Sunday, April 6, 2008

Movie Vs. Book

Smoke Signals and The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven are very similar in that they carry the same message. The book that we read as well as the movie are all about Indian culture. Although the book contains many different short stories while the movie is one really big story. also the book starts with a big hurricane and the movie starts with a big fire. most of the stories that are in thae book are about a father and son and all of their journeys. In the story, Victor learns how his father had died. His father abandoned him when he was a small child. Victor goes on a trip to Pheonix mourn over his fathers death.Victor brings along his friend Thomas to Pheonix, Arizona.

There were many similarities one big one is that the main characters had the same names in the movie and book. Also Thomas seemed to have always been picked on by Victor in both the movie and book. Thomas was always calm and just let it go but Victor was always upset with Thomas and the way he acted. Victor would always think he was right and that Thomas was always wrong which was not always true. In the movie, Victor and Thomas go to Pheonix on a bus while in the book they go on a plane. Also there is an extra character in the movie, who is Susie, who is not in the book. Also in the book Victor becomes an alcoholic, and the movie does not tell us that.

The movie did a great job of describing the book but the movie did not have as much detail as the book. The book described and also contained more about different stories while the movie basically took one of the stories from the book and expanded on that one. The book portrays being a Native American in the United States as difficult and tough living. The book always described how poor their family was while the movie did not.. The book gives examples and talks about how people especially police men disrespect the Native Americans. This showed in the movie when Victor and Thomas were on the bus and everyone kept looking at them like they were outcasts. The book and the movie were very similar but also very different.

Sunday, March 2, 2008

Ode to the Drum

In "Ode to the Drum," one line I liked was, " Gazelle, I killed you for your skin's exquisite touch, for how easy it is to be nailed to a board weathered raw as white butcher paper." The drum maker kills a gazelle and makes a drum out of it. Even in the form of a drum, the drum maker brings the gazelle back to life. Also I liked the line "You know it wasn't anger, that made me stop my heart, till the hammer fell." This was a significant line in the poem because it tells you clearly that the man was not killing the gazelle out of anger or because he wanted to but because him and his daughter needed food and they needed to live. He killed the gazelle out of necessity. But to make up for killing it anyways he uses every part of the gazelle. Using every part of the animal was in a way rectifying it because he killed the gazelle in the first place.

He makes it's hide into a drum then beats into it, in a way giving the gazelle life again. Out of the gazelle came a new life, the life of a drum and the music and beats.He feels sorry for the gazelle, but tells it that he will make good use out of it because he is going to not only make a drum out of it but also use its meat to feed his child."Pressure can make everything whole again, brass nails tacked into the ebony wood your face has been carved five times. I have to drive trouble from the valley. Trouble in the hills. Trouble on the river too." In this line, the gazelle, in the form of the drum which is made of ebony wood helps the drum maker and his people make their "troubles" go away. The sound and beat of the drum eases their pain.

I also liked the line "Ghost cannot slip back into the body's drum." When reading this line it made me think that anything the author had done wrong or even right for that matter, he could not change and never go back. I took the line to mean that once your gone, you can never go back. I related it to when you say or do something that hurts or offends someone; even though you said it maybe in the heat of the moment, you can never go back and do it over.The whole poem might have been hard for some to understand, but the basic message besides not being able to go back after doing something awful, or what you have to do is that at the end of the day after all that you have to live with yourself knowing exactly what you did whether it be right or wrong.

Monday, February 18, 2008

Using Imagery in Didactic Literature

The Zen Parables, Taoist Anecdotes, and Analects all teach us way to living a better life through Imagery told in stories.

These parables help us forget about the past and the knowledge we had in the past. it gives people a new life so they can start fresh without anyone knowing about their mistakes. Zen parables like the biblical parables, are also deceptively simple tales that contain profound truths. It is also a brief allegorical story that teaches a moral, or lesson about life.

The analects range from brief statements to more extended dialogues between Confucius and his students. The parables told people how to live a good life and how to live it to the fullest but with safety. Analects use the method of controlling all things in the world.

An anecdote is a brief and sometimes witty story that focuses on a single interesting incident or event, often in order to make a point or teach a moral lesson. Anecdotes use a single idea to figure out and help a big situation. with anecdotes everythings focuses on one main idea.

Sunday, February 3, 2008

Paradox VS. Parallelism

Throughout this week in class all we talked about was Paradox and Parallelism. I learned many things about these two topics that i did not know before including how they are alike but also different. Many poems that we read in class contained both Paradoxes and Parallelism in many different ways. A Paradox is a pair of opposites that are simultaneously true while parallelism is the use of phrases, clauses, or sentences that are similar or complementary in structure or in meaning.
This proves that the two topics are alike because they both deal with opposites in poems. The two topics deal with connecting two things that are really different and making them alike somehow. There are three different kinds of Parallelism, they are structural, elaboration and also antithesis. All three of these can be in any poem, they are in just different parts of the poem to prove different points.
Some similarities between Paradox and Parallelism are that they both contain two truths. They both involve some kind of structure. And they both need pairs of things in order to be what they are. Some differences between Paradox and Parallelism are that Antithesis and Paradox contradict eachother when they are written in a poem. Also you need one to contradict the other. Paradox and Parallelism are two concepts with two different structures.