A dramatic monologue on Writing a Dramatic monologue:

OH WOE IS ME! I am worked to the bone, TO THE BONE. I stay up all night and I type, calculate and negotiate my way through my life. I pursue a constant future that is of dreams yet I still wish to sleep. To be able to join the sun in its sleep. Rather than be awake like some far away time zones office sheep. I converse with my waifu, taking the pain off my fight for material gain. The Instance I attempt to gain distance, persistence, lack of assistance I loose. To my worlds resistance. There Hath not enough grease to make the world turn without the sparks and friction of its mass on my shoulders. Overburdened and overloaded, yet I am forced to create a drama. I may be in my teens but I am not exactly filled with tense atmospheres. After-all I wish to leave atmosphere's in general. So speaking of atmosphere's and many beers (and a few tears) I have a dramatic monologue written. Now off to bed, or an hour of youtube. Same thing.

Essay on the garden party:

The World is full of the imagination of men. We draw imaginary lines everywhere, with our borders, our laws, our customs and our class. The idea of classicism is a difficult and segregational line in our society: it is the idea that one's financial standing makes someone better.

Katherine Mansfield challenges this idea with her short story The Garden Party where a young girl Laura Sheridan is confronted with the harsh reality of life from her privileged life and realizes her distaste for the Upper crust of society. This is apparent because Laura is not affected by her families strange views of class, this is because of her more progressive view on people and is an excellent critique of societal pressure by the author. Laura is not living outside reality as her siblings are and sees things as they are and people for who they are, she is also disturbed by her parents lack of respect or care for the working class and finally the authors sentiment through the character are shown in numerous ways. This is because Laura is an extension of Catherine's thoughts in a way.

Firstly, Laura is much more down to earth than her family is, she expresses interest in the working class men and women and sees them as equals compared to her families views.

for example when the workers are setting up the marquee she is asked to take charge of the installation and in interacting with the workers she expresses interest in them saying that they are in fact superior to her other high class suitors.

“Why couldn't she have workmen for her friends rather than the silly boys she danced with and who came to Sunday night supper?” This shows that she is in-fact not interested in being superior and that she would prefer to be able to be with these people.

She also goes as far to verbally express distaste for the class system.

“It's all the fault, she decided, as the tall fellow drew something on the back of an envelope, something that was to be looped up or left to hang, of these absurd class distinctions. Well, for her part, she didn't feel them. Not a bit, not an atom …”

This all points to Laura preferring to socialize with workers and is an example of the fact that she does not see class in the same way as her parents. This is a perfect example of the fact that Laura does not support the class system but she in fact denounces it.

Secondly, Laura is deeply disturbed by her parents lack of care for the lower class. She sees such behavior as horrendus and very disturbing.

She expresses this vocally:

But Jose was still more amazed. "Stop the garden-party? My dear Laura, don't be so absurd. Of course we can't do anything of the kind. Nobody expects us to. Don't be so extravagant.""But we can't possibly have a garden-party with a man dead just outside the front gate."

She is very surprised when Jose does not want to do anything about the loss of Mr Scott. Her parents notice this and offer to send a gift basket after the party. Laura expresses her distaste at this but follows anyway as she sees no other real course of action.

 "I know," she said. "Let's make up a basket. Let's send that poor creature some of this perfectly good food. At any rate, it will be the greatest treat for the children. Don't you agree? And she's sure to have neighbours calling in and so on. What a point to have it all ready prepared. Laura!" She jumped up. "Get me the big basket out of the stairs cupboard."

"But, mother, do you really think it's a good idea?" said Laura.

These show Laura’s distaste to deliver such a frivelous gift, this is due to her wanting to properly help the scotts.

Finally, Laura is an extention of the authors views, laura is an extention of the authors voice as she speaks directly through Laura many times. This is aparent with the dual tones of the story. The author has two tones to the story, she writes the grim story of the death of a man. She makes the garden party itself seem unrealistically cheery. This is a show of the thin facade of society and the end of class as soon as she leaves the fake world of the garden and the reality of the world. this is shown better in an essay by Don W. Kleine:

“ The tragic accident, short, is juxtaposed not mearly with the social gaiety of the garden party but, more pointedly, with Mrs. Sheridan’s safe unserious way of life.”

With this it is apparent that the stories two tones also show the distaste of the class system by the author.

The theme duality of the stories two tones, the insensitivity of the Sheridan's and Laura's distaste of the class system shows the authors view and critique of the class system. This is expressed clearly as Laura’s experience and negative feelings of the class and fake superiority that surround her. This is an extension of Catherine feelings expressed into her story but we can take this message and use it to build a better view of our society. We are all human and rich or poor we all have hopes, dreams and feelings and only by working together can we all achieve them.

