Epilogue

        After completing all of my posts for the texts we read in class, I have learned many things about blogging and literary analysis. I learned that rather than writing a set essay as my post, I would rather display my flow of ideas while writing. It is perfectly fine to start your post with one idea and then explain how your thoughts changed while analyzing the text and conclude with a different idea on what the author was suggesting about the meaning of life. It was also very interesting to see the varying outlooks that each author seemed to have on life. Some texts were very dreary and they seemed to suggest that life had no meaning and none of it truly mattered, and other authors showed that life was about being resilient and seeing goodness even in the worst circumstances. I really enjoyed analyzing each text and seeing how the author's craft affected the themes. It was easy sometimes to get more hung up on the content and forget to analyze and identify the author's craft which was something I needed to work on throughout my blog. I think the texts we read this year were great as they had a wide range of themes and perspectives on what it means to be human. Many of the texts focused on themes of death which is important to acknowledge because death is a big part of being human and its effect on life can be interpreted differently by different authors. Reading these texts also helped me formulate my own ideas on what it means to be and why we do what we do. Overall, this blog has been very interesting to create and I have learned a lot and developed my ability to analyze literature.

Blog Post for Fences

Fences Blog Post

Fences by August Wilson is a play that deals with relevant issues in American society like racism, misogyny, class divide, and age divide. Wilson uses the characters in this play to demonstrate how these issues have affected everyday people. These characters have goals and aspirations, but those goals seem to be out of reach to them because of the problems they face in their lives. This theme of unrealized goals due to societal issues starts to show what Wilson thinks about the human condition. Life is spent trying to fulfil your dreams and overcome obstacles, but things don't always work out, and many people are left trapped financially and emotionally. August Wilson’s Fences uses symbolism and characters to establish the central concern of not being able to pursue one’s dreams which shows how issues in American society cause people to live lives they don't want to live. 

        The main character in this play, Troy, lives a conflicted life as he was once a talented baseball player, but because he was black, he wasn't allowed to join the major leagues and is now too old to play. His inability to pursue his dream because of racism in society has made him bitter and resentful of society for not allowing him to achieve his goals. Troy takes this resentment out on his family by being extremely controlling in their lives and not allowing them to pursue their dreams either. Troy shows this resentment when he lashes out at Cory after Cory begged him to quit his job to be on the football team.         TROY. Like you? I go out of here every morning… bust my butt…putting up with them crackers everyday…cause I like you? You about the biggest fool I ever saw. (pause) It’s my JOB. It’s my responsibility! You understand that? A man got to take care of his family. (1.3, 38)                           Here, Troy talks to Cory like he is just some job that needs to get done, and he shows his lack of emotional attachment to his children which stems from the abuse he received from his father as a child. The use of the word Crackers also shows how the racial divide in America has angered Troy to the point that he resents white people because of how he was treated in the past by racism. This rant from troy shows how angry he is with society, and how he doesn't believe his son’s dream can come true because of how Troy’s sports dream was crushed in the past by racism. Now Troy only believes in working a job that he has no passion for to get by in life and he is trying to convince Cory to do the same. Troy’s conflict demonstrates what Wilson suggests about the human condition, we try to pursue our dreams, but if we fail to do so we are left hopeless and bitter.

        Another important character in this play is Death. Troy personifies death throughout the play as he has conversations with it where he argues and pleads with Death. This personified character, Death, is a symbol of all of the negative forces like racism and abuse that Troy has experienced in his life trying to take him down. Death also helps further the theme of the Fences in the text because Troy wants to build a fence around him to keep death out. This can be seen when he says.                                                               TROY. All right… Mr. Death. See now… I’m gonna tell you what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna take and build a fence around this yard. See? I’m gonna build me a fence around what belongs to me. And then I want you to stay on the other side. See? You stay over there until you’re ready for me. Then you come on (2.2, 77)                                                                                                                                   Troy is trying to negotiate with Death, telling it that he isn't ready to die yet showing that he still has some purpose in life. His purpose is his goal to become a garbage truck driver which was previously only a white man’s job. This goal that Troy has shows that he still has some energy to fight against the racist system that denied him from achieving his dreams in the past. This personified Death helps show what Wilson suggests about life. He suggests that life is a constant struggle where death looms over us. That looming threat over us can make us focus on solely trying to escape death by working and not focusing on achieving our goals and dreams. Wilson wants to show the struggles that people face in life because of racism, but also empower people with the ability to overcome those struggles. 

