The Sick Rose by William Blake

In “The Sick Rose”, by Blake, the poet uses an invisible worm to suggest the corruption of the rose. As the worm eats away at the flower, it become sick and eventually dies, symbolizing the rose’s corruption by the worm. This poem can be compared to the Lamb and Tiger poems, in that this is also a poem centered around innocence and corruption. The further I examined the poem, the muddier my understanding became. At first, I was convinced the rose was being destroyed by the worm but as I read on I wondered if maybe “Rose” is actually a person, and the physical flower represented her. Then what does the worm represent? I then considered maybe Rose was a wife, possibly Blake’s wife even, and she had come down with a nasty flu or a disease of some sort and that was her corruption.

The worm could even symbolize the speaker of the poem, meaning the speaker could be the corrupter of his wife, Rose, or even their love. In literate, a rose is used to symbolize love, and the speaker speaks of infection of love or to love by doing so, the poem implies that love itself is sick. Also, the rose (Rose or “love”) is not aware of its infection because one, the worm is invisible and two, the worm only does its work in the night. This could mean multiple things, one being that love is unaware of its own decay or two that love’s secrecy leads to its downfall. The reason love is oblivious to its demise is because it is blinded by its beauty and idealist view put on it by society meaning society paints a clear picture of what love “should be” and what love “has to be”, that people don’t know what love “really is.” With this self inflicted blindness, society tends to misunderstand love and eventually kill it with knowing.

 Much like the other pieces in the Songs of Experience, this poem is brief, with two stanzas. The poem deviates from the Innocence rhyme scheme of ABAB CDCD to the rhyme scheme, ABCB DEFE. The rhyme scheme is dark and foreboding. The length and meter of “The Sick Rose” are two key indicators of the foreshadowing destruction and the secretive yet a sense of joy which brings upon shame. The poem ends with a juxtaposition of romantic and destructive images – the first a “crimson bed of joy” and the second a life destroyed. This leaves the idea that something of value and purity has been successfully tracked, threatened, infected and then destroyed.

-Acts by Quotes-

Macbeth- 

Act 1: When the witches say “All hail, Macbeth, Thane of Glamis, Thane of Cawdor and the future King.” This is the small seed of an idea the witches plant in Macbeth’s mind which drives through the whole play.

Act 2: Lady Macbeth: “My hands are of your color, but I shame to wear a heart so white.” This is one of the many times in the play when Lady Macbeth belittles her husband which leads him to go the rest of the play trying to prove her and the rest of the world wrong and gain back his manliness.

Act 3: Macbeth: “I’m in blood stepped in so far, that should I wade no more, returning were as tedious as go over.” This is Macbeth recognizing that he has gone too far and he has too much blood on his hands already that there is no point in going back or stopping because then the people that died in his hands would have died in vain. This is him trying to stop and reason with his crazy actions and thoughts, very rarely does he self evaluate his situation because he is so hot headed and blind so this moment is golden. I wouldn’t go as far as to say he is remorseful or anything of the sort, I don’t think he ever reaches that point in the play ever but this is one of the very few times Macbeth actually thinks, just thinks for once.

Act 4: I was frantically searching for a quote about sins or how many sins Macbeth has committed. Macbeth was saying something like “I have committed more sins than that of those we have names for” or something like that. It was saying he did sins without names and I wanted to find it and I looked for it but unfortunately the five minutes passed before I could dig it out. I think it’s in this act I’m not sure it might be in Act 3. 

-Inevitable Doom-

In the last act of Macbeth, our fool of a protagonist finally realizes his inevitable doom. Macbeth realizes that all three of the apparitions’ visions/predictions have come true. The first is an armed head, come to warn Macbeth of Macduff’s bad intentions. He tells Macbeth that Macduff is coming back to Scotland to ruin him. The second apparition is a bloody child and it tells Macbeth that no man born of a woman can do him harm. This gives Macbeth great confidence: "Then live Macduff: what need I fear of thee?” The third apparition is that of a child wearing a crown and holding a tree who says “Macbeth shall never vanquish'd be until Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill shall come against him.” The apparitions give Macbeth a false pride making him think that since every man is born of a woman, no man will kill him and that if he avoids Birnam woods, he will not die. He is terribly mistaken.

