How to Talk to Girls at Parties

How to talk to Girls at Parties is a short story written by Neil Gaiman, that takes place in London, England around the early 1970s. The story is told through first person, coming from one of the boys, Enns’s perspective. The narrator seems to be a bit omniscient, but overall unreliable when telling the story, for a couple of reasons. I consider Enn omniscient because it is a memory of his, therefore he could have altered the story in any way that he desired, and we all would be forced to believe him. However I consider Enn unreliable because his story has a couple of contradictory points, and he himself lets us know that he is recalling a memory over 30 years ago. For example on page 94, Enn is reflecting on how good looking the girls are and says “…all the girls at that party were lovely; they all had perfect faces” which is not exactly the most accurate description when talking about someone. But before making this observation about he girls at the party on page 93, he talks about a girl with a “gap between her two front teeth.” This isn’t the only imperfection that he noted when making observations of other girls at the party, which clearly shows his unreliability. However the first person narrative is what allows us to understand what is going on in the novel. Without hearing the story from Enn’s perspective we wouldn’t be able to understand his thought process. The downfall of hearing the story from Een is that we have to guess what we think is wrong with Stella, and the other girls, leading to Vic his friend leaving the party frantically.

Lanscape with the Fall of Icarus

In William Carlos William's poem, he begins in the first stanza by referring to the great Renaissance painter Brughel, when he wrote " According to Brueghel when Icarus fell it was spring". Its clear that analepsis was used, which is a retrospection in order for the author to offer background information about the fall of Icarus. Williams is basing his poem on the fact that the reader has seen "Landscape with the fall of Icarus" by Brueghel in order to make his point. Some more analepsis is used in the second stanza when referring to the ploughing farmer. In facr Williams is educating the reader on the events that are occurring in the landscape until the second to last stanza. He uses the past tense in the first 5 stanzas, showing that he is not talking about the present. This literary device keeps readers on track by citing the source that Williams is basing his poem on. Many readers regularly would now know who Brueghel is and it ensures that they know who and what they are reading about. During the last stanza, Williams talks about Icarus drowning, and this is intersting because it is the first time that Williams speaks in the present progressive form saying "a splash quite unnoticed, this was icarus dowrning". This is the one and only transition that Williams makes bewtween the past, which is Icarus' acension into the skies, and the presence which is Icarus' slow, sad death.

Gwendolyn Brooks, "First Fight. Then Fiddle"

Gwendolyn Brook's sonnet "First Fight. Then Fiddle" is a Petrarchan sonnet, with an overall theme of music or "fiddling" compared to life. Brooks makes an argument about life and how it is necessary to fight in order to enjoy all the joys in life. In this sonnet fiddling is symbolic of enjoying life, as can be seen by her word choices in the first two lines. Brooks writes "...Then fiddle. Ply the slipping string with feathery sorcery." The tone of this writing in my opinion is positive, because she is talking about music which I identified as all the good things in life. Brook's imagery when talking about fiddling demonstrates her views. "Devote the bow to silks and honey." When thinking about silks and honey I apply a positive connotation to the words, because honey is usually considered sweet, and silk smooth and beautiful. This poem does take a turn between the 8th and 9th lines, and instead of talking about music and the joys of life, Brooks starts to talk about war and fighting. I knew that there was a turn in the sonnet because Brooks uses words with negative connotations like "blind, bloody, hate, and deaf." Brook's message after the shift in the sonnet is that we must fight, and go to war in order to clear space for us to enjoy life or, "civilize a space wherein to play your violin with grace." I enjoyed this sonnet because the it had 2 messages, one that had to do with music, and a main message dealing with the joys of life.

"Difference"

In this poem Mark Doty chooses to use an unrhyming tercet style, or a poem consisting of 3 lines per stanza. Doty does use alliteration, which he uses to emphasize words helping me to understand the poem. At first I didn't understand why he wrote a poem about jellyfish but after reading the poem again I noticed that he compared adjectives used to describe jellyfish to parts of speech specifically "like" and "as". Doty also makes a reference to a classic dancer Isadora Duncan. Doty also uses consonance mildly. The alliteration in the 10th stanza really helped meto understand what Doty was trying to say. When Doty writes "..forming itself into figures than refiguring" its easy to think initially that he is simply writing about jellyfish, but he is actually comparing the ability of a jellyfish to reconfigure, to the way that we can change words in different situations to mean different things, both positive and negative. Without the repetition its possible that I would have overlooked the whole idea of him comparing jellyfish to language. Doty also uses a Caesura before alluding to Isadora Duncan, which further emphasizes his point that jellyfish, and words can be changed. I really enjoyed this poem because it showed how affective repition can be, and it made a very strong point about the words that we choose to use.

Knowledge is Power

In this class I expect to become more knowledgable in the field of writing, and mainly analysis of literature. I was always taught that knowledge was embedded into the richest forms of literature and so I've always wanted to be an expert in famous literature. Literature to me, is the home of the most complex styles of writing. Currently I do not read alot of poetry and or fiction novels, but my favorite books to read are science fiction books. I feel that the critical thinking I will use to consistently write in this blog will help my writing develop. I decided to use this image because it is what I hope to gain on completion of this course. I have always wanted to read and become good at analyzing literature and language and thats what I'm hoping to get out of this class.