Revised First Essay

 

An Expression of Love

Over the course of many years, people have found ways to express adoration, desire, devotion, and love.  A common romantic way to show a lover how one felt is to write or recite love poetry.  From E.E. Cummings to William Shakespeare and even Edgar Allen Poe, men and women have put their feelings into these poems, expressing “kisses as a better fate than wisdom” (E.E. Cummings) and in some cases, of a sadder topic: lost love.  These classic poems have been heard many times maybe in passing or maybe they have been recited to us as a sign of love.  However, are these words on paper a league of their own, or could an “emo/hardcore” band produce the same elements and feelings two of their songs meant to compliment each other?

            The two songs “Autumn’s Monologue” and “The Fiction We Live” may prove that a simple band from Long Island can be compared to the poets mentioned before, such as Cummings and Shakespeare.  The first song is sung by a female and expresses how she wishes she could be what her love wanted and needed and that he would see her and love her the way she loves him. However, she believes her love has replaced her with another and crushed her.  The second song is song by her male lover assuring her that he’s not worth her trouble, that he wished he was, and that he did see her but didn’t believe she wanted him the same way.  The two songs show a love from both sides but no one reaching for it and in turn, creating lost love instead of a happily ever after.

            The songs are two of the mellower songs by this band.  Usually a band with heavy guitar, loud drums, and some screaming solos, they set the mood for their love songs by accompanying the soothing vocals with mellow percussion, acoustic guitar, and some piano.  Some poets may accompany their piece with a picture to match the mood or enhance the piece.  It is meant not to distract the audience from the poem or message but to give it a little oomph.  I feel that the band, commonly abbreviated as FATA (From Autumn to Ashes), accomplished what most poets do except instead of enhancing the piece visually, they did it through sound.  It does not distract the audience from the words but rather serves to bring just a little more to the piece.  However, just like with the written poems, the extra enhancement brought to the piece should not be what makes it extraordinary.  Should the poet, or the band, choose so, the enhancement should be able to be taken away and still leave the piece as exceptional as before.  If the music was taken away from these songs they would not be called songs anymore, but the words would be able to hold up on their on like a good piece of writing should.

            As I mentioned before, typical love poems convey desire and devotion.  We’ve already established the fact that if these two songs by FATA were not set to music, they lyrics would remain strong.  What we have without the music is written words, very much like the poems we are comparing them to.  The desire is seen in both songs.  Both the male and the female have a desire for the other and are willing to display affection and devotion for the other but something is keeping their love from being true and real.  Neither realizes the other is trying to express the desire and devotion either, making the lost love poem genre even more apparent.  These sad poems express a universal love but deny the speakers any chance of it.

            In “Autumn’s Monologue” she speaks of love being “so thoughtless, so cruel” when all she ever did was for him.  Not only is she playing at a common theme in lost love, she’s being relatable to the audience.  Many times either one part or both parts of a couple will feel as though all their time and all of their actions are directed toward the one they love.  They however will fell sad or lonely still because they will believe that their partner does not put in the same effort as they do.  Through this, From Autumn to Ashes is able to capture the audience through realistic feelings often found in modern works today.

            Another key element that makes From Autumn to Ashes’ work more literary is the fact that they used to songs to correspond with one another.  It’s one thing to make a literary work stand on it’s on but to try and put two literary works together makes the songs have theatreistic qualities because of two long monologues set for one another.  Shakespearian works often have long monologues, like in Romeo and Juliet.  Romeo and Juliet have their own pairs of monologues that can resemble what the band was trying to accomplish between Autumn and her unnamed lover.  The dialogue can make the literary piece stronger because it encourages the reader or audience not only to experience the piece from an outside point of view but to be part of the action by imagining Autumn expressing her hurt and broken heart and then immediately getting a reaction from who she meant to speak to and hearing what could be seen as his side of the story.

