Globalization and Slumdog Millionaire: A Taboo Misrepresented

Has the Western world really interfered with other countries? We seem to have poverty around parts of the world, yet there still is a McDonald’s around the corner of these many impoverished countries. How far has the so called “American Culture” reached its hand to other countries? Slumdog Millionaire, directed by Danny Boyle and written by Simon Beaufoy, is a story of a young boy, Jamal who endures great amounts of pain so that he can “win” a million dollars. In reality, he wants to “win” publicity and fame in order to be seen and found by Latika, the third musketeer and his true love who was left behind. Yet, is that the basis of the film? Is the “Hollywood romantic film” being displayed or is it much more than that? A film shot in Mumbay, a poor and indigent city in India, Slumdog Millionaire portrays the exploitation of children through labor and the misconduct found between individuals of the same nation. The film not only traces the life of a young boy who inexplicably suffers to find his mistress, but also explores the ways in which the Western culture has been so distant from other worlds that the idea of globalization has become a taboo and misrepresentation to a culture like that of the Indian one in Slumdog Millionaire.

As portrayed in the film, the Western world has been misrepresented in the Indian culture. At the beginning of the film, viewers are introduced to a Jamal, a very confident and strong character who will do almost anything to get to where he wants. However, he is brainwashed with the “Indian Hollywood” or as they would call it “Bollywood.” Jamal shows this by his passion for the famous Indian pop star Amitabh Bachchan. Amitabh is displayed on the screen as a very important character because everyone who sees him reacts very positively. This is a direct connection with the Western pop world. In the United States, any one of Hollywood’s figures are seen as idols and almost worshipped. If anyone sees them, it is as if they saw a God and cannot believe their eyes. Jamal shares this same passion in the movie by a very important scene. When Jamal goes to the cubicle or “restroom,” his luck betrays him because at that moment, Amitabh shows up in town. All the children leave everything behind and run to see Amitabh in order to get his autograph. However, Jamal’s brother, Salim, being annoyed and jealous from his younger brother, locks him inside the cubicle. Jamal finds himself in the middle of the cubicle with sewage under his feet as the only place to escape from (the only space in the cubicle for him to get out from). Desperate to reach Amitabh and motivated to do ANYTHING to reach him, Jamal dives into the manure puddle with the picture of the pop star left intact. Covered with “muck,” Jamal runs toward Amitabh and asks for his autograph. Everyone turns and laughs at Jamal for extremely malodorous. Now, is it natural for a child at the age of eight to step in a puddle of muck ONLY to get an autograph from a Bollywood star? The same notions are seen in the United States. People stand in line for hours in the sunlight just to watch a rock band on stage. There was once in December when I was in Hollywood, and I saw people tented outside the amphitheater with blankets and umbrellas, sitting and sleeping on the sidewalk. I was confused at first because I seriously thought Jesus Christ was about to show up, and I did not get the newsletter! When I rechecked, there was a Coldplay concert that was going to show in the next 24 hours and people were tented outside in the cold for a whole day so that they could get the seats they wanted. The same case was evident in Slumdog Millionaire, but is this what people call globalization?




If many want to argue that globalization is the direct advancement of a western world and its culture, then I would like to disagree. The whole idea of westernization equating to globalization has been misrepresented as something that is not really factual. In his article, “Toward a Critique of Globalcentrism: Speculations of Capitalism’s Nature,” Fernando Coronil argues that globalization is the following:

…an intensified manifestation of an old process of transcontinental
trade, capitalist expansion, colonization, worldwide migrations, and
transcultural exchanges, and that its current neoliberal modality
polarizes, excludes, and differentiates even as it generates certain
configurations of translocal integration and cultural homogenization
(352).

Coronil also argues that the “mass media have been a major avenue for the celebratory discourses of globalization” (352). If the whole idea of globalization is basically because of the media, then is it worth it for a child to soak himself in a pile of poop because of the image Hollywood conveys to the world. However, the message is bigger than this- the Western world has the idea that they have to dominate the entire world and make them all “American.” This notion came about in the 1920s with the term "Manifest Destiny." What is the Western culture representing? If globalization is really a set of worldwide exchanges, homogenizations, and migrations, as Coronil argues in the latter citation, then why is there child abuse in other nation as in Mumbay, India?

