New Yorker Short Story

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/01/01/whoever-is-there-come-on-through

The short story Whoever Is There, Come On Through by Colin Barrett is a very vague and intriguing story that is able to force the mind to wonder what kind of tensions and strains exist within the characters as well as what are the strengths and hardships caused by friendships. The story mainly focuses on two specific characters: Eileen and Murt. Both of them are young adults and both of them live in the same small town together (as they have for seemingly their whole lives). They have also been good friends for a while now, ever since secondary school. Right out of the gate, however, it is definitely clear that Eileen and Murt have sort of this mutual awkwardness going on between them since they are both apparently picky about what they are asking and they both select subjects to talk about for specific reasons and are not completely open to one another on everything they want to ask. This already foreshadows that, despite being good friends, some time has passed that has caused Murt and Eileen to become a bit more distant from each other. This is further revealed when the book states that after Eileen takes Murt to his uncle's from the bus stop he doesn't even invite her in even though, once she gets the courage to go in herself, Murt's family wouldn't mind her company at all. This series of interactions reveals to the reader that the largest hardship of friendships is keeping in touch and catching-up with each other on a regular basis. Distance does no make the heart grow fonder, and regularly scheduled communication will ensure a last comfortableness in the friendship between the two people involved. The story right after showing the reader this, however, reveals that friendships and fondness never truly go away, since once Eileen invites herself in, Murt actually begins to come out of his seemingly depressive state a bit more and shows progress back towards that comfortable, friendly relationship with Eileen. A little later, another weakness of friendship is revealed. when Murt enters Eileen's house, he seems to almost immediately go to the bathroom only to climb out the back window to see if he could. the weakness shown is that, for a friendship to last, both parties need to want it to last. Murt's sudden disappearance from the scene for relatively no reason at all shows that his depressive state means that he can't just become best friends with Eileen again right away and will either be required to get out of this state or never rectify what the two had previously. Further into the story, however, the text is able to show another major hardship of friendship: being able to be there for each other. When Murt's brother, Jamie, is going to be a dad he throws a little gathering at the local bar to celebrate. Murt wonders if Eileen will join them, and she does. She then proceeds to get unfortunately wasted. During this time it's revealed to her that Murt is only staying with his uncle for a little while and is actually going with his mother after the party. This broods in Eileen's mind as a bad idea, since that would mean there friendship might never reach it's prime again when she feels Murt could use it most now after just getting out of the hospital. While this does end up ruining the two character's build-up, it just goes to show that friendships are fantastic to have, but do require a certain amount of maintenance to continue to function. 

Harlem Renaissance Poem

If We Must Die 
If we must die, let it not be like hogs
Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,
While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,
Making their mock at our accursèd lot.
If we must die, O let us nobly die,
So that our precious blood may not be shed
In vain; then even the monsters we defy
Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!
O kinsmen! we must meet the common foe!
Though far outnumbered let us show us brave,
And for their thousand blows deal one death-blow!
What though before us lies the open grave?
Like men we'll face the murderous, cowardly pack,
Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back! 
-Claude McKay

This poem's focus, unlike most others, is actually very straight-forward considering the time period within which it was written. The Harlem Renaissance was an artistic period in America that saw the rise of African-American authors and painters into the common view of American culture. With this newfound attention, the question of civil rights became an even more prominent issue in the country. This poem is a product of the rise in popularity of this issue. The poem calls for African Americans to rise up against the anti-black sentiment in America and stand for the civil liberties they are entitled to in the country as members of the human race. The poem also states how ,when they die, they would rather have died fighting for their cause of liberty rather than in contempt of their current situation as a shunned minority, and that even when the odds are insurmountably against them they will continue to fight for their noble rights to basic human rights. However, it is interesting how Claude McKay depicts African Americans in America as hogs because of the parallels between a hog and slave's life. Both lived in constant filth, were bought and sold by landowners, and were sometimes even slaughtered or mutilated to prevent others from attempting to escape. With slaves all being free by the time of this poem, McKay is basically calling for other African Americans to use their newfound abilities as free men who are not beaten, mutilated, and treated like filth to end what remains of segregation and their undesirablility.     

