt by the Danes' merrymaking. Now honestly, I feel for the guy, I understand why he did what he did. He just seemed like a big baby to me, but why did he have to be so gross? I just connected so much with Grendel from his book that now the Grendel, the way he was portrayed, it probably affected me more than most people. Okay, moving on from the worst part of the movie, lets talk about Grendel's stupid origins. Grendel is Hrothgar's son. Funny right? First of all Hrothgar's character in this movie is disappointing. He is drunk and old and fat and extremely rude to Wealtheow. Now, I may just be being forgetful, but I don't remember him being any of that in the book. Okay so Hrothgar was 'seduced' by Grendel's mother, a serpent-like form of Angelina Jolie, like she is literally Angelina Jolie with some scales. She doesn't even live in a cave guarded by fire snakes like come on mr director you missed the descent! Okay, but yeah she seduced Hrothgar so now Grendel is his son, and honestly they did a good job of showing the resemblance, especially after Grendel freaking shrank and shriveled like what. Okay yeah but that's his son so that is a big plot twist and Wealtheow is all mad about it and I thought it was very, very dumb. But then, skipping around a bit, it gets much, much worse. After Grendel dies, instead of attempting to seek revenge, Grendel's mother just makes Bewoulf spawn her another child, which I think is a total blow on female kind. Apparently all we're good at is seduction and child rearing? But yeah so Beowulf impregnates Grendel's mother, then marries Wealtheow after Hrothgar dies, then after several years this dragon starts attacking the land, but it is really Beowulf's shapeshifting-monster-son? They did not explain that very well and it was very dumb and I hated this movie. Okay also who is Beowulf's faithful brother-man supposed to be? I didn't recognize his name, which sounded like a mixture of wheat and Wealtheow. Okay so lets throw some analysis in here. Lets try to analyze the hero's journey. First Beowulf arrives, his call to action was knowing that Hrothgar needed help, but he must have skipped the refusal of the call stage. Next he was supposed to meet his mentor, I guess this could be Hrothgar since he gives him that stupid dragon horn that makes him have sex with Grendel's mother. Next hes supposed to cross the threshold, honestly I don't know what this would have been in the movie. Next he has tests, allies and enemies, This part is easy to identify, all the danes and geats are his friends, Grendel and Grendel's mother are his enemies, and facing them are his tests, one of which he failed. Like his only job was to not have sex with Grendel's mother and to kill her, but no instead he does it and then lies about it to everyone like yeah okay. Next is the approach, I guess this is the whole time until the dragon-boy-man-son comes. No actual this is probably before he goes to see Grendel's mother. So then he does that, which is the ordeal where he is supposed to face his greatest fear. Next is the reward, this would be him becoming king and getting Wealtheow. Next is the road back which is when the slave finds the stupid dragon horn. Next the resurrection, so this is when the dragon-thing comes. Then he is supposed to return with the elixir, but he fails and dies. So yeah honestly the whole movie was confusing and I just felt like I needed to share my feelings with a community that may have seen the movie because my mom did not understand why I was so distressed during the movie. So basically in my opinion, the director just wanted to make a fast paced adventure hero story that had absolutely no meaning to it, and he succeeded in that. But in the processes, he soiled a great classic, confused thousands of viewers, and severely scared a little eight year old me and made me leave the theater.

Once I was innocent, but then I experience the pain of procrastination

"Holy Thursday" (Songs of Innocence)

‘Twas on a Holy Thursday, their innocent faces clean,

The children walking two and two, in red and blue and green,

Grey headed beadles walk’d before, with wands as white as snow,

Till into the high dome of Paul's they like Thames’ waters flow.

Oh what a multitude they seem’d, these flowers of London town!

Seated in companies they sit with radiance all their own.

The hum of multitudes was there, but multitudes of lambs,

Thousands of little boys and girls raising their innocent hands.

Now like a mighty wind they raise to heaven the voice of song,

Or like harmonious thunderings the seats of Heaven among.

Beneath them sit the aged men, wise guardians of the poor;

Then cherish pity, lest you drive an angel from your door.