                Macbeth blind pride leads him to lock himself in his castle, avoiding the forest of his doom. Little did he know, the apparitions’ visions would all come true. Macduff and his men, marching towards Macbeth’s castle, decide to hold branches from the forest they were emerging from, which just happens to be Birnam woods, to hide their numbers. So technically, the forest came to Macbeth and apparition 3 came true. Then later, while fighting Macduff, Macbeth finds out that Macduff was not exactly “born from a woman” but surgically removed rather in a C section. So apparition 2, check. And lastly, Macduff kills Macbeth and takes his head for a prize, so check for apparition 1.
                In class we discussed that the first apparition, the armored head, was Macbeth’s bloody head that Macduff took after he killed him. Macbeth was warning himself. The second, the bloody child, was Macduff as a baby torn out of his mother’s womb. The last one, the baby holding a tree with a crown, was Macduff with the branches from Bernam woods and a crown because he will end up king.

                I think when he has the talk with Macduff while they’re fighting is when it hits him. That’s when he realizes that he has gone so far so blinded and the realization of his doom. He puts all the pieces together and his false pride and courage slowly crumble revealing the foolish coward he is. From then on, both the audience and Macbeth sense tragedy in the future. Before, although the audience knew Macbeth's downfall was near, Macbeth himself was still unaware so the audience had some hope of his escape for his situation but after he notices his fall too, both sides just wait for his inevitable doom.

Macbeth, you fool!

We discussed Act 4 of Macbeth in class today. This act is arguably the darkest act yet with the murder of Macduff’s wife and son and the weird sisters’ spell song. In the act, we really see a shift in Macbeth’s character. When the apparitions warn him of Macduff’s interference, Macbeth immediately plans to kill him and not only him, but “all unfortunate souls that trace him (Macbeth) in his line.” This is a change from his usual character because now, he is willing to kill anyone and everyone who gets in his way, unlike before, where he was killing just the people who needed to die.

This unnecessary killing of bystanders in Act 4 reminds me very distinctly of Breaking Bad. Like Walt, Macbeth has now begun hiring murderers to do the deed while he sits back and watches from a distance. When he murdered the king, he was nervous, hesitant and almost sick but for the murder of Macduff’s wife and child, he simply orders someone else to do it. In all honesty the death of the wife and child was completely unnecessary; Macbeth just killed them for vengeance on Macduff because he couldn’t find him to kill him.

I compared Act 4 to the “finger of birth-strangled babe ditch-deliver'd by a drab” line in the witches’ “double double toil and trouble” song. Although Macbeth has been traveling this evil slippery slope for quite some time now, this is the first truly evil, doing evil just for the act of doing evil, act we have seen from him. In the song, the witches list all terrible things but the baby finger is by far the worst, making it the climax of the soup, likewise, Act 4 is the climax of the play so far.

In this act, we get a picture of how truly foolish, over confident and just dumb Macbeth’s character is. Just by the way he interacts with the witches in the beginning of this act, praising them when they tell him something he likes and ignoring or cursing them when told something not in his favor; we can conclude that Macbeth’s character is a reflection of humanity’s indulgence in its blissful ignorance mentality. I subconsciously think of Macbeth as a child, with his short temper, foolish childlike way of thinking and his blinded views. The audience clearly has a better understanding of Macbeth’s situation than he himself because he is so blinded by his confidence, pride and ignorance. 

-Oedipus's Hamartia-

Hamartia: to miss the mark; tragic flaw

Oedipus, in Oedipus Rex, has one of the greatest hamartias in literature, I think. To begin with, he walks with a limp and it says it in his name; the word Oedipus literally translates to “swollen foot” in Greek. But still, that’s not a downfall yet, some might call his limp his mark for greatness, or better yet for tragedy, but not a downfall.

Some basic background information; King Laius, Oedipus’s biological father, goes to the oracle and finds out that if he gets a son for his first child, the son will end up killing him. Jocasta, the wife of Laius, of course births a son. Not wanting to be killed by his own son, he gives up the baby boy to a shepherd who names him Oedipus. The shepherd gives the boy to the king and queen of Corinth. Soon enough, Oedipus finds out he is adopted and goes to the same oracle who tells him he will kill his own father but does not reveal his real parents. Oedipus, not wanting to kill who he believes is his father, flees to Thebes. On his way, he encounters men on the road and they argue, he kills the men and continues, not knowing he just killed his biological father. He arrives at Thebes after solving Sphinx’s riddle and marries a lady he met in the market, who turns out to be the former queen and his biological mother. They have four children and he finds out that he married his own mother and gouges his eyes out and flees. Jocasta kills herself in humiliation.

