I believe that out of the poems that were presented in class, Madonna of the Evening Flowers is the best poem. I feel that the theme of this work is very true and anyone can relate to it. No one can to you who or who not to love. Yes, they can give you their opinion on who you should or shouldn’t love but it is your decision and how you feel and you should always follow what your heart says and not what someone else tells you.
I believe that anyone can relate to this, not just me. I’m sure many times young teens have been told my their parents or other adults that “you don’t really ‘love’ him/her you just think you do. You are too young to know what real love is.” You cant tell someone that they don’t love someone. You have no idea what emotions those people feel for each other and i feel that society has no place to mess around with peoples emotions.
Another example is gay marriage. Our society is pretty much putting a lock on only “dating” if your gay. Gay people cant get married and take each others last name or say vowels to each other because of society. Its not right that we discriminate based on who people ‘love’ or have feelings for.
There are many diffrent symbols in this poem that point to love. The flowers symbolize an open heart and the rose symbolizes love which should be pretty ovious since roses are usually given to people that you love. I believe that the last few lines of the poem is this man saying that he wants to kneel down at her feet and ask her to marry him.
This poem is all about love and following your heart. I believe that this can be a very good message to send to young adults and actually any adult. I feel that this was the best poem and i feel that others outside of our high school would also agree with me.
In “The Wasteland” and “Howl” their theme is related because both authors talk about society falling apart. In “The Wasteland,” T.S Eliot says that we lack morals because society has stopped enforcing it and our society will end up falling apart. Ginsberg says in “Howl” that conformity is Moloch and since our society is Moloch we are subjecting out children to it. Our society is falling apart this time because its strangling itself. “If you don’t conform, you wont fit in.” So then whats culture without art? Society is forcing way too much morality.
I believe that “The Wasteland” is more pertinent to todays society. Eliot talks about how our society lacks morals and thats why society is falling apart. On MTV theres a show called “Teen Mom.” This show basically glorifies teen pregnancy. Hey your 16 and pregnant? okay well lets get you your own TV show! Makes no sense! We are suppose to be teaching our teenagers to not engage in premarital sex. This show is basically saying if your teen mom and you are having trouble supporting your baby then you can be on our show. They are also making it look like its okay that you get pregnant when you are 16. Thats a prime example of where our society lacks morals.
Whenever you turn on the TV you see how our society lacks morals. There use to be many many words that were not to be said on TV now there are basically two. The F word and taking the lords name in vein. Almost every TV show shows teens drinking, doing drugs, having sex with more then one person, and acting like they have no limit. Thats not how we should be portraying young teens. Its making it look like its okay for them to do that, when its really not. Our society has lost its morals.
The work that spoke to me the most was “The Wasteland” by T.S Eliot. It spoke to me the most because Eliot is basically saying that if we don’t start acting like we are suppose to and start having morals, our society is gonna crash and burn. And I totally believe that he is right. Every society before ours turned into a “wasteland” because they lack something. Now, our society lacks morals so we are heading down the path of turning into a “wasteland.” Yes, everyone has their own morals but our society should be helping in portraying the morals that everyone should have in common. They shouldn’t make it seem like every wrong thing that someone does will turn out good. Because it doesn’t always work out like that. And pretty soon its gonna be way too late to change society and then everyone is gonna be stuck in a “wasteland.”
In The Wasteland, each section has its own theme. The first section “The Burial Of The Dead” talks about corruption of religion by money. The church that is located in the financial district it London. He describes finance as religion. Eliot also talks about this unreal city, and makes reference to dantes inferno “Dis” which is the place of corruption and evil.
In section two “The Game of Chess,” this whole section is about sex. Eliot describes sex like a game of chess. He mentions Philomel who was changed into a nightingale by the gods. Her sister was married to king Tarais and Philomel went to visit her sister and the King wanted Philomel. He tried to convince her to be with him and she turned him down. He raped her and told her to keep her mouth shut and she told him that she was going to tell everyone in the town….so he cut her tongue out. The gods that were watching felt bad for her and turned her into a Nightingale so she could sing. Eliot uses different characters in this section to show how people manipulate other people into having sex with them. They know what moves to make (just like in chess) to get what they want and “win.”