"Holy Thursday" (Songs of Experience)

Is this a holy thing to see

In a rich and fruitful land,

Babes reduced to misery,

Fed with cold and usurous hand?

Is that trembling cry a song?

Can it be a song of joy?

And so many children poor?

It is a land of poverty!

And their sun does never shine,

And their fields are bleak and bare,

And their ways are filled with thorns:

It is eternal winter there.

For where'er the sun does shine,

And where'er the rain does fall,

Babes should never hunger there,

Nor poverty the mind appall.

                 For this blog I'm supposed to take a Blake poem, analyze it, and then connect it back to Grendel if possible. Luckily, I noticed a connection or a similarity between Blake's things and Grendel. Blake has this theme of Innocence vs Experience and Grendel lives that theme. He goes from the innocent baby in his cave, to the experienced one who "create[s] the world blink by blink". He goes from that innocent boy, to the one who knows violence and is appalled by it. Then he goes from that boy to the boy dazzled by poetry, having gained the knowledge of his purpose in life. Then he goes from this content boy to one filed with malice and violence, the most experienced of all of his stages. In Blake's poems, specifically the two above, there is not an obvious listed occurrence that banishes the children from the happy realm of innocence to the dark one of experience, it just seems to be a natural pathway through life. If you examine the rhyme schemes and line lengths in the above poems, it is apparent that the Innocence poem has a constant AA BB type rhyme scheme, while the Experience poem has a broken rhyme scheme that only appears occasionally. The rhyme scheme in the innocence poem represents how happy and hopeful and joyous the children are. It brings the feeling of prancing around and just being happy. Then in the experience poem, the broken rhyme scheme represents the broken hope and happiness within the people. Occasionally there is a glimpse of happiness, but for the most part it is all dreary and glum. Then looking at the actual lines' lengths, the lines that make up the innocent poem are long, with little punctuation. In contrast, the lines within the experience poem are very short, and have much more punctuation, especially in the second stanza where there is a mark every line. The short lines seem to show how little hope the experienced people are. They seem to be too tired to expand on what they are saying. The punctuation seems to signify like discipline within these people. The exclamation points and question marks create a feeling of harshness maybe even punishment. It seems as though the experienced people have been taught not to talk too much, or that they have learned through their experience that it is better for them to keep their mouths shut. Okay now connecting back to Grendel, his innocence and experience are the most evident when looking at his  encounters with the shaper and the dragon. When Grendel first saw the shaper, he had been pretty innocent up until then, but then the shaper filled him with a childlike joy that caused him to weep with joy. This is very highly contrasted with his time with the dragon. The dragon soiled Grendel's mind, telling him that he must be violent towards the humans because he is the only thing that gives them meaning. Also looking at meaning, the shaper gave him a purpose, he made him feel like he belonged in their society, even if he was the bad guy.On the other hand, the dragon took away his meaning, telling him that he was easily replaceable. This all connects back to Blake because the shaper signifies the happy, innocence of the children seen in the innocent poem above,  while the dragon signifies the dark, hopelessness of the people within the experienced poem.

