"Lolita" pages 3-62

I first off want to start out by saying that I was appalled at this book. Never would I read anything like this if I didn’t have to. I do not enjoy reading about perverse men and little girls. My time would be better spent reading a quality biography about some general in WWII. But this is only my opinion. There must be something to learn in studying such a work, I guess. So I will do my best to get through this so to move on to better reading.
The story starts off with a very graphic sex scene between Humbert, the main character, and his (very important here!) girl friend, Annabel, of the same age. They are around 12 years old at this time. They are in a garden near her house. But they are unable to finish because they are interrupted by her family. Annabel ends up dying of typhus only four months after this event. Humbert then goes on to share his ventures with the opposite sex. He obviously is obsessed with sex. During his college years he frequently has sex with prostitutes. On page 15 the start of the third paragraph Humbert states “While a college student, in London and Paris, paid ladies sufficed me”. But throughout his accent to adulthood Humbert is obsessed with what he likes to call nymphets. These are very young girls probably in their early teens that he seems to think are sex objects. My opinion of this matter is that Humbert has very painful memories of his failed attempt to make love to Annabel and therefore feels that he must go back to correct whatever mistake he made. This is why girls that are of the same age as Annabel are so sexually desirable to him. Until he consummates his relationship with a young girl he will always be longing for satisfaction.
Humbert started a “real” relationship with a woman that was close to his age by the name of Valeria. One scene that really stood out to me in their relationship was when they broke up. Humbert was on the verge of moving both of them to America. But while getting the necessary papers for Valeria she suddenly refused to go with him. Humbert then discovers that Valeria has been having an affair with another man. They were on the sidewalk with a taxi slowly following them. By “chance” Humbert calls this taxi so that they do not create a commotion on the sidewalk. But he then comes to find out that Valeria’s lover is actually the taxi driver that just happened to be nearby. They all three go to a café where they all meet. Later Humbert entertains the idea of killing Valeria but decides to only hurt her which he never has the chance to do. As soon as they were divorced which delayed Humbert’s plans, he moved to New York. This is really where the story starts.
Humbert wants to move the country and finds a residence that ideally has a young girl in it. But this family’s house burns down and therefore he is forced to move in with a lady by the name of Charlotte Haze, who is a widow along with her young daughter. On page 39 Humbert expresses his excitement to discover his fortune that he will be living with a young girl. “I was still walking behind Mrs. Haze through the dining room when, beyond it, there came a sudden burst of greenery-“the piazza,” sang out my leader, and then, without the least warning, a blue sea-wave swelled under my heart and, from a mat in a pool of sun, half-naked, kneeling, turning about on her knees, there was my Riviera love peering at me over dark glasses.” This description of his first impression is filled with sexual thoughts, especially when he only seems to be thinking about her body. On the same page Humbert talks about the moment that his glance “slithered” over her body. This really creeps me out! When I have kids I am going to be ultra careful who I trust to be in presence with my children.
Humbert goes on to write his feelings for the little girl, whose name is Lolita, in his diary. At the end of my reading for today it finishes with Humbert trying to seduce Lolita in the living room on the couch. With the girl unaware Humbert plays out his sick fantasy. On page 61 Humbert shows his relief that the girl is completely unaware of his advances toward her. While she is on the phone with her mother he thinks “Blessed be the Lord, she had noticed nothing!” This makes me so sick because he uses the Lord’s name in the same statement in which he is thinking about molesting a young girl.

"American" Along With "In the Baggage Room at Greyhound"

