To The Next English 110.02 Students

For those taking the class at some point in the future, I have some tips.  First, do not take a 7:30 am class.  Unless you absolutely love mornings, it will make you very sad and tired, even though it is only two days a week.  Besides that, I think you will have a great experience, especially if you have Clayton for a teacher.  What I loved is that we really learned to transition to both academic writing that we will use and college and public writing such as in this blog, so I feel that I am comfortable in several environments when writing.  Another thing that I loved was that we really worked on analyzing and seeing the deeper meanings in writing, whether it be a play or a short story.  It takes some times, but the Ten on One method really helps you not only as a writer, but as a thinker.  I feel that all together, this class has made me better at reading, writing, and thinking, even talking in front of your peers is not that bad in this class.  Since it's a smaller class, you feel more comfortable and everyone feels the same way - this method is new to them and they're nervous that they'll make mistakes.  We all will make mistakes, but doing it in such a good environment will help you grow as a student and writer.  My favorite class was when we looked at infomercials in order to detect pathos, ethos and logos in everyday life, which helped connect it to more than just the things we do in the classroom.  My favorite project was the ARP, which allowed me to really keep expanding my analysis of a few short plays into something thoughtful and backed up by research.  I highly recommend taking this class and I hope you do.  Good luck!

Commonplace Idea

I think for my Commonplace, I want to write about how opinions can change and how they change.  There are many ways that I could go with this, so it gives me flexibility.

The Rural Carrier Stops to Kill a Nine-Foot Cottonmouth by T.R. Hummer

There is a connection between the snake in this sonnet and the carrier.  First off, a rural carrier is a mailman in the country.  A cottonmouth is a common type of snake in North America and it is a venomous snake.  They are typical in southern United States and are not a concern when it comes to the endangered animals list that the United States government has.  However, the average cottonmouth snake will grow up to two feet in length, occasionally growing up to five feet. The largest one to ever be documented was six feet long, so it seems like the nine-foot cottonmouth that is described in the sonnet is unrealistic.  There is a connection between the snake and the carrier in the sonnet, even though there is a mutual hatred between the two of them.  The carrier hates the snake so much that he shoots it twice, when it appears that one shot would have been enough.  The word 'squirm' is the word that connects the man and the snake, when "I saw the son-of-a-bitch uncoil/In the road ahead of me, uncoil and squirm/For the ditch, squirm a hell of a long time".  He talks about how sometimes, a man just hates something so much that they want to kill it, but in the end, he seems to feel the connection to the snake because "I felt my spine/Squirm suddenly".  There is the feeling of similarity between them because of the link between the living things that live on Earth.  

Drag by Lusia Strus

The word 'exhale' is quite a powerful word throughout the monologue.  It seems to do a lot for the setting of the play, since during the monologue, the other actors are throughout the audience exhaling when Lusia exhales.  It seems that it is a transition to each topic that she discusses, and it also gives her power, which she gains from smoking.  There are even some points where Lusia does not take a drag before exhaling, which means that it is not just from smoking.  It seems that she could be letting out different aspects of her life through her breathing as she thinks about what she has done with her life.  It is being released the same way her breath is leaving her body.  Another thing that Lusia does is that she uses the smoking to be more confident to the audience.  When the lights begin to go dark, she begins to lose her confidence and she is a child, like she describes herself through the monologue.  She seems to be battling within herself if she is a child or if she is an adult, like the way she bought her first cigarettes when she was 12, but she asks "Do you think the IRS will try me as an adult?" It looks like Lusia grew up when she bought her first pack of cigarettes, along with making her way “through college doing phone sex” and by talking about cancer, but she seems like a child when she talks about the IRS and when the lights begin to go out, she seems like she is childish and scared.  

