Polygamy and "The Handmaid's Tale"

Polygamy in the US is something that many people practice through the Mormon religion. Although illegal in the US, it is still practiced in a few states including AZ and UT. This specific way of believing has a lot in common with the way the women in Margaret Atwood’s “A Handmaid’s Tale” are treated. In the book and in the religion women are made mainly for making babies and serving the men. The men are the rulers and they have sex with many women so that their babies can be made. The women both wear certain uniforms and have specific jobs. My main question about all of this is why are the women so submissive? Do some of the women actually believe that this is the way life should be?  I have always found polygamy interesting in the sense that I never understood how a woman after all these years of equality could be so submissive to a man. I hope that in reading a little more about the religion I can better understand the book we have just read as well and where the author was going with it.

picture source http://needlenose.com/wp/2004/02/page/2/

http://www.mormonfundamentalism.com/ for more info on Mormonism

letter to Cline

                        October 17, 2010

Mrs. Cline,

English has always been one of my favorite subjects. I enjoy the process of either reading or learning something new and writing about it. English 102 has been somewhat new for me because literary analysis is not really something I am used to. My past classes have focused more on picking and choosing a subject of my choice and giving my opinion about that subject. Summary is pretty easy for me but analysis is a little more difficult. I have a hard time staying on the point of the book and not bringing up other subjects that could relate.

This semester while reading stories from different authors about war has been a new experience for me. I have never been interested in learning about the war or past wars. I feel that I have a new appreciation for the veterans.

In this class I feel I have gained a better sense of knowledge of the emotions of the war.  During the rest of this semester I hope to be able to write in analysis better. I already have a better sense of what analysis is, I just hope to be able to incorporate this knowledge in my essay.

                                                                                                Sincerely,

                                                                                                Roxanne Rentschler

Summary vs. Analysis Tim O'Brien

For my summary vs. analysis blog I chose to write about Tim O’Brien’s short story “The Ghost Soldiers”. This story is about O’Brien when he was in the war in Vietnam. O’Brien had been shot a couple of times during the war. The first time was not nearly as traumatic as the second.

O’Brien’s first shot was to his side. He had even said that he didn’t have much pain. This wound was taken care of quickly and he had his friend Rat Kiley to thank for that. Rat Kiley was a medic in the war and he knew what he was doing. He was quick to treat and he risked his life to be at O’Brien’s side.  The second shot was to his butt and at that time there was a new medic on the field, Bobby Jorgenson. This guy was not as fearless as Rat Kiley. When O’Brien had been shot it took Jorgenson a while to get to him because he was afraid. In that time that O’Brien had been waiting for someone to help he bled out a lot and finally went into shock. Since Jorgenson was still new and not as experienced when he finally got to O’Brien he did not treat O’Brien for shock. O’Brien was close death but he survived. He was treated in their hospital and was made fun of for his wound to the butt. When he returned to duty he had to change his job because he had been shot too many times. He was no longer on the front lines with his buddies.

O’Brien experienced a lot of humiliation and pain during this time. He believed it was Jorgenson that did this to him. He felt that Jorgenson had almost killed him.  Therefore, O’Brien wanted to pay him back for all the hurt he had caused. So, O’Brien found a guy that would help him scare Jorgenson one night. Azar was the guy who helped him. They planned it all out carefully. When it came time to do it, O’Brien decided half way through that he had scared him enough and wanted to quit, but Azar wanted to finish it. O’Brien followed through but in the end he regretted it. Jorgenson and O’Brien forgave each other and called it even.

This story shows how during war a person can lose sense of himself. When O’Brien was shot the second time he was embarrassed and he lost a sense of his pride. The nurses in the hospital made fun of him for his wound and he lost a little bit of his manly-hood. He lost closeness with his war buddies because he was no longer able to share in the experiences with them.  And he experienced being near death. The combination of these incidences caused him to go mad. He had nowhere to let out his anger except for on Jorgenson. When O’Brien finally got revenge he realized that he had sunk low and felt shame for what he had done. Azar, on the other hand, allowed the power gain control of him. He felt no remorse for what he and O’Brien had done to Jorgenson. He allowed the war to make him into a monster.