            When finally deciding if these works and if this band can be seen as literary figures it comes down to one easy answer and one answer that needed proving.  The songs themselves are undoubtedly literary works comparable to past love poems that express heartache and lost love.  However does one set of lyrics that serve as dialogue and use imagery prove the band From Autumn to Ashes can be seen as poets?  I believe that yes it does.  Not only do these two poems display it through their words but also through the music, which was an element used in theatre in ancient Greece and modern times.  While I said that before to make the song a typical poem the music could be taken away, the music can also strengthen the piece with its soothing sounds in the right places and intense music for when things became more intense, to better match the mood and to get the audience’s attention.

From Autumn to Ashes may have some songs that because of their drum pounding or screaming vocals will cause some parents to run away with their hands over their ears but I guarantee you that their lyrics and ability to match up music to convey the mood makes their work some modern literature for younger crowds and the bold older crowds to enjoy, especially through the mellow sad songs, “Autumn’s Monologue” and “The Fiction We Live.”

Revision

I know which essay I already want to revise because I don’t feel I really got to finish it by the deadline.  I still want to add a few more elements into my paper and maybe put some quotes in the essay to strengthen my argument.  I’ve known for a very long time that the essay need revision but I didn’t add anything to it after the deadline because I considered that to be cheating and unfair to the other writers in the class.  The feedback I got before was all very positive but I know I can do better on the paper and add to it, also adding the necessary pages.  Also I’ll be able to looka t it again and hopefully have a new perspective on the paper due to what I learned from this class since this was done closer to the beginning of the semester and now we are coming to that anticipated end.

Literary Future

I really wanted to be a writer or a senior year high school english teacher.  However, I’m leaning more towards being a writer/publisher/editor right now, something of that sort.  I really am not sure how to go about my literary goals though, I really need to take to my advisor more than anything but I have a class during office hours and I haven’t had any of my emails answered back so I’m kind of doing this in the dark getting tid bits of advice from students.  Some of what they say contradicts other students so I’m pretty lost.

The only reason I would go to grad school is if I absolutely needed it.  I don’t know if I need it so if I don’t I don’t have the money, time, or patience to go through with it.  Plus I’m not so sure I have the grades for it anyway.  As of now, I really don’t want to go to grad school and truthfully, I hope I don’t need it.  Even if I did need it for my goals preciously mentioned, I may just try to find a different career path I could do with english that doesn’t require more schooling.  That may sound like I am a sell out or not motivated enough but let me explain:  the reason I am an English major is becuase I am good at it and I’ve always liked it.  The reasons I choose teaching or writing/editing/publishing is because one, they sounded like ideal fun jobs for me that I’d be good at and two, I don’t know what else you can do with an english major.  So I really need to talk to my advisor which is you, professor.  So if you ever have the time…please…respond to my email.

Bacause I’m not too sure where to go with this I am mostly interested in literary study and education but more over, I am interested in creative writing.

Finishing Line

Now that the semester is almost over and the class coming to a close, I look back at my first blog which was not written nearly as well as it should have been, and think about how my idea of literature has changed.  I had never even really looked at the theory of literature before and had not known of these different ways to approach it.  I knew about audience reception but I was not aware that it was a theory to better understand and analyze author intent.  I have looked at symbolize more than ever now, and imagery and description still are major components to me.  I have been able to see that literature, however, is not just written novels from long ago that are now considered classics, but also very modern-day media, such as songs, music videos, and shows.  The media essay was so confusing to me at first because I could not wrap my head around how two songs that I liked to listen to on my iPod could be literature.  The two songs had the same elements of literature though and to argue this point was stunning to me the more I looked into it and wrote about the topic.   Remixing literature was a new idea for me to take on as well.  Of course I’d seen popular remixes of Shakespeare through Hollywood, such as She’s the Man which follows Twelfth Night and Ten Things I Hate About You which follows The Taming of the Shrew, but I hadn’t ever thought I would remix what I had just learned to be modern literature.  It was amazing to see what everyone else in the class thought up to and it broadened my horizons of literature even more.  The class was beneficial to me in that I don’t think of literature just as books I read back in high school like Crime and Punishment, but instead as a whole variety of media such as classics, teen lit, movies, shows, songs, essays, letters,  music videos, and more.  To put it in the simplest terms, literature to me now is any type of work that has been written and can now be presented to an audience for criticism, reaction, and response.
Now that I have this knowledge I can certianly use it in later life, or even sooner for future courses.  I will be able to analyze the text better and I’ll have a better grasp on author intention.