Through all of this though, we have to remember Oedipus is a good hearted king, an honorable, honest, loyal and generally good, man. With that said, he is far from perfect. Oedipus is hot-tempered, hasty in his judgment, proud of his intelligence, and random in his decisions. As for temper, Oedipus’s character is infamous for his hot tempered soul. The death of his father, the king, could have been completely avoided if not for his anger problem. As for his judgment, he is quick to assume the worst in people. For example, when the oracle kept refusing to reveal any more information about his parents, and jumped to conclusions that people were trying to kill him.  He gets a sense of strong pride after solving the Sphinx’s riddle which leads him into think he could marry any woman in town, even one who is much older than he is like his own mother.

                Oedipus’s hamartia is actually quite clear, his downfall begins as soon as he leaves the oracle and travels to Thebes. In efforts to avoid fulfilling the oracle’s visions, he does exactly that, he fulfills it. It’s interesting to see the similarities between Oedipus and Macbeth. Both go to a third party to hear of their fates; Macbeth with the three witches, Oedipus with the oracle. Both try to change their fates; Macbeth peruses his destiny, insuring that he becomes king; Oedipus tries to avoid the oracle’s visions. Both end up in a tragedy; Macbeth dies and Oedipus blind. Yet if they had both simply let their fates continued without any disturbance, then both would have been prosperous. These characters’ need to control their fate leads to their downfall.

Water, Water, Water

Chapter 10: It’s More Than Just Rain or Snow

          Rain, well just water in general, is weird to me after reading this chapter. Think about it:

-         Drowning is one of our biggest fears yet we are fascinated by water

-         We watch water dance from fountains, it’s a leisurely activity

-         We drink water to survive, but too much can drown us

-         We use it clean, human body  is made up of 75 % water

-         Water gives life but also can cause death

-         We baptize our children in “holy water”

-         Noah’s arch in the flood; water was the monster and the savior

-         Water boarding as form of torture

-         Hurricanes, storms, tsunamis

-         Give plants water give them life

-         Only element we cannot create

So when I see rain or snow in literature, many things come to mind but it mostly depends on what context it is presented in. For example, let’s say there was a murder in a dark alley behind a CVS, a drug deal gone south. If it had rained before the drug deal, it would be a foreshadowing of the bad events in the near future. If it rained during the drug deal, it would suggest something is suspicious about the transaction and could also be a foreshadowing tool. Now, if it rained after the murder, it could serve as closure, as the rain carried the blood into the street drains, the scene and the body are now “cleansed” and the story can continue.

I read A Wrinkle in Time in fourth grade for an English project and I remember the famous Edward Bulwer-Lytton opening to the book. That’s the only book I’ve read so far that has a distinct rain reference. Anyway, it opens with Meg waking up from a nightmare, going up to the kitchen to talk to her brother, joined by their mom and their new neighbor Mrs. Whatsit, who mentions seeing a tesseract. Meg’s curiosity about the tesseract basically drives the rest of the book so by using rain to set up a mysterious eerie vibe around the situation, the author can foreshadow upcoming events. I mean think about it, they’re in the kitchen, in the middle of the night, during a thunderstorm and their neighbor just popped in to tell them about a strange thing called a tesseract, sounds pretty mysterious to me.

As for snow, it’s a little bit different. Snow, because of its clean white color, we don’t usually associate it with death or bad things, plus we’re not afraid of drowning in snow. Snow could mean peace, quite, a new beginning or a fresh start. If something happens to the snow, like let’s say there is a field covered in a clean blanket of powder white snow and a group of teenagers come and attack it, it could represent the destruction of innocence or purity. I guess snow could be seen as terrifying as well because of its bitterness and strength. In The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, the White Witch was bitter and unforgiving to her enemies, much like the snow is to its surroundings. She turned her enemies to stone and the snow kills its people through frostbite and hypothermia.

Dinner on a Baseball Field

Chapter 2: Nice to Eat with You: Acts of Communion

          I think this chapter would have to be one of my favorite chapters in the book so far, although I’m only two chapters in, mostly because I can relate in the sense that I understand the struggle of making a communion scene a useful part of the story. The chapter elaborates on the literary affects of communion, when people eat together or drink together. When people eat together, it is a share of their space, time and attention. We don’t eat with strangers nor people whom we don’t enjoy. Eating is such an intimate occasion; we eat to nourish our bodies, to get energy. Both eating and sleeping are human necessities, we don’t eat with just anyone and we surely don’t sleep with just anybody.

