Robert Frost Poetry

Robert Frost has written many different poems throughout his life. He wrote many of his poems relating to his life with the world, and how he took each day. Three of his poems stood out to me most while reading them over the past week. “ The Road Not Taken,” in this poem it talks about two paths in the woods, he stared down both pathways and decided to chose the one that looked the least taken. To me this resembles life for when you see everybody else doing one thing so you decide to be the odd ball out and take a different path down life’s pathway. “Neither out far nor in Deep,” you always think about when you go to the beach and you just forget about what it’s like being back home in the mountains of North Carolina. I think this story really tells how people look one way at the sea and forget about the land behind him them, even though they don’t see what is way out far in the ocean or what is deep down below, its just the beauty of the sea that makes everything forgotten and different on land itself. “For Once, then Something,” what I got out of this poem was that when he was looking down in the well, he could see his own reflection, beginning to look deeper into the bottom, a drop of fern fell and shattered the image making it all blurred. I think that this is a symbol of looking at his own reflection in the well, but it’s not always what you see in the picture because everybody has something deeper within themselves that tells a story.

Stephen Crane Poetry

Stephen Crane passed away at an early age, although he was very well known for his poetry and short stories. When reading his poems as well as “The Open Boat”, it seems that every story he tells, there is a meaning behind them all. His poetry may be a little tricky at first when you read them, but it allows you to actually grasp what you just read and really think about it. “A man freaked that he might find an assassin,” this poem made me think that a man would rather take his life in his own hands rather than sit around and wait for someone else to make the decision for him. “I saw a man pursuing the Horizon,” makes you think about people who are out trying to chase a dream whether is a career, life decision, or future but the dream continues to get further away no matter how hard your trying to achieve it. The last poem that really stood out to me most would be, “In the desert.” This poem talks about how his heart is bitter, but although our hearts may be bitter we still have to love ourselves for all the right reasons instead of looking at it negatively. This poem may come across as a self-esteem issue that the man has within himself. Poetry has meaning behind every stanza, you just need to think about what is your reading. Stephen Crane had great meaning behind his stories and poetry.

The other two

Throughout the story Alice tries to make her husband happy and please him as best of her ability. Although she tries doing so she also lies to him and acts as she wants to behind his back. Waythorn marries Alice, who has been married twice previously. He thinks that they will have the perfect marriage and Alice will give all of herself to him and do whatever he wanted her to do. After coming in contact with Alice’s two previous husbands Waythorn comes to figure out that his newly wife has a past. I think that Alice seems to think her marriage is just a game, she seems to of been on this merry-go-round more than she leads on. Alice also seems like she is a money loving woman, it seems she divorced the others because either they didn’t make as good of money as she wanted or couldn’t give her everything she felt she deserved. When the story comes to an end, all three husbands are waiting in the room together, and Alice walks in with a pot of tea. She seems to act like nothing is going on and playing a role as if she is the good one out of everything. Waythorn finally realizes he can’t change the past or his wife for that matter, basically accepting the marriage he is in. It was a very good story, although I disagree with Alice and the way she is treating each of the men, I think it is very unfair that she leads each of them on, especially her current husband.

The Open Boat

Stephen Crane has written this story so that you almost feel like you are there. He describes the ocean in the beginning of the story so clearly that you pretty much know what it feels like for the four men inside of the boat. The four men go on this adventure out in the ocean and sadly in the end only three remain alive. Throughout the story the captain tells the three other men which land seems to be safe and as for the ones that don’t. On the boat there are 4 different men with different experiences, for one you have the cook, the oiler, the captain and the correspondent. The captain is constantly telling them which places to go, the first place they came across the captain didn’t feel like it was a safe landing so he ordered the men to head north, as they did. The waves are so harsh on the boat and the mean are constantly getting soaked with the freezing winter chill of water. The men change off with the oars because they go days without sleep and sometimes even food. When they are attempting to catch some sleep they huddle together to keep warm, especially when waves of water come crashing in. The correspondent repeats to himself “If I’m going to be drowned..was I allowed to come this far to be drowned anyway?” When the story comes to an end only three men remain and one has drowned. I thought this was a great story as well as very descriptive writing about the ocean and the journey.

The Awakening

Kate Chopin spent most of her days as a “belle” in the St. Louis society. She was an American author in the nineteenth century. The short story “The Awakening” has a good grasp on human nature and full of different ideas. In the story the main character is Edna, in the story Edna must get herself out of the dull lifestyle that she has always lived. She awakens to the idea of her own self discovery and must grasp onto it and embrace it. This story I noticed had many symbolic pieces throughout the book, the ocean was like the rebirth or Edna as well as the place she chooses to die. The birds were a part of freedom symbolizing her husband and how she was trying to break free from that. Although Edna had a hard time learning how to swim that summer, she swims farther then she normally would have and that I believe is where she had a quick instant vision of death. Edna realizes that she was very unhappy in her marriage and looks for answers and freedom to break loose from those restrictions that she felt she had in her marriage with her husband. Edna was in love with Robert, although she was a married woman she couldn’t hide her feelings for him. Although she finally came to the conclusion that she could never be with Robert which broke her heart in two. When she asked him to stay with her, Robert ended up leaving, although I don’t believe that he left because he didn’t love her but for the simple fact that she was a married woman.