New Yorker Poem

War and Peace

Chana Bloch

I made a big wish on the evening star,
Venus, or was it Mars,
but it was a low-flying plane
headed east.

I saw the little foxes on the hillside
with their pointy red ears;
up close, a fallen branch of autumn.

When the guide clapped his hands,
the brilliant apples on the tree got frightened
and flew away.

The marriage I called Gibraltar
went down like a ship
scraping the rocky strait.

I thought the war would bring peace.
The road signs all said
This Way to the Future, so we ran out
with flag and shovel, elated, planting—

This poem is very attention-grabbing. This is not just because the title is equivalent to that of an exasperatingly long novel. The reason this poem grabs attention is because it is an exact representation of how some things are not always as they seem and how this can lead to unforeseen consequences. This is first revealed when the author makes a few simple first-sight mistakes such as thinking a plane was a star and a branch with red and orange leaves was actually a group of foxes. Then we reach a section where a guide claps his hands and the apples the author sees on the tree near them fly away. This is clearly another sight error, as apples can't fly, but there's something that separates this event from the other two. Birds are sometimes used as symbols of peace in nature (doves, for instance) and with a title like War and Peace, it only seems fitting that this event resembles a foreshadowing of events to follow involving the human race as a whole. The poem then goes on to describe how a marriage, called Gibraltar, had ended. While not being related to sight, this passage still continues to follow the same pattern as the other lines in that the marriage would be supposedly called Gibraltar for the region's beauty. However, the name ends up being applied after the marriage ends prematurely due to the notoriously rocky strait (which was clearly not the original intention of the name). The poem then ends on a cliffhanger who's conclusion can be accurately inferred based on this pattern of the unwanted being unexpected and occurring and with the previous phrase 'I thought the war would bring peace'. The inferred ending is that, while everyone thought claiming land would allow the human race to grow into the future, it only ended up causing halts to beneficial technological progress because of the wars over specific areas of land. This wraps up the poem quite nicely and brings the whole point of the poem into the big picture of the entire human race.   

Romantic Period Poem

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud 

BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

I wandered lonely as a cloud 

That floats on high o'er vales and hills, 

When all at once I saw a crowd, 

A host, of golden daffodils; 

Beside the lake, beneath the trees, 

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. 

Continuous as the stars that shine 

And twinkle on the milky way, 

They stretched in never-ending line 

Along the margin of a bay: 

Ten thousand saw I at a glance, 

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance. 

The waves beside them danced; but they 

Out-did the sparkling waves in glee: 

A poet could not but be gay, 

In such a jocund company: 

I gazed—and gazed—but little thought 

What wealth the show to me had brought: 

For oft, when on my couch I lie 

In vacant or in pensive mood, 

They flash upon that inward eye 

Which is the bliss of solitude; 

And then my heart with pleasure fills, 

And dances with the daffodils.

    This poem is a very exquisite piece of writing in that it is able to romanticize what is seemingly unromanticizable: loneliness, the seeming exact opposite of romance. When one begins reading, they are immediately introduced to a whole new perspective on the subject of solitude and loneliness in life. The author describes how while he is alone he is not truly alone. He goes on to explain how this is possible by describe how he sees a crowd fluttering and dancing near him ,however the organisms in the crowd are not humans like most would suspect, but are instead daffodils in the breeze. After describing the daffodils more clearly and vividly the author further describes his surroundings on the bay and how, as a poet, he is in such jocund company with the daffodils and waves and even the stars in the sky. By the end, the author shows the reader that the place was, in fact, not real (or at least not the current surroundings of the author) but instead in the author's imagination, his 'happy place' if you will. The author, throughout the poem, continues to romanticize the solitude he feels by revealing to the reader that, while he is alone and without a companion, he is happy and longs to be in that state ,no matter whether literally or mentally.

The Future: Hopeful or Hopeless?

