Author: CASSANDRA TRIVINO

Yehuda Amichai’s “Endless Poem” is a very layered work of literature. I think that the theme of the poem is self-awareness. The speaker repeats and kind of goes over what is around him as well as what is within him. He says that within him is his heart, and within his heart is a museum. At the end he says again that within his heart is the museum and he just connects everything together. Repeating and reviewing himself and his surroundings helps to strengthen his self-awareness.

In “The Oven Bird” by Robert Frost, the speaker describes the bird as a singer that everyone has heard. The bird’s singing is representative of the change of seasons in the poem as well. The songs “makes the solid tree trunks sound again” and the bird says that “the early petal-fall is past.” When fall comes, the bird stops singing until the seasonal cycle begins again, which can be a metaphor for the cycle of life and death, which is a natural occurance. The speaker then refers to the bird as “he”, where nature and man are alike, if not, the same.

Similarly to Chekhov, Wharton wants us to consider that we may not really know people as well as we think we do. In “Roman Fever,” Mrs. Slade and Mrs. Ansley have known each other for many years and have been friends, but they realized that they don’t really know each other well. I think that their relationship had only been built on competition and commonalities. I think that because they didn’t know each other well, how they felt towards each other and the fact that they were both widows at the same time is what held their superficial friendship together. Mrs. Slade is jealous of Mrs. Ansley, and Mrs. Ansley pities Mrs. Slade. They obviously aren’t true friends and they only begin to realize it 25 years later.

In the short story, Dmitri has mixed feelings about women in general. Through Dmitri’s view of women, the story tells us that the author may believe that people don’t always fully understand themselves. On one hand, Dmitri speaks badly of women and refers to them as the “lower race”, but on the other hand he feels free and at ease when he is in their company. It is also mentioned that Dmitri thinks that every intimacy eventually becomes unbearable, however after he departs from Anna, he can’t stop thinking about her and sees her again. Additionally, although he is initially described as a mysoginist, he asks Anna how he could despise her. Later on, Dmitri’s wife tell him that “The part of a lady-killer does not suit [him] at all.” Overall, Dmitri’s negative thoughts of women are contradicted by his actions and feelings towards Anna.

The gilded coin in Hurston’s “The Gilded Six-Bits” symbolizes status, more specifically, false status. In the story, Joe and Missie May go to visit a Odis D. Slemmon’s ice cream parlor he had just opened. To most people, Slemmon seemed like a wealthy and successful man. Missie May is interested by Slemmons’ economic status and later caught in bed with him by her husband. She apologizes and claims to have only done it for the gold coins that Slemmons has. However, she later finds out the the gold coins were only quarters wrapped in gold, and she becomes embarrassed for what she had done. Although the gold coins were representative of Slemmons’ wealth, it was later apparent that the coins were just a hoax, basically.

In Ode to the West Wind, the speaker seems like they are stuck in a negative state of mind. She is writing an ode to the wind because she is looking for its help. She describes the wind as a powerful spirt; a “destroyer and preserver.” The wind represents change, as it routinely “destroys” old  things or ideas and preserves new ones at the same time. She wants the wind to “lift [her] as a wave, a leaf, a cloud” and “drive [her] dead thoughts over the universe.” It seems that the poet is asking the wind to rid her of her negative thoughts and bring about positive ones.