Elilsion.

When Ellison spent 7 years writing this book beginning in a barn, I wonder if he thought his book would be talked about for years to come. His book was a precursor to the Black Nationalism movement, and had taken pride in his work. I found it fascinating to learn that Elliot was an idol for him, this explains his dedication and use of symbolism.

Ellison appeared to write this as a autobiography of the secret sort, much like a fiction based on truth. I was shocked that the stories would engage in a fight and then go on to give a speech, as if it were 'no biggie'. I thought about opportunity and priveledge. We all have some priveledge of some kind no matter what walk of life we come from. Ellison's character could use his invisibility as a asset when necessary.

We all have assets that we choose not to engage in some form. Hopefully, they are not the ability to hide a crime like Ellison's character. I love that Ellison is a jazz lover, and incorporates this into his writing. I admire his courage, creativity, and cunning plot.

I am not sure if animals are people, but people are most definately animals

In the poem by Levine, Animals are passing from our lives, the author is using a metaphor for how people are animals. I could so relate to this having been employed by a large retail company. I was responsible for about 100 employees on the front end of the store, and paid under $10 an hour.

Weekends and evenings with my family were nonexistant, and I felt rather taken advantage of. My husband also worked a job where he was ridiculed, taken advantage of, and treated like a slave. Tape measures, metal, and the like were common weapons thrown at him. When weapons were out of reach supervisors threw words around and I do not know how my husband was able to continue dealing with the drama and buraucracy just to keep our children fed.

No doubt Levine could also relate to the common factory worker, having lived in detroit around the time of motor hey days, and having worked for GM. I find it interesting that the poem's character knows that he is being taken advantage of and sold out, and he seems to be at peace with fact that he is going down, but will not give the people who are selling him out any satisfaction at all.

Feverish Pitch

The Really Skinny textbook debate. I am not certain which three authors I want to include yet. Perhaps Whitman, Robert Frost, and John Updike? I like Whitmans free liberty and Frost's descriptive poetry. I haven't really read anything by Updike yet, but look forward to learning more about him. Thank You in advance for any feedback that you have for me on this.

Eliot...exasperation, eloquence and explicatives(or lack of them)(1587)

Having tackled the "immense, magnificent, terrible"(Bishop) Wasteland, by Eliot, I can say that I agree. It is like looking under a microscope to see something different every time I read it. A prevailant them throughout appears to be death, and life that cycles through death. Symbols of life are breeding lilacs(known for passion, beauty, deise, promise and life), summer, rain, rivers, lakes(all water representative of life) Where he writes," I will show you fear in a handful of dust, he is stating that life is fleeting, he writes again and again of life coming out of death. He writes of the warning of fleeting lives as he writes," Fresh blows the wind to the homeland; my Irish child, why are you waiting?He gives another symbol of life, the hyacinth girl. The line below says that 'waste and empty is the sea' Since the water represents life I am thinking that he is saying that life is empty when caught up in the past.
In the next portion, he is speaking in the voice of Marie, the Lithuanian that earlier denied her Russian ties, as was common at the time, Marie is talking about her experience with the claivoyant who read tarot cards to her. The clairvoyant seems to elude to marie's belief that modern life is fleeting and modern life is horrible, with their crowds, they are likened to walking zombies in a modern hell. She is telling Marie in a sense that she does not see regeneration for her(saying that she does not see the hanged man for her, representative of Jesus Christ. She says to fear death by water, possibly referring to baptism, and spiritual death, so that new life can come?
Again comes the words,"unreal city". This is a shadow of false illusions that the speaker believes modernism givesagain the talk of covering as a fog in the winter. Right after, mention of modern London and the mention of the death of so many again eluding to a modern hell. The mention of the dead sound at nine when the church rang the bell made me think of the person working 9-5, and the death that can come when one gets caught up in the mindset that work is all that matters. I began to get increasingly lost in much of the rest. The extravagance mentioned in the next part, I thought perhaps was representative of life again, The life seems to melt into greed, which then is representative of the modern life which is likened to death. the mention of "we are rats in an alley where the dead men lost their bones." As if to say, 'we are alive, but might as well be dead".
There were more references to water, and embracing life. Wow, this has provoked much thought, and make me think about embracing life because it is fleeting.

Feminist Manifesto, Loy pg 1502-1505

While reading the modernist manifesto, I can understand to some extent Loy's point of view. Some think that women should be equal in every sense. I think of men and women as equal but different. We both have strengths and weaknesses( I am sure there are many that would disagree with me and say that women can do whatever men can do). My question is, do the majority of women truely want the exact same benefits and male status? In my experience, women want the ability to choose what is right for them, but I know very few that want their man in a sterotypical female role, while they pursue a stereotypical male role. In fact, I know of no one.

