Such a horrible life you have, Oedipus!

I would characterize Oedipus as a tragic figure due to his horrible fate. The definition of a tragic hero, according to Aristotle, is a list of characteristics that the hero must obtain.

First off, a tragic hero must be of noble stature and greatness. In the beginning of the dramatic play, Oedipus is king of Thebes. He is explained as being an intellectual being with the power to rule over Thebes.

Second, he must have a flaw. Oedipus is too curious. His stubbornness and eagerness to know everything and for everything to go his way hinders him from seeing his surroundings as well as his way of not taking advice from others. His anger is like a bomb waiting to blow up due to his impatience to wait.

Thirdly, the tragic hero brings their own downfall due to their imperfection. Oedipus’ curiosity to know his future led to his fate being certain to become a reality. He searched for an oracle with the curiosity to know what will happen to him, which gave him his fate to be certain. He killed his father, married his mother and ended up being the one at fault for causing Thebe’s misery. By killing his own father, he brought all the other downfalls with him.

Fourthly, the punishment exceeds the crime. He takes his sight and has to live in exile in order to restore the health of Thebes. Yes, he caused the downfall and future embarrassment of his family and the death of his mother, but he compensated by taking his sight and accepted the lonely life until his death, which he explains as a deserved death by going to Hades and facing those he has lost, blinded.

Fifthly, there is an awareness of the tragic hero. He is the son of Laius and the son of his own wife. He had children which came from the same womb he came from. His whole life unravels as not being the children of the people he was adopted from. His whole life is unraveled in front of his eyes.

Finally, every play ends with a catharsis (a relief from the grief we feel for the hero). The catharsis in this play is when he takes his sight, reliving Thebe’s suffering by pouring it upon Oedipus. He doesn’t take his life due to the fact that he wouldn’t suffer; that would just be an escape. That is why he suffers eternally for his actions, thus repaying Thebes.

AHH! DRAMA!

Well, at first the whole concept of making a “good student” face distractions seemed incredibly easy. My group was pumped up and we were ready to write, but as our heads started to think of how to make this whole simple concept into a dramatic play, our brains seemed to turn into mush. We had the to face the difficult task of realizing, “What on earth are we all going to say?” For some reason this part of writing a drama was horribly difficult! After this obstacle, we also realized, “What distractions?” We found it a bit of a joke how we couldn’t agree on anything, but once we put ourselves into the problem, we recognized that the problem wasn’t too hard to figure out. We all talked and just blurted out whatever came to our heads and if we all agreed, that was what made itself onto our script.

As our plays went on into acting mode, I realized that making it comical or serious, it helped remember whatever was mentioned. The actors would play their parts, and just watching and listening at the same time helped understand and remember the concepts and themes of the play. A lecture is amazing, I’m not going to complain, but acting out the parts is SO MUCH HELPFUL! Understanding and grasping many of the main themes are so much easier when people act it out, seriously. It works out as a drama because you are acting out a play about tragedies that need to be overcome, such as incredible distractions for a “good student”. In the plays there were tragic moments for a protagonist, and antagonists that would try to interfere with the protagonist. The protagonist must find ways of overcoming the challenges and dealing with the antagonists. Thus, a dramatic play is formed/witnessed.

POEMS!

At first, I didn’t understand my poem very clearly. I had to read and reread it in order to grasp the main statements it was portraying. I had to get outside help, as well as internet sources to help me understand the rest of the poem through the process of writing the essay. As I kept learning about the poem I chose, which was "Musee des Beaux Arts", I realized that the previous theories I made about it were wrong. At first I thought that the poem was stating how the painting mention in the second stanza was what made up the whole poem. I thought that the poem was explaining Icarus’ whole stupid mistake. Obviously, it was only half of what the poem stated. I learned that, yes mythological allusions were used, but also biblical ones were mentioned when it stated the “miraculous death” as well as “martyrdoms”. As I wrote my essay about how the theme of separate events could lead to humanities apathy, I realized that many of W.H. Auden’s perceptions could easily be seen in life. When a friend is going through a dramatic even in their life that we ourselves haven’t fully experienced due to the fact that we weren’t there with them to fully witness it, then unfortunately, there is no understanding. This unknowledgeable reaction could lead to apathy. This whole epiphany made me realize that humanity is a bit jerky if we get be more open minded and a bit truthful of how the world really acts, sometimes.