554 words about Grendel

Honestly, I thought Grendel was a stellar novel and that is not just because my Grandpa's doppelganger wrote it (John Gardiner vs John Gardner heh heh). I'm not exactly sure why, but I really relate to Grendel, although that does sound a bit odd, me having a connection with a giant, furry, monster, man-baby. Well no matter how odd my connection was, I did gain a pretty impactful take away from this novel. Out of all of the ruckus and nihilism and false meaning, I found the tale to be a warning. If your life is out of balance, you are going to end u;p being ripped apart, maybe even literally by a dreamy, horse-shouldered, oven-chested evil hero. Ever since chapter five, when the dragon ruined poor little pacifist Grendel, Grendel was fighting an inner war between two very contrasting sides. When Grendel first meets the Shaper, he is presented with beauty, art, meaning, purpose, family, even friendship. The Shaper unintentionally teaches him to be calm, to only kill when he feels it is necessary, to observe from a quiet place among the trees, even to desire friendship. In my opinion, Grendel seems pretty happy during this part of his life, if we omit the part where he begs and sobs for a friend of course. Then, mystified by the Shaper's mystical ways, Grendel feels like he needs some sort of explanation; he knows that the Shaper is a liar and the wants to know why it feels so real, so he goes down to meet the dragon. One important thing that I found here is that while under the Shaper's wing, Grendel is above the people, up in the trees, but when he goes to see the dragon, Grendel must go down below the ground into a dark, dirty cave. It is almost as if he is falling down into the dark side. When he gets down there, the dragon just rips him apart. He plants this idea that nothing matters, that Grendel himself does not matter, that the world is a cycle, so what you do really does not matter because it will happen anyway. He makes Grendel feel small and insignificant. After his dumb encounter with the dragon, Grendel becomes a different monster-person-thing. Grendel decides that he might as well completely destroy the men, since it does not matter whether he does it or not, so he rips them apart. He goes into their village and, upon finding that he is invulnerable, he just kills a bunch of people. The Shaper never bred this sort of violence within Grendel, even though he did sing of wars and rivalries and such. So basically my main point of this blog is to show how contrasting these two sides of Grendel are. He's got his peaceful little, softhearted, poetry loving side. But then he also has his horridly mean, torturous, ugly, murderous side. So from all of this, I felt like Gardner was really telling his readers that they need to find a balance within their own lives, take all of the bad influences and all of the good influences and find a good, neutral central point to live in. Because if you do not, you will end up going crazy, singing songs, dancing, killing, and maybe even in the end desiring death.

This is just to say that I didn't mean to put this off

“This is Just to Say,” William Carlos Williams

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

Yes I'm doing another poem again. I just like poetry. I wish we could does known artists though that would be cool. Either way I am going to be talking about this poem today. The first feeling that I get from this poem is one of blissful defiance. Yes he knows that he broke a silent pact, but it made him happy so it's okay in the long run. The tone that the speaker is using in this poem is not one of great repentance or of excessive worry, he seems to be taking it easy, like he knows that the owner of the plums will easily forgive him. It seems as though something like this had occurred in the past, like the owner of the plums should not have left the speaker alone with them because the owner should have known what would happen.  The way the lines are set up, how they are all so short and simple, also sheds light on how the speaker feels about the situation. He is not trying to cover up anything with a silver tongue, he is simply stating the facts. He feels that he has nothing to be guilty of.  There is a curious mixture of selfishness and unselfishness in this poem. The selfish part is most obvious since he simply at the plums because they were delicious, sweet, and cold. Te unselfish part is slightly more subtle. Although he does not apologize, the act of leaving a note is a sort of kind gesture to the owner of the plums. He is turning himself in, keeping the plum owner from extensive wonder. He also acknowledges that the owner was probably going to eat them for breakfast. This shows that he did not just mindlessly eat the plums because they were there, he ate them clearly aware of their purpose and the fact that he admits that is pretty selfless. Another interesting part of the poem is the use of the word icebox. That of course con notates a feeling of cold, frigidness, similar to the seemingly cold relationship between the plum water and the plum owner is. Oh I just thought of something. The cold motif  and the fruit motif cod be combined to show a different meaning in the poem. The fruit eating could be a loss of innocence or purity and the cold motif could be the peoples feelings towards what happened. The speaker does not seem particularly happy about what happened, he may Ben be silently regretful, something that may be seen in someone who made some sort of innocence losing mistake.  This could be connected to a literal loss of purity such as sex of course. Another thing to note in this poem is that the plums were meant for breakfast,  so they were meant for the morning.  The morning connotates discomfort, grumpiness, anger.  So maybe the  speaker was even trying to enjoy the forbidden fruit before it spoiled in the morning. Interesting. 

Long, Too Long Since My Last Post Oops

"Long, Too Long America" by Walt Whitman

Long, too long America, Traveling roads all even and peaceful you learn'd from joys and prosperity only, But now, ah now, to learn from crises of anguish, advancing, grappling with direst fate and recoiling not, And now to conceive and show to the world what your children en-masse really are, (For who except myself has yet conceiv'd what your children en-masse really are?)

