Reflection Essay

I have taken several classes at SUNY Farmingdale and even at New York Institute of Technology. Every class has taught me new things. Some of these classes have been a lot of fun and other classes like physics and statistics have made me go crazy over the confusing formulas and math problems! Even when I took English 101 I felt that it writing and reading is something that is not in me. I found it extremely boring and unnecessary.

When I signed up for English 102 the first thought that came to my mind was, “I cannot believe I have to do this one more time!” I have never been a fan or reading stories and especially poems. To my surprise, the very first day of class I got interested in the story. Having a professor that has the proper knowledge and shares common interests with his/her students can make all the difference. I still don’t clearly understand some of the things we read but I still look forward to getting to class and finding out deeper meanings of the story or poem.

I’m sure you may have already noticed that I am not the best writer in the world after readying the essays that I have posted. My writing was actually far worse than what you see. Being able to revise my papers once after it has been graded helped me realize what I need to change to improve my writing. I was completely disinterested in writing papers because I knew I was not good at it. I never even let anyone read my papers because of this. But after learning the material from this class I have more confidence in writing papers and I have started to enjoy it too.

Like many other males, I always felt poems couldn’t be made fun no matter how you rhyme it or how deep of a meaning it may have. This was complete a misconception on my part. After realizing in a class discussion that even the famous artists of today like Eminem and 50 cent use poetry to make their songs, I found myself trying to create my own rhymes. Through this class I learned that poems are a good way of passing on any kind of message and emotion and above all, it is meant to read by males just as much as females.

I would rank the experience I had in this class as one of my top 5. This class made me think about new ideas and it helped me view my life from a different perspective. It showed me a side of me that even I did not know ever existed. I have friends taking the same class with a different professor and are having the worse time of their lives. This means that having the right professor can make all the difference. Having to make your own blog as a final assignment? I never thought that would be a part of my English final! It was a good experience and my class mates only made it that much more fun and interesting with their deep thoughts and ideas.

Sympathy v/s Empathy- Lecture Response

Many people know the meaning on sympathy but very few know what empathy means. Some people believe that the two are synonyms. Even though the two are acts of feeling, the definitions are something very different.

Sympathy

• When someone is sympathetic for a person he/she is feeling pity or sorry for the person. The person feeling sympathetic does not know how the other person is really feeling but is just showing support. Sometimes people are left with no other choice but to feel sympathetic because they really can’t understand the plight or predicament of someone else.

Empathy

• Empathy is when one feels sadness WITH the person to an extent you are placing yourself in that person’s place. It may be impossible to be fully empathetic for someone since each individual's reactions, thoughts and feelings to tragedy are different. Yet the idea of empathy implies a much more active process. Instead of feeling sorry for, you’re sorry with the person and have put yourself in their shoes to feel their pain.

Abortion- Lecture Response

The abortion controversy has become one of the most divisive and irrationally contentious issues of our time, turned into a legal and political power struggle with no permanent resolution in sight. Even though civilized society does not permit one human to intentionally harm or take the life of another human, I still believe that abortion should still remain legal for these reason:

• With 1.5 million families wanting to adopt a child, there is no such thing as an unwanted child. So getting an abortion is not the only option for the child.
• It will help prevent domestic violence. How many times do you hear about a husband or boyfriend trying to hurt his spouse just so she cannot have the baby anymore? This is happening now when abortion is still legal! Just imagine how the numbers will rise if abortion were to become illegal.
• Women have control over their own body. By making abortion illegal, the government is forcing women to continue pregnancy.
• In the case of rape, forcing a women made pregnant by this violent act would cause further psychological harm to the victim. The baby will only remind her of the dark time of her life.

Love Is Everlasting

Life is a journey that is made easier and more enjoyable with the right companion. A companion is someone with whom one can share life's sorrows and the simple joys. It is commonly said that love makes like beautiful. That is because love gifts us with sweet memories that last an entire lifetime. Even when destiny separates people from their loved ones, love continues to exist in the form of memories. The perfect companion loves unconditionally. Therefore, true love is eternal. “The River Merchant’s Wife: A Letter” by Ezra Pound, “Stop All The Clocks, Cut Off The Telephone” by W.H. Auden, and “My Heart Will Go On” by Celine Dion are just some of many examples where the speakers talk about their everlasting love for someone.

