The Reader's Response...

First off, I want to thank Valerie for her insight on Dead Man. Though it was only her last little group of sentences that made total sense for me. I am a simple minded person, and many things do not register in my head the way that they would some one else's. Valerie mentioned that it is what you bring to the table, what influences you, has a great deal to do with how you would view a film such as dead man. This is also called a Reader-Response Critique.

In my English 300 class I am beginning to leard about Reader-Response. I have come to the conclusion that English 219 should be based on RR. There is so much going on in every piece of literature we as a class view or read, but we are ALL going to have DIFFERENT oppinions on it. By her saying this, I was able to be at peace with the fact that I am not going to see the movie like any of my other classmates and that is OKAY.....

Other topics brought up in class:

The Invisible Man.....learning the ambiguity or language. The Invisible Man does not have an identity, resluting in the fact that he must create one. I think that we are all 'invisible' then, because aren't we all searching for an identity????

Picoresque is when we follow an adventurer through long and crazy journeys.

Verbal Battles! I have these all the time....in fact, my roommate and her boyfriend got into one last night, and boy was in entertaining! Look on page 238 in the Invisible Man to get the real idea of a verbal battle.

**Everything is connected and we are all living as something that has come before us, and we know this unconsciously!!!!

Cleansing....

On October 19th, after class I believe that I had my epiphany. First off, I think that this might just happen to every person in this class. Mine came while I was at dance practice. We were practicing our first halftime routine when my coach came up to me and told me that I needed to do this one motion a little bigger, with more emphasis on my left hip. I said okay, and really paid no attention to her because I thought she was wrong. Like most twenty year olds, I figured that I was doing it right and she was just being nit-picky. We practiced it again and she told me the SAME thing, and I told her that I WAS doing that motion.

She looked at me and said, "Kim, will you just try to see things my way? Just TRY to do what I am asking..."

There is when it hit me. It being my epiphany. My epiphany was that in this thing called life there is a way to get back to the beginning.....or the RIGHT way. As soon as my coach said this I did the dance like she wanted to and then she looked at me and expected a response. THe only thing that I said to her was, "It clicked. This dance and my American Lit class just clicked for me."

I realized then and there that we have to cleanse the way we see so that we see the origin to be original. By accepting the fact that we as people need to see things in a new light, then we can see infinate possibilities. We can also get to the bare meaning of something so simple as an idea of a poem....or even a simple dance step. I stepped out of my relm and danced with a new passion. That night I read "Invissable Man" with a new light, and allowed myself to see through the words on the text. By cleansing my thoughts, I am now beginning to see everything the way it should be seen and not just through my eyes, but through the eyes or my coach, or Wallace Stevens, or even Dr. Sexon. I now understand....my whole view on life has changed thanks to ENG 219, my professor, and my dance coach......

Initiation

When we think of the word initiation, we often think of serority initiation or freshman iniation where the people in the group with the upperhand make these people do something out of the ordinary to fulfill a bet pretty much. However when I looked it up online, I found that the tru definition of the word is that it is a beginning.

The word initiation is usually no more than a familiarisation with a group and the procedures that they must take to become a part of that group. It is some what like a right of passage. Most athletic teams, sororities, Indian tribes, and so on use initiations to familiarize the interested with their culture.

Bill Blake was giving an initiation with the Indian in the movie Dead Man.....

We have been given an initiation to the World of English through Dr. Dexon who is showing us what we must do in order to become what we want to be. Initiation is a part of our everyday life....

Something to remember -- Wallace Stevens mentions that when we understand the imagination, we can give meaning to WHATEVER WE WANT!

Thoughts on Dead Man....