I just really like Walt Whitman and his poetry. Maybe it is because of his descendant, May Whitman, being a very good actress (her?), or maybe it is because of how he lived his life. Either way, I really enjoy his poetry, so I picked another of his poems for this week. The title of this poem is "Long, Too Long America." By this the speaker is saying that America has prospered and seemed perfect for too long, so now they are suffering from it. The denotations of the word "too" is in addition; to an excessive extent or degree; more; extremely. So the time that America has spent just going along like everything is great is excessive. The speaker is criticizing America, telling them to take on greater tasks, to try harder, not to just cruise along. "Traveling roads all even and peaceful," signifies how easy America's reign had been so far in the past. "Even" has a denotation of level; flat; free from variations; uniform in action, character, or quality, equal in measure or quantity. So everything that America had accomplished so far was not difficult, there were not great mountains to climb over or any other difficulties in their attempts. "Peaceful" which means not argumentative, also solidifies this idea that America just went along with the flow and accepted all off the good things that were coming to them without really trying to get the good things. They did not fight for what they wanted, they were just lucky and it came to them. "You learn'd from joys and prosperity only," here the speaker continues to comment on how easy America has had it so far. In the next line the speaker says, "But now, ah now". These few words show a complete tone shift from the firs line. The first line seemed to be more joyful and thankful, while this line starts out with the speaker seeming bitter and sounding more like the speaker knew it all along. He seems much more stuck up in these few words than he did before. "To learn from cries of anguish, advancing, grappling with direst fate and recoiling not." In these next lines the speaker seems to have a bitter tone, like he is thinks America is getting what it deserves. The denotation of "anguish" is excruciating or acute distress, suffering, or pain. This word contrasts highly with "peaceful" in the first line. The speaker is saying that America has completely fallen down and are now suffering as badly as they can. The speaker seems a little smug about this because he thinks that America deserves to feel what many of it's citizens feel. Not every American is prosperous, and the speaker claims that in the next line, saying "show to the world what your children en-masse really are." "Really" gives off the feeling that America has been lying about or masking what has actually been going on with their people. They have just been putting up a front of glory and prosperity, when really many of their people are suffering. "En-masse" just means together, as a group, so all Americans are feeling this pain because the government refused to admit that anything was amiss before everything went downhill, or at least that is what the speaker is saying. Then in the next line the speaker seems to say that he is at a higher loevel of understanding than most people, claiming that only he has fully realized how badly Americans are suffering. So, in this poem the speaker calls America out for acting like they were great for so long that their people ended up really hurting.

The Lonely Extremities

A comparison of "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T. S. Elliot and Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson.... Well the main theme of "Prufrock" that I really took away was that life is stressful and then you die. There is a lot of terminal feeling diction in this poem as well as much evidence of sulking. In Winesburg however the main thing I pulled away was that being lonely and thinking too much causes uncool abnormalities in your life and personality. If we trace this lonely idea throughout "Prufrock" there appears to be some of that in there too. Like in the first section where the speaker is talking about "one-night cheap hotels" and "half-deserted streets" (lines 6 and 7). Those are not phrases often used to express contentment or friendship. The cheap hotels part is basically a euphemism for hiring a prostitute, so since the speaker is drooping down to this level, he obviously does not have anyone to accompany him on a regular basis. This imagery is also seen in the same section on the next  line with "oyster-shells" which are another euphemism for sex. Along this same idea of lonely sex, in Winesburg George seems to be looking for a girl to get it on with in many of the stories that he is the center of. With Louise, who seems to have been his first lover, Kate, Belle, and then finally Helen, George is looking for a girl to spend time with. Until the end with Helen, George does not really have any friends, so he is always alone except when he is hearing peoples' stories. So these two works connect in the way that the two main characters are looking for a woman, presumably, to take to bed, but even more just to have as a friend. Along with this connection, there is also the feeling of fragmentation in both works. In Winesburg it is most often with hands, while in "Prufrock" it is seen with eyes, muzzles, arms, legs, hair. Most often it seems to be seen with arms. There is an interesting similarity, both works have that hand/arm thing going on. These are from the limb that is most active and both main characters are having trouble becoming active. They are not really able to do much with their hands/arms since they have no one to hold/touch. This idea also fits back into the loneliness aspect of both stories. So in my opinion that is the biggest connection that can be found between both stories. There are important themes of loneliness and fragmentation in both stories, signifying the characters' inability to connect with the people around them.