“The Fire Sermon,” section three, is also about sex. But it is about having meaningless sex or sex without love. Buddha made a speech about wordly possessions and it was called the Fire Sermon. Lust is a big thing in this section. Anyone who has sex without love is just considered to be getting their exercise….which is true. When Eliot makes a reference to St. Augustine’s confessions he is saying how when he was younger he would sleep around and when he got older he noticed what he was doing was wrong and it comes back to haunt him everyday of his life. Even though he did confess to it, it still comes back to haunt him. 
Section 4 is called “Death By Water. ” Eliot makes reference to Phlebas who drowned. Hes saying that life is too short just to throw it away in a matter of seconds. This was a short and sweet section.
“What the thunder said” is the the fifth and final section. Eliot makes mention of how society is the captian of the ship. The Unreal city is once again mentioned in this section. We see what could be a wasteland that is made up of simply trees and rocks and no water.
So….now that we have each section figured out, lets put it all together. Society is full of cracks and misleading thoughts. We are all traveling down an endless road to a ‘wasteland’ when we follow society. Everyone has their own desires and will do whatever they have to do to get what they want. When Eliot wrote this is the twentys, it was a time when flappers were everywhere, people openly had more then one sexual partner, and risque dancing became a part of everyday life. Eliot was saying that when you put everything together, it is all a wasteland of nothing but peoples wants and desires.
The elements in this poem are still applicable today. Everyone is having sex. Married and unmarried men and woman flock to strip clubs just to get a peak at some half naked and naked men and woman. STDS and unplanned pregnancies are on the rise more then ever before. Our society has turned into a bunch of ignorant people who just dont care anymore. And one day our world is going to turn into our very own ‘wasteland.’
“The Fire Sermon” is in reference to Buddhas speech about giving up our worldly possessions to live a pure life. The last few lines in this section “burning burning burning burning,” link back to the title of this section. Instead of him talking about his relationship he is now talking about relationships that are not like his. Two characters in this section are having an affair. We can tell this because he says how the woman lays her undergarments out to dry, which practically means your having an affair. The man then says “well now thats done: and im glad its over.” Everything that Elliot is saying in this section is making reference to this waste land.
In “Bartleby the Scrivener” and “Richard Cory”, the idea of society having a large affect on people and their life is dominant in both stories. Bartleby is a very isolated and boring person while Richard Cory has everything and anything he could ever want and craves the attention of his peers. Although these two characters do not have the same personalities, the idea of society having a large role in their life is the same.
Bartleby removes himself from society because he craves the sense of individuality. He always “prefers not to” do things that the people in the office ask him to do. He always just stares out of his window, which faces a brick wall not even the outside wall. Later in the story we find out that Bartleby had previously worked at a post office known as the “the dead letter office” sorting through mail that couldn’t be delivered. This job is most likely what caused Bartleby to be the way he is. Even when Bartleby is arrested and put into jail he “prefers not to” do anything or even eat. When the narrator comes to visit him, Bartleby wont even open up to him and try to make a friend. He obviously just wants be a lonely guy.
Richard Cory is the complete opposite of Bartleby. The people around him look up to him. He is richer then a king which is why admire him and look up to him. He made people wish they were him. He loved the attention that people gave him and pretty much craved it. The biggest question in this poem is, why did he commit sucide? The best guess to why he did is he cracked under the large amount of attention that he was receiving and pressure from society to keep that high standard that he shows off to people.
After reading and analyzing both of these works it was easy to conclude that this is probably one of the most obvious thematic links to “Bartleby the Scrivener” and “Richard Cory.” Even though the two main characters in these works are not the same in personalty, the society around them has a large affect on them. Bartleby keeps to himself and starves and dies in jail without anyone really knowing anything about him and Richard commits suicide under the pressure of the society around him. That is how these works are linked together.
After reading some of Emily Dickinson’s poems, I realized that her poem 405 relates to “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” Their themes are almost identical. Both of the narrators in this story are speaking about their want for a lover who they cannot have. In 405, the narrator wants to be with this man that she is in love with, but she cannot have him because he is married. In “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” he desperately wants to be with this woman but he feels that he cant be because she is not of the same social group as him.