Up front I want to make it clear that I did not enjoy reading these poems. But regardless I will do my best to explain what I thought they were about and also give my “insight” into them. I will start with “America” by Allen Ginsberg.
In this poem I think that Ginsberg is trying to express his frustration with politics, society and America in general. The time period is around the forties and fifties. It seems to me that he a communist because he constantly referred to communism like on lines 10 and 11 on page 40 when he states “America I used to be a communist when I was a kid…I’m not sorry”. This shows to me that possibly Ginsberg feels that his views are being suppressed and that people now are not encouraged to share their opinions. After doing a little research I remembered that at this point in American history the American people were afraid to share their views of anything especially if they were partial to communism. Senator Joseph McCarthy was at that time using his power to scare the American people about communism. He did this to increase his political power. He led viscous charges against anyone associated with communism. Whether or not they deserved it is up to debate. Ginsberg in this poem is attempting maybe to encourage the American people to be different and not so close minded. By reading Time magazine Americans learn how they are to live and behave. Ginsberg shows that he too has been caught up in this craze. On line 10 on page 41 we see that after Ginsberg reads Time magazine he realizes that he is like everyone else in American “It occurs to me that I am America.” Towards the end of the poem we find out that Ginsberg is probably homosexual. This was probably not very well accepted at that time. I feel like America has come a ways from this but there are still lingering problems in society. My opinion is that sometime college students become brainwashed into going into the major that they are best at; but maybe not what they enjoy. Then the rest of their lives they end up working and doing things that they hate. But society states that we need to do what will make us the most money. We need to learn to do what is in our heart and make decisions based of what we want to do, not what society says is the right thing. Again this is what I think the poem is saying but I’m most likely wrong. I didn’t like it but it did make me think about how maybe I was pressured to be one way when maybe I should have taken another path. It is kind of like Frost’s poem about the two paths in the woods. Society may want us to take one path while really we should go opposite of it.

Now I will analyze “In the Baggage Room at Greyhound” by Allen Ginsberg. This poem takes place in the baggage room for Greyhound in San Francisco. Ginsberg is trying to illustrate all the sights and sounds of the busy room. To me it kind of felt like waiting in line after you get off an airplane and are waiting for your luggage. Everyone is either excited or exhausted. One thing that really stuck out in this poem to me is how Ginsberg brought to life the sorter at the bottom of page 44 “Nor mustached negro Operating Clerk named Spade, dealing out with his marvelous long hand the fate of thousands of express packages.” I can really picture this man, he has worked here for his whole life and his job is so boring that he doesn’t have to think anymore. Ginsberg is looking at all this to make sure that he has a mental picture of the hell he is leaving behind. This will help him to appreciate whatever he does in his future.

I found a few words that I looked up, the first was psychoanalysis on line 18 on page 40 in “America” . It is the method of psychological therapy originated by Sigmund Freud in which free association, dream interpretation, and analysis of resistance and transference are used to explore repressed or unconscious impulses, anxieties, and internal conflicts, in order to free psychic energy for mature love and work.
The next word that I didn’t know was cynical on line 17 on page 44 in “In the Baggage Room at Greyhound”. This word means believing or showing the belief that people are motivated chiefly by base or selfish concerns.
Lastly I was unfamiliar was Calistoga on line 17 on page 46 in “In the Baggage Room at Greyhound”, which I found was a town in northern California.

"Sonny's Blues"

