Atwood's Handmaids Tale

A bibliography of Margaret Atwood

Margaret Atwood’s, Handmaids Tale, is a very interesting piece of literature. It explores an idea in the world that I have never thought about before. I have heard of totalitarian governments before, but this one really adds a sense of reality. It is probably Atwood’s writing which is very descriptive and enjoyable to read. I think what confuses me most about this text, is just how an entire population of citizens can just be brain washed like that. What factors have to come in to play to create a population of people who believe and follow in these ways? Everyone now follows the rules put forth, and nobody dares go against them. Maybe fear is a factor. I think that a topic involving the Nazi dictatorship will help me to understand this story. I can use the Nazi society to help show how the society in which Atwood created was formed.  Aspects such as brainwashing in a dictatorship, Hitler Youth members, and propaganda can help to make me better understand this story. I believe that I can effectively write a paper on how a society like this can form. The examples from the Nazi society will help to provide evidence to the reality of this society. I really choose this topic because the Nazi society has always been interesting. I just keep wondering how a society can be so stuck in a certain way. I imagine our society, and every member has a diverse and different opinion on everything. How can members of society, who have these different stances on every topic, form into a single cult like group, stuck in one way? It is just very interesting how a society can be brainwashed, and the forces that are working to do so.

Image found at: http://scooterchronicles.com/2008/08/11/the-handmaids-tale-by-margaret-atwood/

Tim Hunt

Dear Ms. Cline:

It is has been an exceptional experience participating in your class for this first half of the semester. Some of the topics we have been given were difficult for me to write about, but I always kept working, with positive results. I look forward to the next half of the class, and I know that I will succeed in writing work I am truly proud of.

My biggest challenge so far in the class has been finding time to work on the class work. It seems that I am always turning my work in right at the deadline. Finding time is difficult because of my busy work and school schedule; I am constantly doing something. After subtracting the forty hours a week for work and the time it takes for fifteen credit hours, time is scarce.  The reading in the class has affected me in different ways. I believe that the poetry of witness poems I read impacted me the most. I really enjoyed reading of the emotional aspects. Some were pretty gruesome, like “Song of Napalm,” which described a person being engulfed in flame. Even, “The Colonel,” which described a dictator who kept human ears, helped to give me a very horrified and emotional feeling. I enjoyed these poems, but I think I enjoy the more upbeat and positive poems more. Reading the short stories, by Huze and O’Brien, really helped me imagine what difficult times our country has been through. The two wars that they outline really explain how people felt about war and how our society has grown to accept it. The stories show the two sides, the one where the young men want to fight, and the part where the young men who don’t want to. These stories impacted my views of the Vietnam and Desert Storm wars.

Literary Analysis is probably one of the most difficult aspects of English that I have faced. I like to read different pieces of work, but I can safely say that analyzing them is not my strong point. It took me some time to figure out the difference between summarizing a work and truly analyzing it. I think this class has really helped me to learn how to detect the hidden meanings in writing. I can tell that analyzing literature is a very useful tool and something that I can use in all aspects of life. For the second half of the semester, my goal is to just continue to do the best work that I can. That means I have to make enough time for myself so that I can take my time and write work that shows my skill. Finding the time will be difficult, but I need to in order to accomplish my goal.

So far, this semester is going by really fast. It seems like only a few weeks ago I was making a video to introduce myself. I’m sure the second half of the semester will go just as fast, and I look forward to all the hard work ahead.

Sincerely,

Tim Hunt

Sean Huze Sandstorm

A little about Iraq and The Sandstorm 

My initial reaction to this work was of disbelief. This feeling occurred when the landscape, and environment were described. The environment included dead bodies littering the ground. I feel like this because I believe that no people should have to suffer through an ordeal like this one. It is life changing; society never looks the same after being surrounded by dead civilians. I was surprised at how young these Marines were. The youngest was 18 and the leader was only 24. They lost their best friends while fighting in Iraq. They were so young to be in a place that could in fact end their lives. I scared me when in the play, one of the Marines said that he experienced indescribable joy when no Marines were killed, and hundreds of enemy killed. What scared me more was when a Marine was taking pictures of the dead bodies. That seems overly brutal and something that should not happen even at war. There is no respect for the dead. I understand why the Marine would rather see enemies killed. It is a war and war is about killing enemies. But the fact of the indescribably joy, that’s the scary part. Another area of concern for me was when the doc said he would not help a single enemy. I understand that they are the enemy, but they are still human and they are still hurt. There is a difference between fighting a war, and just being brutal and immoral. These Marines lost their friends in the war. They also could have been killed anytime, like when mail finally arrived and they were reading letters and the artillery rounds began exploding. They were just trying to go home, and return to their sense of security for a second. The war would not let them. They were in a place that was trying to kill them, by enemies, heat, lack of water and sleep. This play was a very interesting and sad piece of literary work to read. I enjoyed it in the fact that I learned more about the war, but it was sad in the fact of how humans treated each other. Brutality seemed to control every aspect. But I am glad there were men brave enough to take part. 

Image found at: http://www.seanhuze.com/_/rsrc/1282226545090/stageplays/the-sand-storm/sandstorm_cafeBig2%20copy.jpg?height=400&width=262

The Things They Carried

Here is a biography of Tim O'Brien. 