Walt Whitman is cool though

Sometimes with One I Love
Sometimes with one I love I fill myself with rage for fear I effuse unreturn'd love,
But now I think there is no unreturn'd love, the pay is certain one way or another,
(I loved a certain person ardently and my love was not return'd,
Yet out of that I have written these songs).
by Walt Whitman

            "Sometimes with One I Love," that's is an interesting title because it is not definite that the "One" is a human, although it is probable. The first line of the poem has several emotion words in it, "love", "rage", "fear", and "love" again. The fact that love is used twice while the others are just used once, hints towards the fact that this poem focuses more on the love aspect of this problem. Even though Whitman is saying how it makes him angry or fearful, he is still mostly saying that he loves the other person. The denotation of the word rage is: angry fury; violent anger; a fit of violent anger; violence of feeling; desire or appetite; a violent passion. And then the denotations of fear are: a distressing emotion aroused by impending danger, evil, pain, etc; concern or anxiety; reverential awe, especially towards God. First looking ant the word "rage", Whitman is most  likely using the 'violent passion' denotations because he is talking about having an extreme unreturned emotion for someone else, and when he feels that that is not going over too well, he becomes violent. Then with fear he is using the 'a distressing emotion aroused by impending pain'. Whitman feels like he is just going to be hurt by this guy, so he is trying to protect himself by becoming violent. He does not want his heart to get broken, so his brain is taking drastic measures to ensure that that does not happen. Then, the word "effuse" has denotations, when used as a verb, of: to pour out or forth; shed; disseminate; to exude; pour out; to flow through a very small orifice. In this situation, effuse is being used in the 'flow out' sense because Whitman's love for this man is just flowing out of him, its just out there for him to take, he is opening himself up and making himself vulnerable for this guy, so he has to use his violent passion and his fear of pain to protect himself from the misery of being turned down and embarrassed. Then in the next line, it as if Whitman has received some sort of reassuring message from his partner as he says "the pay is one way or another". This could just mean that they both love each other equally, but more interestingly it could mean that both Whitman and his partner are feeling this sense of worry and nakedness about their love. As Whitman was gay back when it was completely not okay, this worry of pain makes a lot of sense because if his partner was not actually gay, then a lot could go wrong for Whitman. However, in the second line he seems to have confirmed the other guy's feelings, allowing him to calm down just a little bit. Then in his two lines of parenthesis, Whitman gives a little back story on the first two lines. In his third line, Whitman still makes it seem like the other guy does not return his love, which contradicts the line before it, but it is probable that his lines are telling a story over time, so the third line is just a recap of what happened before the second line. And then on the last line, Whitman is simply explaining how and why he wrote this poem. By using the word "yet" Whitman is creating a feeling of triumph. He got over all the fear and anger and anxiety and he was able to create something beautiful out of it.

