In Yehuda Amichai’s “The Diameter of the Bomb”, Amichai gives his opinion of war through the lens of someone walking through a war-torn city with bombs dropped on it. The effects of a bombing are described in the poem, both immediate and indirect consequences. The most obvious effect, the sheer destruction of an explosion causing death and displacement. However, what Amichai wants us to also realize is that people are affected by these deaths. Women and Men lose those important to them and children are left parentless. It is important to note that Amichai does not make clear where he is and which country the people in the poem are part of. This indicates that war takes no sides and there are no victors, only victims.
Author: Bryan Chan
Consider both the comedic and tragic aspects (and the potential relation between the two) in Frost’s poem “Mending Wall.”
The narrator seems to be quite attached to the aforementioned wall. Perhaps the wall serves as a physical reminder of a tragic event in his/her life. When I read the poem, it reminded me of the narrator’s childhood as s/he probably grew up around the wall and is afraid of the destruction of his/her memories. What’s tragic about this is that everyone had a different upbringing but don’t know about each other’s upbringing and are unintentionally destroying the memories of the narrator. What seems how to lighten up the mood, however, is the back and forth interaction between the narrator and his neighbor. Tragedies need a bit of comedic relief and this served the job.
What does Wharton want us to consider about the ways in which we do or do not know certain people in our lives? E.g. friends, lovers, family.
Often, we find comfort in knowing someone for a long time. Even though we know someone since childhood, doesn’t mean we really know them as a person or know what their motives are. Knowing someone from childhood just means you happened to be born and live around the same time as someone else. In the case of “Roman Fever”, the two ladies may have known each other since they were young and seemed to get along well in the beginning as a result. However, when conflict arises and they begin to see the real side of each other, their friendship that was built on time, not experiences, began to crumble. Thus, Wharton wants us to consider if those around us are simply around us by chance or because we want them to be around us.
What is the significance of the two lovers meeting at Yalta, a resort town?
A resort town is associated with happiness, love, and different bright emotions. Whenever Gurov and Anna were away from their lovers, in Yalta, they were at their peak happiness and felt like they were falling in love again. However, when they both returned to St. Petersberg and Moscow, two very cold cities, they were returning to reality. They both were unhappy with their current marriage and sought a scenario where they left their significant others for the ones they met in paradise, Yalta.
Yalta is the perfect place for their affair because a resort town could be described as “dreamy” and pulls its visitors a chance to escape reality. Their affair, in essence, is them trying to escape their boring marriage and seek excitement and a new reality.
Consider of money and the presence or lack of it–wealth and poverty–on the shape of the story and on the lives of the characters and their personalities.
The lack of money represents happiness for the characters. Joe works hard for 7 dollars and comes back to his wife and chucks the coins at the door. This signifies that he does not care about how much he has and only works so he can provide for him and his wife. When they lacked money, Joe and Missie May were at their happiest (beginning and end of the story). Joe and Missie had a routine where Joe would come back after working for a week and playfully mess around with his wife, almost like they were children again. But in the pursuit of greed and money, Missie decided to cheat for a “gold coin” and broke the trust between the two. Joe, however, forgave her and towards the end, when he spends the fake gold coin Missie “earned”, he seemed to be a lot happier and finally forgave her completely. Giving away the money away made their happiness come back, similar to their situation in the beginning of the story.
How is his work a commentary on the mores, religious temperament, and society in which he lived in late eighteenth century England? What aspects of this commentary are still relevant today?
It can be concluded that Blake was not satisfied in the society he lived in. In “London”, Blake describes a bleak and desolate city using descriptions like and mark in every face I meet Marks of weakness, marks of woe.” Blake is criticizing London and how its citizens seem to be in pain. Maybe he attributes this to religion? In the third poem, he describes a child weeping, crying for its parents. Instead of finding the solution to the child’s woes, the parents attempt to pray the woes away which does not work. It can be said that Blake was not the biggest proponent of religion.