In Hughes’ poems, I think he has a strong connection with time. He talks about winter in one poem and them Spring in another, and then Autumn in another. Also, in his poems “Winter Moon”, he talks about how “sharp” the moon is and I found that kind of interesting. How can a moon be sharp? It’s round in shape to the naked eye and doesn’t look to have any edges. As far as children goes, they probably will only link the moon with “round” rather than “sharp.” Hughes also says that we need to hold onto our dreams in his “Dreams” poem because once they are gone, are life will seem as if its missing something. In a way I think he is trying to tell children to cherish what they have now and to indulge in their imaginations because once they grow older as time passes by, shown by the seasons changing, they will no longer have the luxury of indulging in their imaginations and will be forced to face reality and lose their dreams. The idea of children growing older and having to face reality rather than indulge in their dreams is further supported in his “After Many Springs” poem. In this poem, he says that he cannot find the fairies anymore and wonders if he is “too old to see the fairies dance.” So that is to say, if children cannot cherish their dreams now and let loose their imaginations, as time goes by, and they lose their luxury to these dreams and fantasies, they will feel as if a part of them is missing and their life wouldn’t feel complete so it’s better for them to cherish all of that when they can.
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My Thoughts on “Why are Americans Afraid of Dragons?”
In Ursula K. Le Guin’s chapter, “Why are Americans Afraid of Dragons?” in her book, The Language of the Night: Essays on Fantasy and Science Fiction, I felt that I could see some of what she was saying contrary to what the author of the previous post before my post believes. Le Guin said that the people who reject fantasy books are usually those who are over 30, working, and male. I kind of see this with the older men in the country or just the more serious people. I have a friend who only reads books that benefits him. He’s serious in character and is always trying to improve himself and become successful in his career. He’s what some may call a workaholic. He does try to be sociable sometimes but I find that I have a hard time talking to him because he’s usually only talking about work and school. Another person I once met also seemed kind of rigid and only focused on work. He was my interviewer and when he asked if I read any books, I told him I was currently reading Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson. It’s a fantasy series and at the time I was so interested in it that I was glad when he asked me what it was about but as I continued to talk about it, I felt he lost interest in our conversation and he quickly changed the topic. I feel that people who don’t like fantasy are hard to connect with.
However, although I kind of see what Le Guin was getting at when she talked about males over 30 and working, I also see that our people are slowly changing. I think her statement of males over 30 was probably just to encompass those who were working, trying to provide for a family, and with little free time to relax as they probably had to worry about bills and life. It was an attempt to make a label for the group of people she was talking about but it wasn’t a label that should be set in stone. Today, I have many friends who are male that also love to read fantasy or write/produce videos based solely on their imagination or inspiration gained from other fantastic things. So as the males in my generation grows and later on becomes the males over 30 that Le Guin was talking about, I think more of her labelled people will start to separate themselves from her label.
Also, as a side thing, I think it’s kind of questionable that she claimed males would watch things that they assured themselves were realistic such as cowboys, in order to not be caught watching or reading fantasy books with dragons and such. Because maybe they just really do have a different taste in fantasy. My dad likes to watch stuff with wars. Maybe they like it because it’s easier for them to understand or they don’t like the more farfetched fantasy with magic. Everyone has different tastes in fantasy.