"The Strength of God" compels you to read this post

The Strength of God. What is that story really about anyway? It can not just be about how peeping on naked women is bad, because that would be too easy. After reading the story about five times I have accumulated a lot of thoughts and a lot of annotations, so I have some ideas about what its all meant to say. Firstly, Reverend Hartman's name has to have some sort of deeper meaning in it, whether Hartman means something of its just an allusion to something, I am not sure, so I looked it up. Hartman does not have a dictionary definition, however it does have origin definitions. In German, Hartman means a hard, brave, strong man, and in English it means strong and brave. This is interesting because Reverend Hartman does not appear to be very brave or strong. He gives in to temptation several times and then completely in the end on page 151. He also does not seem very brave because all of his sins are committed in the dark, solitary, secluded bell tower of his church. He does not do anything that is admirable, which is a denotations of brave, he simply watches a naked girl, punches a window, and rambles to George Willard. So Reverend Hartman's name is the opposite of him, interesting to know. Another part of this story worth analyzing is the fact that his wife's father was an underwear manufacturer. We did not get to discuss this in class and that made me pretty bitter. The denotation of underwear is clothing worn next to the skin under outer clothes. Next to the skin feels extremely intimate, something that Reverend Hartman and his wife are not. And also, since this book has an obvious theme of weird pedophilic type situations, I also see a uncomfortable inappropriate possible relationship between Hartman's wife and her father. She is described as being nervous, which could be attributed to her being abused as a child. Also she married a Reverend, someone safe, someone she knew would not hurt her. So this connection changes how I view the story a little bit, it becomes a little more ironic. The man that she thought would be good to her and just good in general, turns into a creepy peeping tom who ends up punching a window with his fist (pg 152). The fist is connotated as powerful, angry, violent, all words that would also describe an abuser. I think this story has an underlying story about Reverend Hartman's relationship with his wife, whether is was abusive or not, it was still most likely not right.

Dear Reader
"Baudelaire considers you his brother, and Fielding calls out to you every few paragraphs as if to make sure you have not closed the book, and now I am summoning you up again, attentive ghost, dark silent figure standing in the doorway of these words."
-Billy Collins

       Billy Collins is my favorite 'AP Lit Worthy' poet so far because he is not only frequently extremely sarcastic, but his words are also often beautiful. Okay now to delve into the so called meaning of this poem. The very first word is Baudelaire, the name of the late and great poet Charles Baudelaire. Baudelaire was a modernist who also translated Edgar Allen Poe's work to french. Collins' poem reads "Baudelaire considers you his brother", the denotation of the word brother is a male offspring having both parents in common with another offspring; a male numbered among the same kinship group, nationality,race, profession, etc; an associate, a fellow member, fellow countryman, fellow man; brothers, all members of a particular race, or of the human race in general. So, looking at this definition, Baudelaire could either be feeling close to the reader, related in some war familiar way, or he could just be stating the obvious fact that both he and the reader are, presumably, human. In the context of this poem, I believe that the first connotation of a closeness is more likely to be the intended meaning. The next part reads "Fielding calls out to you every few paragraphs as if to make sure you have not closed the book." Now this line has a pretty obvious depressed, anxious tone, as if Fielding is worried about abandonment or abuse. The denotations of "to call out" are an act or instance of calling out; an order to report an emergency or special work, especially at an unusual time or place; a letter, number, or other device for identifying or calling attention to a particular part of an illustration; a challenge to a duel. Now, one of those definitions feels particularly relevant to this line of the poem. For the calling to report an emergency, that is like Fielding calling out to the readers to tell them that the story is not yet over and it is important that they read on, or Fielding could just be calling out because he feels very anxious about nobody reading his poem, so he feels that them leaving or closing the book is an emergency. So with this phrase, Collins is trying to show the tenderness of a poet and how sensitive they are to the readers, they need the readers, without the readers they are nothing. Then Collins' last line about himself describes the readers as ghosts (so far they are brothers, necessities, and now dark silent figures standing in doorways), which is detonated as the soul of a dead person; a mere shadow or semblance, a trace; the principle of life; a red blood cell having no hemoglobin; a fictitious employee. That last definition seems to be the most relevant. In the poem Collins' is saying how sometimes the poets have to imagine people reading their works, even if no one is, even if the people they are thinking of are just ghosts, the poets still need to believe that someone is out there reading it. 

"The sounding cataract

Haunted me like a passion: the tall rock,

The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood,

Their colours and their forms, were then to me

An appetite; a feeling and a love,

That had no need of a remoter charm,

By thought supplied, nor any interest

Unborrowed from the eye."

