Mending Wall

Mending Wall raises the question "Why do good walls make good neighbors?" and gives hints to several reasons why. When the neighbor is asked Why fences make good neighbors, he exclaimed that it was the way his father went about it, never really giving a reason to continue this when it seems really unecessary saying that"My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines" because those are the only things there.

The writer is dissillusioned into helping build this wall thinking he is being nice which makes him a good neighbor when actually he is helping someone who wants to make sure that the writer doesn't bother him. This could possibly be a hint towards racial discrimination, because he still follows the ways of his father, who during that time, probably didn't look upon blacks as respectfully as they would now, so the neighbor continues to build this wall coincidentally with the help of the neighbor because he is following his father's racist ideals.

A Dream Deferred

The poem first asks "What happens to a dream deferred?" referring to what can be described as the American dream. It then describes what happens while your putting that dream off asking: "Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?" which is asking if its just going to die and never come around to amounting to what you wanted it to be. Then it talks of how it eventually becomes a heavy load that you put off until it explodes and never happens.

This poem was addressed to African Americans of the Harlem Renaissance in the aspect that many of them had lost focus on trying to make the American Dream become a reality. The writer believed that they kept putting off to try to just get by rather than work hard and rise above which eventually led to the dream never coming through.

The Negro Speaks of Rivers

This poem speaks of African-American history. The rivers are something his ancestors have all been by from the time they were in the congo. He describes his soul "has grown deep like the rivers" in reference to his deep ancestry that goes back to "Euphrates when dawns were young"
to hearing the "singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans."

The goes along with the Harlem Renaissance and was written to explain how deep black culture goes back into the world. It describes how African American's race has been apart of things that people at the time weren't aware that African Americans were apart of the big picture that is "ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins."

Incident

In the Incident,what is described is a young black boy's ride in to town on his bicycle. He encounters another boy, who didn't look much older than him. The poem makes you assume that the boy thinks he might be nice: "Now I was eight and very small, And he was no whit bigger,And so I smiled," but then the boy sadly realizes the other boy does not want to associate with him when he poked out "His tongue, and called me, 'Nigger.'"

This is an aspect of dissillusionment. The boys ride into town began a happy one, not caring about what color he was, or where he was, so it never crossed his mind that someone might be prejudice towards him. So when he smiles at the boy he is in the illusion that the boy might be nice back to him. The Incident was probably named to describe the suprising aspect of realizing that you are seperated because of race.

Richard Corey

According to the poem, people think Richard Corey is cool guy. He seems to have everything he wants and needs, meaning he "was rich—yes, richer than a king, And admirably schooled in every grace". With all this everybody looked upon him as something they wanted to be, somewhat like the American Dream, and also like Dissilusionment when you get to the end and find out the man "put a bullet through his head." People looked at him thinking he must be so happy because his life seemed so perfect, but the reality was I assume, that there was something missing from this perfect world people saw him in.

Psychoanalysis

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is written to help you feel like you are the character while reading it. The character, Walter Mitty, has a creative mind and seems like "he hated these weekly trips" and would often go into a very intense day dream often focused around him in several situations that he probably has only found himself in due to whats just happened to him springs him into thinking of some type of relation.
His first day dream is ended with his his wife telling him to slow down, ironically in his day dream he was trying to go fast, in a plane, his whole crew hoping that they would survive his crazy antics. Although it doesn't say his name in the first day dream, you end up recognizing it because of the last sentence where he continues to think of the event after his wife broke his thought: "Walter Mitty drove on toward Waterbury in silence, the roaring of the SN202 through the worst storm in twenty years of Navy flying fading in the remote, intimate airways of his mind."
Most of the day dreams also have repeated aspects like the "pocketa-pocketa" sounds that are much like the sounds you get stuck in your head and end up adding into different day dreams you have.
Its Psychoanalysis because you are taken into most of the characters perspective and put into a train of thought where you are reading how they are thinking and what caused them to think that way. It makes it interesting and easy to read because you can recognize the actions by the characters as something you might do in real life.
The story is seperated so you can experience the day dream he is having, and then have the feeling of being cut off in the middle of your own day dream when it switches to the next paragraph, usually with someone talking to you. At one point they show this when Mitty claims Ms Mitty through off his train of thought, first muttering something to her about something associated with his day dream and then telling her " 'I was thinking,' said Walter Mitty. 'Does it ever occur to you that I am sometimes thinking?' "

South Central

South Central is a film that depicts the reality of what living in an area like South Central, Los Angelos, is like. The film introduces a character, Bobby, who is involved in a gang called Duece. Bobby, having been involved in gang activity most of his life, gets out of prison and begins to have mixed feelings about the way of life upon the birth of his son. He begins to change his way of life until he is sent to prison again while still being involved in gang activity.
Years pass and his little boy has grown up, and is being brought into the drug game by one of Bobby's old friends. Bobby reforms his way of life while in prison, wanting to get out and start anew with his son, only to find he is stilling car radios and slowly becoming more and more bad. Bobby must show his son the lessons he learned while in prison that will save his son from continuing in a life that will only mean downfall.

