A Raisin in the Sun- Overall impressions

Overall, I thought that A Raisin in the Sun was a very good play. One thing that was very important throughout the play were the dreams that everyone had. It is what the story is based upon and named from (Langston Hughes poem) . Mama has her dreams in her children. Walter and Beneatha both represent their father’s dream. Everyone in the play has a dream of their own. Mama’s dream is for her children’s wellbeing. Walter’s dream is to buy a liquor store and to help his family in the best way her can. Beneatha dreams of becoming a doctor. She wants to be “somebody.” When Mama told the family that she has bought a house for them, Ruth got all happy about it. Even though she doesn’t express it in words, she dreams of living a happy life. Ruth is very tired and weary about the life that she is living right now. Mama also dreams of a garden where she can have a lot of plants growing. THe plant that she has on her window sill represents her big garden that she wants to have. Everyone’s dreams are in a way realized in the play. Mama’s dream is realized from the garden tools that Ruth, Walter, and Bennie buy for her. Walter invests in his liquor store. But that money that he invests goes away with Willy. Ruth's dream comes true becuase in the end, the Younger family goes and moves into their new home.

A Raisin in the Sun

In the first act of A Raisin in the Sun, all the characters appear and amongst all of them, there is some argument or tension going on. THe most evident one is between Ruth and Walter. Ruth is tired and weary. Where as Walter wants to be something. He wants to open a liquor store with the money that Mama is going to get. But Ruth just doesn't want to take that risk. There is also an argument between Mama and Beneatha. We see that Beneatha is independent and she stands up for what she believes. When she told Mama that she doesn't believe in God, Mama got real mad at her. There was even some tension between Ruth and Travis. Travis wanted some money to take to school, but Ruth didn't give it to him. It wasn't until Walter came out of the shower and gave the money to Travis he got the money. Walter gave his son the money just to show his son that they're managing. He doesn't want Travis to think that they dont have any money at all. One theme that is presented is the use of dreams. Walter and Beneatha represent their father's dream. ANd Mama's dreams are in her children and grandchild. Walter has his dream of buying that liquor store, but RUth doesn't support it. And Beneatha has a dream of becomming a doctor.

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.