Miss Emily's Facebook

Basic Information

Networks: Grierson Family

Sex: Female

Relationship Status: Married

Interested In: Men

Political Views: Libertarian

Religious Views: Atheist

Personal Information

Activities: Arsenic poisoning, sleeping with my dead husband, visiting with my cousins.

Interests: Finding someone to spend the rest of my life with, spending quality time with my house and my housekeeper.

Favorite Music: Classical, Opera, Jazz

Favorite TV Shows: Desperate Housewives, All My Children, General Hospital

Favorite Movies: Pride and Prejudice, The Phantom of the Opera, Marie Antoinette

Favorite Books: Hamlet, Dracula

Favorite Quotes: "A wise girl kisses but doesn't love, listens but doesn't believe, and leaves before she's left." -Marilyn Monroe

About Me: My name is Emily and I am the last in my royal family. My father died when I was young and the guy I loved didn't want to be with me. I live in my house all alone with my housekeeper. I do not have many friends and I prefer to be left alone.

As for the rest of Miss Emily's facebook, I think she would have a lot of friends on her friend list, but they would be there only as aquantices, not as true friends. She would have just a few photos, maybe one of her and her father. I think she would have a lot of applications on her facebook, mostly from taking different quizzes and tests. I believe she had much free time and a lot of that time may be spent doing pointless things, such as facebook application quizzes. I put her status as married, even though she's not, because I think she would pretend that her and Homer were married. I put Libertarian as political views because she ignored the taxes every year, signifying that maybe she doesn't care that much about government. I also made her religious views atheist because she doesn't seem to have any religious views. As for her favorite things, I went along the general theme of things that were sad and sort of depressing, like soap operas and classical music. 

Conversation between Emily and Homer

Miss Emily: Hey Honey, when are you going to come and visit me again?

Homer: Emily, I am just so busy, but I will get there when I can.

Miss Emily: Okay, I can't wait to see you!

Harlem Thesis

In his poem "Harlem", Langston Hughes uses different types of imagery to demonstrate the idea that having to postpone your dreams and desires can ultimately lead to destruction within oneself.  

We Real Cool

This week for my free write I am choosing to write about Gwendoyln Brooks' "We Real Cool" and the specific tone of the speakers. Brooks' indicates that there a seven speakers hanging out a bar or pub called the Golden Shovel. The speakers seem to be in there early twenties and seem to be enjoying life. They have ditched school, stayed out late, consumed alcohol, and many other "bad" things. The speakers see themselves as cool. They believe that because they do all of these "bad" things they are cool. The last line takes a turn in attitude/tone though. It says, "We die soon". I don't think the speaker is using this to be negative, I think the speaker is trying to say that we should do the things we enjoy while were young because eventually we are all going to die. The speakers enjoy being bad and doing things that are not generally accepted by society. Brooks is justifying this by saying "we die soon" and she is urging people to go out and enjoy life.  

Hope You Want to Stay

"Hope You Want to Stay"

I have woken

You from

Your deep sleep

This morning

You were

Most likely dreaming

Of your

Home sweet home

I apologize

For I must attend 

Practice

Every morning.

For my parody of William Carlos William's poem, "This is Just to Say", I wrote about how I wake my roommate up in the morning when I leave for morning swim practice. I used the same form as Williams, three four line stanzas, and the same number of syllables within each line. Like Williams, I made my poem an apology and set it up very similarly. The first stanza in William's poem is the speaker confessing to eating the plums out of the freezer and the first stanza in my poem is the speaker confessing to waking her roommate up in the morning. The second stanza in William's poem the speaker is saying how the listener was most likely going to eat the plums for breakfast, but now she cannot. My second stanza is saying that my roommate was probably having pleasant dreams, but cannot any longer because the speaker has woken her up. The last stanza of William's poem is the actual apology and the speaker is asking for forgiveness. My last stanza is also an apology with a bit of reasoning to why I must wake my roommate in the morning. My parody was in admiration of Williams, not to poke fun at his writing. I really liked the way he set this poem up and thought it added a lot to just a simple sentence. 

Harlem Imagery

Langston Hughes' Harlem uses many forms of imagery in order to represent the basic idea of a dream deferred. A deferred dream is one that has been postponed or delayed. Hughes uses metaphors and similes as imagery in this poem. 

