Parallelism between homosexuals and aliens

The Host by Stephanie Meyer makes a valid point when it comes to a major discussion in America: if a human and an alien can fall in love and it is accepted by their community, than why can’t gay couples be allowed to legally marry one another? It is a far fetch from directly portraying each other, but is the same theory: an unusual couple that does not meet up to society’s norms. This was obviously not Meyer’s point of creating the novel but the correlation still exists. In the book, Ian the human is made fun of by his cave community and even made into an outcast just because he is obviously falling in love with Wanda, the alien stuck in a human’s body. The human body makes no difference to Ian or the community, because they all consciously know that Wanda is purely a soul who took over the girl’s body. This is why their love could be considered forbidden. Yet, the community has never encountered this type of situation before which may be why they don’t whole-heartedly accept the relationship. Is this why America cannot allow gay marriage to be legal, because of their fear of the unknown? Or is it because they are purely mean, such as Ian’s brother, Kyle? (Hence, why Kyle tries to kill Wanda multiple times.) Yet, in the end of the book, Kyle also falls in love with an alien and finally accepts Wanda and Ian’s relationship. Maybe this is what America needs to do to: experience falling head over heels with their own sex than be tortured by their society, their family, and their friends. I wonder how they would feel then. Probably like loners, depressed, furious with America, and a variety of other emotions. Exactly the way Wanda and Ian felt when their relationship was exposed to the rest of the members of their community. This is why America should legalize gay marriage instead of downgrading the people who mean no harm. And The Host’s love story is just one step closer to doing just that. 

Yay for Elderly Ladies

Within the book Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl, the main character Ethan has a mentor who guides him throughout his troubling life. This character is very similar to the Alex Cross series by James Patterson. Both of these characters are elderly ladies who have been with the family for an infinite amount of time. Amma, from the Beautiful Creatures series, is not even related to Ethan, she is simply just the housekeeper. Nana Mama is at least Alex Cross’ grandmother who acts as the housekeeper. Both of these mentors have the same duties: take care of the children, cook the meals, and try to clean up the house. But their most important job is giving the main protagonist(s) advice, that may or may not be taken seriously.  If it wasn’t for their stubborn beliefs and their want of stating their opinions, the main characters may have veered off in a different direction. For example, in Beautiful Creatures, Amma scolds Ethan for not having listened to her earlier when warning him to stay away from the new girl, who is apparently a witch. Obviously Ethan did not follow Amma’s directions because he is a hormonal teenager who would subconsciously want to be with the new girl more since it is forbidden. If Ethan did follow Amma’s advice though, there may have never been a plot and the new girl would have turned toward the “dark” witches. So even though Amma is not a major character within the story, her impact has indirect costs within the storyline. This is the same situation with Nana Mama except Alex Cross actually obeys his grandmother’s counseling. Since the Alex Cross series has at least twelve books, it is hard to provide an exact example of the impact of Nana Mama’s advice but she appears in every single dilemma, encouraging Alex Cross to do the right thing. It usually has to do with a situation between Alex Cross’ children or at his detective job for the Washington D.C. police/FBI. The point is that both of these New York Best-Sellers books have minor elderly characters whose advice has a major impact on the protagonists and the solution to the complication.  

Going for the Gold

So while I was in Germany this past quarter of school, I finally read Divergent by Veronica Roth. The main character Tris, has to undergo a serious initiation process to get into her societal faction: the Dauntless. This process testes a person's endurance, their physical aptitude, and their psychological strength. Throughout the entire book, I soaked up every detail. Not because it was so good (it actually was a good read) but because it reminded me exactly of the military. The thing is that I decided to join the United States Air Force around the same time. So I used this remarkable book as a sneak-peek of how this upcoming summer will be for me during boot camp. For example, toward the beginning of the book, Tris’ initiation friend Christina, was forced to hold onto the side of the railing for two terrifying minutes while an enormous waterfall was stumbling on top of her. Can you imagine the fear? Or the mustered strength that Christina had to face? Physically and psychologically, Christina told herself to hold on tight otherwise her life would come to a tragic end. Another event in the book includes Tris’ very first test to be a Dauntless: jumping off the roof to who knows where. Tris purposely volunteered to be the first initiate to prove her worth. After gathering up her nerves and racing to leap off of that skyscraper building, Tris was deemed as the most courageous of that group.  I need to be labeled that way too because Tris and I are both such tiny people compared to most of the troops. This is how it is going to be for me for a long six weeks: torture of my muscles and of my mental state; late nights and early mornings of instructors screaming in my face for no good reason; pointless workouts that are structured to make me quit. Who would want that? Apparently Tris, Christina, the other initiations, and I all do. The fact is at the end of the day, when there is finally a moment of peace, you realize how much stronger you are and you’re just proud of yourself. You do it; you’re still in the running to be a soldier for something that you believe in. It’s only a few weeks of strenuous endurance and then it is all over for a lifetime. Tris and I both must experience something difficult before we are able to obtain the grand treat. And the best feeling in the world is acknowledging the fact that you worked hard to earn your precious spot. Either in the Dauntless faction or in the USAF. 