Obviously, the Western idea of globalization has been a distortion in other impoverished countries like India. Child abuse and child labor are the first strings of this supposedly technologically advanced yet misdemeanant globalization. Simon Gikandi, author of “Globalization and the Claims of Postcoloniality,” says that “globalization lies precisely in its claim that culture, as a social and conceptual category, has escaped ‘‘the bounded nation-state society’’ and has thus become the common property of the world” (641). If globalization is a so called universal culture, then how can there be child labor in other parts of the world but there is close to none in the United States? I lived in Beirut, Lebanon for many years, and although, it is an improved and globalized country, there are still many parts of it that are very deprived. One time, I saw a Muslim mother sending off her theoretical “disabled” children into the streets to sell boxes of gum for triple the amount in any supermarket. Yet, these children were wise because they would walk on the freeway selling gum during traffic hour and talk about their unfortunate lives. While they sold gum, they would also beg for change. One could not help but give them money because at some point either they have nagged so much that any person wants them to be quiet, or their story was so moving that the victim really thought these children were ill. This same case is predominant in Slumdog Millionaire when the children (orphans) are literally picked up from the streets, manipulated by a certain clan, brainwashed that they are to be cared for, and finally enslaved by either having them sing blinded or holding babies to show that there are poor young mothers. The film might be an invention by the directors, but they are taken from real, true stories that occur in many of these countries all around the world.


Taking the latter examples into consideration, how can anyone conclude that globalization is the universal cultural experience? How can one decide that it is Westernization? Globalization has been defined as so many different elements, that it has become a taboo and misrepresentation to many countries and groups of people. There no longer is one set of rules for the term, rather a different outcome for each culture. That is what makes a country, its mother country—the set of its OWN traditions rather than a universal culture that is a “common property of the world.” Slumdog Millionaire tries to portray a country that is filled with actions and behaviors that we do not see nowadays in the United States. It is a film that opens us to a world of different worlds by exploring the events behind human behavior and showing how money can make one cheat, abuse, lie, steal, and even betray the ones closest to him.

Works Cited

Coronil, Fernando. "Toward a Critique of Globalcentrism: Speculations on Capitalism's Nature" Public Culture 12.2 (2000): 351- 374. Print.

Gikandi, Simon. "Globalization and the Claims of Postcoloniality" The South Atlantic Quarterly 100.3 (2001): 627- 658. Print.

Dir. Boyle, Danny. Slumdog Millionaire. Beaufoy, Simon. Prod. Christian Colson. Fox Searchlight Pictures, 2008.

Please watch video, you may have to be directed to Youtube because the embedding is disabled!

Globalization: Existential?

Just as in the articles, these two pictures show opposing views of globalization. Is there really such a great clash that all the world will turn to two hands controlled by the same entity? Or is it a "Ah, Globalization?" issue where we really do not know what it is, yet we are bombarded by the word every single day (just as the windows are being bombarded by the earth). In both articles by Gikandi and Coronil, they argue that globalization is a term that is used not only to bring people together, but to unite them under a common culture. It is not a neccesarily Western Culture but a Universal one where each country is a clash of many other coutries combined. Honestly, I disagree and in my final essay, I will attempt to show why I disagree and how globalization has turned into a word that is so misrepresented in other countries, that it has become almost taboo and unknown. So, does globalization even exist?



Coronil, Fernando. "Toward a Critique of Globalcentrism: Speculations on Capitalism's Nature" Public Culture 12.2 (2000): 351- 374. Print.

Gikandi, Simon. "Globalization and the Claims of Postcoloniality" The South Atlantic Quarterly 100.3 (2001): 627- 658. Print.

Media Literacy Project

Note: This is an entire collaborative group work.
Group: Diana, Laura, Andra, Mark, and Karine

English Senior Assignment
Properly Documenting Sources with Various Means of Media using MLA Format

This assignment will help to prepare you for future assignments in college. In college, you are expected to write various papers and essays that require outside sources in addition to the primary text that will further support your thesis. It is imperative to make sure your secondary sources are credible. We will be conducting our research via internet on our assigned reading Of Mice and Men. Additionally, please refer to the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers to properly cite your sources.