Final Draft of Theory Essay

Jacqueline Sanchez

De Vries

English 3150

December 1, 2009

Symbolism of Color in Beloved

 When reading about a green meadow or read leaves, is the author merely trying to take a stab at imagery and description, or is the more to the hues we read about in literature? Does Toni Morrison’s novel about slavery, Beloved, display the possibility of other meanings to her vivid descriptions of objects and places in the book? Indeed they do, and the best theory to approach these newly found meanings is through the reception approach.

The reception approach is one of the three literary theory approaches to understanding literature, the other two being phemonology and hermeneutics theories. The reception theory of literature is one based on the audience of the work and how they receive the work’s message, symbolism, and how they analyze it. This is why I believe to best explore Beloved reception theory would be the best path to follow. Symbolism rarely allows there to be one right way to interpret the meaning of an object, place, or person, so it really is up to the reader to decide how symbolism will be twisted. In Beloved, Morrison uses symbols through objects, numbers, and colors. Colors appeal to myself the most because not only can they be used for description and imagery, but for a deeper meaning. But “like emotions, colors also symbolize different things.” (princetonol.com) I find that the most fascinating and one of the reasons why I wanted to explore color using reception theory. 

 One of the symbols in the novel starts with Denver’s hide-out. Denver is the youngest character in the story. She is Sethe’s, an ex slave’s, daughter. She herself has escaped the cruelty of slavery and for that, she is the hope for the future and the hope for new life. She happened to have an emerald closet hideaway that she would consistently visit. The fact that Morrison mentioned the place was green gives a reader first the image in their mind of a lush emerald green full of life. This is what it is taken to symbolize as well, that Denver is the character with the most life in her and that she is the new generation and beginning of life since the slavery days. “Green symbolizes comfort, hope, and a new life” (womensforum.com). Expanding on this, Denver happens to long for a red velvet material for a dress. The red is a symbol of hope in this case and the fact that it is velvet, which is a rich, luxurious material, shows that she hopes for a new life full of wonderful things. Since she is the first generation away from slavery she could very well get her desire and bring happiness and hope to her mother through this as well.

Red is seen more than once during this novel. Red has a variety of meanings in different cultures because of association with everyday things, or long-standing traditional meanings. In many cultures, red can stand for passion, love, or the heart. It can also be used to symbolize danger or intensity. There are several other meanings for the color as well, such as commanding, brave, courage, blood, hot/heat, and more (mariaclaudiacortes.com). Paul D, another ex slave and friend of Sethe’s, describes his heart as the red heart inside a tobacco tin. He also compares himself to the red of a rooster. Like stated before, the color red has many meanings to it and in this case, its meanings are meant to be compared to one another. Not only can red be a strong, brave color, but using it in association to a rooster can show a want to be a protector and mighty. However, the fact that his heart, which is red, is trapped in an empty, cold tobacco tin shows that while he has a want to be strong, and has the potential to be, the years of enslavement have closed him off and weakened him, making him feel isolated and alone.

Another character who desperately seeks out color in the novel is Sethe’s mother Baby Suggs. She knows she only has so much longer to live and is certainly facing her mortality. The only life she’s really known is that of slavery. During the course of the novel, she says that she wants pink and purple. When her youngest daughter her bought her out of slavery she believed that she was too old for her freedom to mean anything, but as she feels death approach her she makes it known how much she desires two colors. This is not just the rambling of an old woman who doesn’t realize what she’s asking. The colors purple and pink very often represent sweetness and youth. It is ironic that the home where she spent her slave years was called “Sweet Home” because her life there was anything but. However she does want the sweet life and she wants to feel young again.