Oh Hugh, How You Make my Heart Swoon

Frankly, the title has nothing to do with the idea of this blog post. I just prefer the Hugh Selwyn Mauberly poem by Ezra Pound more than the Cantos. Because honestly, who wants to write about a load of inconsistent ideals? Definitely not a high school senior. So I went with Hugh. I really do not learn anything about this Hugh but the quantity of poetic devices is magnificent and correlates greatly with Ezra Pound's life. For example, allusions are given great emphasize on by Pound. In Hugh part I, Circe is mentioned. In case you did not know, Circe was a minor goddess of magic who murdered her husband and was placed on the island of Aeaea as punishment. So in part I of Hugh, the male character "observed the elegance of Circes' hair rather than the mottoes on sun-dials". This is relevant because it describes how the main character has a sick imagination. Circe is usually taken in a bad light by most of society and the fact that the character would rather gaze at her hair than sun-dials is important. The character obviously does not care what society thinks and sticks to his own way of dealing with life, therefore somehow loving a girl who looks like Circe. This parallels with Pound's life because let me tell you, he most definitely was an independent thinker compared to America/Europe. How many real acquaintances do you know that have been inducted into an insane asylum for the good part of a decade? Exactly. The character in Hugh needs to be sent to an insane asylum too. Another common aspect of Pound's writing was inserting random European language into his primarily English poems. Yet, the additions are not as random as they appear to be. In Part I of Hugh, the third line states "E.P. Ode pour l'election de son sepulchre" meaning "Ezra Pound: Ode for the Choice of his Sepulcher". This translation of the French language adds emphasize to the fact that the poem is written in third person and Pound describes his own hardships in the poem. Without this translation, the fact may have been casually overlooked by the reader and may have obtained the wrong idea about the purpose of this poem. Lastly, Pound usually always adds some type of parallelism to his poems. But for once, part 1 of Hugh does not. Instead it has the rare occurrence of an actual verse form. This is extremely abnormal for the typical Pound poem. The form is very simple: abab cdcd efef and so on. Personally, I think Pound put more effort into the structure of this poem compared to others because he was truly passionate about this particular hate rant toward America. He wanted to insert a more lyrical position of Hugh to maybe gain more readers or maybe add more emphasize on trying to traditional poems. Who knows? Either way, this poetic device may have contributed to the turning point in Pound's career, right before he ran away from England. Hugh definitely has much more biographical details about Pound's personal life which he transcends through his usual poetic devices of allusions, language translations, and typically parallelism but in this case, a real verse form. You go Glen Coco!