This depicts realism very well because its depicting how life goes wrong when involved in crime. It also shows how a parent's experiences and lessons are very important in the growing up of your child, since they will follow what they believe is right, which is supposedly what you do as a parent. The movie's events are also based on real stories to reflect the life style of the people living in South Central and how some are forced to get by the easy way, doing crime, or be above all that and try to set yourself straight so you can make sure you and the people you care about will be ok.

African American Voices

A. The story talks of a slave, who has been broken by one of his masters, who models the bad experiences that slaves go through. Frederick Douglass describes working in a field to he is basically a brute, no longer caring for what happens to him, continuing to work despite his body strength giving out, and ready to die as soon as god wills it. One day, losing strength and needing to take a break, he falls beneath the fence to find some shade, and is approached by a very unhappy "negro-breaker". Claiming he needs help, the negro breaker couldn't care less and kicks him to tell him to get back to work; Frederick tries to get up and is unable too, which leads to another kick for not following orders due despite being incapable of doing so. The overseer then gives a blow to the back of Frederick's head leaving a bloody wound that trickled down his head. He was still asked to get up but made no effort to this time, being broken once again and ready for the worst. After his overseer left him to his fate, Douglass thought talking to his master about this beating to see if he can get protection, or a new overseer. He managed to get off the field and walk the seven miles to get to his masters house, though it "was truly a severe undertaking" having to gow through the forest through brush and thorns while having little strength left over from being beaten and sick. By the end of the five hour journey he arrived at his master's house and "presented an appearance enough to affect any but a heart of iron," being covered head to toe in blood, thorns and twigs. His master explains that Frederick had probably deserved the beating for not cooperating with his master, and claims the overseer to be a good man and he could not even think of removing douglass from his power to a new home or anything of the sort. He goes back to only be scared to hear the "negro-breaker" ready to chase him down in the corn fields for a whipping, making Frederick run off again. Running into a fellow slave who was on his way to his wife it being saturday night and having sunday off, invites Frederick to come eat and be housed for a night. The slave tells him of a way to avoid getting whipped which lies in the carrying of a root found in the woods. He returns to his masters field to find that the negro-breaker, although not happy with him, just tells him to get to work, which he does. While doing work though Frederick is joined by the whip holding negro breaker who tries to tye Frederick down, which Frederick reacts in putting the man in a choke hold. This quarrel carried on for hours, Frederick knowing his possible fate could be to be beaten or maybe even killed. In the end though, the slave owner never sent him to the whipping post, wanting to keep his repuation as a "first rate over-seer and negro breaker", he didn't want to admit that a slave had caused him that much trouble that he had to fight with him.

B.Frederick Douglass is trying to express the social issue of racism and slavery. He describes master's who show no mercy despite the appearance of a man who is practically using his last breath to tell you his problems. The harsh conditions a slave had to go through could almost break any man, and this story was probably written to make people feel the pain and sorrow they could experience from not only the aspects from this story but harsher aspects and the continuous cycle of having to do it everyday untill you have no choice but to let life go.

The Story of an Hour

A. Mrs. Mallard had a heart disease that could prove fatal if startled to much, her husband has supposedly died and no one knows how she will respond to except that they think she might die. Upon telling her she leaves the room to focus on her own thoughts alone. She sank into a chair and thought deeply while staring into the "patches of blue sky" while awaiting what she felt was something coming to her, something she thought she could feel reaching towards her "through the sounds, the scents, the color that filled the air." It then suddenly hit her, that, she was rather happy that her husband was dead. Fearing the fact the she might have to spend her long life for her husband, when she heard of his death she was more than happy to respond with the feeling that she can take over and do things for her life now. Now excited enough to be over the whole ordeal she leaves the room and heads down stairs to continue the rest of her life, untill she sees her husband and drops dead because he is still alive, not because she is happy to see him, but because she is so disappointed to have to carry on the rest of HIS life.

