Carnival Post

          I am going to begin with one very interesting thought that came from almost all of the posts that I read: Wallace Steven's poetry is confusing and could be interpreted a variety of ways.  I will admit I also posted on my blog and while I was reading his poetry I was confused.  I found it very interesting how each person comes in with their own interpretations and images that come to them when they read the poems.  I also thought it was interesting that two classmates felt inspired by the poems to actually write some of their own--and one was reminded of how much they hate poetry:)

            When I was reading about A Rose for Emily and The Mountains of Kilamanjaro I found it interesting that the topic of modernism seemed to appear quite a bit.  This may have been due to our discussion that we had in class but I think that it's worth noting.  Many of the blogs talked about irony and a possible connection between the author and the male character.  This whole idea of the old ways getting set aside for new ideas[taxes] and how that affected the people during this time and the writing.  This idea of small towns and death was particularly interesting which came from one blog.

           Time to move on to Mine Eyes were Watching God which seemed to have many of the same themes as well as different and opposing ones within our class blogs.  First of all, I would like to point out that almost everyone mentioned something about the dialect and the use of Black English.  Some of us enjoyed the new territory while others did not like how it would switch from one dialect to the other.  I found it interesting that most of us mentioned the author's unique style and how she used this as her means to develop the story.  Some of us found it harder to read while others of us found it intriguing and enjoyable.  I would like to add that we are all skeptics of one, some, or all of the characters in this book.  We question the choices that characters make and who should be trusted and who should not be.  Personally, I think that Hurston has done an excellent job to create that skeptism in her book of her characters.  We all chose characters that we questioned and did not trust whether that be by their decisions or by their descriptions.  Another theme that came up in our blogs was the idea about love and the love between Janie and her 3 husbands.  To begin with, Logan was the security that Janie's grandmother wanted for her and she did not love him or want to be with him so she up and decides to go marry Joe.  Some of the blogs talked about how she lost her identity to these two men and as time went on she gained maturity and wisdom that she carries over into her marriage with Tea Cake.  The last theme that our blogs have in common are the ideas about sexism and racism.  Most of us agree that the book shifts from focusing on sexism and racism throughout the book.  Sexism dealt with the security issue and Janie finding it and how their society was hung up on a woman being married in order to "identify" and secure herself.  Racism was dealt with through Mrs. Turner and the Indians as well as other racial comments scattered throughout the story.  I cannot say that we all agree about these topics but I find that refreshing that we all can look on these matters from different lenses from our own opinions and experiences.