This is what I got out of Sonny’s Blues by James Baldwin. I want to summarize the story as well as give some of my thoughts on things that stuck out to me in the story.
As you first start reading the story it is about someone (I didn’t find out until later that this was the brother of Sonny) reading about Sonny getting caught in a drug bust. This narrator is a school teacher in Harlem. At first I didn’t really understand why the narrator was so interested in Sonny’s predicament with the law, I thought maybe they had just been friends in the past. After finishing teaching for that day the narrator runs into a friend of Sonny’s. This friend expresses remorse for Sonny and how he will be unable to help him any more. Also the friend shares with the narrator that he feels responsible for how Sonny’s life was turning out. On page 34 the friend states “I never give Sonny nothing, but a long time ago I come to high school and Sonny asked me how it felt. I told him it felt great. I did.” I think that this shows how possibly the world that Sonny and his friend grew up in was so bad that doing drugs seemed so enticing. The friend ends up telling the narrator what he thinks will happened to Sonny, how they will try to break his addiction and then let him go to start it again.
Next we find that in fact the narrator and Sonny are brothers. This is because the narrator writes to his brother in jail. But only after the narrator’s daughter, Gracie, has died from polio (which we find out later). To me it seems that Sonny has come a long way in his recovery. He expresses his sadness for the little girl’s death. Once Sonny gets out of jail the narrator meets him in New York and brings him back to live with his family. While eating dinner they begin to bring up memories of they parents. They end up describing both their parents. The father was a drunk who died when Sonny was 15. The narrator remembers that the last time he saw his mother was when he went to war. She shared that she thought his uncle was run over by some white kids and that after that event their father was never quite the same. The narrator then returned from the war to go to his mother’s funeral.
At this point we find out that Sonny really enjoys playing the piano. So he lives with the narrator’s wife’s parents. He plays the piano constantly but is skipping school and spending time with his friends in Greenwich Village. The couple he living with finds this out and Sonny then joins the army after dropping out of school. Both Sonny and the narrator return from war but there is a rift between them whenever they see each other. The story then skips forward to when the narrator’s girl has just died. On page 48 the narrator states “I think I may have written Sonny the very day that little Grace was buried. I was sitting in the living room in the dark, by myself, and I suddenly thought of Sonny. My trouble made his real.” It was at this point I feel the narrator finally understood his little brother’s pain. Maybe they had found something in common with each other.
After this the story moves into the present and Sonny and the narrator are going to Greenwich Village. At this time Sonny begins to open up to his brother. He talks of his addition to herion. How it makes you feel in control of everything. They arrive at the jazz club and the narrator sees how welcome sonny is here. Sonny plays even thought it has been a really long time since he last played the piano. But soon he begins to play wonderfully. After the song the narrator sends up some drinks to Sonny. At this point the brothers seem to have completely understood each other for a second. On page 56 the narrator shares “He didn’t seem to notice it (the drink the narrator had sent to him), but just before they started playing again, he sipped from it and looked towards me, and nodded.”

I completed the book the Glass Menagerie and was somewhat disappointed by the ending. Again I will write my version of the seventh scene. After dinner Jim and Laura are alone in the parlor. They proceed to catch up with each other and Laura reminds Jim of the nicknames that he gave her in high school “Blue Roses”. At this moment Jim manages to make Laura more comfortable and then proceeds to dance with her culminating in kissing her. After this I thought that this story was too good to be true. Maybe everything would work out after all. Laura and Tom would fall in love and Tom could follow his dreams. But soon enough we find that Jim is already engaged, a fact that no one not even Tom, was aware of. During this scene of them dancing Jim bumps a table that Laura’s favorite glass figurine is sitting on. It falls and the horn of the unicorn falls. I thought that this possibly was an image that was important. A fantasy figure was turned into a common mortal horse. This possibly could be illustrating that Laura was moving past her ideal fantasy world into reality. Laura’s reaction on page 86 shows that now possibly she realizes that there are more important things in life. “Horn! It doesn’t matter. Maybe it’s a blessing in disguise.” I thought that this imagery was very powerful.

When Jim is about to leave Amanda makes the comment on page 94 “Goodbye, Mr. O’Connor. I wish you luck- and happiness-and success! All three of them, and so does Laura! Don’t you, Laura?” And Laure replies “Yes!”. Jim warns Laura to not forget his advice of believing in herself. I think that at this point Laura’s outlook on life has changed dramatically. After Jim leaves Amanda finally breaks and begins arguing with Tom. At this point Tom leaves to follow his dreams. But the end on page 97 we find that “Oh, Laura, Laura, I tried to leave you behind me, but I am more faithful than I intended to be!” I think that even though Tom is following his dreams he still thinks about Laura all the time. Tom ended up being like his father and running away when things were hard.
There were several words that I was unfamiliar with. To start with I didn’t really know what menagerie was. It is a place where animals are kept and trained especially for exhibition. Next on page 6 Amanda refers to mastication. This is when you grind and knead (rubber, for example) into a pulp. Additionally on page 4 in the setting up of scene 1 the word proscenium is used. This means the part of a modern stage in front of the curtain.