I recently saw an article that talked about how our new president has been “gaslighting” America into believing what he wants us to believe. The phrase was taken from a movie where a lady by the name of Bella is being terrorized by a man named Jack who keeps blaming her for misplacing household items while he hides them himself and the only reason she doesn’t lose her mind is because she can see Jack hide the items in the light of a gas lamp. The article then goes on to talk about how Trump is doing the exact same thing. He claims news he doesn’t agree with is fake news, he constantly tweets outrageous things on twitter and posts on social media in general, and in every interview he spreads his misinformation through coercion. The main way he has done this is through putting into question what we see as the truth constantly enough that we have begun to put it into question in our own minds and, thus, are being gaslighted since we are questioning our own reality through this spread of misinformation. The article then goes on to say there’s hope as long as we don’t lose our heads and start believing everything we hear from him, but is there really? I mean, with political partisanship for the republicans followed by the easily persuaded of America spreading this misinformation, is there really hope for reclaiming our reality without the politics of the Trump administration stopping anyone who tries at every turn? I know I would never just agree with everything someone says just because of a title, but how many people become followers of anyone and just go with the crowd and don’t bother to question anything? Is there really hope as long as people remain gullible and docile about what is done in the Federal Government? Absolutely not. People need to open their eyes and see just how biased and baseless the current president is with most of his policies and actions that he doesn't even consider the repercussions for whenever he so much as moves.

Recent News

Obviously, there have been several news stories posted today with presidential controversy, foreign relations, etc.  However, one that struck me with special interest was a story about the reaction of the Ohio State football team to their rejection from the college national championship playoffs. The article starts by presenting senior linebacker Chris Worley, trying to keep calm after the fact of OSU not being selected for the playoffs. He's trying to listen to music, despite his phone blowing up and his parents ranting to him about how they should've selected his team. Instead of getting mad with them, however, Worley attempts to calm them all down by just telling them to relax and that his team was in a good position and was going to face a good team in the cotton bowl game. What Worley said next to a reporter was what really gained my interest:

"So the biggest thing, situations like this, a lot of people, they harp on the negatives, but they don't realize the blessings that God has put in front of them. I was trying to get him to realize that he's blessed, his son is blessed to be in this position. And whatever comes out the other side of it, the only thing we can do is fight."

That's what got my attention, his use of personal perseverance on others. Just by telling his friends and family that he was fine with his current conditions and giving a specific reason for them caused everyone to calm down with him. This then rubbed off on Worley's coach, Urban Meyer, who knew that his team was capable and could have made a great contender for the championship. As Urban was talking to the press about how he knew this was true, Worley was in the back. This caused Meyer to focus on not this little decision, but the big picture which allowed him to show the press his calm side on the subject and that the team was still a great team regardless of what a boardroom had to say. This spoke volumes to me, and showed me that even in the hardest of time there is still the ability to push through it.

Afterwards....

As the dust clears, you see what is left of your 'companion'. She's lost the mouth to talk you down with, the eyes to glare at you with, the thoughts to haunt you with, and the hand to stab you in the back. Her body is left in such a way that resembles what she truly is: a snake. It then gets up and slithers away, no doubt to find another all-too trusting friend to slowly murder. You look as the sword, made up of all your combined hatred, malice, and rage for the betrayer, finally break to pieces and disappear within the ground. Your wounds then start to finally heal, and you feel relief from their constant and agonizing pain. You finally feel free of the endless burden of everything that was hidden from you, yet affecting you from the beginning. When all the dust completely settles, you realize who's looking at you. It's your true friends, the ones who have not hurt you. The ones who would stand by your side in times of strife. The ones who care about you not for the benefits they get from you, but because they know how they can help you as you have tried to help them. They know you for your character, not your benefits.

However, the stress of this whole situation has tested the entire fabric of the bonds between both you and your friends. Your trust has been tested, and they can tell, for every fight has casualties. Some rush to your aid and help you on your feet again right away while others seem to linger and dawdle around the subject of what just happened. You can feel the dawdlers judging you, trying to determine if you were justified or completely unwarranted. Many know you were correct,that she was a cancerous cell to you and others, but some still waver at the idea of you actually showing your violent emotions like that toward someone you considered for a long time to be a friend. You notice a new crack in your shield where there wasn't one before, as well as several new dents. For your shield is your personal mental, physical, and emotional stability, and everyone falters when left alone.