1). Find a website on Salinas California. In 250 words answer the following questions:
• Write a summary about what you found, and how this furthers your understanding of the primary text, Of Mice and Men.
• Is the website you chose to conduct your research credible? Why do you think it is a reliable source?
• Make a works cited page following the MLA guidelines documenting your secondary source.

2). Find an interview with John Steinbeck and/or with a leading scholar or critic relative to Steinbeck’s writing.
• Write a summary on what you found in the interview that helps you come to better understanding of Steinbeck. Why is this relevant, and how can this be applied to Of Mice and Men?
• Is the website you chose to conduct your research credible? Why do you think it is a reliable source?
• Make a works cited page following the MLA guidelines documenting your secondary source.

3). Find a YouTube clip or scene in the movie adaptation that applies to Of Mice and Men. If you decide to use a scene from the movie version, please conduct your research by means of the internet.
• Compare and contrast your initial impression Of Mice and Men to your findings on YouTube or movie version.
• Summarize the scene you chose in the YouTube clip or scene from the movie adaptation. Be sure you are able to locate it in the book.
• Make a works cited page following the MLA guidelines documenting your secondary source.

4). Find a scholarly journal with an article that applies to Of Mice and Men. Please use the following website: JSTOR. This is an excellent source that has credible journal articles.
• In 250 words, summarize the article. How can it be applied to a research paper you are conducting?
• Make a works cited page following the MLA guidelines documenting your secondary source.

5). Write a short reflection on conducting research on the internet. Please include the following:
• In conducting your research, did you come across any unreliable sources? If so, how do you know they are not credible?
• What did you find interesting about this assignment?
• Do you feel comfortable using technology to conduct research?


Note: The purpose of this assignment is to let students understand different forms of media and also prepare them for college paper writing. It is a great way to get students to find credible sources and also put them together and find the most important points behind them. The project keeps students aware, focused, and also having a little bit of "fun" while they explore different media in order to find the infotmation they need.


Reflection of Media Literacy Projects
Edgar Allen Poes, "The Tell Tale Heart"


This short film gives a visual appeal to the story's mysteries and emotions. The "eye" becomes something much more than just an eye to gaze and look out. It turns into an ambiguous sign, a symbol that signifies a haunting and gothic setting. Yet, the films job is not to limit the possibilities rather engage the audience, the high school students, and interest them to pull the symbols in the story apart. That way, the students WANT to know more about the text rather than just be obligated by a certain curriculum.

Myth: Sacred Places

Sacred Places:

• Have the power to heal the human body, raise enlightenment and creativity
• Places such as Pearl Harbor, Gettysburg, Egyptian pyramids, and Stonehenge in England are sacred because they provide a location that represents nationhood, individual identity, culture, and historical unity.
• Around the world sacred places can be actual places. It is a literal location where you can go visit, stand on, look at, and know that you are in the place.
• They are also mythical because they become symblic of and embody meaning of their cultural values.
• Thay are also imaginary places, where the place is imagined to be far more than any place can possibly be. The sacred site, which is somewhat abstract, becomes real because of its connection with its real place, the real place that we can see, and remember.

Andrew Guilliford’s 9 Categories of Sacred Places

• Specific to describe historical events and spiritual pratices of American Indian sacred places.

Vine Deloria’s 4 Categories of Sacred Places

• Although Deloria’s categories of sacred places also focus on Native American culture, Deloria’s categories differ from Guilliford’s 9 categories of sacred places because they are open-ended enough to be applied to sacred places around the world.
• These 4 categories are arranged on a scale of “agency” which is a hierarchy from “entirely human agency” to “Higher Powers”
• The first category is “entirely human agency” which is when the site is sacred because of the human events that occurred there, for example Pearl Harbor and Ground Zero, the location of the descruction of the World Trade Center on 9/11.
• The second category, is “deeper, more profound,” a place that becomes sacred because “the sacred, or higher powers have appeared in the lives of human beings.” An example of this is Prometheus, a greek god, who stole fire from the gods to give to humans for survival.In the second category, there is an interaction between the human and the divine .
• The third category is when “Higher Powers” are no longer unseen, and “have revealed themselves to human beings.” An example that Deloria provides an example from the Old testament which is when Moses speaks with the Burning Bush.
• Deloria’s fourth category is allowing the presence of new sacred places which are sacred due to the changes or circumstances of the present day.