The Glass Menagerie Scenes 1-6

After reading the first 6 scenes of the Glass Menagerie I kind of thought that nothing really had happened. First off I will begin by giving a summary of play up to scene 7 (which I hope has more action than the first 6!).
A family made up of three members, Amada the single mother, Tom the poorly paid provider son, and Laura the social outcast 24 year old daughter. Amanda is single because her husband abandoned the family a long time ago. This has added extra stress on Amanda which she usually takes out on Tom. She frequently criticizes his life choices, such as going to the movies too often and not taking the initiative to improve his life and make more money. She even goes as far as criticizing his eating habits as can be seen on page 6 “Honey, don’t push with your fingers. If you have to push with something, the thing to push with is a crust of bread. And chew-chew! Animals have secretions in their stomachs which enable them to digest food without mastication, but human beings are supposed to chew their food before they swallow it down. Eat food leisurely, son, and really enjoy it. A well-cooked meal has lots of delicate flavors that have to be held in the mouth for appreciation. So chew your food and give your salivary glands a chance to function!” I felt like this quote really showed how stressed out Amanda was. I see this all the time with single mothers. They have to carry the full load of the family and fulfill the role of both parents. She just tends to ramble on and not really know what to say. This was evident throughout the entire play. The daughter, Laura, is, I think cripple and possibly mentally retarded. She basically can’t function outside of her family. She ended up throwing up in her business classes that her mom had enrolled her in. Now she sits around the house polishing and dusting her Glass Menagerie. Laura’s disposition frustrates her mother. On page 8 her mother claims to have “received – seventeen! – gentle men callers!” when she was single. But so far Laura has had no prospects of a husband. After constant quarrels with Tom over his smoking and laziness Amanda devises a plan. She knows that Tom is on the verge of leaving the family to pursue adventure elsewhere. This is because of his constantly attending movies that take him into a virtual adventure and not trying to advance himself from his dead end job. Therefore Amanda makes a deal with Tom that if he finds a suitor to marry Laura then he can leave to pursue his adventure. Laura seems to feel that she is not in need of man and lives in her own fantasy that there will be a man for her one day, possibly imaginary. In desperation to leave Tom asks his best friend at the warehouse over for dinner. This friend named Jim attended high school with both Tom and Laura. We find that Laura is deathly scared of seeing Jim again because she had once had a crush on him in high school. After introductions are completed both Tom and Jim go out onto the fire escape.

It is at this point that Tom shares with Jim his intentions to leave because he can’t bear to live here any longer. On page 62 we see that Tom really is on the verge of going nuts. “I’m starting to boil inside. I know I seem dreamy but inside-well, I’m boiling! Whenever I pick up a shoe, I shudder a little thinking how short life is and what I am doing! Whatever that means, I know it doesn’t mean shoes-except as something to wear on a traveler’s feet!”. There is a conflict of desires between Amanda and Tom. But Laura is the central character that we see in the play. They both want what is best for her but both are about to lose their minds and Jim is the “savior”.

My thoughts on "The Flowers" and "Girl"