Both of the authors in this poem are very emotional. Emily is depressed and wants this man but thinks she might be better off without him that way she wont have to deal with the pain of losing him one day. Prufrock on the other hand, wants love so badly and he seems to act sorry for himself because he feels like he has seen his best days and there is no hope for him.
When Emily says “I’m so accustomed to my fate,” shes saying that she is accustomed to herself, her own ways, and being on her own. This relates to Prufrock because he says how he is afraid to approach this woman he is in love with because she is not of the same social clique as he is. Nowhere does he say that he is willing to change himself to be with this woman and he himself, like Emily, is also accostumed to himself and his own ways.
“I am not used to Hope—It might intrude upon.” Here, Emily is saying that she does not really want people to intrude on her lifestyle. This is exactly like Prufrock. When he talks about a patient being etherized on a table and making reference to him being pinned up on a board like a big being examined like a bug, is almost like saying he doesn’t want people questioning and intruding on the way he lives.
The theme that relates to me the most is the theme of self-imposing of social groups leads to one’s own decision to never affiliate himself with people outside of his social circle. This theme comes from “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” This relates to our society today because everyone is part of a clique. Most of the time cliques don’t associate with other cliques and they also aren’t as welcoming to other people that are not apart of their clique. For example; like in the picture below in high school and middle school their are many types of clicks, such as: jocks, nerds, emo punk rockers, band geeks, art freaks, etc. The jocks don’t associate themselves with the nerds other then to make fun of them or get them to do something for them. They intentionally keep apart from each other because they are not like each other.
Everywhere you go today in society you can see groups of different cliques. Everywhere from the workplace to the park. This personally relates to my life. When I was in elementary school I really never knew there were such things as cliques. I always thought they were people we didn’t know each other. When i was in middle school, I didn’t really know what group i belonged in, but I always knew that my group of friends never associated with that group of kids across the lunch room. Now, when I started high school I felt I really knew what the cliques were. We have the nerds, thee weird game nerds, skanky girls, skanky boys, band kids, druggies, preps, jocks, hicks, and well that’s pretty much it I think. My freshman year I always thought i had to hang out with the preppy kids and no one else but during the summer I got to be close with a lot of kids that were not part of my little social circle. I branched out and had friends in a lot of the different cliques and from this day on, I really don’t consider myself to be a part of a clique.
Just as the picture above shows, even though people might not verbally say they don’t like a certain type of group, they are always thinking it. I constantly am saying to myself how much i don’t like or cant said that “creep” over there, or something to that extent. No matter how much a person might think that they don’t judge other people, they do all the time. They see some person walking on the street that doesn’t have good clothes on and looks like a hot mess and they categorization them as “skanky” or “white trash” even though they don’t know that persons story. That person could have lost everything they had because of a tornado and they are just traveling through the country trying to restart their life.
This is why this theme most relates to my life and the things I have experienced through the first few years of my high school career.
Rappaccinis daughter can easily be linked back to the story of Adam and Eve. And heres how;
Rappaccini: He is in a sense God. He creates this garden just as God created the Garden of Eden. Except, his garden is full of poisonous flowers. He creates this garden for his daughter Beatrice who is poisoned.
Baglioni: He is the Devil. The conflict between Baglioni and Rappaccini is the same as the conflict between God and Satan. After Beatrice drinks antidote and dies, Baglioni calls out from the mansion window and says, “‘Rappaccini! Rappaccini! And is this the upshot of your experiment!’” Just like in the story of Adam in Eve, the Devil taunts God when the Garden of Eden is destroyed. This is exactly what Baglioni is doing to Rappaccini.
Beatrice: She is Eve. At the beginning I thought that she was like Adam but as the story went on I figured out that she was more like Eve then Adam. Hawthrone potrays Beatrice as an innocent and pure figure. Hawthorne uses diction to describe Beatrice “…arrayed with as much richness of taste as the most splendid of the flowers…bloom so deep and vivid that one shade more would have been too much…redundant with life, health, and energy…” In this story, Beatrice is living in a world made for her and she is pretty much isolated.