Sites of Fear and Longing

• Sites of Fear are sacred because they dramatize our fears of the inevitable, including death, aging, disease, and weakness. These places are reminders of human mortality.
• Sites of Longing are sacred because they dramatize the longing for comfort and security, and rejuvenation, and make immortality seem possible. A peaceful place such as a garden, forest, lake or fountain.

How to Read Sacred Place Myths

• Consider the type of myth being presented
• Myths of Sacred Waters
• Myths of Sacred landforms (mountains, canyons)
• Myths of Sacred trees, forests
• Myths of Magic Realms

Melody in Nightmare Aisle (Free Verse poem)

Your Lips sealed in my head, eyes blazing red
with sporadic green spots—
You left me with Them, mama.
Their bodies smeared on mine like the devil’s sick gushing into velvet red lava.
You wouldn’t help me, mama.
Too busy with your down to earth tomatoes,
and your neatly—two neatly—picked hands,
Gorgeous.
No, mama—Disgusting.
Chopping away every slice of parsley as if ripping my hope with the pieces that fell
like a thin whisper, a deep THUD.
You left and shattered me into broken glass,
Do you love me?
You don’t…Yes I do…No, you don’t!
You left me with Them to rot at the end of my own umbilical cord
the moment you wandered out the door.

Then,
with a deep rosary in your hand looking at me with red eyes
like God’s devil wanting me to end you,
You left me alone, mama,
in the little corner of that stifling kitchen
where your teapots were utterly aligned
but your heart—a disaster.
You left me with Them that day in mid- June, mama.
As you walked out the door, I left the shining teapot hanging from the ceiling
like your heart that hung from my unreachable life.
I left the pots and pans, the grease on the floor, the slick edge of your conscience.
I left the ghostly clatter that filled my mouth with woes and booze.
I left Them all to you, mama,
but you never came back.

No Stains on the Underwear (Sound Integrated Poem)

I.

Destroy the world in so many ways:
Crack a bomb, break legs, explode some schooners, and then
make your enemy devour the little pieces while scraping his tracheas’
inner membrane, bleeding in hatred, spitting mucus
around the ground-- disarray, disarray.
That’s one way you could have broken my life.

Instead, in a moment?
Drinks with friends.
High on Speed.
A little corner--
his vomiting breath squeezing against your pelvis.
Yes!
Squeal for mercy, enjoy your god forsaken moment and wait a whole month
with fear building under the flies in your stomach
just to know…

There are no stains on the underwear.

Two months pass.
Your belly starts growing the more you endure starvation--
No one can know. No body has to know.Rejection: family, friends,
even the one who committed this crime.

Nine months of manipulative aches as you hold your spine
loosely,
while standing like a ninety year old woman
with wobbling legs.
The day you give birth, you assemble yourself, blaring at the top of your cellars. The walls engulfing you are as bare as your soul
that delves in your unborn child--
a tomb decaying with anguish.

II.

Three days later,
a royal elephant starts hiding in your child’s room.
The toy for your infant fades in disguise and
then, you hold your baby,
weep in the night,
snuggle under the trash bin,
give a bitter, cold kiss on your child’s cheeks--
oblivion to abandonment.
You leave it there,
sprint a trail of tears.
Each one pounds on the steps it cracked,
and you never come back.

III.

Fifteen years later— he is
grown up, hair shining like his father who produced him under Speed.
Eyes blazing blue like his mother’s azure face that shot in the cellar.
The Child agonized with hesitation,
filled with panic and anxiety.
Why did you harm Him?

I am wandering,
escaping between
the scorching lines on my face or
under the crippled fake smile.
I am a beautiful lie.
You made me:
organs attached to each other like an angel clinging to God.
I wish you had pushed glass down my throat and told me you loathed me so much that my own face appalled you.
Instead, you threw me away.

IV.

Wherever you are,
your soul rots inside me—lost, defiant, naked.
Your eyes blaze with tears,
and your mouth, oh your mouth…
I fake it, but
every night, I scrape your mouth
with my bloody knives as
I glance at your pelvis sucking against his belly
in your previous pleasure,
in my
bottomless, ceaseless dreams.

Flying Japan

Think of a title- a name, a city, a place.
Just a name, they say.