I also realized that I need many outside resources in order to fully grasp what the author wants you to learn from his/her poem. I can’t stand by my own, predicted theories; I must ask questions without any fear of embarrassment as well as always accept help.

The poem I had most difficulty understanding was “My Last Duchess” by Robert Browning. I would read and read again this poem and for some reason it wouldn’t click in my head. The way it is written is way different from what I’m used to reading. The sentences go on and on without proper structure or from what I’m used to seeing in my regular reads of poems.

Also, another part that would throw me off from understanding the poem was that the words used were not of this era. The words were difficult to comprehend due to my lack of knowing many old English words. In addition to my lack of knowledge, many allusions or metaphors were used and I couldn’t recognize them or see them right away. We went through the poem in class, but this poem is just so hard to follow. I took matters into my own hands and looked up a type of summary online. Thankfully there are people out there that actually take time from their lives and explain almost every line in poetry for the people to read and understand them better. The website is called shmoop and wow, I am extremely glad that there are people out there like them that love to explain line after line of poems for the public. Now that’s dedication and an admiration for poetry! Through this website I learned so much about the poems. Even the hidden meanings that I couldn’t catch were clear as crystal after reading their analysis.
Even though I have a good idea of what the poem is stating, I was very curious to know why the Duke would hide the dead wife’s picture behind a curtain. Is it to add more mystery to his intentions or is he just really cruel and rude? Also, does this line refer to necklaces as the website mentioned, “My favour at her breast,/The dropping of the daylight in the West”? And what does “The dropping of the daylight in the West” refer to? That wasn’t cleared up in the website, so I am curious to know what the author of this poem meant.

As for the poem that was easiest to grasp in understanding, I would have to say “Cinderella” because it felt like I was reading a story, instead of a poem. Also, they were not using the ways or structures that were used in “My last Duchess” or in “To His Coy Mistress”. Their matters were quiet simple to follow for they were not structured strictly like a poem. It flowed and flowed all the way like a story. Also, simple allusions and wordings were used, making the reading enjoyable. I loved how the author used sarcasm in some of the explanations, making the story more enjoyable to read because it gave it more of a personal connection to the reader. I might be wrong, but I rather enjoyed myself reading that poem more than once. It was also silly due to the fact that the sisters were way out of their normalcy. Another reason why I understood this poem really well was that the narrator’s or author’s ideas were very direct. There was no mystery, just simple, direct ideas. He wanted to mention that the sisters were insane, he showed us in simple terms that they were. He wanted us to know that Cinderella’s life was as simple and perfect as monuments in a museum after she got her prince; he would tell us exactly that they were like monuments in a museum without any hesitation. His way of presenting anything was just perfect. I just loved how easy it was to understand his intentions. Possibly one of my favorites now.

Got understanding?

In the beginning I was so perplexed of what was expected for this paper. I figured that many hours were to be involved in order to write it, but I didn’t know if was going to be extremely difficult to start it. During the process of revising with our fellow peers in our class, I noticed that everything I came to write wasn’t very well or accepted. My ideas seemed a bit out of order and I have a bad tendency of repeating myself a lot, for some reason. Writing isn’t one of my strongest subjects. When handling school, science and math seem to flourish in my head, while English seems to be a lagging subject that I cannot comprehend, even though I try and try to understand. It is especially hard to get my thoughts on paper in a logical, analyzing, non-research mode.

Through the process or revising, my understanding for the short stories changed a lot. I thought I had a perfect, logical thesis going on, when in reality, I probably didn’t know what I was talking about due to the fact that many of my readers were confused about what I wrote. My readers suggested that I re-look at certain parts of the story in order to strengthen specific areas of my essay, which I did. I figured many more ideas to mention in my paper due to this rereading. So through the revising of my groups, I figured many things in my essay were not strong. Thus, by reading the stories again, I came to understand them more, which apparently helped me greatly on my midterm =). Through my own drafting and revising, I couldn’t really understand that my paper didn’t really explain well what I meant to portray about the stories. The whole process helped me understand things I couldn’t comprehend alone, but I still had difficulties in presenting my ideas on paper. I can understand something so well, but I always have the difficulty of writing about it for some reason.

I loved the whole process of revising with the students and I also loved how meticulous we had to be with our papers by using the revising process the professor showed us. It made me see themes in the story I didn’t see the first time I read them. I also appreciated the stories more. For some reason I enjoy reading stories from the 1800s now, due to their horrid depiction. It is creepy to see how the minds of these authors were back then, but like the second topic, it made their ideas quite interesting to read.