The first couplet compares a dream deferred to "a raisin in the sun". If you put a raisin in the sun it's going to dry up and no longer taste very good and it will eventually evaporate away. When you set aside a dream, you are risking letting it evaporate away. This couplet uses a simile ("like a raisin in the sun") as its imagery.

 A simile is defined as comparing two unlike things using the words like or as.

The second couplet compares a dream deferred to a sore that festers. A festering sore is something that most people do not want, although we sometimes must experience them. Just as with a dream that does not come true, we may not always want it to happen this way, but sometimes thats just the way it goes. This couplet also uses a simile ("like a sore").  

The next line compares the dream to rotten meat. Rotten meat is something that was once good, but it went bad over time. This same thing can also happen with dreams, one day you think it's a really awesome dream, but over time, the dream can become something that you do not want. This line also uses a simile ("like rotten meat"). 

The following couplet compares a deferred dream to a syrupy sweet. While I am not entirely sure what a syrupy sweet is, I do know that it is something that does not sound overly appealing. Once again we get the idea that a dream deferred is quite unpleasant.  We also see the use of similes again ("like a syrupy sweet").

The final couplet compares a dream deferred to a heavy load or something that sags over you. A heavy load is usually something that is bothering you or upsetting you in some way. A dream that is not being resolved can be quite a heavy load, something that you want to get rid of, but your not sure how to do it. This couplet has our final simile in it as well ("like a heavy load").

The last line of this poem, "Or does it explode?", is our one and only metaphor in this poem. Things that are potentially explosive, usually have had something building up over a long period of time. A dream that has been postponed or delayed has just been sitting there for a while and allowed many bad things to build up, ultimately leading to explosion. The main point of this poem is that having to postpone your dreams and desires, for whatever reason, can eventually lead to destruction. 

Free Response: My Last Duchess

Following our class discussion and interpretation of Browning's My Last Duchess I began to think about whether or not the speaker (the duke) killed his wife and why he would confess to killing his wife. The duke appears to be a very boastful, controlling man who could not find a way to control his wife. She was quite flirtatious and very independent, which seemed to upset the duke on many levels. I believe the lack of control over his wife, led the duke to kill her (or have have her killed).  Throughout the poem, the duke had no intention of telling the listener about how or why he killed his first wife. The duke starts on a tangent and tells the reader about his first wife. I think he confesses out of guilt and maybe even regret. I see regret and remorse in the line: "There she stands as if alive. Will't please you rise?" I think the duke allowed his self-centeredness to get in the way of his relationship with his wife.  Towards the end of the poem the duke is speaking of being remarried to a very rich and powerful lady. The duke doesn't seem to be genuinely interested in the new girl, he seems to be more intrigued by the connections and amount of money she has. The speaker in Browning's My Last Duchess seems to be emotionally unstable do to the remorse and guilt he feels from killing his first wife.

Poetic Form of Sonnet 73

Shakespeare's Sonnet 73 follows the basic pattern of a Shakespearean Sonnet, that is three quatrains of an iambic pentameter followed by a heroic couplet. The third quatrain of Sonnet 73 reads:

In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire

That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,

As the deathbed whereon it must expire,

Consumed with that which it was nourished by.

The above quatrain is referring to a fire in the sense that fires are short lived and the speaker is comparing these fires to ones life. The speaker reminds us that life is not forever and that we will eventually become old and die. The speaker is also saying that our youth is what eventually kills us, meaning everything we do causes our death.  

The writer (Shakespeare) emphasizes his thoughts on death and life by using a particular poetic form. The rhyme scheme used is an iambic pentameter and it ends up looking like this:

ABAB CDCD EFEF GG

The GG at the end represents a heroic couplet, which in this case brings us to the conclusion that the speaker is warning someone about how he is living his life and convincing him to live life to the fullest. The rhyme scheme in Sonnet 73 creates a dramatic affect especially when talking about death and the end days. Lines like "such fire" "must expire" would not have the same meaning if the speaker had just plainly said the fire will burn out eventually.

The writers use of commas also plays a significant roll in the message of this poem. The second line of Sonnet 73 reads: "When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang". Without the commas this line would say something like "When only a few yellow leaves hang". Although both lines basically mean the same thing, the revised line loses a lot of emphasis and becomes quite boring to the reader. 

As in most poems, the specific poetic form of Sonnet 73 brings the poem together in a way that would not be achievable otherwise.