Source Evaluation

Alpers, Benjamin Leontief. Dictators, democracy, and American public culture [electronic resource] : envisioning the totalitarian enemy, 1920s-1950s. Retrieved from http://catalog.yln.info/uhtbin/cgisirsi/DSNBnL7GvK/YLN/123570010/123.

The author of this book, Benjamin Alpers, dicusses Americans' understanding of dictatorships from the 1920s throughout the Cold War. Particularly for my essay topic, he discusses totalitarianism and how it became an image against which a view of tolerance developed. He then goes on to talk about how totalitarianism became the foundation for the start of the Cold War and how many dictators throughout history used this form of government to lead their country. I am going to use this source in my paper to describe how totalitarianism has affected our country and how we may be headed for a totalitarian government in the future.

d'Entreves, Maurizio Passerin, "Hannah Arendt", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2008 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2008/entries/arendt/.

This source would be useful in my paper because it is about Hannah Arendt, a well-known philosopher who lived during in Germany during Nazi Germany, and was forced to leave in 1933. In her book, Origins of Totalitarianism, she talks about her results of a major study of the Nazi and Stalinist regime, and how it affected the world thereafter, and even today. The website goes on to talk about her other famous work, and how her approach on totalitarianism changed the way that communities viewed this government. I think this is a credible source for my paper because this site makes sure that each entry is up to date and that it comes from a group of experts in a specific field.

Topic Proposal for Essay #3

I thouroughly enjoyed reading Margaret Atwood's novel, but one lingering thought or question I had was, "Why were only the women in Gilead oppressed by the Gilead government? Why were they singled out and the men had free reign?". When I asked myself this question, I thought of Nazi Germany in the 1930's and 40's and how they would single out certain groups of people as well, whether they were blacks, Jews, or homosexuals. But if someone was white, they didn't have to follow any strict rules and they had more freedom?

Therefore, the topic I am choosing for essay #3 is how closely the techniques used by the Nazi Germany government to control their people compare to the methods and techniques that were used by the Gilead government to control the women. I have always been intrigued by the history of Nazi Germany's totalitarian government and I think that the Gilead used alot of the same techniques for their government as well.

I chose researching the Nazi Germany because they ran a totalitarian government to control their people just like Gilead did and I am interested to see what methods are similar between the two that helped them to gain more control . I believe that this will definitely help me to better understand Atwood's novel because it will help to answer my question as to why the Gilead were so harsh on these women, what they thought they would gain from it, and why they oppressed these women the way they did.

Nazi-Germany 1939

Thesis Statements/Atwood Thesis

Identifying the Weak Thesis

1.) A)I'm going to write about Darwin's concerns with evolution in The Origin of the Species-This is the weak thesis because it doesn't give an argument, or doesn't choose a side about evolution. It also has no claim.

2.) A)An important part of one's college education is learning to better understand others' points of view-This is the weak thesis because it doesn't give any room for argument and it's not very complex, and very broad.

3.) B) The jeans industry targets its advertisements to appeal to young adults-This is the weak thesis because it doesn't make a true claim and doesn't have any evidence to support why the industry targets only young adults.

4.) A) Othello is a play about love and jealousy-This is the weak thesis because it just states a fact, and doesn't leave any room for argument.

5.) A) The songs of the punk rock group Minor Threat relate to the feelings of individuals who dare to be different. Their songs are just composed of pure emotion. Pure emotion is very important in music, because it serves as a vehicle to convey the important message of individuality. Minor Threat's songs are meaningful to me because I can identify with them-This is the weak thesis because it is hard to determine what the thesis statement really is and it begins to become too long. There are also too many opinions going on in this paragraph, and not an argumentable statement.

Question: Why do all the shops in Gilead have pictures instead of written signs?

Answer: All the shops in Gilead have pictures instead of written signs because the women are not allowed to read. By not allowing the women to read, the Gilead feel that they have more power over the womens' bodies and can better control them.

HANDMAID THESIS

The people of Gilead strips womens' individuality by treating them as nothing more than just women who are only there to reproduce for the Commanders.

I believe that my thesis is strong because it is arguable, and it can be backed up by evidence in the book as to why and how these womens' individual rights are taken away and for what reasons. It also states my point of view in a clear manner.