Private property

Growing up and eventually growing old people seldom recognize the world they live in by the end of it.
When I was growing up in barrhaven Ottawa Canada I would explore the vast fallow fields and forests left behind by the rural communities long bought-out by developers. We would carve long winding trails through the nature and we guarded the tree's we liked from the teen-aged menaces that would break them. They each had a name, not like a persons name but rather of its qualities. The great oak, the kuzco or the Crazy fun each was a tree fort and our property. We maintained them, enlarged them, protected them and practically lived in them. I spent many a summer chasing the highest branch or building another platform. I would explore and build them out with my friends and we would run between our houses to grab more nails, boards or food, the forts or the fields to play random games.

 I remember these things like they where yesterday, because they almost were. I moved away when I was 8 years old to Manotick but I still remember Running through the trees and their towering nature. The natural skyscrapers. I returned to them one day.

I found the great oak replaced by oak lane, the crazy fun now a park and ride. I remember but I do not see.
These tree's that I spent all my time in, that was under the absolute sovereign ownership of my friends. Are now private property one was a substation that said "NO TRESPASSING". I only wish I had seen them once now that I am older. I understand the impermanence of life but to see them in the now unclouded view of adulthood would have been amazing. But Then again they would have lost their wonder in memory.

Response to a handful of dates

I enjoyed reading the story a handful of dates I found the story very interesting. The story of the experience of a young boy growing up in rural Sudan I have gotten the opportunity to see a life and a culture entirely different from my own. The themes in the story make for a very interesting picture and feel that I find is very authentic. I was left at the end wondering if it was a memoir rather than a fictional account.  

The very vivid account of the desert, the Nile and the colorful characters made for a very interesting account of a world dissimilar to my own. It is filled with a certain warmth that is not only described physically in  the hot Sudanese sun but mentally through the grandfather an the other characters through the eyes of a child. It is also apparent of a sense of community and closeness that is almost unheard of in western society. All in all this makes for a wonderful escape story that can paint a very vivid mental imagery. For a person who has never been to Africa it is a wonderful escapist story. 

The setting also complements the story well as it permits the author to have a certain symbolism that enriches the story with feeling and compels the reader to feel as the narrator (and by extension the author) intends. This feeling is the core of the artistic enjoyment of a text and this short story really helps prove this. The boys emotions, the root of the story are propelled by the settings immersive atmosphere.

I personally recommend reading the story simply to hear a tale of a time and a land far away and see the life of a person who's culture and upbringing is completely perpendicular to my own.  

Reply to Ozymandias:

The poem Ozymandias is an excellent way of demonstrating the decay and impermanence of rule.
The author talks about many aspects of the king and how his tyranny must have affected the sculptors but how only their craftsmanship remains the hate of the king washed away by the sands. How only his feet remain and that his face has fallen. He has "lost face". This is also shown by the sand washing away his kingdom to dust, the sands and the impossibly powerful element of time. I really like this poem as it says the same as Charlie Chaplain. "As long as men die liberty will never perish." All rulers die and all people move on. The people who demand followers will be forgotten by time.

• alliteration
the repetition of the same sounds or of the same kinds of sounds at the beginning of words or in stressed syllables of an English language phrase.
• allusion
an expression designed to call something to mind without mentioning it explicitly
• assonance
 the repetition of vowel sounds to create internal rhyming within phrases or sentences
• ballad
a form of verse, often a narrative set to music
• blank verse
 poetry written in regular metrical but unrhymed lines, almost always iambic pentameters.
• caesura
 a complete pause in a line of poetry or in a musical composition.
• couplet
Couplets usually consist of two lines that rhyme and have the same meter.
• diction
choice and use of words and phrases in speech or writing.
• end rhyme
a rhyme that occurs in the last syllables of verses
• enjambment
incomplete syntax at the end of a line
• epic
 a lengthy narrative poem, ordinarily concerning a serious subject containing details of heroic deeds 
• foot
 the basic metrical unit that generates a line of verse in most Western traditions of poetry
• free verse
open form of poetry.
• imagery
 an author's use of vivid and descriptive language to add depth to his or her work.
• lyric
Lyrics are a set of words that make up a song
• metaphor
figure of speech that describes a subject by asserting that it is, on some point of comparison, the same as another otherwise unrelated object. 
• meter
 the basic rhythmic structure of a verse or lines in verse.
• ode
 is a type of lyrical stanza.
• onomatopoeia
a word that phonetically imitates, resembles or suggests the source of the sound that it describes
• repetition
 the simple repeating of a word
• rhyme scheme
the pattern of rhyme between lines of a poem or song
• rhythm
movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions.
• simile
a rhetorical figure expressing comparison or likeness that directly compares two objects through some connective word 
• sonnet
 a poem of fourteen lines that follows a strictrhyme scheme and specific structure.
• stanza
a grouped set of lines within a poem
• stress
Stress is the emphasis that falls on certain syllables and not others
• theme(s)
 the central topic a text treats
• tone
encompasses the attitudes toward the subject and toward the audience implied in a literary work
• verse
 any division or grouping of words in a poetic composition