Your heads flips round and round as you try
to gather the edges of your polished brain
oozing like the grease stuck on the bottom of a frying pan- yellow mucus splitting the edges.

Come up with a name, come up with a name.

Your fingers trembling with torment as twenty- five pairs of eyes haunt you in your day like hollow spoons eating your guts.
The sweat arousing from under your eyebrow falls to the floor with such simplicity that it enters the sides of the cement’s cracks and fills a giant space- a hollow galaxy only flowing with imaginations.

God damn it, one freakin’ name!

Now, your feet quiver like the swooshing wind that hits the window of your car when you leave it a little open under the storm.
Bedlam fills your stomach- hot blazing summer in mid-December.
Your eyes twitch every three milliseconds, your mind jolts as it breaks, and your mouth trembles with abhorrence- a melancholy bleeding and only visible to the veins of your body.

Uhhh…Uhhh...
Jesus Christ just say anything!

He comes close, looks straight into your fuming eyes, tells you to bawl out loud, not be afraid.

You finally scream:
I killed them, I killed them all when I was Flying in Japan.

“My Last Duchess:” Tenure Found in Victorian Literature

From 1837- 1901, Queen Victoria, the first British monarch to become a visual icon, reigned over England. Her image described the clear balance she managed in her life. Yet, she was awarded that balance due to the Industrial Revolution occurring during that time period. When Victoria was crowned, “there were five cities having more than a hundred thousand people, and London was growing by as much as twenty percent a decade” ( Wolfson and Manning 17). Additionally, there was a huge development of technology: photography and mass production of goods. Most of the goods sold had labels of the Queen on them so that her image can emanate prestige and power. The immense increase in technology created a Victorian culture that was a “turn, even an escape, from the tumultuous and confusing here-and-now” (Wolfson and Manning 8). Accordingly, the Victorian culture became characterized by a sense of positive energy. At any point in the nineteenth century, laborers produced new and fresh goods. They believed that they can render their previous lives obsolete and give rights to all laborers. Also, the Victorians vindicated a sense of control where they had to manage their entire surrounding based on the industry created. Thus, many poets graveled and delved with these Victorian ideals. As a result from the latter explanation, “My Last Duchess,” by Robert Browning, is composed of a genre and form directly relatable to the senses of energy and control present in the Victorian era of the nineteenth century.

“My Last Duchess” presents a Duke speaking, at first, of his Duchess as a shy, embarrassed, and modest person. He directly states this by describing how she blushes when she is given any kind gesture. The Duke, however, does not find her to be a “perfect” Duchess, rather she is filled with guilt and is “too easily impressed” (Browning 23). In the following lines, the Duke unconsciously presents his stand toward the Duchess: “The dropping of the daylight in the West/ The bough of cherries some officious fool/ Broke in the orchard for her…” (Browning 26-28). Here, the Duke is clearly stating how the Duchess is a flawed character who does not obey righteous orders; rather she is easily pleased by any man and accepts gifts like those of cherries. The Duke does not realize the gracious acts presented toward her, but only focuses on his opinion that she is adulterous. Thus, he is aggravated at her behavior because she does not rank him superior prioritizing social and political status. On the contrary, the Duchess ranks the Dukes “nine- hundred-years-old name/ With anybody’s gift” (Browning 33). For these reasons, he gets the Duchess killed, and her painting then hung on the wall to be admired and reminisced.