Blog Post #2: "The Things They Carried"

Tim O’Brien Blog Post #2: “The Things They Carried”


In Tim O’Brien’s short story “The Things They Carried”, he tells of the items that the soldiers carried with them everyday and most vividly remembers the items that Lieutenant Jimmy Cross carries and how it affects him after a turning point in the story. Cross thinks about his love Martha everyday, keeping all the letters she wrote to him and photographs of her to remind him of her beauty and what he has to look forward to when he comes back home. Cross wonders what it will be like when he makes it back home, and wishes he could take the moments back when he didn’t take initiative to make her feel loved. He knows that he will never get those moments back, so having her pictures and letters with him is like she is with him everyday. Many of the other soldiers carry items not so sentimental, like pocket knives, and bug repellent. Many of what the soldiers bring highly depends on their priorities and their dispositions. A lot of the soldiers are low-ranking, so they carry along a standard rifle and plenty of ammunition. Another way to determine the things the soldiers carry depends on their ranking and any specialties they may have. For instance, Lieutenant Jimmy Cross is the leader, so he will carry the maps, compasses and most importantly the burden of the soldiers. Ultimately, all the men carry the war itself on their shoulders, and it affects each one of them differently. The medic of the group will carry medicines, bandages, and other supplies for major wounds. One of the crucial moments in this story is when Cross is so consumed with his thoughts about Martha that he forgets to protect, and Lavender gets shot on the way back from the bathroom. Once he gets a chance to realize what just happened, he breaks down and cries. The next morning, Cross burns Martha’s photographs and letters because he doesn’t want this same thing to happen again. That day he intends to get all his men together and take responsibility for Lavender’s death. He then realizes that his fantasies of Martha are getting in the way of his real job, which is to lead his men.

O'Brien does a particularly great job using the physical objects that the men carry with them as a symbol of the emotional hardship that these soldiers experience. Especially for the young soldiers, they tend to struggle identifying what is fantasy and reality. Cross’s reaction to the death of his comrade Lavender displays how the monstrosity of war can make the soldiers hopelessly scornful and gloomy. With the soldiers being as young as they were in Vietnam, it was hard for them to rationalize death and seeing the horrors of war. Before war, they had no outlook on death or how to deal with it because they all were so inexperienced in life. The men feel a sense of relief after Lavender’s death because although they are upset by his death, they realize that they are still alive, still fighting and living another day. O’Brien does a fantastic job of demonstrating the characters in the story not by describing them, but more importantly by telling of the things that they carried with them. This gives the reader a much greater sense of the kind of people the soldiers are and what they stand for.

Image URL: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGKg0LxnlSXkqZX4Rkl3QCfIY1VE6MJPGxZ0GupS3JW3tmwVFF6yl3fLjDIaftYglBK4EnEfHB1ErUQjK6xz2mS_IwytdzUnB7fORMXhWru7x-78Re5X7PBQvkF2rlZVcJH9KMWKfowUzM/s400/800px-Soldiers_at_Pointe_du_Hoc.jpg

Summary vs. Analysis

Summary vs. Analysis of “On the Rainy River”


Summary

Tim O’Brien’s “On the Rainy River” tells the story of the summer of 1968 and how he handles the pressure of going to war or choosing not to go. June 17, 1968 was the exact day when Tim opened received the draft notice. That afternoon, he remembered “opening up the letter, scanning the first few lines, feeling the blood go thick behind my eyes” (O’Brien 45). This image represents the feeling that O’Brien has for being drafted into the war. A month before, he had just graduated from Macalester College, Phi Beta Kappa, summa cum laude, and was president of the student body. O’Brien is discouraged by getting his draft notice because he believes that he is too good for the war, and starts to find a way to get out of going to war. He started a summer job in his hometown of Worthington, Minnesota at an Armour meatpacking plant where his main job was to remove blood clots from the necks of the dead pigs. In the midst of summer, O’Brien starts thinking about making the escape to Canada, about eight hours from his hometown. That small voice in his head is telling him to run, but he fears that if he flees, he will lose the love and respect of not only his family, but of his community as well. As O’Brien is contemplating and trying to take in all these intense thoughts, he keeps driving further north until he reaches the Rainy River, which for him, separated one life from another. As he drives, he pulls up to a neglected old fishing resort called the Tip Top Lodge. As O’Brien recalls, “Actually it was not a lodge at all, just eight or nine tiny yellow cabins clustered on a peninsula that jutted northward into the Rainy River”, (O’Brien 51). O’Brien then meets the smart, intellectual old man named Elroy Berdahl. O’Brien and Elroy end up spending six days together at the lodge, and he feels a great sense of acceptance from Elroy. Elroy wants to give O’Brien money for helping him around the lodge to prepare for winter, but O’Brien refuses. He then takes a moment to look back on this time, and wonders if any of it is even real, or if he is just dreaming. On the final day at the lodge, Elroy takes O’Brien out on the river to go fishing. As they are on the boat, O’Brien realizes that they must have passed into the Canadian waters. This is when it all becomes real to O’Brien that he must choose which path to take, which direction he wants his life to go. This is when O’Brien says of Elroy that, “he meant to bring me up against the realities, to guide me across the river and to take me to the edge and to stand a kind of vigil as I chose a life for myself,” (O’Brien 58). Right then and there, O’Brien begins to realize that Canada is just a pure fantasy, that it’s not the best route for him to take. He imagines the disappointment and sadness of his family and community if he chooses not to go to war. He can’t live with the embarrassment not going to war would entail, so he decides that he will go and become a soldier. That’s when Elroy pulls in his line and heads back towards Minnesota.