In Tim O’Brien’s, The Things They Carried, the chapter titled, “On the Rainy River,” seemed to relate to me the most. He tells of how he was drafted into a war that he obviously did not want to partake in. He has a hard time deciding what to do, but really I believe that there were no choices. His country needed him, and that you cannot run from. He does try and run though. He spends around a week at a lodge near Canada, and has the choice of leaving, but doesn’t take it. He decides on the war that picked him. I believe this chapter relates to me the most because I was one of the kids that picked the military right after school. I was not drafted or anything, so I do not know what being forced to go feels like, but I do know what leaving feels like, especially when the country is at war. My stomach was in knots for the weeks leading up to leaving. Yes, I made the decision to leave, but a decision was one thing, and doing was another. I had moments all the time that I would just ask myself what I was doing. I was leaving the girl, the job and life that I love. However, I never regretted it for a moment, any of it. It sounds like a cold hearted thing to say, but I wanted to serve my country and that was the decision I made. When I read this story, I feel like I know exactly what the character is going through. Leaving into a future of uncertainty is by far the scariest event you can experience. The whole new way of life is frightening. You do it for the adventure and the potential glory. Mostly, you do it so people do not call you a coward. Reputation is a lot, you can dodge bullets and bombs, but you can’t run from a bad reputation. It’s the social consequences that really decide. 

Image found at: http://img1.fantasticfiction.co.uk/images/c2/c14566.jpg

Poems

I found a biography on Bruce Weigl!

I choose to read the poems, “Song of Napalm,” and also, “The Colonel,” because by the titles, they sounded like they could be interesting to me. These poems were interesting, in a disgusting and horrifying way. Both of the poems include the idea of death, where the characters in the poem can do nothing about it. In the poem by Bruce Weigl, “Song of Napalm,” he says, “And the girl runs only as far/ As the napalm allows/ Until her burning tendons and crackling/ Muscles draw her up/ into that final position.” (Lines 36-40) This paints a horrifying picture in my mind. I imagine being the person in the poem and watching this girl running, engulfed in the sticky flame of napalm, and not being able to do anything helpful for her. She hits the ground still aflame, her body crackling and curling into her resting position, but we cannot go back to witness this. We can only relive her pain through this poem, and think of how lucky we were that it was not us.  In the poem, “The Colonel,” by Carolyn Forche, she writes, “The colonel returned with a sack used to / bring groceries home. He spilled many human ears on/ the table. They were like dried peach halves.” (Lines 21-23) This creates a very real and very disgusting image in my mind. I can see these little halves curled and dried, just like a peach, falling out of the bag onto a table.  The look on the characters face must be horrified. What kind of person would keep a bag full of human ears? It must be a scare factor. The colonel could be a dictator, ruling a country with an iron fist, scaring off his enemies with his cut off ears. I know I wouldn’t want to mess with someone who had a bag full of ears, and has probably killed the people who they belong to. Both of these poems painted a very descriptive and ugly image in my mind, which made me react strongly. I focused in on the lines that I thought painted the picture the best.

Image found: http://www.richsincrediblepyro.com/effects.html

Weigl, Bruce. “Song of Napalm.” Poetry Foundation. 1999.  7 February, 2011. Web. <http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/print.html?id=171470/>.

Forche, Carolyn. “The Colonel.” American Poems. 1978. 7 February, 2011. Web. <http://www.americanpoems.com/poets/Carolyn-Forche/3469/>.

Sam Hamill

I found an Autobiography on Sam Hamill. 

The Necessity to Speak, by Sam Hamill, is one of the most powerful, true essays I have ever read. The ideas that are presented are so true that it is almost scary. How often I see things that I do not want to see. I have seen little kids with huge bruises on their faces, standing in line at the store, their parents needing to buy that bottle of liquor, so late at night. I have also seen kids get screamed at in line at the grocery store, the parents not caring who was around to listen. Everybody who did hear said nothing, including me. We were embarrassed to say anything. Embarrassed that someone would act in such a manor, embarrassed to even be there, but probably most of all, embarrassed for the child suffering. These parents often threatened their children with spankings when they get back to the car. This brings up Hamill’s idea of spankings. He believes if you are going to spank you child with a belt, why not a stick. If you use a stick, why not use a bat.  Parents believe in an acceptable amount of violence, why else would they spank their children? I believe that is not a good message to send the children. When they get older and have their own kids, maybe their acceptable violence limit would go up.  With that, then we have child abuse, but the parents would find solace in the fact that their parents did it to them when they were young, so it must be alright. Where is the acceptable limit? I believe there is no acceptable limit of violence. That theory went out the window long ago. These days with super weapons that are 180,000 times as powerful as they were in 1945, violence on every channel on TV, and military recruiters in our schools, there is no escaping violence. It has been molded into our way of life. So what does that say about the child and the abusive parent, the victim and the executioner, Hamill and I agree on this, we must save them, but how? 

Image from: http://www.betterparentinginstitute.com/Better-Parenting/parenting-child-raising-skills/use-the-rod%E2%80%A6spoil-the-child-the-spanking-controversy/

Good Readers and Good Writers

Our author, Nabokov, believes that the characteristics for a good reader are that they fondle ideas, and also maintain an artistic and scientific mindset. Nabokov believes that there is nothing wrong with forming an opinion after reading, but it is unfair to do so before finishing the reading. A good reader must also maintain the passion of an artist and the patience of a scientist. I do agree with these thoughts; however I would like to elaborate on the passion of the artist. I believe that interest creates passion. To be a good reader you have to find the material interesting enough that it holds your focus and concentration. A good reader should be able to find some sort of interest in every piece they choose to read. In my opinion, it’s this interest and love of a particular subject that creates the passion necessary to fulfill the parameters set forth by Nabokov.  To be quite honest, I do not think of myself as a good reader. I form prejudices about characters long before I even get close to finishing a story. I’m impatient and lack that quality while reading. I will hurry through stories just because I do not want to be reading, and then kick myself for wanting to start a novel in the first place. By listening to Nabokov’s opinion and my own elaborating, maybe I will be able to change my ways, and become a more passionate and patient reader. 




This page I found interesting about writing a good story. :)