How exactly is the genre of the piece a direct correlation with Victorian ideals? “My Last Duchess” is a dramatic monologue that involves dramatic irony and further leads readers to connect those ideas with the notions of positive energy. A dramatic monologue is a genre of poetry where the poet is not exactly the speaker, yet there are staged personalities. The speaker is in a specific, dramatic situation addressing the audience within the poem. In addition, the speaker reveals elements about himself while he is in the “speech” process. This aspect is engulfed with dramatic or tragic irony which is an acknowledgment to the “contradictions of experience” in the piece (Deutsch 74). At this point, the speaker reveals to the reader information unapparent to the speaker. Throughout the entire poem, the Duke, is a staged individual who is addressing a certain audience. Without knowing, he directly ranks hierarchy as superior to anything else. Because she does not believe rank is important, the Duchess is then killed. This is clearly addressed in the poem: ‘”Paint/ Must never hope to reproduce the faint/ Half-flush that dies along her throat:”’ (Browning 17-19). The “half- flush” on her throat is a direct symbolization to her murder consequently showing readers how, right at the start, the Duke gives information that seems to be hidden from him. The language in the poem starts becoming out of proportion because there is a discrepancy between what the speaker thinks he is saying and what the readers knows. Moreover, this specific form highlights the Dukes personality. In his piece “Ferrara and “My Last Duchess,”’ Louis S. Friedland attacks the Duke’s Last Duchess. Is the Duke talking about the Duchess he killed before or the final one he just did? Friedland explains that “the identification of the “last Duchess” depends, oddly enough, upon the recognition of the other lady in the story, the one who may become the Duke’s second wife” (679). One can conclude that Browning refers to the previous Duchess he had killed, meaning that there is another women or another “lady in the story.” The concept of “the other” is a thorough relationship with the Victorian idea of energy. Victorians believed in the notion of creating new things, expanding their surrounding, and constantly producing great numbers of mass production in order to improve their ways of life. The Duke’s attitude, revealed through the genre, associates to the idea of finding a Duchess who will fit his qualifications, but at the same time “removing” others who do not.

Not only does the poem’s ironic and dramatic genre reflect Victorian principles, but also the images and poetic forms shape the senses of control and ownership. Most of the time, the Duke describes the Duchess as an object or a materialistic form. This raises the question about the ideas of possession present in his psychoanalysis. At the end of the poem, a Greek mythical image is described raising some vital issues. The Duke addresses his audience to “Notice Neptune, though,/ Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity,/ Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for [him]!” (Browning 55-57). In Greek mythology, Neptune is the God of the sea who rules and governs all the sea creatures. The Duchess is directly compared to the “sea-horse” who is delicate and fragile. Yet, “Neptune” or the Duke wants to have power over the Duchess so that no one can come close or touch her except him. This same controlling factor is present at the beginning of the poem where the Duke states that “none puts by/ The curtain I have drawn for you, but I” (Browning 9-10). Directly at the beginning, the Duke tells his readers that only he can touch the painting. He is the only one who has the power to control and possess it/her. Friedland addresses these psychological issues:

The Duke is an egotist who is either unwilling to content himself with a normal degree of possession or, physically incapable of attaining it, and exacts the last measure of obedience to his will for exclusive ownership (675).

He wants to seize the Duchess as an object just like his other materialistic belongings: the painting or sculpture of “bronze.” In addition, the poem’s form and rhyme scheme suggest the same possessive notions. The rhyme scheme is in aabbaabb… form. It is illustrated as follows:

That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall, a
Looking as if she were alive. I call a
That piece a wonder, now: Fra Pandolf’s hands b
Worked busily a day, and there she stands b

The entire poem follows this scheme and the aabb form creates a closed couplet where “two lines of verse, usually in the same metre and joined by rhyme to form a unit” (Deutsche 39). That “unit” creates a type of organization. Instead of being a free flowing verse, the speaker intends it to be a closed couplet rhyme that further emphasizes the concept of power. As a result of the Duke’s psychoanalysis conveyed through the poem’s form and images, the Victorian beliefs of ownership are finally illustrated.

This poem, “My Last Duchess,” delves into the ethics of Victorian culture that generate senses of control and energy. The poem reflects aesthetic representations that were present during the nineteenth century. Through dramatic genres and descriptive, organized forms, the speaker ultimately attacks himself becoming obsessed with the notion of consumption, manipulation, and possessiveness. Although the entire piece can be very well related to the Victorian principles and ideals, yet it also calls upon a different mindset. How do readers “consume” literature? How can scholars manipulate poetry and art to the way they please? Maybe, at one point, that is all readers tend to accomplish- rendering and decomposing a poem to its deepest core until someone embraces a eureka moment, a grand idea. This poem not only foreshadows previous elements of culture and life, but also questions readers to the way they consume, possess, control, and sometimes manipulate any given text just like the Duke did to his “Last Duchess.”



Works Cited

Browning, Robert. “My Last Duchess.” 100-Best-Loved Poems. Ed. Philip Smith. New York: Dover, 1995. 64-65. Print.

Deutsch, Babette. Poetry Handbook: A Dictionary of Terms. 4th ed. New York: HarperCollins,1974. Print.