Erratic Tone

The erratic tone within the poem A Song of the Degrees matches the author's crazy mind perfectly. The poem is broken into three separate roman numeral sections. Once a different passage starts, the tone grows abstract instead of a crescendo into something spectacular. The first section simply states the fearful problem: "Rest we with Chinese colours, for I think the glass is evil." But then the second section arises into the speaker acting as if they've already known all about this evil, stating that they have seen it for themselves on multiple occasions. During the third section, the speaker suddenly explodes into a fury and persistently asking the glass why it's so evil. The tone changes from neutral to a smart aleck way of dealing with conflicts into an emotional, questioning frenzy. Also, in case one hasn't noticed, the "fearful problem" is simply a glass looking evil. Please tell me why it scares the speaker so much? Given the inconsistent tone and the abnormal subject, I can infer the conclusion that the speaker is certifiably insane. The tone usually reflects the author's mood so the author is obviously in a state of turmoil and anxiety. Of course, this cuckoo author would nevertheless be the extremely famous Ezra Pound. Personally, he must have written this poem in the midst of his mental breakdown when he gave up on preaching to America how perfect they could be post-WWII. Or I'm all wrong and tone is only a minor detail compared to what Pound really wants to master: the Imagist movement. More than likely, this is the correct answer. The tone in the second passage is created by the words "melting", "stone-bright", "silver crashing", etc. These words are more informative, giving the intellectual voice to the poem. The tone in the third passage is made by the parallel questions starting with why, having extremely short phrases, and ending with exclamation points. Obviously, the tone is a sign of distress. The passage also consists of the description words such as "light", "glitter", "powdery gold", and "amber". If writing a poem with an irregular tone was part of the Imagist movement that Pound strives for, I personally think he succeeded. (Even though, I personally find him simply crazy.)

Allusions at The Lake Isle

After reading The Lake Isle by Ezra Pound, it is obvious that the poetic device of allusion plays an important role in the poem. From the very first line, the speaker is pleading with these Gods for a little tobacco shop: "O God, O Venus, O Mercury, patron of thieves". The tone is full of such hope and for longing, the reader instantly feels sympathetic toward the speaker. Personally, I felt pity for this man because of the act of him begging to these gods. If it was not for this act of desperation, I do not think it would as emotional and using the ethos way of persuasion. The gods themselves are deemed more powerful in society, making the speaker's pleading also seem more worthy of his calling the "great" gods. For example, Mercury was a major Roman god and the patron of financial gain, communication, and luck. These are the main three events that the speaker severely seeks. Financial gain will let the speaker's dream tobacco store become a reality and also obtain prosperity from the profits; communication is needed in order to even persuade the other gods to listen to his prayers; and of course, pure luck is always a necessity when aspiring for a hard goal such as securing a tobacco shop. Also, in the beginning of the second stanza in this short poem, the speaker repeats his original plea of : "O God, O Venus, O Mercury, patron of thieves" to address the main reason for even wanting a tobacco store so much. The reason is that the speaker passionately hates his job of writing that requires too much effort. Once again, the speaker frantically prays to these majestic gods for their dominant patrons and hope for answered wishes. Simply, the allusion of these three gods and the speaker craving for their help, dramatically add to the whole aspect of the poem. If not, it would simply be a poem with an image about a tobacco store and the random hate for a profession. The allusions puts the entire content and subject into a better explained perspective.

Pound's Views on America

Within the poem Salutation by Ezra Pound, I first thought the content was just the narrator's observation on society. But after learning more about Ezra Pound's absolutely crazy life, the poem definitely represents Pound's hostility toward America. When he did not know any better, Pound thought America had the potential to achieve perfection, especially when it comes to lyrical poems that consist of art. Yet, during post-WWII, Pound was declared insane. His reaction to America being cruel to Germany and Japan is reflected within Salutation. For example, the very first line consists of "O generation of the thoroughly smug and thoroughly uncomfortable," one can instantly see Pound is speaking to an audience that includes America and her undesirable qualities. Hence, the negative connotation of the words "smug" and "uncomfortable". Although, the people that habitat in America are ignorant of the corrupt engagements going on in their country: "I have seen their smiles full of teeth". Pound thinks society could care less which is why they still go on in life acting pleasant. But Pound knows the truth about America which is why he has the illusion that he is better than everybody else in this country, given the line "And I am happier than you are". Basically, Pound addresses the Americans who are full of fake laughter and Pound gains a persona of righteousness. This short poem concludes only a small part of the unhinging that is happening within Pound's disabled mind. Soon after, Pound is declared legally insane after broadcasting anti-American propaganda in some European countries. Obviously, Pound has an attachment to America's society as reflected in the Salutation poem. Given the title itself, Pound is making a farewell to America's morals and standards. Luckily for Pound's readers, this is only one of many, many, many poems that represent this author's wonderful and depressing feelings toward America.