I did not get a chance to see the movie, Dead Man, in its entirety because I have a conflict with the Sunday night showing, however I did find what I saw in class on Thursday to be very interesting! It's hard for me to write on it because I have not finished it yet, but I did hear a few quotes that were key to my understanding, and entertainment! "It is preferrable to not travel with a dead man." **Well I think so! I know I am not going to be traveling with any dead men soon, especially because it would be physically impossible to do so! Haha....just kidding. I think that this quote is very true, because look at all of the stuff that did happen along the way with Bill Blake and the indian. Some pretty strange parallels were taking place, enough to turn me away from hangin' around a dead guy! "I'm William Blake. Do you know my poetry?" **The next time that my life is being threatened I am going to pull out some famous name and see if death really becomes me! Again, joke. But I loved the line. I thought fit in the movie perfectly! We also saw how the sky and the sea become one, as Dr. Sexon was mentioning. Another theme (as there were many), was that sex brings death. In this movie, all things did resemble everything else. It was almost too paralleled at times. Or maybe I was just a little confused since I didn't get a chance to see the whole movie. It will be done though......

The Connection Between Things....

I was watchingthe Disney channel when they mentioned something (forgive me for not remembering what was said) about Wallace Stevens. Because of this class I have been so accustomed to hearing those two words that my attention turned. Though they never said anything else I wanted to find out what was said. Through my looking and looking online, I came across a quote that this crazy man said and I found it quite captivating...

"Reality is a cliche from which we escape by metaphor."

I thought that this was one of the most captivating lines that I have ever heard. It is absolutely true in the sense that we hear all of these things and they are so blan. Then when people (writer or poet), spruce up something like a snowman or a pear through metaphor....it takes us to a different world for that moment. We escape reality through metaphor....how beautiful is that line? Another way in which we get lost in different metaphors is trying to find the underlying meaning that a metaphor presents. I know that I always am trying to interpret what different metaphors mean and it leaves me lost, however eventually I will figure it out and return to reality....where the text all makes sense.

There is only one problem with a metaphor....do we see what the author intends?.........

Reality is just simple without the use of different kinds of language. We will always and forever try to figure out what is meant in the text using metaphors, and it sure beats just hearing the obvious.

Picture of a Poem....

The Image in my head that I recieved when I was reading my poem would be the exact image that I would use to create a photograph. There would be a dark room, with a person in a bedroom reading a book with a falshlight. The time on the digital clock would read 2:30, for the simple fact that this individual is captivated with this poem or book, and cannot stop reading, though it is way past the time of bed. I think that this would be a beautiful image to re-create!

Poetry is the Subject of the Poem...

My Poem, "The House was Quiet and the World was Calm" by Wallace Stevens is a poem about poetry exactly. So I believe that writing how poetry is the subject goes hand in hand with my poem! If you read my poem, you find that it is about the last words you hear before you fall asleep are the most beautiful! The poetry that you read captivates you, carries you away, into your own little world. Poetry is the subject of my poem because it is talking about getting carried away within a reading, within a poem that you are reading. There is nothing else in the world that matters (hints the quiet and calm world), except for what you are reading at that very moment. Poetry takes us into a whole nother world. A world where it is you, and only you, with that poem.

The Test with the Doggleganger...

Some one recently came up to me, oviously some one that I know well, and said, "You know Kim, I think that you are my doppleganger!" I kind of shrugged it off becasue I thought that the doppleganger was some other personality, or the half to your personality. My question though is just the simple fact that do I have a physical doppleganger out there some where in this world, or is it the other half of my personality? I know that Edgar Allan Poe states that it is meeting your identical, but O' Conner sees it as two halves of the same personality.....of one person or two? A little confusing, and I just want to know if there are two Kim's out there or not?!?!?!

Just some things that I noted through the semester that Dr. Sexon said to remember for the test:
1. Wallace Stevens attempts to create the SUPREME FICTION.....
2. A theosophist is some one who believes that divinity lies within oneself...
3. The triangle that we constantly go over....MYTH and SURFACE
4. The SUBLIME cannot be explained unless it is filled with awe...
5. Similie is the first stage of a METAPHOR...
6. Lying up a nation is the foundation of the stories we hear today...

These are not things we went over in class last Thursday, they are comments made since the beginning of the semester! Have a great day!!!