The war is a place where a man can feel power and acceptance in other men. When a man loses this, he loses his self-worth. This feeling can make a person do things that may be out of character. The war can also make a person angry. The feeling of power can change a person. It seems that no matter who a person is when they enter the war, they come out changed. The things they feel and experience are traumatic in many ways and there is no coming out of it without some sort of scars, whether physical or mental.
Here is a link that gives more info on the effects of war -http://www.healthguidance.org/entry/11261/1/The-Emotional-Effects-of-War-on-Soldiers.html
link to picture http://ravingsfromtheblogdweller.wordpress.com/2008/09/01/ptsd-contributing-to-8500-ex-servicemen-in-british-jails/

Tim O'Brien Response

Response to Tim O’Brien

Of the many short stories from Tim O’Brien’s book “The Things They Carried”, I chose to respond to the first one. This is also called, “The Things They Carried”.  I really enjoyed reading this story because it started out talking about actual material things the soldiers carried and then towards the end “The Things They Carried” symbolized the emotions each of them carried. O’Brien’s story spoke of how to deal with the emotions they were harboring men carried things to take their thoughts somewhere else while in the middle of the war. I can imagine that if I had to deal with the stress of the possibility of losing my life on a daily basis, I would try to find ways to let my mind take me somewhere else, if even for a minute. Dreaming about family or the life that used to be would be a good way of keeping a person holding on during this traumatic situation. It is amazing that these people do not go insane from the things that they have to see. Watching people die right in front of their eyes and realizing that could just as easily have been them.

The reading of war we have been doing has given me a different understanding of the men and women that come back from war. It has always been easier for me to ignore the fact that we are in a war because the idea that there are so many people suffering depresses me. I know that is a very selfish thing for me to say. Reading these stories has just made me want to pray for these people every night.  

http://www.illyria.com/tob/tobbio.html Go here for more info on Tim O'Brien

link to picture http://naturalmedicinetreatmentalternatives.com/2009/06/04/depression-how-homeopathy-can-help.aspx

Response to Sean Huze

Response to Sean Huze
When it comes to war, I have always had mixed emotions. In some ways I think that we need it because if we didn’t fight for our country, we will lose it and our freedom along with it. On the other hand, I don’t agree with killing innocent people. Throughout war many children and people die that don’t deserve to lose their lives so early.
Reading the play, “The Sand Storm, Stories from the Front” by Sean Huze, really confused my emotions even more. I do not know anyone who has been in war, so I have never really understood the horror these men and women go through. I understand why they are there fighting for us and I know how it can benefit us. I just cannot comprehend how any person can lay fire on children and their families.
This play gave me a better understanding at how being in war can really mess with a person’s emotions. They are there to do a job and in order to stay alive they must put their emotions aside. But what makes me sad is that these people being killed are also just trying to protect themselves as well.
I imagine to keep from going crazy while fighting, a person has to make reason for the horrible things they do. In the play, CPL Waters said how he felt that since the Iraqi’s had not given his friends mercy, he need not give any mercy to them (Huze 9). How does a person reason enough with themselves to stand there and watch a man suffer and smile in victory?
I think if I had to choose to be either for or against war, I would choose to be for it. I really believe that we would not have the freedom we have today if it had not been for all the men and women who have fought for it. I just wish there were some way to keep the innocent lives out of it. I guess that is just the price of our freedom.
 
Works Cited
Image URLhttp://webspace.webring.com/people/et/trcrowder/
Huze, Sean. “The Sand Storm: Stories from the Front.” 2004.Susan Schulman Literary Agency.2004
Here is a site that gives a look at a positive to the war in Iraq

http://www.rd.com/your-america-inspiring-people-and-stories/a-friendship-beyond-the-battlefield/article30452.html

Responding to Poetry

Responding to a poem


The two poems I chose to respond to are, “Charlie Howard’s Descent”, by Mark Doty, and “Song of Napalm”, by Bruce Weigl. Both of these poems show an extreme amount of emotion and both are based off of real events.

