Response #12: Pick a poem and explain its significance:

Alliteration poem..

Maria makes much money,
Edith eats eggs,
Cathy cuddles cat,
Priscilla punches Peter,
Adele ate an apple,
Tammy taught the teacher,
Henry hates his hat,
Robert roasted a rat,
And Joanne and Jennifer jumped!

-Written by Maria Gao (a proud 6th grader)

Lol.

I must admit, this poem itself really isn't that impressive. Back in the days of middle school, especially in 6th grade, when we had LOOOOTS and LOOOTS of time on our hands, my favorite thing to do was to write poems. This was because I had an English teacher that taught us a lot of poetry. The alliteration above was a piece written at that time. Right when I got this response question I thought about all the poems I've written and realized, the last piece I wrote was back in 8th grade. I got out some of these poems and they were all corny like heck. Filled with silly girlish emotions that you could label "teenybopper" all over. Not that I'm that logical now, I still value emotions and the whole romatic ordeal, but I've matured... a lot.

So then, I moved on to EARRLIER times. I came upon a red folder, kind of dusty, titled "Maria Gao's Poetry Antology" with a rose drawn on it. I got a real kick out of that. In this folder are the poems I did in sixth grade previousely mentioned. I sat there for awhile and thumbed through everything. There were a lot of silly ones, but the I chose the alliteration one because of the people I wrote about. All the people on there were people in my class and surprisingly, I still hang around most of them.

This is where the "romantic" Maria comes out. I'm a sucker for old times and nostalgia. Looking at this poem makes me think of the wonderful days we've had during middle school. It also makes me grateful because I have such a great group of friends. It also reassures me because now that I think about it, yes we've changed, but our core beliefs and our ideals are still the same. These are the friends that I would like to keep around me for the future to come. Sadly, this poem also mentions people that are not as close to me anymore. Peter, for example, left in 8th grade (or was it 9th? see, I don't even remember anymore). Priscilla went to wilson... though I still talk to her, it's just not the same. Recently, Jennifer Chau just left too so it's kind of aww.

All in all, it's fun to take a walk down the memory lane. I must sound really funny right now because you're probably thinking "jesus, this girl's only 17 and she thinks like she's 83492349231 years old". Another reason why people say I'm way to mature for my age hehe. Hey, high school is hectic, ten years down the line, I'll probably laugh at what I'm doing right now and reminisce like I am reminiscing right now about middle school. It really is a good feeling, it puts everything in perspective and makes life that much more worth living.

-Maria (I've noticed that on more personal entries I always end with my name, I do this for my livejournal so it's a habit)
- posted by Maria Gao @ 9:12 PM

 
Response #11: read "the resistance to.." on pg.82-90 of IR. What are Thoreau's views on the nature of government, the duty of citizens to act up, and the effect of taking no interest in political or social causes? How are his views like Emersons? Use examples from the text.

Thoreau's view of the government is generally a negative one. He believes in a government that should not interfere very much with people's lives. Governments should not be "perverted" and must be agreeable to the people which it governs. By perverted, Thoreau meant that the government should not be 'tools' of individuals to achieve a certain purpose. He gave an example in this statement refering to the Mexican War: "Witness the present Mexican war, the work of comparatively a few individual using the standing government as their tool".

Citizens' duty in a government is not to condemn it, but to make it better. These people should not only rely on their sense of justice but also their sense of conscience and moral values. They should be free of the suppressment of the government and abandon a cause if the government is wrong. This is demonstrated by the statement "Must the citizen ever for a moment, surrender his conscience to the legislator?... the only obligation which I have a right to assume, is to do at any time, what I think is right". As a result, taking no interest in political or social causes would only lead to a more corrupted and inexpedient government.

Thoreau's views are very much like Emersons because they both believe in individual worth. Emerson valued the human mind's ability to think and act just as much as Thoreau believed in the citizens of a society. Both stressed self-reliance to make a bigger, better society work. They're also both optimistic and looked to achieve perfectibility which sometimes seemed too naive and impossible to achieve. After all, people are not always conscientious and maintain moral values like they are expected to.
- posted by Maria Gao @ 7:57 PM

 
Response #10: What were the values of the Romantics? How did they affect the imagination of Americans? Who were the Trancendentalists and how do their views affect life today? What darker side of life was the focus of some Romantic writers?

Romanticism was a reaction that went against the beliefs of rationalism. Romantics relied on intuition and feeling over the arguements of logic and reason. Romantics trusted feelings and intuition over logics because they believed that individual imagination was essential to discover truths that a rational mind could not reach. For example, a romantic may find spirits and magical powers within a forest where as a rationalist may just see trees. This is because of the nature of romantic to find higher truthsin exotic settings and the natural world. Romanticism affected the imagination of Americans by playing a powerful role in constructing pure 'American' literature. Heroes such as Superman, Indiana Jones were all results of romanticist ideas and their fantasies.

Transcendentalists were people who wished to 'transcend' beyond everyday human experiences in the physical world to determine the ultimate reality of God. They also valued individualism, or an 'inner light' which guided and connected each individual to God. Ralph Waldo Emerson was the leader of the transcendentalists. He held optimistic views also based on intuition and believed human nature was good because God was part of us. His views affects people today because society today also values the power of individual. People strive to achieve perfectibility and improvement today just as the Transcendentalists hoped to do back then.

Dark romantics like Edgar Allan Poe and Hawthorne did not agree with the optimistic views of Emerson. Instead, they saw the works of evil and sin in human and in nature. Their focus derived from the darker side of religious thoughts and suppressed emotions often expressed in madness. Hawthorn's The Scarlet Letter was a prime example of a dark romantic piece. In the story, Hester Pryn suffers the consequences of being an adulterer while Dimmesdale's guilt drives him to sickness and eventually death. These dark moral lessons were the primary focus of dark romantics.
- posted by Maria Gao @ 4:03 PM

 
Question : Young Goodman Brown

The story was hard to comprehend until the articles were read. Symbolism was a major aspect discussed in the articles and made the story more fluent. For example, the journey into the forest was actually a journey of "justification" because Goodman Brown came to a revelation. The mysterious friend represented the Devil himself which tempted and lured Goodman Brown into the depth of the forest. All of these things discussed made the story more meaningful than what they appealed to be. The articles also went indepth into the mind of Goodman Brown, which was something that wasn't really emphasized in the actual writing.

Another interesting intepretation was the Pink Ribbon. The article explained that the color pink was between white and red, one representing innocence and the other, sin. Faith and probably the rest of mankind was represented by this ribbon as innocent imperfections. This intepretation makes a lot of sense and no one would've ever known so much meaning would be represented in a little ribbon.

I also came up with my own intepretations after I read the articles. The name Faith was chosen for a reason, Faith represents the faith that Goodman Brown had. Faith was the reason that Goodman Brown felt guilty about venturing into the forest. As Brown ventured in the deepest part of the forest, where his desires were most evident, he claimed "My Faith is gone!" sounding as if he lost his wife, but also his faith in God. Brown eventually finds out that Faith was a sinner/devil worshipper too and feels very cheated/betrayed. This also represents the bigger picture of a phony 'faithful' Puritan society that Brown so desperately clung to.
- posted by Maria Gao @ 6:58 PM