In the poem “Stop All the Clocks, Cut Off the Telephone,” by W.H. Auden, the speaker feels like it is the end of the world after losing a loved one. The speaker gives the reader a feeling of death in an audible sound that is dark, hollow, and echoing. He tries to show the reader how he lost an important person in his life that the loss must have had an affect on other people that knew him as well. The speaker has a serious yet a very tone. There is no shift in tone, showing that the speaker attitude is solid, confident, and unchanging, which may mean that the man who dies has been in the speaker’s life for a long time. In line 1-4, the speaker says, “ Stop all the clocks… let the mourners come.” Through this the speaker is trying to tell us how nothing else in the world matters and time might as well stand still after this tragedy.

The song “My Heart Will Go On” by Celine Dion provokes a sense of togetherness and understanding between lovers who are far apart. They feel each other in dreams. The second stanza of the song shows the power of love and how just the touch can make it last for a lifetime. It shows us that love is eternal and it is embedded within us, we encounter it in our daily life and will continue to do so till we live. This song brings out the true meaning and strength of love. “Near, far, wherever you are, I believe that the heart does go on.” Through this line, Dion tells us that even though fate does not bring them together they promise to go on living life by using their love as an inspiration.

In the romantic poem “The River Merchant’s Wife: A Letter” by Ezra Pound, Ezra talks about how her relationship with her husband went from being together all the time to being far apart after they got married. Even then she believes her love to be so strong that the day he comes back to her she will be willing to walk miles just to be together with him again. Ezra Pound shows the listeners in the first stanza how her childhood was when her husband and she used to play together. In lines 15-18, “At sixteen you departed… sorrowful noise overhead” Ezra is expressing how the good

memories she has of them being together are only leading to sorrow now because it reminds her that he is not with her anymore. This poem shows how love is eternal and everlasting even if two people involved are not physically together.

True love is always unconditional. These three pieces of work prove this to be true. All the speakers in the 3 poems are still faithful to the people they love despite the difficulties in their relationship. The unconditional aspects of love make relationships different between people. Whether a person is there physically or not, if two people are in love they always have a special place in their heart for their significant other.

Positive and Negative Desires

People always have many different forms of desire. They may desire a certain person, a car, love and affection, or even admission to college. A desire can sometimes lead to success or sometimes create a huge mess. “The Storm” by Kate Chopin, “Hills Like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway, and the song “Perfect” by Simple Plan are all pieces of writing that show these different forms of desire can affect an individuals decisions. Desires can have positive and negative affects on people. Self- satisfaction is one of the positives that can come out of desire but, on the other hand, it can also sometimes ruin other relationships.

In “The Storm”, Kate Chopin uses the characters Alcée and Calixta to show a sexual desire. Alcée and Calixta meet at Calixta’s store during a storm and have an affair. They both have a family and yet they are happy about what they have done. Their desire leads to adultery. Even in today’s world, adultery is not a good thing so regardless of how Alcée and Calixta felt after their affair, their desire caused them to take sinful actions towards their spouses and families. This is an example of how sometimes a desire can make a person take a wrong decision even though it may satisfy their own needs.

“Hills Like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway also shows desire but in a different form. The American couple is going to have a baby and the man in the relationship has a desire to keep his girlfriend for himself and wants to be free of the responsibly of a baby. He does not even want his own baby get in the way of the relationship they have now. The woman in the relationship, however, is confused. She wants to have the baby but at the same time does not want to loose her boyfriend. This desire of hers leads to her to believe everything that her boyfriend is telling her and gets convinced into having an abortion. A desire like this can be considered selfish since they are only thinking about their own selves and not about how they will be affecting another human life.

The song “Perfect” by Simple Plan is about a man, Pierre Bouvier, is trying to live up to his father’s expectations. “And now I try hard to make it. I just want to make you proud. I’m never gonna be good enough for you.” This line from the song shows that all the Pierre Bouvier had was a desire to be closer to his father and make him proud. He is also feeling distant from his father and wishes things would go back to they way they used to be when he was a young boy. In the song, Pierre Bouvier, the lead singer, also tells the listeners how the man had a desire to be in a band and his father was against it. He mentions this in the song as well when he tells his father “Do you think I’m wasting my time doing things I wanna do? But it hurts when you disapprove all along.” This desire lead to the man becoming what he wanted but in the process lost a good relationship with his father.