• volta
the turn in thought in a sonnet that is often indicated by such initial words asBut, Yet, or And yet

Continuation of the story "Hills like white elephants" By Ernest Hemingway

‘I feel fine,’ she said. ‘There’s nothing wrong with me. I feel fine.’
He sat down at the table on the platform, staring off into the distance down the tracks.
"You know dear? You have said that to me every time something worries you. Your a terrible liar."
"I'm not lying!"
He picked up his drink and finished it in one gulp but held on to the glass, inspecting it slightly.
"I understand you better than you think you know? I've traveled the continent with you after all.
He looked up at the girl in front of him, "I promise you we will be together."
"You make stupid promises."
"Why is that stupid?"
"You know that your employer will re-assign you."
"What employer?"
"You can't do that."
"Sure we can"
He got up and walked to the ticket counter, a man in a conductor uniform appeared from the back of the room. "Can I help you senor?" He pronounced in a thick local accent.
"Where are your next trains headed?" "Madrid senor you are on it."
"I don't want to go to Madrid."
"But your bags are already on their way."
"I don't care"
"Well the train for Barcelona is almost leaving."
"Then I'll go to Barcelona."
"Alright senor,darse prisa!"They changed tickets and he gave him some Pesetas for his trouble. He walked back to his table. The girl was staring at him but averted her eyes as soon as he noticed.
"Get your bags the trains here."
"There is no train."
"Yes there is get your bags."
"That ones headed north."
"Yes I know, we are going to Barcelona."
"We can't"
He helped her out of her chair and pulled her in to him kissing her.
"Yes we can,
 we have the whole world."

Today I have read The address as part of my ENG 3U class and personally I found the story mildly interesting at best. It is a recollection of a memory from a child how survived the holocaust and the grown woman revisiting her past by picking up her possessions.

The author talks allot about her experience before and after the war but chose not to discuss the experience during the war. This is most likely because she did not want to make the story particularly lengthily or detract from the main objective. However I think that had she spent atleast one page discussing her interactions with Mrs. Dorling it would have aided the comprehension of the character and her relation to the author (and narrator) as I am very curious to see if she was in-fact as self serving at the beginning of the war as she was at the end.

The author makes it apparent that Dorling wanted nothing more than to take her mothers things but I still would have liked to see more about Dorling's situation. It is possible that she felt owed for her work or that she felt that the author was still to young to have back all of her possessions. Her age is not clearly mentioned in the story. Personally I think that the author lacked many details on her relationship with Mrs. Dorling and that it would have made far more sense had she included some of those interactions because without them the story feels rather one sided.

I also feel that the story lacked a purpose, she talks about her past and tries to recover her stuff only to realize that she doesn't want it as it has become unfamiliar and leaves. The story has no climax and very little objective and I feel this really guts the substance from the story. Had she atleast attempted harder to get her things or gone more in-depth on the relationship on the pre-war Mrs. Dorling or even simply described the situation of the post war encounter with more flavor the story wouldn't be such a dry read. It simply failed to convey my interest.

To resume I must say that the story is another true story from the holocaust and the era in which it occurred. However the author should have included it as part of a larger story recounting the whole experience as on its own it is a dry read about repossessing property. I understand that this must have been emotional for the author but I fail to have any conveyed to me. However the author seems to make great use of timing and literary devices and I would love to read about her experience in hiding.
 

Work number 1 for ENG3U:

The Address or "Het Adres" by Marga Minco was cited in one article on the Literature resource center in the listed works of the author by Johnathan P. Snapper (UC Berkeley) under the "other works" section.

However the true source is a list of works from the author by the Holocaust novelists resource center rather than the original Story. This paper was a compilation of the authors work but it does talk about the piece in question. He cited page 9-16 of the address for the article.

Source citation in the article:

• "Het adres," in 3 bekroonde novellen, by Minco, Ingeborg Rutgers, and Anke Jelsma (Amsterdam: De Mutator, 1957), pp. 9-16.

URL of paper:

http://go.galegroup.com.ezproxy.biblioottawalibrary.ca/ps/retrieve.do?sgHitCountType=None&sort=RELEVANCE&inPS=true&prodId=LitRC&userGroupName=otta35732&tabID=T001&searchId=R6&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&contentSegment=&searchType=BasicSearchForm&currentPosition=2&contentSet=GALE%7CH1200011982&&docId=GALE|H1200011982&docType=GALE&role=LitRC

Test post

Test post for ENG3U