B. Chopin is trying to point out that many married couples, especially ones that are old, feel more like they are stuck to another person unable to pursue their own personal goals in life, rather than happy they get to spend the rest of their life with someone. Although people get married and apparently enjoy it most of the time, Chopin is trying to show, marriage cuts off alot of your own ideas and goals in life, especially in a society where male is seen as the dominating sex that usually leads to a married life that focuses on his goals and cuts of the oppertunity for the other. So, what Choplin points out is, people sometimes are very happy when their loved ones die, because it gives them sort of another chance at what they had lost one time.

Edgar Allen Poe

Poe's life is full of bad events that could only end in personal disgust for life and especially the idea transcendentalist tried to pull off in a not so perfect world. One of his first bad experiences was the loss his father, who abandoned his family a year or so after he was born, and the death of his mother a year after that from consumption. Attending the University of Virginia he got involved in gambling and eventually gained debt that he had to ask his foster father to pay off claiming he had not given him enough money to survive while in school. He decided to drop out of the University, not feeling welcome in Richmond after learning his sweetheart Royster had married someone else. Eventually trying to survive on just writing alone, life proved a very tough task to survive furthering him into hardships. He married his cousin, who died two years after they had been together, bringing another tragic event.
Along with alcholism, I would say a number of events like these could make you kind of loopy and hateful towards society. For him, his intuition is something he feels he must fear rather than embrace therefore denying the philosphies of the transcendentalists.

The Raven

In the Raven, Poe describes what seems to be him going insane and being tormented by a bird about the loss of a girl named Lenore. The phrase "Nevermore" kept being repeated because it was showing the impact of the girls death upon Poe, not being able to ever see her again and is left with only thoughts and memories that torment his mind. At first I think he thinks good of the Raven, hoping it to ease him, but his insanity causes him to interpret the sounds of the raven and movements to be mocking him and cause him lead thoughts into one another.

He uses alot of description to describe dark atmospheres and characters to give off a feeling of fear, sadness and loneliness. While reading the poem you find yourself reading it faster and faster as if you are going crazy. I think Poe purposely wrote this to show the insanity so-called transcendentalist might experience at the loss of a loved one.

The Black Cat

Poe describes an event with his cat. First he talks about aquiring the cat and how much happinies it brought him and how it was one of his bestfriends to the point of following him around town forcing Poe to make him stay sometimes. During the course of this, Poe's alchoholism is growing more and more making him more and more insane. He became more irratible which began to make the cat exprience the growing temper.
One night poe stumbled home drunk and upon finding the cat avoiding him he grabbed it violently and was responded with a bite by the cat. Being drunk, the pain in his hand made him grow very angry as if "the fury of a demon" has possessed him. So he took his pen-knife and stabbed the cats eye out. Upon waking up in the morning he found himself in turmoil about the incident, beggining to drink again. This started throwing thoughts all around his head of explanation for why the act he had committed was ok, saying that all beings do something specifically because they know they aren't supposed to do it.
With this new thought in process he took the cat and hung it from a noose explaining to himself that he hung it "because" it was he knew he was committing a sin that would jeapordize his placement in the after life if it turned out it was real. A fire occured that day aswell burning down his house leaving him to think of a cause and effect situation.
The loss of the cat still got to him, so he got a new one, and tried not to maltreat it like he had done the other one. As time went on though, he began to "utterly loath" the cat. Always wanting to strike it when it got on his nerves he kept himself from doing so because of the guilt from killing his last cat. It started to scare him like it was a ghost of his last cat.
Going down into the basement oneday, accompanied by his wife, the cat followed them down the stairs tripping up Poe. Poe in rage grabbed an axe and tried to strike the cat and instead was halted by his wife, which led to him burrying the axe into her brain. Upon this he pondered how to get rid of the body. He put the body inside the wall of his celler and then began to look for the cat to end its life.
Not being able to find it he went to sleep and thought about how the deeds he had commited only slightly bothered him and he was still waiting for the police to arrive if they ever would. Eventually they did, and searched the house, and were unable to find anything which poe took pride in. Afterwards he began to hear the cry of the beast that had caused all of this, and while searching the cellar, realized he had walled up the cat in the tomb as well.
The events in this story show that Poe was well aware of the evil acts he was commiting and felt that he even somewhat enjoyed them, showing that he was definatly not a believer of trancendentalism.