Post #6 "Easter 1916"

4th Stanza:

Too long a sacrifice
Can make a stone of the heart.
O when may it suffice?---------(Suffice: be enough)
That is Heaven's part, our part     (God's job to stop the fighting)
To murmur name upon name,
As a mother names her child
When sleep at last has come  (Sleep another way of saying death)
On limbs that had run wild     (That once was alive)
What is it but nightfall?
No, no, not night but death;
Was it a needless death after all?
For England may keep faith
For all that is done and said.
We know their dream; enough
To know they dreamed and are dead;
And what if excess of love             (love for Ireland)       
Bewildered them till they died?    
I write it out in a verse-
MacDonagh and MacBride
And Conolly and Pearse
Now and in time to be,    
Wherever green is worn,    (Color for Ireland)
Are changed, changed utterly:     (Lines are once again repeated from stanza 1 and 2)
A terrible beauty is born.

• Words with same highlights rhyme
• Certain people stated as referred to from stanza 2
• Places
• Underlined means the word is repeated

This last stanza of the poem "Easter 1916", William Butler Yeats is basically trying to say, is everything worth the outcome to make today today? When will all the deaths be enough, now that the people that once were living are dead. Forever they will be dead. The last two lines have been repeated throughout the poem and I think that the "terrible beauty" is the people who started everything, the revolutionaries. And "changed utterly" refers to Ireland never being the same again.  

Post #5 The Piano Lesson

     I believe that "the piano lesson" is about facing your fears, moving on, and letting go of what's holding you back. August Wilson chose The Piano Lesson as a title because the majority of the novel revolved around the piano. Boy Willie comes to understand the importance of the piano when Berniece plays on it and Sutter's ghost disappears. It is significant that Berniece call out the names of her family members because it's as if she is giving them permission to go to the after life. It serves to show that Berniece has accepted the fact of the past and is moving on.

Post #4 Downward Path of Upward Mobility

1. Fareed Zakaria thinks that social mobility is going down in the United States because evidence shows how  it has stalled in our country. The US welfare spends very little on the poor, in the past moving up in America was more probable than moving up in society today. I agree with Zakaria, when you're born into poverty, the chances of you moving up in status is not as high compared to other places in the world. America isn't what it used to be.

2. The biggest factor for getting the US back on track with the American Dream and social mobility is income inequality. Tax increases on the rich will do little to change the basic trend. This is making it hard for the US to have social mobility because it's more difficult to earn as much money as a rich person.

Post #3 Piano Lesson Act 1

1. The ghosts of the Yellow Dog are the spirits in limbo. They are the spirits of the people that have already passed away, people like Crawley.

2. So far the "n word" has been used in a casual tone by Boy Willie with those that he knows.

3. The Irene Kauffman Settlement House is place that helps the less fortunate.

4. Parchman Farm is a historical reference to a prison.

Post #2: The Beast

PASSAGE 9 (page 143-144)

"You are a silly little boy," said the Lord of the Flies, "just an ignorant, silly little boy."

     Simon moved his swollen tongue but said nothing.

     "Don't you agree?" said the Lord of the Flies. "Aren't you just a silly little boy?"

     Simon answered him in the same silent voice.

     "Well then," said the Lord of the Flies, "you'd better run off and play with the others. They think you're batty. You don't want Ralph to think you're batty, do you? You like Ralph a lot, don't you? And Piggy, and Jack?"

     Simon's head was tilted up. His eyes could not break away and the Lord of the Flies hung in the space before him.

     "What are you doing out here all alone? Aren't you afraid of me?"

     Simon shook.

     "There isn't anyone to help you. Only me. And I'm the Beast."

     Simon's mouth labored, brought forth audible word.

     "Pig's head on a stick."

     "Fancy thinking the Beast was something you could hunt and kill!" said the head. For a moment or two the forest and all the other dimly appreciated places echoed with the parody of laughter. "You knew, didn't you? I'm part of you? Close, close, close! I'm the reason why it's no go? Why things are what they are?"

     The laughter shivered again.

     "Come now, " said the Lord of the Flies. "Get back to the others and we'll forget the whole thing."

     Simon's head wobbled. His eyes were half closed as thought he were imitating the obscene thing on the stick. He knew that one of his times was coming on. The Lord of the Flies was expanding like a balloon.

     "This is ridiculous. You know perfectly well you'll only meet me down there--so don't try to escape!"

     Simon's body was arched and stiff. The Lord of the Flies spoke in a voice of a schoolmaster.

     "This has gone on quite far enough. My poor misguided child, do you think you know better than I do?"

     There was a pause.

     "I'm warning you. I'm going to get angry. D'you see? You're not wanted. Understand? We are going to have fun on this island. Understand? We are going to have fun on the island! So don't try it on, my poor misguided boy, or else--"

     Simon found he was looking into a vast mouth. There was a blackness within, a blackness that spread.

     "--Or else," said the Lord of the Flies, "we shall do you? See? Jack and Roger and Maurice and Robert and Bill and Piggy and Ralph. Do you. See?

     Simon was inside the mouth. He fell down and lost consciousness. 

S = Alliteration:

W = Alliteration:

M = Alliteration:

Lord of the Flies = Repeatedly Used

silly little boy = Repeatedly Used

                      = Words Given As If Parent-->Child (Lecturing)

                      = Foreshadowing
? = Continuous Questions 

Simon is the first character to realize that the beast is not something the boys can hunt or kill, but something in themselves. Not only that but he is the first one to die as well. He rarely shares his thoughts and when he does, his thoughts are cast away. William Golding gives Simon a gentle and quiet personality, different from the others. Similar to Piggy, Simon is almost like an "outcast" from the group of boys. In this passage, Golding shows Simon talking to the beast (himself). His diction gives off a feel of a parent lecturing a child or a teacher scolding a student. It foreshadows what is going to happen to Simon later in the novel. Simon talking to the beast, which is himself, shows that the beast is not something physical. Towards the end of Lord of the Flies, Simon is murdered by the group of the boys. Simon may have died being the only one aware of what the beast actually was, a monster inside themselves.

Post #1: The Conch

"He could see a whiteness in the gloom near him so he grabbed it from Maurice and blew as loudly as he could. The assembly was shocked into silence."

     In William Golding's Lord of the Flies, the conch represents a sense of order and authority. Toward the start of the novel, the conch could keep the boys in line but as we slowly move toward the end, the conch's power begins to disintegrate.  "In a moment the platform was full of arguing, gesticulating shadows. To Ralph, seated, this seemed the breaking up of sanity." (p.88)  With the loss of order and structure, the boys become uncivilized. Therefore, leading to the chaos throughout the book. 

     Passage five shows the savage assembly disturbed at the idea of a beast on the island. At this point, Simon realizes something important. That there may be a beast, just not one they could physically see. "What I mean is...maybe it's only us" (p.89) Simon becomes aware that the boys have nothing to fear except themselves. "Mankind's essential illness", the evil inside each and every one of them.

     The theme is that without laws and rules, our world would be full of constant chaos and confusion. That is why in the Lord of the Flies, the conch plays a vital role to keep the peace. Throughout the novel, Golding brings in the conch to give authority to whoever carries it. It is a symbol of order, structure, and authority. That is why the conch is important in many aspects of the book.