Discipline by Donald Ray Pollock

In Discipline, by Donald Ray Pollock, there is a constant comparison between father and son.  Luther, the father, and Sammy seem to have a relationship that is not father and son.  In the story, Sammy only seems to be someone that Luther can live through vicariously.  Luther talks about his failure against Bobby Lowe’s father in several heavyweight competitions, and seems to be forcing the same rivalry between Bobby and Sammy.  He rarely even acknowledges Sammy as his son and does not seem to be happy with who Sammy is.  When Luther sees Bobby, he can only think of how much better Bobby is than Sammy, which causes him to push Sammy even harder than he was before.  He calls him his son at the beginning of the story, but it is merely to introduce Sammy as a character, instead of having the emotional connection between Luther and his son.  It seems that Luther only uses Sammy to accomplish what he could not do when he was Sammy’s age.  Sammy does not seem to be his own person, only a boy controlled by his father.  A reason that he does not say anything about this is because he is, in some way, receiving affection from his father, which is better than no affection at all.  Once Sammy dies, Luther finally has the realization of how much Sammy meant to him, not as someone to train, but as his son.  Luther refers to Sammy as “his boy” after Sammy dies, and then begins to push himself into training harder than he had trained when Sammy was alive.  This may be because he feels bad about being the cause of Sammy’s death, and feels that he needs to take responsibility for how much he pushed Sammy.  At the end of the story, Luther goes to train at the spot that Sammy died, which seems to show that he is finally accepting responsibility for his actions, which led to Sammy’s death.  

Heat Lightning in a Time of Drought by Andrew Hudgins

In Heat Lightning in a Time of Drought, by Andrew Hudgins, repetition is used with the phrase ‘want some’.  It is not specified what ‘some’ means, but it has significant meaning to the drunken neighbor and the writer of the poem.  Repetition is also used throughout the poem, such as “The crickets will not, will not stop.”  There are also repeated words, such as ‘drunk’.  The author references more than one drunken person: the neighbor and the woman with whom he fell in love.   The repetitive words make those sentences in which they are more powerful and draw the eye to them.  They are clearly important due to the repetitive words, or at least the author is trying to bring attention to them.  Another part of the form of the poem is the lack of sentence structure.  The sentences run on and do not end at the lines, instead continuing on to the next line. 

            There are a lot of comparisons throughout the poem.  The chandelier falling and exploding is compared to the rose dipped in liquid nitrogen and being smashed against the desk.  The words that are used to describe the events are very harsh and descriptive, such as the words ‘exploded’, ‘razors’ and ‘snapped’.  It reflects the damage done on both the rose and the woman, which are both beautiful objects in the poem.  The comparison of things snapping and breaking relates to the broken relationship that he had with this girl.  It seems that the girl has left behind pieces in the bed after the salesman shows him the vacuum and uses it on the bed.  There are different cases of drinking throughout the story, both happy and sad.  When he meets the girl, she was “a little drunk, the love-light/unshielded in her eyes”.  However, after his relationship ends with her, he has a “friend who helped me through [his] grief by drinking/all my liquor”. 

            

Unmemorable by Craig Lucas

In Unmemorable, by Craig Lucas, the relationship between people is compared.  In the short play, there are two couples: Earl and Lois, and Roz and Theo.  In the beginning of the play, Earl and Lois are making love for the first time, which becomes an awkward scene.  They are nervous and worried about the other person’s reaction.  It seems as though this relationship is new, because of the awkwardness that each person has in the scene, and that the word “love” is not used, instead Lois says “I really like you” (Lucas 101).  Even though the relationship seems to have not been going on for that long, it is clear that there is still compassion and caring for each other as the story in the newspaper is discovered by Lois and Earl wishes to comfort her.  This relationship is in contrast with the relationship of Roz and Theo.  Roz and Theo have been in a relationship for much longer than Earl and Lois, as is seen in the bathroom scene.  Instead of waiting for Roz to finish in the bathroom, Theo walks in and does not find this awkward in any way.  It seems that their relationship is so natural, that all lines have been crossed and that nothing is awkward.  It seems like they are completely comfortable with each other, something that Earl and Lois are still learning. 

These characters in the play are given no description, which leaves a lot up to the reader or audience to decide.  Immediately at the beginning of the play, the reader can see that the character list gives no description of the characters – only the names.  I connect this to current television and movies, where it is expected that everyone looks perfect and thin and beautiful.  This play gives the reader the opportunity to create the character.  It’s obvious that the characters are not suppose to be models or famous actors, so the reader can connect with the characters more since they are normal people with flaws that everybody has, since no one’s body can be perfect.  The only description that is given about the appearance specifically is about Lois’ nipples, which are flawed.  This lack of detail for the characters, ironically, brings more life to them, because the reader gives them the characters’ descriptions.