Even the women that want the same rights in business, and the same paycheck as a man, do not seem to want the responsibility that comes with that right. Yet, Loy does not seem to state the common opinion of feminists, she states that woman is not the equal of man, because man conforms to a social code, and that is feminine, and not masculine(1503) I believe that she should have named this the Individualist Manifesto, since feminist doesn't seem broad enough. I understand that when this was written, women were considered to be property of men in many cases and that women didn't even havethe right to vote at the time.

I do not think however, that most women agreed with the statement on 1503, where Loy writes,"Men and women are enemies," She goes on,"The only point at which the interests of the sexes merge-is the sexual embrace". I am sure that many women did feel very squished and controlled during the time, but I do not think sex was the only shared interest.

Honestly, I do not understand her thought saying that women must destroy in themselves, the desire to be loved. I think if someone says they do not want to be loved by anyone, they are lying. I think the importance should be stressed on loving yourself first, and knowing who you are, so that you can be genuine to who you want to be.

I understand her take on sex and that she felt that sexual freedom belonged to every woman, I agree that women should have the same rights as men, and I agree that there is nothing impure in sex. I think that both men and women should decide what is best for themselves, but I personally think that excessive casual sex is dangerous, mentally and it can also be damaging physically. Sex itself is not impure. It can be wonderful and studies show that married people enjoy it more often over a lifetime than unmarried.

Robert Frost's Poetry pgs. 1390-1407

Robert Frost to me seems a master of his audience. He appeals to the things that people will love through the ages; family, love, peace, nature, descriptive diction, and vocabulary that transpasses generations. His metered poetry varies like the music playing in the background of a movie. Frost was a pastoral poet, he was born in California, but many of the sources that influence came from English Poets. Not every poem was comforting, there were a few that brought tears to my eyes. "Out, out--"was one of those poems. How greif stricken I felt when I read about the that the little boy lost his life. Frost's vocabulary burrsts open with adjectives, and his words sail across the page more fluidly than a sailboat upon the ocean. His suitcase of words made very clear pictures in my mind, and yet they seem to reach understanding well, no matter who reads them.

In "Neither Out Far, Nor In Deep", I felt that Frost was saying that humans in general do not enjoy the mundane, or ordinary things in life/present moments(represented by the land), but rather we look out to something that is not the present. Frost indicates symbolically that people waste time pondering about things that they cannot see. One cannot see far into the future, therefore, isn't it better to live in the moment? This poem was thought provoking, and made me want to live in the moment. I began to think how the people on the beaches are like the people who get up, go to work, go home, and do the same thing every day, without pleasure, because they don't love "where" they are at.

The last poem that interested me deeply was "The Gift Outright". This poem was part of an innaugural ceremony for Kennedy, and I will say that it is Patriotic, though not completely accurate. There is an ideal America that Frost described, which may have been his image of America, given the knowledge that he had. I cannot say that I am surprised that this seems a little too sugar coated, given that it is linked to politics. It doesn't speak of taking the land from the Native Americans, because that would not bring a smile to America's face at innauguration time.

Washington vs. Du Bois

Washington was a realist and Du Bois in a sense, a romantic concerning what he expected at the time. Washington seemed to understand that Rome wasn't built overnight and had an ,"If you can't beat them, join them." kind of mentality. Du Bois looked at life dispairingly, and yet with passion that the future must come sooner. Washington seemed to understand "his enemy" and was more subtle. I am certain that Washington made more friends, and gained more support in his stance concerning white folk.

This all reminds me of the, " You can catch more flies with ." statement. I think that Du Bois possessed the kind of mentality that challenged everyone around him and the kind that says, "Shoot for the stars! If you don't reach it, catch one on the way down." I believe that he thought to not make lofty goals would surely lead to failure because the white folks were not going to involuntarily give up a portion of power. Therefore, it was up to the Negro nation to take what belonged to them at the present time, and not allow anyone to take from them what belonged to them accoring to the Emancipation Proclaimation.

Washington in his time was smart enough to know that Mary Poppin's medication worked best. If he had a theme song it would be," A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down!" Du Bois would be more like Beastie Boy's hit,"You've got to fight for your right, to Party."(not to make light of the subject) . Both Washington and Du Bois were valuable writers, and both were well written intelligent men. I think they were on very level playing fields. Washington may have understood his audience better, but Du Bois came to the table with an adament persuasion. This may have turned some off, but surely as many as were turned off, others were ignited with the same passion.