Claude McKay Research Paper

Claude McKay is a Jamaican born poet. In his poems that he wrote, he shows a lot of patriotism towards his native country. He is also very proud to be African American. In my research paper about him, I am going to talk about his patriotism that he had towards Jamaica. I don't know exactly how my thesis is going to be worded, but it is going to be something about his patriotism towards his country. McKay also had a lot of influences that contributed to his patriotism that he had. Since he was little, McKay's parents had influenced him and continuously told his to have pride to be African American and be proud of his heritage. His father also used to tell him about African folk tales. So i guess that through his childhood experiences, it impacted McKay on his writing in the future. He saw that the environment that he lived in could be treated by his poetry in the language of the blacks. When he was in Jamaica and started writing his poetry, he wrote in Jamaican dialect. But when he moved to the US, he stopped using this dialect.
In my paper, or for the outline, i am not exactly sure how to divide up the categories. The paper is going to be something about his patriotism and how he was influenced towards his poetry that he wrote. McKay also uses a lot of imagery throughout his poems. And a lot of the imagery has images of like back in Jamaica, like in the poem "The Tropics of New York."

Emily DIckinson

Emily Dickinson has one very unique style of writing poetry. Her poems are all full of random Capitalization, punctuation, and none of the poems have titles. I think that it has to do with the fact that during her last 10 years of life, she decided to stay away from society. She refused to leave her home and wouldn't meet any strangers. So maybe this relates to her unique style of writing poetry. With her capitalizations, she puts emphasis on those specific words. For example, in her poem, "Becuase I could not stop for Death," in the line "We passed the School, where Children strove," she capitalizes School and CHildren to put emphasis on those two. "We' being the first word of the poem, is expected to be capitalized. This shows how Dickinson places great emphasis on individual words. Some other patterns that are seen throughout Emily Dickinson's works include iambic tetrameter, freedom, bird imagery (especially robins), and religion. She also puts a lot of questions in her poems. She wasn't interested in answes in her poems, but she wanted to explore questions.

2 Poems by Claude McKay

Two of the poems that i read my CLaude McKay were "A memory of June" and "A Red Flower."
In "A Memory of June" there is a lot of words that represent rebirth in it. They include: baptize, fresh, white, mating, death , wed, and showers. All of these words appear throughout the poem and they are a symbol of rebirth. I guess that there are a lot of these words becuase the title is 'a memory of june' so it is going into a new month, hence a rebirth. This poem also had end rhyme in it. It was in a pattern of A B A B C D C D... etc.
In "A Red Flower", I noticed the use of colors. There were red, blue, brown and green. The red reprents the flowers; blue the sky and water; brown the earth; and green the grass. Hence, McKay has used the colors that represent the earth. THere were also a lot of words in the poem that represent nature. Some of these words were: lily, butterflies, rain, bees, trees, bee, sea and flower. This poem, like the other one also had end rhyme in the same pattern.

Comparison: London & Crane

In both "The Open Boat" by Stephen Crane and "To Build a Fire" by Jack London, the authors used naturalism. In both stories, we see nature as an indifferent force acting on the lives of human beings. In "To Build A FIre" the phrase "it certainly was cold' was repeated many times. It is ironic because London was trying to put emphasis on the fact that it was actually cold. In "The Open Boat" in the scene with the gulls, "the gulls sat comfortably in groups." This is ironic becuase the gulls are sitting comfortably in groups; however, the four men on the boat aren't sitting comfortably. In both these cases we see the character's are challenged by forces beyond their control. In both stories, there are men in the wild trying to face the forces of nature. Hence, we see the use of naturalism. In London's story, the man is out in the wild alone, and he realizes when the situation gets really bad that he wished that he had the company of someone. In Crane's story, during the night, the correspondent wakes up and sees a shark roaming around near them. He wishes that someone else would wake up so he wouldn't be alone. Both these writers have studied the social conditions of humans and realized that we as humans want other humans to be around us when we're afraid.

Reaction to Huck Finn overall

Overall, I thought that Huckleberry Finn was a great novel. I liked how it showed me that there are actually people out there who have good morals. Jim, i thought was was the most moral character out of everyone in the book. He cared so much for Huck, even though they weren't related in anyway. Huck was also a good character. He learned so much throughout the novel as a whole, and he's a really smart kid. The way that he made up lies in seconds was amazing. It has to do with the streeet smartness that he had. And i did notice that when he had to make up lies to people that he didn't really like, he was able to make up good, convincing lies. But like when he had to make up lies to Joanna, she wasn't really convinced about it.
I also think that this novel shouldn't be banned from the school cirriculum. This novel has a lot of morals and lessons learnt in it. Just beucase it uses the 'n' word so many times just doesn't mean that it should be banned. It's the quality of a novel that matters, not the quantity.

Changes after chap.31

Chapter 31 is a very significant chapter in the book. In this chapter, Huck makes the decision that determines the fate of both him and Jim. Through his time that Huck has spent with him, Huck has 'unlearned' what society has taught him. He learns that Jim is an actual human and has feelings like white men too. In this chapter, Huck makes the decision of going and saving Jim. It shows that Jim is more important to huck than it is going into hell. We see that huck has learned his moral values and knows what is right. Another important change after chapter 31, is that now Tom is back. In the first part of the novel, Huck was the one in charge. Between chapter 16 and 31, Huck encounters the Grangerfords, and the duke and king. The majority of the time in this section, the duke and king are in charge. And now, from chapter 31 and beyond, Tom is the one who is in charge. We see Huck as a narrator again, as he is obeying Tom's decisions in their plan in trying to set Jim free. In the previous section, Huck had to obey the duke and the king.

Changes in Huck Fin beyond Chapter 16

In Huckleberry Finn, between Chapter 16 and beyond there are several differences taht can be seen. Since Mark Twain put the book down for 3 years, i guess he wasn't be too cautious about his characters. AFter chapter 16, it seems that the language that Huck uses is more 'proper English'. It seems that Twain thought that Huck would also be three years older, cause the way that he speaks shows taht he has learned more English compared to what he was speaking before chapter 17. Also after chapter 16, Huck starts giving more details about events. THe way that he describes things is much more detailed compared to what he used to do before chapter16. Huck is more observant and thus gives more details. So i feel as if Twain thought taht Huck has grown older, since it was 3 years that he put the book down. Becuase if you think about it, we find out in chapter 17, that Huck is Buck's age, around 13. So three years ago, huck would have only been 10 and there is a significant difference in maturity between a 10 year old and a 13 year old. This goes along with his use of more proper English because not only is he giving more details about his adventure, but also talking in a style that we would understnad better. Also after chapter 16, i feel as if the novel isn't 'the adventures of huckleberry finn' anymore. It seems there is much more involvement between other characters in the novel and not just solely focusing on Huck. For example, Twain includes the Shepardson family and the Granderfords, and the Duke and King as well. WHile reading chapter 25, i felt as if Huck had nothing to do with it, since he was just standing there and telling us what was happeneing. Where as before 16, he was doing all the action himself.