Troy and his struggles in life are a representation of the struggles of common people in America who deal with issues like racism and financial struggle. Wilson wants to show in depth how those struggles can tear people and families apart by causing them to not be able to focus on their future, only survival in the present. Troy stated that he wasn’t scared of death, but his constant struggle to overcome it left him unable to achieve his goals or have loving relationships with his family. Fear is life’s greatest opponent. 

Blog post on Opened Ground

What does Seamus Heaney tell us about what it means to be human?

  Opened Ground by Seamus Heaney is a collection of poems that deal mostly with events that occured in Heaney’s life and show his perspectives on them. Heaney’s poems focus especially on his early life and his ties with Ireland, the country in which he was raised. Heaney uses a lot of vivid nature imagery to describe the effect that the land of Ireland had on him. Heaney also describes his complex relations with his family and how they developed over time. Seamus Heaney’s work Opened Ground establishes the central concern of hard relationships with family using nature imagery, metaphor, and the motif of time.

The poem from Opened Ground that I will examine is “A Call”. A Call is a poem that interests me because it dives deeper into the relationship between Heaney and his father. In earlier poems from Opened Ground, Heaney builds a story about the relationship between him and his father that gave the reader the sense that while Heaney looked up to his father, he felt disconnected from him in many ways. For example, Heaney always refers to his father as “my father” and never refers to him as ‘dad’ or by his name. This cold diction of ‘Father’ shows Heaney's disconnect and difficult relationship he had with his father. “A Call” occurs much later in Heaney’s life when he is an adult calling his parents and asking to speak to his father. The devices of nature imagery and metaphor allow us to better understand Heaney’s relationship with his father. When Heaney is waiting for his father to get on the phone his mother tells him his father is weeding, and Heaney starts an extended metaphor about how how he sees his father weeding. Heanye uses vivid imagery to describe exactly how he imagines his father weeding “gently pulling up / everything, not tapered frail and leafless, / Pleased to feel each little weed-root break,” (lines 6-8) This vivid description of his father’s actions and feelings shows just how much Heaney understands and knows his father that he is able to put himself in that very moment where his father is working. Heaney has always admired his fathers work in his poetry and that theme continues in “A Call”.  Heaney’s focus on family and the land in this poem begins to show that Heaney feels the meaning of being human is respecting  and embracing the land and the people around you. This first section of the poem is meant to illustrate Heaney’s deep connection with his father which leads up to the central concern presented in the next three stanzas.

The central concern becomes evident in the last three stanzas of “A Call”, but there is still some mystery surrounding what the source of the concern is. Heaney uses the motif of time when referencing the ticking of a hall clock that can be heard in the background of the phone call “I found myself listening to / The amplified grave ticking of hall clocks” (lines 9-10). The auditory imagery of the hall clock instills a sense that time is winding down which is causing the central concern. Heaney then explores the idea of death and how it is linked to time winding down and a lack of time. While Heaney does not explicitly state who or what is running out of time, this allows the reader to infer that his father is reaching old age and Heaney does not have much time left with him. The final line in this poem is very powerful and develops the reader’s perception of Heaney’s relationship with his father “Next thing he spoke and I nearly said I loved him.” (line 15). Heaney does not tell us what his father spoke about, that is unimportant to him, the only thing he could think about and write about their conversation is that he didn't tell his father he loved him. A sense of regret is instilled here which puts everything that prefaced this line into context. Everything that Heaney wrote about his father, the land in which his father worked, and time which was seemingly slipping away was meant to preface the regret he felt for not even being able to tell his father he loved him. 

This regret that Heaney felt shows what he believes it means to be human. He believes in taking as much time as possible to appreciate his family and the world around him because we don't have very much time on earth and sometimes we fail to spend that time in a meaningful way. I believe Heaney wrote this poem because he regretted not having resolved his issues with his father sooner. There is not enough time to wait to show love to the people close to you, because at some point it will be too late.

Our Deepest human needs are to be seen and heard, to feel connected.