The Yellow Wall paper

Charlotte Gilman lived an overwhelming sad life. She married at such a young age and her first husband never agreed with her writing all the time, and it never seemed to work out. She was then divorced and remarried a few years later to a man that accepted her for her talents and let her be an independent woman. Some people called her a man hater, although that wasn’t the case, people got that point across when they would read her stories. In the yellow wall paper, it tells a story of a woman who is a nervous disorder and is extremely ill. Her husband is a physician and keeps her in a room, taking care of her every day. The woman writes in a journal nearly every day recording her thoughts, mostly of this yellow wall paper in the room she is resting in. She thinks that it is evil and it catches her attention often, she feels there is a woman trapped in the wall paper and needing to be set free from crawling behind those bars. Her husband thinks she is recovering from her illness, although she is far from it, if not even sicker than before. One day she rips away at the wall paper because she didn’t want Jenny getting to it before she had. Trying to set free this woman, she comes to find out that all along she was the one trying to be set free, after her husband comes in the room he faints at the sight to see his wife creeping about. I don’t think John or Jennie realized how seriously ill she was and it came to a shock to see his wife doing such a thing.

Ambrose Bierce

Ambrose Bierce wrote a lot of things on the topic of death. Enlisting in the War and volunteering to ride in Poncho Villa’s army was putting himself in the track of danger, which is kind of contradicting himself at the same time, you would think he would of known better. Bierce’s talks about Peyton and his life experiences and also talks on his hanging of death. Peyton is a very wealthy southern planter who wants to help them win the war. While trying to act on his plan to help, Peyton was then captured and was to be hung where he was planning to destroy a bridge. He hallucinates about falling and escaping, when his dream finally comes to a end, his neck is in fact broken. When the story ended it was pretty much the ending of his mind wandering experiences. Although Peyton thought he made it back home, he believed that he had accomplished his goal and set plan, escaping death. The death of Peyton was real although his escape was actually taking place all in his mind.

Ambrose Bierce

Ambrose Bierce wrote a lot of things on the topic of death. Enlisting in the War and volunteering to ride in Poncho Villa’s army was putting himself in the track of danger, which is kind of contradicting himself at the same time, you would think he would of known better. Bierce’s talks about Peyton and his life experiences and also talks on his hanging of death. Peyton is a very wealthy southern planter who wants to help them win the war. While trying to act on his plan to help, Peyton was then captured and was to be hung where he was planning to destroy a bridge. He hallucinates about falling and escaping, when his dream finally comes to a end, his neck is in fact broken. When the story ended it was pretty much the ending of his mind wandering experiences. Although Peyton thought he made it back home, he believed that he had accomplished his goal and set plan, escaping death. The death of Peyton was real although his escape was actually taking place all in his mind.

Editha

Editha reminds me of people who do not get the big picture until they are actually faced with the damage that it caused. Editha wanted people to prove their love to her, whether it was through danger, hurt, or high standards. When Editha was with George, he came to tell her that he would probably have to go back to war, although George was scared and didn’t want to do it, Editha replied to him that she wanted to him go that it was the best thing for him to do for his country. George came back the next day, all happy about going back into the war to fight for his country, when he was turning to leave Editha handed him a box with a letter she had written him the night before. George read the letter while he was out on duty. Few weeks later Editha came across George’s name, telling how he had been killed while serving for the country. George made Editha promise she would go to his mother if something ever should happen to him, and that’s exactly what she did. When she came to his mother, George’s mother was angry with Editha for even saying that it was the best thing for him to go into war. After listening to what she had to say, Editha had a different feeling and realized what she had just done. It completely changed Editha for the better and made her realize what lesson she needed to learn from this. I hope Editha learned her lesson, I thought it was a horrible thing that she would make a boy prove his love to her by putting his life on the line. I don’t feel like that showing true love at all that’s just plain craziness.

Tennessee's Partner

The short story of Tennessee’s Partner was a very difficult story to read. I read the story three times to comprehend exactly the situation and to figure out exactly what was going on. In 1854 Tennessee Partner was based on two men that partnered up in crime. One of the men was named Tennessee and the other one unknown, they just called him “Tennessee’s Partner”. In the beginning of the story Tennessee’s partner travels for miles to find himself a wife, it didn’t take him too long before he found her and decided to marry her. Tennessee wasn’t even loyal enough to stay away from his partner’s wife so he decided to take her right out from under his partner. Regardless of the situation when Tennessee come back into town there was his partner waiting on him. Shortly after Tennessee robbed a man taking everything he had, soon he was arrested and taken to court for the matter. When the Judge called on Tennessee’s partner if he found the defendant guilty, he ended up making the whole thing worse rather then helping his friend out. Tennessee was then hung to death, where the partner took him to the cabin for Tennessee’s funeral. Jenny took Tennessee’s partner to the hill where Tennessee was buried, where Tennessee and his partner were together once again. I felt like even though they ratted one another out or did each other wrong to some extent, they were always there to pick the other back up when things fell to pieces. It was almost like a true friendship even though sometimes they did each other dirty at the same time.