The purple she asks for can be like the velvet that Denver asks for. Purple is a color of vanity, royalty, and luxury,becuase in past times only the rich could afford the purple dye (mariaclaudiacortes.com).  These characteristics are all things that Baby Suggs has never been able to experience. While some readers may have believed that Baby Suggs random requests  for colors was meant to show how the old days have affected her thought process, that’s not the only thing they should be able to take form the passages. Another link to color can be how Denver has been associated with green can be how her older relatives may envy her for the life she will be able to have but still be thankful that she will not be among their sad ranks.

In a final example of the older slaves desperately wanting to feel life again after slavery is a quilt that hangs on one wall of the house. It’s an old quilt made by Sethe featuring all sorts of brown squares sewn together except for one lone orange square right in the middle. The brown color symbolizes dirt, rust, and dying in most cultures because of the color of wilting dying plants. While none of these slaves in the novel physically died during their years of labor, they all felt pieces of them die or wilt away on the inside. However, the color orange in the middle of the quilt tends to mean the exact opposite. Orange can mean a variety of things from helpfulness, abundance, coziness, communication, excitement, and even inspiration (mariaclaudiacortes.com). While Denver may be the rest of the slaves living hope for a new life after enslavement, this little orange patch sewn into the quilt by Sethe shows that in every one of them they have hope that they too can have a new life of abundance and prosperity away from their old masters. The single piece of orange is a reminder and inspiration that they are not completely dead yet. Morrison doesn’t stop there at using her descriptions as a double weapon. Not only can the reader be presented with such lovely imagery, but they can be made to  stop and think deeper.

Morrison’s use of symbolism also proves deeper that the reception theory is the most useful tool in discovering this piece of literature. It has often be said many times that “symbolism is the heart of literature… the reader needs to have prior experience to help them interpret the symbols.” (womensforum.com)  This work was a very good opportunity to use the reception theory though because of the way a reader may interpret a symbol and analyze the work based on their own previous experiences. 

Works Cited

Rohrer, Ken. “The Fantastic World of Color.” The Fantastic World of Color. The Incredible Art Department, 2009. Web. 28 Nov. 2009. .

Women’s Forum. “Color Symbolism in Literature.” 2009. Web. 30 Nov. 2009. .

Color in Motion. Dir. Claudia Cortes. 2003. Web. 30 Nov. 2009. .

Theory Essay

When reading about a green meadow or read leaves, is the author merely trying to take a stab at imagery and description or is the more to the hues we read about in literature?  Does Toni Morrison’s novel about slavery, Beloved, display the possibility of other meanings to her vivid descriptions of objects and places in the book?  Indeed they do, and the best theory to approach these newly found meanings is through the reception approach.

First off, the reception approach is one of the three literary theory approaches to understanding literature, the other two being phemonology and hermeneutics theories.  The reception theory to literature is one based on the audience to the work and how they receive the work’s message, symbolism, and how they analyze it.  This is why I believe to best explore Beloved reception theory would be the best path to follow.  Symbolism rarely allows there to be one right way to interpret the meaning of an object, place, or person, so it really is up to the reader to decide how symbolism will be twisted. 

One of the symbols in the novel starts with Denver’s hide-out.  Denver happened to have an emerald closet hideaway that she would consistently visit.  The fact that Morrison mentioned the place was green gives a reader first the image in their mind of a lush emerald green full of life.  This is what it is taken to symbolize as well, that Denver is the character with the most life in her and that she is the new generation and beginning of life since the slavery days.  Denver is the youngest character in the story.  She is Sethe, an ex slave’s, daughter.  She herself has escaped the cruelty of slavery and for that, she is the hope for the future and the hope for new life.  Expanding on this, Denver happens to long for a red velvet material for a dress.  The red is a symbol of hope in this case and the fact that it is velvet, which is a rich, luxurious material, shows that she hopes for a new life full of wonderful things.  Since she is the first generation away from slavery she could very well get her desire and bring happiness and hope to her mother through this as well.