             Mary Shelley and William Wordsworth have something very important in common, they were both romantic writers. As evidenced in Shelley's Frankenstein and Wordsworth's "Lines Written a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey", romantic writers have a focus on nature, how it affects humans, how humans affect it, and even just how pretty it looks.  Interestingly, Shelley's father was a friend of Samuel T. Coleridge, who was a founder of the Romantic era along with Wordsworth, so even from birth Shelley was thrown into and influenced by romantic writing.
             The main point of this blog is to discuss the significance of Shelley's usage of "Tintern" in her novel. She quoted the lines that can be seen above during a scene where Victor Frankenstein is fondly describing his best friend Henry Clerval. These lines are fitting for Clerval because, as Victor says, "He was a being formed in the 'very poetry of nature' ... The scenery of external nature, which others regard only with admiration, he loved with ardour" (135). It is so very fitting for Clerval to be described by lines from one of Wordsworth's poems because Clerval is a true romanticist and Wordsworth was one of the Fathers of Romanticism. In fact Clerval is so in love with nature that Frankenstein says, "[Clerval] felt as if he had been transported to fairy-land and enjoyed happiness seldom tasted by man" (134). This line reminds me of Wordsworth and the way he describes his feelings towards nature when he was younger. He enjoyed the heck out of nature and that is exactly what Clerval is doing. I think that Shelley molded Clerval, although I am sure that she had the idea of Frankenstein's best friend from the beginning, to be like Wordsworth. Growing up with her father knowing a man who knew him must have put some sort of awe or reverence for him or even just knowledge about him into her. Not to mention that her father was her school teacher also, so he probably taught her a lot about Wordsworth and Coleridge. Shelley may have wanted to honor him in some way, so she included his poem as a direct indicator that Clerval is Wordsworth.
             The line "Haunted me like a dark passion" could have also been an allusion to Frankenstein, especially since he and Clerval are doubles of each other. He had a passion for science and it turned dark after he made the creature and then the creature haunted him. "the tall rock, The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood" these are several locations where scenes in  Frankenstein occur. Victor sees the creature climbing up the rocky mountain and most of the creature's story takes place in a depressing forest. Maybe Shelley after reading this poem, Shelley's idea for her novel was strongly influenced by these lines. That could be another reason why she would want to use his poem in her novel, because he was a great inspiration for it.
               So basically I think that Shelley included these lines in chapter 18, not only to show that Clerval is an embodiment of Wordsworth, but also to honor the poem and the poet that influenced her novel.

Room

Room is a novel that explores more than just a room. It explores mother son relationships, children's minds and processing abilities, exploring new worlds, captive life, kidnapper and kidnappee relationships, and public opinions. Room is about a young woman and her five year old boy. The woman was kidnapped six years ago, impregnated, and then locked in a shed in the man's backyard, never getting to leave, never getting to do anything. She had her child in that room, on her rug, by herself. The man wasn't even there to comfort her, he never comforted her. The only thing good in her life is her simple minded son who only knows the room. He has names for all of the objects in the room which he calls rug or bed or spider. He thinks of them as friends because he never got to learn what a friend is. The way I know this, and the most interesting aspect of the book, is because the book is narrated by the boy. We are reading his mind, seeing things as he sees them, and it feels very realistic. That is what, at least in my opinion, really makes this book so exceptional. The other part is the intense social commentary that emerges as the mother and son themselves emerge. The two of them have to live in a hospital type building, not only because they have not been in the sun for six years, so they get burnt very very quickly, but also because the boy has a very hard time getting used to the real world. His mother often tried to convince him that there was more than just the room, but he never believed her until he was thrust into it. If the reality of a whole new world is not enough to cause a child to have an anxiety disorder, then the constant paparazzi and invading questions would be. The mother's story is broadcast all over the news, making it so that people swarm the hospital, trying to get an interview with her, trying to find out what it was like inside. This is the part that really hit me, the fact that people so blatantly did not care about the woman, they just cared about the fact that she had been locked away for years. They never once considered her as a real person, just something for their own entertainment. This whole thing with the people is the most jarring part of the book, as it is so completely accurate. It really brings to  life how people as a whole react to disaster situations, they rarely try to help or sympathize, they just ooh and ahh until they are satisfied, which is when they leave. This is really shown in the book and that is why I believe that it has true literary merit.

Frankenstein is a monster.

