Contemporary

The contemporary period of American literature is filled with borrowed examples from all the different preceding literary periods. First of all, it was the period of the Rationalists coinciding with the American Revolutionary War. It had been influenced greatly by the Englightment and the European thinkers of that period. I believe it was from here, a sense of American independence - coinciding with the Revolutionary war - from European literature had developed. Romanticism had developed and America had its own flavor in terms of all the different literary movements. Romanticism revered emotions above logic. There are definitely traces of these elements in the contemporary period. After that, there was the time of the realists - having been greatly influenced by the American Civil war. They had realized that the heroes of the world were not found in the jungles but instead right next to you, the man making your steel, etc, making your everyday life possible. Following that came the Modernists. They decided to scrap everything behind and create something new. Then the Contemporaries... Simply, the contemporaries were simply just extremely unoriginal that they had to "borrow" ideas from all the different preceding periods.

Reflect on Your Project

I believe we all had participated and spent a ponderous amount of time upon the project - especially Melissa Lee. I'd have to say, at first I thought the content of the project would be the most burdensome, because Ben and I had taken upon the daunting task of the content work. The book wasn't fresh in our heads anymore, our knowledge was a little rusty - but unpredictably, Melissa Lee had actually taken upon the hardest job of them all - the posters. I had not realized how hard she had worked on the posters. Thank god it was not me who had chose to do the poster work, for I would've simply done a crude, crude job. She had spent seven something hours (or even more) decorating the poster - and the next morning, I was awestruck. I had finished my content work within an hour's time, and I had thought that was challenging. I believe it was the same with Ben, too. But the time spent is really reflected upon the quality of our posters. It's filled with all the different elements to an A+ project. It's great. I would have to say that Ben and I had worked hard, but Melissa Lee worked harder. Props to Melissa! Yay!

A Horror Story?

A Rose for Emily would be considered a horror story. To me, a horror story is anything that has elements and good enough literary elements, whether they be suspense or using flash backs in a skillful way to be considered a horror story. To be specific, it seems like anything that twists our current perception of things - the way we were shaped to perceived things. For example, if a human had his guts leaking out - that's scary, and it's because it deviates from what we think of humans - whole and, well, guts on the inside. It mutilates our thoughts and presents us with a strange image of what we think we should perceive. I remember a great horror story read was the Shining, and it was because (specifically the things like the hedges and the dog man in the middle of the story) because that stuff usually doesn't happen. A hotel isn't supposed to be haunted like that, and the fact that a family of three had to live inside an empty and old hotel is just a scary concept.

Homer's End

I believe what had happened to Homer was sort of expected, but too bad I had not seen it earlier. There were many clues hinting the demise of our great Homer Baron, the Man's Man, the Gay guy, or also known as Ms. Emily's Little Necrophile Doll. It's a strange notion that she would keep his body. It was pretty obvious that a man like him would leave, but then again unbelievable that she would hold onto him.. even if it means killing him. What's really scary and hair raising is that she still slept with him and hugging him even though he's a skeleton - with his guts melded into the bed. The room's been there for what, 8 years, and that means she slept with him when he was rotting, and when he completely decayed and then turned into just a frame - skeletal frame. Quite disgusting and repulsive if you ask me. It's a very gross concept, and the fact that her house had some sort of putrid odor emanating just gives even more hints to this. She got the rat poison and killed him. He died peacefully because Emily needed to keep him as her doll.

Nobel Speech

I believe it had encompassed the ideas of what was given in his speech. It might've not encompassed all the ideas but I had been a form of execution of emotions. First of all, I believe Ms. Grierson has some sort of twisted emotional psyche about her that makes her really messed up. When she bought the poison, and when she had been asked to pay taxes, the townsfolk felt pity for her. What I had felt for her was complete disgust. She lives in a town and doesn't pay taxes. She is just a complete freeloader who does whatever she wants. Complete disgrace to society. I don't feel any of those emotions for her, only disgust and repulsion. All the taxpayer's money is going into this lowly woman and she's freeloading off of it. Very pathetic and a complete disgrace. I do not feel any sort of these emotions for her even if Faulkner was trying for it. I would not feel bad if she had burned to death or any sort of thing like that. It disgusts me.

Eccentric or Crazy?

I believe this sort of insanity she suffers was learned. She used to live a sort of lavish aristocratic lifestyle until everything went away. Her father wasn't really thoughtful by pushing away the men that were trying to court her, and now once her father died, she has no one to depend on. This sort of learned behavior, I believe, was from being too used to this lifestyle then having everything hit rock bottom. All in all, she's SOL and she cannot find a way out of it. She behaves this way to gain attention, and according to the Philip Zimbardo prison experiment, once she has taken that role as the helpless woman she HAD BECOME the helpless woman. She is a helpless woman. I believe a lot of women today in society are like this, they believe they are some sort of princess and then they get treated by one because they're so demanding and men are so submissive that they become what they really want to be. Just like how, in the first few weeks of marriage, a couple might feel out of place - they might feel like it's all an act, but after a while, they do become the "married couple" in a sense whatever a married couple is supposed to be.

The N-Word

The word today is known as some sort of derogatory term that emerged in  the 1800s to describe slaves. Black slaves, specifically. An enslaved native would not be known as the n-word. Today, it is also used by fellow descendants of these "n-words" as a term of endearment, to show their camaradarie. I believe it's a form of devolution to still be afraid of these words. People usually freeze, and think, "WOW I CANNOT BELIEVE YOU JUST SAID THAT... are there any black people around? Did they hear him?" This is just an unnecessary fear. I believe this is kind of a person trying to conform to the other people around him, trying to stay politically correct. To me, if you want to say it, then say it. It doesn't matter. Why do we have the first amendment? I believe it's pathetic if a person tries to excuse himself by saying it's politically incorrect, uncultured, inarticulate, blahblahblah. I believe if a word wasn't used to imply the meaning then that is the meaning of the word.