Friedland, Louis S. ‘Ferrara and “My Last Duchess.”’ Studies in Philology 33.4 (1936): 656-684. JSTOR. Web. 3 Feb. 2010.

Wolfman, Susan and Peter Manning. “The Romantics and Their Contemporaries.” The Longman Anthology of British Literature. Ed. David Damrosch and Kevin J.H Dettmar. New York: Pearson, 2006. 3-59. Print.

"The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost

The Road Not Taken

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

If you have not seen other pathways, you do not know what road to choose. In "The Road Not Taken," Frost attacks these ideas and shares the notions of destiny and choice with his readers. Sometimes, a fork in our lives is the epitome and point where we have to grow up and make decisions for ourselves.

Five Major Poetic Terms

1-Couplet: Two lines of verse, usually in the same metre and joined by rhyme, that form a unit. There are closed and open ended couplets.

Example: Closed Couplet
Instruct the planets in what orbs to run,
Correct old Time, and regulate the Sun;
Both these lines are end stopped and have a logical ending as they close.

Example: Open Couplet
Look in, and see each blissful Deitie
How he before the thunderous thron doth lie,...
The second line is a run-on and needs the first line to make out its meaning.

2-Metaphor: Language that implies a relationship, of which similarity is a significant feature, between two things and so changes our apprehension of either or both.

Example:
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,...
Here the a man is a tenor and his soul is his vehicle. The body is also the tenor. Other metaphors can also be found.

3-Quatrain: A four line stanza.

Example:
The hippopotamus's day
Is passed in sleep; at night he hunts;
God works in a mysterious way--
The Church can sleep and feed at once.

4-Sonnet: A poem of fourteen iambic pentameter lines, divided into octave and sestet , with a prescribed rhyme scheme, and concerned with a single thought or sentiment. There are two types of sonnets: Petrarchean and Shakespearean.

Petrarchean Sonnet
Rhyme scheme: abba abba cdcdcd (or cdecde or cdedce)
The first eight lines create the octave and the next six lines create the sestet. The octave introduces a problem and the sestet (the beginning known as the volta) introduces a type of change to somewhat solve the problem.

Shakespearean Sonnet
Rhyme scheme: abab cdcd efef gg
The first 12 lines are devised of three separate quatrains. The last two lines make a sestet. The three quatrains lead a problem and the final sestet brings in the climax.

5-Onomatopoeia: The coining or the use of words that imitate the sound of a thing. It also refers to sound symbolism which does not give a direct echo but is strongly suggestive of the thing presented.

Example:
the hiss of a snake
the buzz of a bee
the THUD of a fallen bucket to the ground
the SPLAT of water to the floor
etc...

March Violets

-Part One- Song Reading

The poem/ song, "March Violets," generates a lot of energy. The first thing I could tell is that it involves a lot of violence. The third line in the poem is when "They fire the gun". There is a war-like situation going on. With every "fire" it seems as though they are nourishing or "watering" the "vine" in front of them. They are firing against their enemy. There are also numerous contradictions in the text. For example: "The time is right/ And the night is long/ The night is brief/ And the time is wrong". In war, everything’s seems to be contradictory. It is scary, stressful, and even sometimes it "eats your heart". It "bites" at your soul, killing your morality, your virtues and your entire lifestyle.

-Part Two- Song Hearing

The music is quite interesting. There is a lot of repetition with the phrase "Ides of March." That repetition emphasizes its importance. The “Ides of March” is a parade. Maybe the war in the piece is like a parade- people go without knowing what to expect just like the soldiers who march to a war somewhat naïve to what they are going to face. The music is very vivid but unclear. That uncertainty along with the raunchy voice exemplifies strong images about the ideas of war and death. The song has a very deep meaning about life, creation, and finally death.

Introduction

Her name is Diana Hajjar. She is originally part Turkish and part Lebanese. She is a graduating Senior and wants to become a college/university professor one day. She currently teaches (student teacher) at Jane Addams High School in North Hills. While she teaches, she uses media all the time in order to get a message across to her students. Most of the time, a movie is displayed in order to facilitate the ideas to the students for further understanding. When she was a high school student, her teachers used powerpoint all the time. It was a highly effective way to better teach the information rather than reading from a book. Websites, Blogs, Films, Powerpoints, etc... all help students have a better understanding of the world around them.