“Charlie Howard’s Descent” is a poem based on the death of a homosexual boy in the 1980’s (Wikipedia par. 1-4). This poem reminded me a lot of the recent story of the girl who committed suicide because of the kids that teased her and made her feel like an outcast. These kinds of stories anger me. Because this boy was gay, he was teased and eventually killed because “he could not meet the town’s demands” (Doty, line 17-18); others could not accept him for who he was. Many people would say it is a sin to be a homosexual, but isn’t it a sin to judge one of God’s children. In the poem it says, “What could he do, live with one hand tied behind his back” (Doty lines 12-14); He obviously was more feminine than other men. I am a Christian myself and of course, like many other’s I still have unanswered questions. One of them being, If God makes all of his children, why would he make some of them with both male and female parts, and then say that being homosexual is wrong. I believe this would be a good poem for all teenagers to read.

“Songs of Napalm” is a poem based on a soldier’s memories in Viet Nam (weigl, Bio, par. 3). This poem is interesting in that if you’ve never seen things through a soldier’s eyes, you can never fully understand the true intensity of the things they have witnessed. This soldier gives us (the readers) a very an inside look at the effects the war had on him. I think the most powerful part of his poem is when Weigl says, “ I try to imagine she runs down the road and wings beat inside her until she rises above the stinking jungle and her pain eases, and your pain, and mine, but the lie swings back again”(lines 30-34). This part really made me feel his pain and his longing to just put these horrible memories to rest. He wants so badly to be able to live in the moment with his wife but these images in his head will not let him.

Both of these poems were written very well in the sense that in reading it a person can almost feel the pain these people were feeling. In my opinion, these poems are the best kind of poetry because they are real and heart-felt.

References
Mark Doty “Charlie Howard’s Descent.” Angelfire 1987. 9 September 2010. Web. http://www.angelfire.com/ca4/strawberry/descent.html
Bruce Weigl “Song of Napalm.”Poetry foundation. 1999. 9 September 2010. Web. http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html
Charlie Howard (MurderVictim)Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. 1984. 9 September 2010 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Howard_(murder_victim)
Website for this image http://mslinder.wikispaces.com/poetryexplication





Here is a link that gives more info on the kid Charlie from Mark Doty's poem

Response to Sam Hammil’s “The Necessity to Speak” Essay

Sam Hammil’s essay is one that definitely caught my attention. He goes into explicit detail the penalty this world pays for not speaking their mind. He states that in not talking, we are all accountable for the wrongdoing of humankind. All parents should read this essay. I am a mother of two children and in his writings; he discusses quite often the consequences of not talking to your children.
In Hammil’s essay he writes that as human beings, “we go on living our sheltered lives” because “we can’t bear very much reality” (par 2). I would have to agree with this. I personally am not one that likes to hear about the awful things of the world. It scares me. In a very selfish way, I would rather go on living and not knowing the bad details. I say it is selfish because Hammil is right in saying that we all are “personally responsible for the deaths we buy and sell” (par 2). We are all choosing to ignore the fact that we just might have a say in what happens in our world.
In not teaching our children the reality of the world, we are not preparing them for the what-ifs. For example: What if my daughter is ever in a situation where she is raped, this situation could go one of two ways; She does not say anything for fear of being embarrassed or for fear of her attacker and the attacker continues to do the same thing to other women. On the other hand, I tell her when she is old enough to understand not be afraid to talk in these situations, because in talking maybe she can prevent it happening to someone else. My question to all of this though, is at what age do I decide to confront her with the possibilities that life can bring upon her? In telling her the reality of the world, am I taking away a piece of her childhood?
We should talk about sex and violence and when we see wrongdoing, we should speak up! As adults our responsibility is to speak our mind when something is not right. I do believe “In the language of violence, every speech is a solipsism and silence a conspirator” (par31). If I see that my neighbor’s husband is beating her, and I say nothing, I am just as much to blame as her abuser. We do not want to be in the middle though for fear of harming ourselves. Maybe letting go of that fear may save someone’s life someday.
In summation, we all may fear the unknown of speaking our mind, but if we choose not to, we are all at fault for what happens around us.

References
Sam Hammil, “The Necessity to Speak.” A Poet’s Work: The Other Side of Poetry. Seattle, Wa: Broken Moon, 1990

Here is a link that gives more info about the author Sam Hammil http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poet.html?id=2883