After reading Alice Walker, “The Flowers” I thought “What in the World”! I guess that reading this I can see how brutal things would have been soon after the Civil War. The slaves would have been free but still having to work as share croppers. The story illustrates that racism was still running rampant and that lynching was probably what had happened to this poor man. I think that the second line in the seventh paragraph, “Myop saw that he'd had large white teeth, all of them cracked or broken”, shows that possibly the man was abused or beaten before he was hung, giving evidence of a lynching.
From the beginning of the story the little girl is running about very innocently and happy. She is shut out from the world until now. Everything in her life is very happy go lucky. The second and third line of the second paragraph show that, “She felt light and good in the warm sun. She was ten, and nothing existed for her but her song, the stick clutched in her dark brown hand, and the tat-de-ta-ta-ta of accompaniment.” At only ten years old she was unaware of the brutality that was being shown towards people of her skin color. While wandering away from what was familiar and welcome to find flowers she finds herself in a dark and sinister cove where she has never been. All of the sudden she stumbled upon and steps on the face of a dead black man. I found it interesting that at that point she didn’t throw down her flowers and run. But she actually went and picked another rose. At this point she find the rotted noose around the flower she was about to pick. Now she lays down her flowers because her innocent mind is now come to the reality that this man was murdered and left to rot. She now can never go back to the way she was before and this is symbolized by her laying down her flowers and that the summer is now over, forever.
The poem “Girl” was interesting. I think that it is a narrative between a girl on the verge of becoming a woman and her mother. Most of the poem is the mother speaking to her daughter by giving her words of wisdom that would be passed down from each generation. These commands that her mother is giving to her are meant to keep the daughter from being “the slut you are so bent on becoming” from line seven. I felt that like this was showing that the mother disliked her daughter for some reason, possibly because the daughter was already not heeding these commands and upholding the heritage that she was a part of. Possibly the mother was trying to scare the daughter to make her listen. But I think that the mother was making sure that the daughter had the proper knowledge and tools to become an adult. Therefore the mother is actually showing her love for her daughter in wanting her to succeed in life. I think that everyone can see themselves and their childhood in this poem. I know that my parents tried their best to teach me everything that I would need to know in order to succeed. One thing that stuck out to me is how the mother tries to teach the girl to smile at people she doesn’t really like. I know that my parents taught me to do something like that. To treat others as you would like to be treated. But in contrast to the mother in this poem my parents did it in a much less intimidating way. The mother in this poem is very mean and harsh. But possibly she has to be like that or this could be the way it always has been done throughout the generations. At the end the girl makes the comment that what if the baker will not allow me to touch the bread. And the mother then states that she should not be the type of person who people would disdain. Basically the mother is saying that if you follow everything that I have taught you then you will become well liked and a working member of society. But this is only possible if you obey all these commands. I know from seeing my sister and mother react that sometimes the daughter has a tendency to be rebellious. I can kind of see that in this story also.

Robert Frost Poems

After reading these few poems by Robert Frost there were a couple that really stood out to me. The first is "Mending Wall" and the second is "The Road Not Taken".

I will start with the "Mending Wall", I am not sure if what I am thinking is correct but I will go with it anyway. It seems to me that at first it is an annual thing to repair your wall. I find it intersting that the thing that keeps the neighbors separated is the one thing that brings them together one time a year. This is because hunters have torn it down to find small game under the rocks. Lines 14 and 15 I feel are very important:

"And set the wall between us once again".
"We keep the wall between us as we go".

Possibly this means that the two neighbors only see each other once a year to fix the wall that keeps them from seeing each other more often. Additionally I think that line 15 shows that even while together they keep themselves separated by this wall. This could represent individuals such as husbands and wives that tend to put barriers between themselves to protect their hearts from being hurt. But they don't know why they are there, it could be because in the past there was a real reason for the barrier. But know as in the poem the one neighbor begins to question why there is a wall when there is really no apparent reason. Lines 25 and 26 illustrates how the first neighbor feels about the wall. He shows that it is lucrative to think that his apple tree will cause some type of harm to the neighbors pine trees.

"My apple trees will never get across"
"And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him".

I have seen this many times in relationships where people alienate themselves from people that really love them only because of something from the past. To tell you the truth I am really confused about the ending of this poem, it doesn't seem to fit with the rest of he poem. My only idea is that the neighbor becomes angry at the thought of removing the wall. But other than that I can't really understand what he is talking about.

One word I was unfamiliar with was "elves" in line 37, that is an acronym for emissions of light and very low frequency perturbations due to electromagnetic pulse sources; extremely bright extremely short (less than a msec) electrical flashes forming a huge ring (up to 400 km diameter) in the ionosphere. And also is the plural of elf.


The second poem was by far my favorite of all the readings posted for today. My overall feeling was that this is a poem that everyone can relate too. I know that I can. Its hard to explain though. In life it is easy to follow the crowd and live basically unnoticed. But the most successful people will have taken risks that others may have found too risky. I believe that Frost is trying portray a very important life decision. Maybe marriage? Because once you have chosen a spouse there is no turning back and starting over to try something else. That one decision will lead to other choices that will take you far away from the fork in the road. The second paragraph is the most powerful to me. I think it says that even though the fork or decision looks like it may make little to no impact on your life that you need to look farther down the road to make the best decision. I try to think about this when making large decisions in my life and if you only life for what gain you may have now you will not make the wise choice. The third line in the third paragraph states “Oh, I kept the first for another day!”. This is the attitude that you can always come back. But later in the same paragraph he shows that in his heart he knows he never will. So make sure you make the right choice!