Analysis

“On the Rainy River” is an accurate and telling expedition of the embarrassment and guilt that war can bring for some people, especially if they don’t agree with what it stands for. This story heavily weighs on the guilt of abstaining from the draft and the effect that it would more so have on the people in O’Brien’s community. Throughout the story, he mentions numerous times that he wouldn’t want his hometown community to disrespect him if he decided not to go because they all strongly encouraged him to go. Again, this comes back to the embarrassment and shame that O’Brien would carry with him forever, which is why he would flee to Canada. Elroy Berdahl is not only a true friend and hero to O’Brien, but the real effect he has on O’Brien is that he helps him to see what freedom would be like, and how it would feel if he were to cross over the border to Canada. It’s almost as if Elroy is challenging O’Brien to see if the grass is really greener on the other side. In this case it’s not, and he feels compelled to go into action. O’Brien begs for us to recognize how complicated his position is by asking the reader, “What would you do? Would you feel pity for yourself? Would you think about your family and childhood and your dreams and all you’re leaving behind? Would it hurt? Would it feel like dying? Would you cry, as I did?”(O’Brien 59). These questions O’Brien asks helps us to realize how tough it is for one to make this life-changing decision, and how big of an impact it has on them and their emotions. Lastly, this story does a great job of illustrating how the power of war can transform a person whether it is good or bad.

Image URL: http://ronaldarichardson.com/core/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/vietnam-soldiers-4.gif

MLA: O'Brien, Tim. The Things They Carried. Houghton Mifflin/Seymour Lawerence. Boston. 1990.

Sam Hamill Response

Sam Hamill Response

I thoroughly enjoyed Sam Hamill’s essay, “Necessity to Speak”. After reading it, it really opened my eyes to a lot of things, and how much our society thinks that a lot of these issues addressed are better off not being talked about. I like that Hamill wasn’t afraid to speak his mind and wants to make people aware of the real issues that hurt and break up hundreds of families. I strongly agree with Hamill when he states that silence is the biggest killer. I think the important thing to understand is that our society can’t become better if criminals are still out on the loose, women are being beaten, and nobody is coming out and saying anything. Nobody should ever feel that they can’t come forward and break their silence because they are afraid of the consequences. A lot of times, we might see someone being verbally abused in public or a child being spanked in public, yet most of us stand back and watch in shock, staying silent. I commend Hamill for owning up to the mistakes that he made in the past, knowing that they were wrong and wanting to make a change. I believe the best change he made was by sharing his experiences with others and by making them aware of the hard facts, that they will not be another statistic. If nobody speaks up and stays silent, more women will be battered, there will be more criminals on the street, and more children will grow up with the wrong perception of the world.

I really liked how Hamill related all these issues to poetry. In many cases, the poet speaks for everyone. The poet speaks for our emotions, our battles, and our pain. The poet wants one to enter their world and feel their pain or happiness from the inside out. They want to be able to connect with the reader in the way that one may not be able to otherwise, and the reader be inspired. For many people, poems can be a way of dealing with hardships, finding a way out, and through the poet’s words and emotions, one can then find the strength to keep on going. In closing, I believe that each and every one of us has the power to change the way our society thinks and speaks, and it all starts with having one voice and letting it be heard, whether it’s through the profound words in poetry, or by way of speaking out loud.