Alice’s One-Way Thoughts
In Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, Alice has a one-track mind. All her thoughts are known to readers and she says things rather bluntly and honestly as she usually always states her opinions to the other characters. The only times when she doesn’t necessarily say her true feelings are when she knows her life would be in jeopardy as a result. She also always does whatever she has to in order to reach her goals. She’s quick to comment on the other characters’ behaviors as well if she disapproves. One example that shows Alice’s honest comments on others is when Alice tells March Hare that “it wasn’t very civil of [him] to offer [the wine]” (96) when there isn’t any wine. She does always try to say things in a respectful manner and in that quote, she does so. However, although she’s quick to say the March Hare isn’t civil, she doesn’t seem to be accepting when others point out her faults. When the March Hare replies that it also wasn’t very civil of her to sit with them uninvited, she claims that the table doesn’t belong to the March Hare and the others and that it can seat more people than just them. In her reply, I feel that she has a one-track mind because she tries to justify all her actions without really taking the other characters’ words to heart. The March Hare said it was uncivil of her to sit with them because she wasn’t even invited but her retort of the ownership of the table was completely irrelevant to the claim the March Hare made. In this sense, I feel that she just tries to justify herself and she’s not so great a listener because she already has thoughts of her own as to how things should be and because she seems to think that what she perceives as right should be what others perceive as right, making her have a one-track mind.
Little Annie’s Ramble – Ignorance of the Child
Little Annie’s Ramble by Nathaniel Hawthorne was literally a ramble about his love for this child named Annie. He seemed to think lowly of everything but Annie. In his eyes, Annie, this “child”, was just a pure thing in which he missed in his life. I feel that that is so because at the very end, he said, “As the pure breath of children revives the life of aged men, so is our moral nature revived by their free and simple thoughts…” This basically means that Annie was the thing that could revive his life and allow him to feel more at peace and free; to experience his boyhood again. Throughout the story, he kept going on and on about how pure and beautiful Annie was. She was beautiful because he thought she didn’t know anything negative about the world and that she wasn’t tainted by the evil and the bad. He wished her to disregard him if he started moralizing. This is because he believed she didn’t know right from wrong. Around the middle of the story as well, he said she would rather pay attention to the dolls rather than to the queen, king or knight. In his point of view, she was a child that knew nothing and couldn’t understand anything but her desires for the pretty things and toys such as dolls. He liked her better that way because him, as an adult, knew too much and all the dark things he knew as well caused him to feel that life was not that great and that he would be better off like Annie, who didn’t know much. It is as the saying goes, “Ignorance is bliss.” In this case, Annie is the ignorant one in the narrator’s point of view and the narrator is the one that wishes to be ignorant, to have the bliss that he feels the child has. He misses that ignorance and that bliss.
Response to Kiddie Lit
In Beverly Lyon Clark’s book, Kiddie Lit, she mentions on page 5 that women “grind children under [their] heels. She also quotes Margaret Fuller who said, “Now there is no woman, only an overgrown child.” With this quote, it explains why women “grind children under [their] heels”. This is because women can’t be acknowledged as an adult until they have not only grown up, but has lost any part of them that would make them seem immature, lacking confidence, irresponsible, and so on. However, if that is the case, then those are the attributes in which we apply to children. Women try so hard not to be associated with children, but in reality, it’s just those attributes in which women do not want to be associated with. However, I believe that it’s not just women who are viewed as a child if they so much as act a little immature and play jokes. I feel that men who are always joking around or saying unintelligent things can also be viewed as a child by other men who have gained respect and by other women who feel that they are mature or have also gained respect. This is seen by interactions around us everyday. With my friends, because I like to play around and joke with them, I am viewed as a child who is immature. But I also view them as childish too because they play around with me as well even though they are older than me. I also feel that though we may play around, when it is time to be serious about things, we can be and we can respect each other as we should.
Thus, I do not believe that just because someone likes to play around or likes to talk in slang or act like children sometimes, that they cannot be overall, mature or respectable. It isn’t simply that not being a child makes you an adult. There is more to that and I feel that if we stop associating terms like “child” or “childish” with things like irresponsibility, naivety, or stupidity, then being called a child wouldn’t be such a bad thing. In fact, that isn’t even what really makes a child if you simply think better of them. Therefore, if we begin to think better of children, give them some respect, acknowledge their opinions and don’t laugh off their questions as they are trying to learn, then women and men wouldn’t need to set aside their playfulness and wouldn’t be afraid to act more like a person with a bright personality, than just as a model figure in society in order to gain a title of respect that they shouldn’t even need to earn.