Giovanni: He is Adam. At the beginning I thought that he was like Eve but as the story went on I figured out that he was more like Adam then Eve. Giovanni is shallow just as Adam was. When Giovanni figures out that Beatrice has posioned him his love turns to lust which is similar to how Adam and Eve were and how Adam blamed Eve for what they had done. Just like Adam, Hawthrone uses an unsympathetic tone of Giovanni. “…his spirit was incapable of sustaining itself at the height to which the early enthusiasm of passion had exalted it; he fell down groveling among earthly doubts, and defiled there with the pure whiteness of Beatrice’s image.” Giovanni symbolizes the shallowness just as Adam does.
The major theme in this story is corruption. The two forms of corruption in this story are wickedness/evil and poison/contamination. The real evil in this story is Rappaccini. At first he corrupts his soul. He defy’s God and nature so he can turn his Garden into an evil Eden. His experiences then corrupt his body and then it leads to poisoning his ‘innocent’ daughter who’s breathe can kill. Rappaccini has Lisabetta on his side because she tells and leads Giovanni to the secret door to the garden. Giovanni’s reaction to Lisabetta telling him this is, “This interposition of old Lisabetta might perchance be connected with the intrigue, whatever were its nature, in which the Professor seemed to suppose that Doctor Rappaccini was involving him.”
Over time after Giovanni enters the garden to try and spark a relationship with Beatrice, his contact with her ends up corrupting his body, into a home of poison just like Beatrice. After Giovanni figures out that Beatrice has poisoned him, he is outraged and considers Beatrice a corruptive agent. “Accursed one…And finding thy solitude wearisome, thou hast served me, likewise, from all the warmth, and enticed me into thy region of unspeakable horror…Thou hast filled my veins with poison! Thou hast made me as hateful, as ugly, as loathsome and deadly a creature as thyself-a world’s wonder of hideous monstrosity! Now-if our breath be happily as fatal to ourselves as to all other-let us join our lips in one kiss of unutterable hatred, and so die!”
In Poe’s analysis of “The Ministers Black Veil,” it seems that he is trying to say that the minister minister (Father Hopper) has committed a crime against Elizabeth, his fiancee. It is evident that he has cheated on Elizabeth with the dead young women that is mentioned. I completely agree with his analysis.
It seemed only too coincidental that he started wearing the veil the day of this mysterious dead young girls funeral. While they were walking in the funeral procession, two of the towns people said it looked like the minister was walking hand in hand with the spirit of the dead young girl.This is one clue to why it would be thought that Father Hopper cheated on his fiancee with this young girl When the minister leaned over to talk the girl in her casket people said it looked like the corpses body shuddered. She is the only character that got a look behind the veil. This implied that she is the only one who understands why he is wearing the veil.
Whether he actually did or did not cheat on her is not completely certain but the clues in this story lead to that belief. During those days, cheating was probably looked at as bad as murdering someone was or maybe even worse. In todays society, everyone seems to cheat on everyone and its more of a shrug your shoulders and look away situation for someone who isnt involved. Cheating was most likely a very serious crime at that time and it would make sense into why the minister wore this veil and wouldn’t even want to part with it when he was on his death bed. He wanted this secret to stay hidden and die along with him so no one else would ever know. 
The reason I think that college and universities recommend that incoming freshmen have read the book The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is because this novel has many themes and moral conflicts that people can learn from. Some of the themes in this novel include brotherhood, slavery, romanticism vs realism, religion vs superstition, religion, etc. Anyone can learn a lot from this book. I personally have learned although you may live in a society where they “think” certain things are morally wrong, you should always do what you feel is right. No matter what anyone in society says, you should always do what you feel is right.
This novel also shows a very strong relationship between a black man and a white boy which was unheard of at the time. This shows that even though blacks were considered slaves at this time, they were still people and not ALL white people thought as blacks as dirt.
Many of the events in this novel are also very historical. Slavery for example was obviously happening at this time. You can tell this by the way society acts towards black people at this time. They could care less when a black person dies, they just turn their head act like nothing happened. Also at this time, people were either very religious at this time or not religious at all. Twain does a great job in distinguishing the two and using it as a theme in the novel.
I have really enjoyed this novel even though I thought I wouldn’t. I can see why many colleges and universities recommend that in coming freshmen read this novel for a variety of reasons.