Frankenstein is a monster. He really truly is. All he does throughout his entire life is hurt people. When he was little, whether it was with consent or not, he obviously had sex with his adopted sister. Or they at least had a more than familial relationship. I mean not only did that possibly hurt Elizabeth, but it hurt me as a reader. I do not want the first thing that I read in a book to be about childhood sort of incest. Then after Victor's mother died he just goes off to college, leaving his family mourning, although in all fairness he did stay for awhile to mourn with them. However, as soon as he got to college, he stopped trying to contact them. His family would send him letters, asking if he was okay, asking for him to mail them back, but he never did. He just completely blew off his family, who love him so much. He just hurt them without a second fault. Then once the creature was created, he just left him to fend for himself. Causing the monster to have to raise himself, teaching him that parents are useless. Victor just continuously hurt the monster, without ever even trying to befriend him. After Victor fell into his crazy sickness, he started to hurt Clerval, preventing him from his studies and making him listen to his crazy rambling, which in all honesty probably made Clerval lose it a little too. Then when the creature started killing people, that was all Victors fault, ultimately he hurt those people. When the creature burned down the cottagers' house out of jealousy and rage, it was really Victor burning down their house. He did not even know these people and yet he ruined their lives. He created the creature, he didn't teach him right or wrong, he just let him go, causing him to become a crazy murderous monster. Victor killed his own family, Victor burned the Cottagers' house down, Victor killed Clerval, Victor made himself sick and crazy. Personally, I think that this book was less about feminism, the unjust society, creator and creature, or any of that other stuff, and more about the fact that your actions cause serious chain reactions. If you start out being mean to other people, the world will be mean to you. Victor brought all of his family's plight onto them because of the way he mistreated everyone in his life. He had no respect for the world, so the world had no respect for him. It just wanted to make him suffer just as much as everyone else did.

In a Crooked Little House

 In a Crooked Little House... lives a crooked little man. If that one line doesn't make you want to read this book, I don't know what could. This little 230 page novel was brilliant in its own way. It wasn't eye opening, it didn't teach me a life lesson, but it was such an amazing novel with plot twists that were honestly unpredictable. The writing is crisp and intelligent, the word choices are perfect. For a little five dollar horror novel, this book is surprisingly in depth. The author, A G Cascone, went really deep into character development, so much so that I felt as if I was the character at certain points. His characters were so unique, although they did fit into the archetypes. At first it was hard to determine who the main character was, as it is narrated by an omnipresence, but it became apparent that Cassie and Iggy Boy were the most important. They both have their own 'quest': Cassie's to survive life in school without being terrorized for being on an academic scholarship, Iggy Boy's to either marry, or brutally murder Cassie, whichever was necessary to make her his and only his. The heroes in this story aren't actually the main characters, there is Jake the maintenance man, who seems to be missing something important in his head and who also seems to have inappropriate feelings for Cassie, and Slater, the quiet photographer who ends up being the courageous boyfriend, although he was originally suspected to be Iggy Boy. The only shadow in this book is actually Iggy Boy, which of course is a self assigned nickname for the new house master, the handsome, young, totally lovable Mr Gilliard's second personality. Iggy Boy is in all honesty a psycho killer, photographing his next victim until he figures out a suitable death to 'punish them for their crimes'. After he has killed them in the appropriate fashion, he takes many compromising photos of them, which he takes to his little room above the dorms, develops, and then hangs all over his walls. The herald in this story, which does not occur until nearly the end of the book when everything really starts going down, is when Iggy Boy kidnaps Cassie from the school dance and locks her up in a gym. The official 'call to adventure' is when Jake makes Slater leave the dance, after he had been searching for her in there, and takes him down to the gym. The shapeshifter is Mr Gilliard who starts as the friend, the only person Cassie talks to after Trevor nearly rapes her, but then he turns into Iggy Boy, brutally murdering people, strangling them with the vacuum cord then hanging them from the rafters, pushing them down the stairs and snapping their necks. There aren't any obvious tricksters in this book, maybe Slater since he is occasionally funny, but not really. The only Allies are the two heroes along with Cassie. So basically, this novel fit into all of the traditional archetypes, but then it completely broke from the norm, throwing crazy plot twists and awesome descriptive scenes, making it totally awesome.