Those Winter Sundays by:Robert Hayden

The tone of this poem was a central to the feeling it is meant to imply. The storyline seemed simple enough; a man looks back on memories of his father and regrets not realizing how much his father loved him. The author uses details in his diction to describe the father's hard work. Some of this diction includes; he got up early, cracked hands, labor, and ache. Other diction states that the boy was scared of the anger in the house, suggesting that his father may have been the source of this anger. In the end the author seems to realize how much his father must of loved him and how ungrateful he had been as a child. The diction in this poem and the tone it creates allows the reader to understand the way the man felt both as a child and looking back. The reader can also see the strain and hard work this father put forth for his family.

Spring by: Bernard Manley Hopkins

This was the first poem I read and there were a few things I noticed right of the bat. First of all, this poem is describing spring and the new life that goes along with it. However, with the second reading I found that this poem had some sort of religious aspect. This is apparent through the reference to the garden of Eden, Christ, and lambs. This may be a reference of how all humans started out as innocent but were corrupted by sin. yet, I don't think this poem was in fact very religious. I believe the point of this poem is to explain how as children we are innocent and pure as it was in the garden of Eden and we must appreciate it before it is over run with sin and impurity. This poem appears to be mostly symbolic and meant to point out the importance of remaining innocent.

"The Nature of Proof in the Interpretation of Poetry"

Poetry has always been a frustrating subject for me. A large part of this is due to the ambiguity poetry leaves for the reader. However, with Perrine's guidelines it appears there a very few ways one poem can be interpreted. According to Perrine, the criteria for interpretation of a poem is this; (1) the interpretation must account for every detail of the poem and (2) if there is still more then one interpretation then the one that has the fewest assumptions is correct. I can see good points and bad points to this theory. Later in the article, Perrine demonstrates his theory by interpreting a poem by Emily Dickinson. When I first read the poem I interpreted it in the way Perrine said most of his students had; however, he goes on to use his theory to show how this interpretation is in fact false. Using his method did work out in this case and his interpretation was much more interesting and possibly more accurate.
While Perrine's method did work fairly well, I still found a few debatable flaws. I've always felt that English teachers and readers in general often over analyze a reading. Yes, there are some very symbolic and deep works of literature but maybe the author was just trying to say something simple. Maybe Emily Dickinson wanted her poems to be ambiguous so that everyone would have a different interpretation or maybe she was describing flowers, or maybe Perrine is right and she was describing a sunset. this is where poetry becomes confusing for me. In my opinion, poetry is meant to be left to interpretation. The author wants you to imagine your own interpretation and feel your own feelings.

Conflict

-the struggle between two opposing forces or characters in a story.
as you may have noticed this story takes place during the Vietnam war. This war was was fought between the communist North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of South Vietnam, supported by the United States and other anti-communist nations between the years 1955-1975. Although most of the war was a"cold war" meaning there was no declared war untill later on mostly during the 60's. The purpose of this war was to restrain communism from infecting other countries. Many people questioned this war feeling it was unneccesary and many lives were being lost with no purpose. People became even more inferiated when young American men were being drafted to go over seas and fight this "unneccassary war". This historical conflict is the basis of the story. Tim O'Brien was one of the unfortunate men who were drafted to go over to Vietnam and fight. He made the decsion to except this draft and not flee to Canada and because of this we are able to hear his stories. Because of Tim those soldiers' stories that we read will live on forever "like an old Library book on a shelf"

Are they true stories or not?

when discussing this book with other students, I've found that almost everybody wants to know if these stories are true and they are confused about why they wouldn't be. However, I think the author did this for a very specific reason. He describes that a true war story can hardly ever be true because the person telling the story wants you to feel as they did at the time. Just as a the classic fisher man's story. the fish he caught was never as big as he described yet that may be true to him because he was so excited at the time, to him the fish was that big. This is explained most clearly in the chapter Good Form where Tim explains that although he did not ever kill a man he still felt responsible for his death. "I watched a man die on a trail near the village of MY Khe. I did not kill him. But I was present, you see, and my presence was guilt enough. I remember his face, which was not a pretty face because his jaw was in his throat and I remember feeling the burden of responsibility and grief. I blamed myself. and rightly so because I was present." "Kathleen can say," did you ever kill anybody?" and I can honestly say "OF course not." or I can say honestly, "yes"

Situational Irony

-Takes place when there is a discrepancy between what is expected to happen, or what would be appropriate to happen, and waht really does happen.
In the chapter Speaking of Courage, Norman Bowker discusses how his friend died in the Vietnam war. HE says they were camping in a filed and they had not realized that this field was the towns local sewer. They were attacked and his friend died and Norman could not save him. There are two Ironies that take place in this chapter the first is stated by Norman when he says his friend that died would have found it funny that he died in a "shit field" when they felt that Vietnam was a "shit field" to begin with, now it was just literal. The second Irony is that although Norman Bowker has seven medals he still does not feel good enough or brave enough. Although people may look at him and think that since he has seven medals so he must be brave; Norman believes he let his friend die and is thus a failure.

My opinion of the book

This book was by far my favorite of the two we read. Mostly I think it was because it was written in a way that we can relate. This is especially the case with the war that is being fought right now and how it is effecting our families and the youngmen and women who go off and fight and suffer for us now. THis book had quite a few timeless and universal themes in it that we can also relate to. Some of these themes include guilt, suffering, recovering from loss and hard memories, and learning to except the past and move on. I also found these stories to be interest especially since it is often unclear what really goes on when a war is being fought. The other book, The Sun Also Rises, also had many timeless and universal themes; however, relating personally to that book was a far stretch for most of us. The time era was drasticly different and the themes were harder to understand and apply to our own lives. This is why I liked the Things They Carried better.