One other thought I have is that this is a reference to when Jesus states in Mathew 7: 13 and 14. “Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way that leads to life, and there are few who find it.” Frost may be saying that since he took the road less traveled then it lead him away from bad circumstances in his life. It may have not be the easy way or the obvious choice but it made all the difference in the end.

There were two words that I looked up. The first is “hence” in the second line of the last paragraph. It meas “from this place forward”. The second is in the next line, “diverged”. This means “to move or extend in different directions from a common point”.

I am not very experienced with understanding poems. But this will give me some practice at it.
In the first line of "In a station of the metro" is think that Pound unexpectedly sees a large
number of people who are getting prepared to board a train. The word apparition in the first line
was unfamiliar to me. I looked it up and found it means: an unusual or unexpected sight. My first
thought after I saw that this poem was written in the late 1800's was that possibly the people
at the station may represent America as a whole recovering from the Civil War. People are trying
to get used to working together again.

I really enjoyed the poem "Photograph of My Father In His Twenty Second Year". My first impression
is that this is a son who's father was not involved in his son's life. In the second line in the
first paragraph I notice that the son is studying his" father's embarrassed young man's face." I feel
like this tells a lot about the father's outlook on life. Instead of working like he should be at 22 he
is drinking beer and fishing. Probably throughout the son's life this is how his father would act. I see
In line five of the second paragraph "All his life my father wanted to be bold." I take that is as
the father knew what was right for his family but was too scared and weak to actually be a man and
fulfill his role as a father. Now again in the last line of the third paragraph the son states
"don't even know the places to fish?" This is something that shows how frustrated the son was with how
his father had raised him. We know that fishing and drinking were very important to his father, but yet
his father didn't even take the time to teach him these things.

After thinking about this poem I see much of America portrayed in this work. The males in this country
are too weak and instead of making a wrong decision they just run away. I was fortunate to have a
strong father how taught me almost all I know. There were a couple of new words that I don't see very often.
The first is in the first line of the poem, DANK. This means unpleasantly moist or wet. The second was POSTERITY.
This means all future generations. This proves that the father was unsure and fake and he knew it but still
wanted to put on the attitude that he was a strong man.

Letter of Introduction

Since high school I have been most interested in biographies of prominent male examples. I particularly like Robert E. Lee and president Garfield. These are some of the books that I have read on my own. Periodically I will read the magazine Popular Mechanics because I am in Mechanical engineering and like to keep up with the latest developments in the industry. At this moment I am reading an autobiography about Chuck Yeager, the first pilot to break the sound barrier. I am not a fan of reading books that are fiction. But the last fiction book that I read was the Davinci Code by Dan Brown and I really enjoyed it. My favorite book and the most frequent read is the Bible. This is the only book that I read consistently.

For works that I was required to read in high school I vividly remember Moby Dick by Herman Melville. For some reason I really enjoyed this book. This is probably because I love the ocean and being on the ocean as well as fishing. But since I have come to college I have had very little required reading. But being an engineering major I have been required to write dozens of technical documents portraying an experiment or project. These documents don't require much creativity because they basically explain a procedure and solution to a particular problem. I don't IM, facebook, twitter or any other fake form of communication with other people. I prefer face-to-face conversations.

My reason for taking this class mainly is because it meets the literature requirement at Clemson. But additionally I felt like I would enjoy newer works as compared to older works of literature. As I stated before I am a Senior graduating in May in Mechanical Engineering and I am always excited to take classes outside of my major. So I am very excited about this class.

I will attempt to write a poem but not entirely sure how to but here is my best shot.

To Clemson I rode five years ago
Not realizing how much engineering would blow
Through continually working on my studies
I managed to befriend many buddies
Now I am ready to graduate with a sob
And begin my first real job