Red is seen more than once during this novel.  Paul D, another ex slave and friend of Sethe’s, describes his heart as the red heart inside a tobacco tin.  He also compares himself to the red of a rooster.  The color red has many meanings to it and in this case, its meanings are meant to be compared to one another.  Not only can red be a strong, brave color, but using it in association to a rooster can show a want to be a protector and mighty.  However, the fact that his heart, which is red, is trapped in an empty, cold tobacco tin shows that while he has a want to ba strong and has the potential, the years of enslavement have closed him off and weakened him. 

{more substance, explaining examples with the grandma and color, secondary source opinions, etc}

Morrison doesn’t stop there at using her descriptions as a double weapon.  Not only can the reader be presented with such lovely imagery, but they can be made to stop and think deeper.  Morrison’s use of symbolism also proves deeper that the reception theory is the most useful tool in discovering this piece of literature.

Theory Essay Idea

For this next essay I decided I would like to use the text Beloved.  I’m not sure which theory to use yet, that’s the only part I’m unsure about but I would like to explore the symbolism in the story, especially symbolism with color and numbers.  The theory I am most likely to use when approaching my theory paper though will be reception theory.  I am one of those writers/readers who believes that the meaning of symbolism rests partly in author intent and moreover in audience interpretation.  There are many ways to interpret colors or numbers, biblically or by looking at what the color of a flower would mean in comparison to the symbolism of the color in the story, so if possible I will show the many different views in which a scene can be interpreted due to the color and what a color may mean to some people.  For example, green can mean many things.  If a young man picks a green…car over different color cars in the lot it could mean different things to people because green can symbolize life and so people may predict this car will give him new life and even excitement.  But green is also the color of money and greed so some people may see him getting this green car as a materialistic greedy gesture.  And then there are some that may argue that the two connect and he is feeling more alive with the car and receiving excitement by being so greedy.

This is what I hope to explore, and better understand by unearthing all of the vivid colors and dull colors described in Beloved.  I hope to determine whether they have meaning and what different people could state that meaning is.  After the way this post has gone too, I have decided that reception theory is not just a thought anymore but the best approach for me to take in wirting this paper.

Remix?

Ok so I realize how informal this post will be but maybe I can make like a music video with the two songs with classic love stories turned movie to show that the lyrics in the songs do correspond with the love shown in the movies.  However I don’t know how to make a music video with moving images, I’ve only been able to do music slide shows so maybe I could do that with the pictures from the movies.  Just an idea.

Remix Link!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdZtUcpks7s

 

I remixed my essay by creating a picture slideshow conveying how these two songs display the same emotion and elements of a classic love poem andthat is shown through  matching up the lryics to pictures showing universal feelings like love, desire, devotion, and heartbreak.

My Writing Tools

The tools I myself use as a writer are a computer, people, books, media, and my imagination.  From the computer and people I am able to get new perspectives on ideas I may have had, or gather some inspiration.  Just recently I was unsure of what to write a play about and my little brother made a comment about how creepy it would be if one of the actors at Fright Factory in Modesto got killed and replaced by the murderer, becuase there was no way the murderer would worry about the rule they have where the actors can’t touch the costumers.  He wasn’t even trying to come up with an idea for me to use, he wanted to buy a ticket form me but from that, my imagination went wild.  Of course, I also use the computer to actually type up the essay or play.  Not only can I be opened to Micrososft Word, but I can be open to the interent, which has a full source of information, both true and false.  My last tools which rarely get used are a notebook I bought in Mexico made from cactus, a pen, or pencil.