          Now back to how I relate to this chapter, well in freshman year, our playwriting teacher challenged us to incorporate food into a scene. So automatically, my mind gravitated to a typical dinner table scene. I had seen plenty of these types of scenes before, the idea seemed simple; bring people together with food. It was the execution that I was questioning but nonetheless, I set off.

          I set the scene: 70s family dining room in Lansing, Michigan, middle class family, Mom, Dad, little brother (Charlie) and two evil twin sisters (Haley and Heather) all sitting around a table of pot roast, green beans, mashed potatoes and steamed carrots (little brother despises carrots). So after I set the table and the characters, the scene begins; Mom asks kids about their day, Charlie begins to talk, sisters snicker, Dad tells them to be nice and so on. Now this goes on for a good three to four pages, just pure exposition, but as I entered the fifth page, the story became dull, I mean there’s only so much exposition you can give in the situation so I decide to add conflict.

          I needed a conflict bigger than the steamed carrots, bigger than the evil sisters. Without conflict my scene would have gone endlessly into exposition abyss. So I thought, I could always reveal something about one character that the others didn't know. Maybe the sisters are dating the same boy without knowing it, maybe Charlie has a bully or maybe Mom is cheating on Dad with the Spanish pool boy who comes every Wednesday at three. Any way that I approached the conflict, it always seemed to end up with the family members hurling mashed potatoes across the table. I couldn't figure out a way to keep the scene lively yet civilized. If the family just sat, talked about their day and ate in peace, it would be an unnecessary scene with no drive or direction. If the family fought, the food would lose its power of bringing people together and the dinner is no longer a shared experience.

          Also as I was writing the scene I found it extremely difficult to keep the food in the scene. The dialogue was so heavy that it drowned out any mentions of the food. In the sentence “Haley glared at Dad while she reached for a spoonful of steamed carrots,” the “while she reached for a spoonful of steamed carrots” seems so unnecessary to me but without it you lose the dinner image. Without constantly referring to the food, I feel like you might as well just set the scene on a baseball field. 

Frodo, Harry, Haskell, and Batman

Chapter 1: Every Trip is a Quest (except when it's not)

In almost all the quest driven books and movies I've read or seen, there always seems to be a quest-er, a place to go, a stated reason to go there, challenges along the way and self knowledge, While I was reading this chapter, there was one book that kept popping up in my head, "The Lord of the Rings." Its majestic quests with dangerous trail and tribulations made it the perfect "quest driven" book in my library.

 To begin, the questers are Frodo and his loyal gardener Sam. The place to go is the kingdom of Mordor, the stated reason for their quest is to find and destroy the ring. Along the way they face many challenges ranging in size and difficulty. The most memorable would have to be Gollum, a once sane Smeagol who fell under the rings control, banished into the mountains and transformed into an obsessed, corrupted creature. As they finally get the ring, they immediately begin fighting over it, almost killing each other. They realize the true power of the ring and its potential to override the brain. If they had gone alone, they would have never made it out alive so friendship, being a main theme in the series, is considered self knowledge. Also Sam's loyalty is highlighted in his hours of heroism when Frodo gets into sticky situations. By doing so, both the characters develop a strong appreciation and almost brotherhood towards each other. 

The Harry Potter books are structured the same way as well. The quester; Harry and two friends, a place to go: various ominous destinations, stated reason: to defeat some viscous monster, challenges: the travel, wizards, obstacles and limitations along the way, and in every adventure, the three friends become closer and discover more about each other than they knew before. Okay, take any superhero story, let's do Batman. The quester: Batman, a place to go: wherever danger arises, stated reason: to save Gotham city, challenges: fan’s disloyalty, personal issues, and in the end he either saves his lover, kiss and the movie ends, restores his fans' loyalty in him or he discovers something about himself or one of his friends that he didn't know before. We could even go as far as to examine a play in this sense. I recently designed a show called The Immigrant by Mark Harelik. It’s about a Jewish-Russian man who moves to the all catholic Texas town of Hamilton and struggles to assimilate to American life. The quester: Haskell (the Jewish-Russian), a place to go: a Jewish community, stated reason: to “find his people,” challenges: hatred from community for his beliefs, and finally he realizes that in the midst of trying to become an American, he lost all of his beliefs and essentially lost himself.

Essentially these stories are all the same. They are structured the same exact way, just exchange a wizard for two Jewish-Russian hobbits place them in Gotham city and you've got an epic quest!