Throughout life, it is natural to desire particular goals and emotions. A desire can bear positive results as long as it does not become an overwhelming force or emotion in the person’s life. There are times when desires only lead to something good. For example, the Pierre Bouvier had a dream of being in a band and today he is successful in what he had desired all his life. Of course, desires can sometimes have completely negative effects as well such as wanting to seek revenge on someone. Desires should be limited and one must not become to obsessed to their desires because it can end up turning into something unfortunate. A person always has to control or balance their desires with the other priorities, emotions, or relationships in their life.

Explaining the use of symbols and motifs

Tennessee Williams’ “A Streetcar Named Desire” centers on Blanche, a women past her prime and her journey to her sister’s home in New Orleans in an attempt to escape her turbulent past. "I don't want realism. I want magic. I try to give that to people. I misrepresent things to them. I don't tell truth, I tell what ought to be truth", said Blanche. This is just one of many symbols Tennessee Williams uses in his play to show how Blanche tries to hide the truth about herself. Throughout the play, symbols and motifs are used to show deeper meaning and higher ideas through Blanche’s character. Blanche is most closely associated with this symbol because she tries to hide all the facts about her life to have Mitch fall in love and to show that she is of high class.

Blanche does not want to face reality and show the true side of her so she chooses to stay in dim light as a way of not revealing all of her life’s problems to the world. In scene 3 of the play Blanche says, “I can't stand a naked light bulb, any more than I can a rude remark or a vulgar action”. Tennessee Williams uses the Chinese paper lantern as a symbol to symbolize that Blanche is trying to hide herself from the reality of her. The light symbolizes the truth that Blanche is trying to hide from the world and also herself. She also doesn’t want to reveal her fading beauty in the light so she tries to hide that as well by using the paper lantern.

Throughout the play we also see Blanche constantly taking baths. This symbolizes her trying to wash away all the awful things bad deeds she has done in the past. “Here I am, all freshly bathed and scented and feeling like a brand new human being!” (Scene 2, page 1179) Through this quote, Tennessee Williams implies that Blanche is trying to start with a clean slate every time she takes a bath.

Stanley’s character symbolizes everything manly. He is aggressive, harsh and wants to dominate everything that happens in his household. When Blanche arrives at his house and starts criticizing about Stanley to Stella, Stanley’s dominant nature takes it as a threat and this causes his to bring out his animal side out of him and do whatever it takes to regain control over his relationship with Stella. The poker games also symbolize Stanley’s wins and losses. Stanley’s loss at poker symbolizes his loss to Blanche when she first arrives. Later in the play, Stanley winning at poker symbolizes the way he reveals the truth about Blanche and wins his wife back for good.

Blanche and Stanley are both victims of their own excessive desire, which leads to death. As the play progresses, Stanley and Blanche have constant arguments to gain power over each other till the point that Stanley rapes her in scene 11 just to show that he is the “boss”. Death is symbolized by the loss of Blanche to Stanley. The polka music in the background, the flowers for the dead sold by the Mexican Lady, and the prostitute robbing the homeless man are all foreshadow the loss of Blanche in the play. In the end, Blanch is dead emotionally because Stanley has finally put her in the light in front of Mitch, which causes him to break up with Blanche. Since Mitch was Blanche’s only chance for true love and success, she ends up going mentally insane and leaves Stanley’s household.

Tennessee Williams uses light and darkness as primary motifs in his play. Certain things about Blanch need to shown as hidden and others need to be exposed. For example, Blanche tries to keep her life in the dark from Mitch so he can fall in love with her world of fantasy and her perfect ideal self. Lying to herself and to others allows her to make life appear as it should be rather than as it is.

The play was originally going to be named “The Poker Night” since the entire story is about winning and losing between Blanche and Stanley. Tennessee Williams himself said, “Symbols are nothing but the natural speech of drama.” The use of symbols in “A Streetcar Named Desire” helped the readers get the higher meaning of the play. Symbols are often used to help represent the trial and tribulations of characters throughout the script. Williams uses all these symbols to augment the impact the story has on the audience and to enhance the outcome of the play.