Image URL: http://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/kearneyhub.com/content/tncms/assets/editorial/e/1e/d19/e1ed1924-b1c5-11de-b1cb-001cc4c03286.preview-300.jpg

Video URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8slvlHgunLU

Poetry of Witness

“Rite of Passage” by Sharon Olds

I really enjoyed this poem because it’s funny, light-hearted, and so accurately represents how kids are as

they grow up, and the

sometimes unrefined

moments that they go

through at certain stages in their lives. Olds recalls that as the guests, or young

men arrive, they all gather in the living room-short men, men in first grade (Olds Lines 2 & 3). I think it’s so funny how they all meet up with each other at once, almost as if to see what they are up against, seeing who will be the strongest out of the group. And as expected the boy only one year older says, “I could beat you up” (Olds Lines 12 & 13). And just at the right moment, the birthday boy steps in almost as if he is the mediator of the men, stands up proudly and lets all his men know that they could easily kill a two-year old (Olds Line 22). It seems that all the men know that they are all capable of accomplishing this, so they feel a sense of relief and can now go back to being little innocent boys and playing their games and just having fun! The way that the boys act like they are big, tough grown men and the way the author narrates it is almost like she is envisioning her son in the future. So through her eyes, it’s almost as if she is holding onto this moment to treasure it because her son is growing up so fast and he wants to be a tough man, but she is somewhat reluctant to see him grow up and lose his innocence. I can relate to this poem because I am a stepmother to a wonderful and beautiful five-year old daughter and she is growing up so fast, wanting to become her own independent little person already, and I’m not quite ready

for it yet! Although I can still buy her clothes, pick out her outfits, and do her hair, in a few years she will want to be doing that all herself and it’s definitely emotional to see her becoming her own person and maybe not needing me as much as before. She is still young enough though that she has that cute innocence about her and those moments are priceless and it’s something we’ll always share together, no matter how old she gets.

“Song of Napalm” by Bruce Weigl
This poem definitely was the most emotional of all the poems I read and I liked it because of how incredibly intense it was. This poem is based on the horrific

flashbacks that the author has about being in Vietnam War, and him wanting to get over this for his wife, but no matter how hard he tries, he can’t. A line in the poem that really struck me was when Weigl says that “she is burned before my eyes, and not your good love and not the rain-swept air Weigl Lines 42-45). When he says this, I can almost feel in myself the pain that he goes through when he has flashbacks of this young girl and how badly he wants to forget it, but it’s not that easy. His wife thinks it should be easy for him to finally talk about it and let it go for good, but every time he hears thunder, he has flashbacks of the loud bombs going off everywhere on the battlefield and it starts all over again. I can relate to this poem because having had friends who have been in the war has made me appreciate what these brave men do for us, but also understand how traumatic it can be. Most of my friends who have gone to war have had good experiences and would go back in a second, while a couple of them experienced the pain and suffering that Weigl did. It was very difficult for them to open up and talk about their experiences because it would bring everything back that they wanted to forget, and seeing the pain and horror still in their face was heartbreaking. As much as I wanted to be there for them while listening to the torture they saw, it was almost as if they shut me out more because in no way could I ever relate to the situation. That’s when I realized that these broken and painful images they carry with them will be with not only them, but their loved ones and friends as well; that it takes a very long time, if not their whole life, to accept what happened. It’s our job as friends and loved ones to be there to comfort them and keep reminding them that what they did was not only brave, but helped save millions of lives.

Image URL: http://www.warriorspirit.co.za/assets/images/Boys_playing_soldiersB.jpg

Image URL: http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2008/11/05/article-1083145-02519166000005DC-968_468x286.jpg

MLA: Olds, Sharon. "Rites of Passage". Strike Sparks: Selected Poems, 1980-2002. 2004. Web.

MLA: Weigl, Bruce. "Song of Napalm". Archaeology of the Circle: New and Selected Poems. 1999. Web.

"Song of Napalm" Video

"Rite of Passage" Video

"Song of Napalm" Video URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLWkNWtgR7I

"Rite of Passage" Video URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYVU18etvtw