Blog Post #4 Prompt#2:

“Diving into the Wreck” is an explicit description of exploring a wrecked ship. I think the poem is an extended metaphor for going out and doing things yourself. With the expedition representing the push and the struggle, while the ship is serving as the goal you may have. Definitely, the author's language plays a huge role in conveying this message. The author seems to be determined to achieve his goal when he says “... the thing I came for: the wreck and not the story of the wreck the thing itself and not the myth…”.  Many times people just talk about their ambitions or their dreams and never really do anything about them because the thought of it is satisfying enough or they're too scared or don't want to put in the work. However the narrator wants the real thing, and I think he is trying to set an example to motivate us to never settle for the imitation of what you want.  When the narrator says  “I am having to do this not like Cousteau with his assiduous team aboard the sun-flooded schooner but here alone”.  It tells me that the narrator wants to be different and attempt this with no help. He wants to do it alone because he doesn't want to cheat himself. If he is going to complete his goal he wants to say that he did it, not because of any one person, but because he was capable enough to do it himself. However, there are consequences to going solo. The narrator states“...there is no one to tell me when the ocean will begin.” It is tough because he has no guidance, no one to fall back on but yourself. Nonetheless, the extra challenge makes it that much more fulfilling when you beat the odds.  Once you attain your goal it is easy for things to change as the narrator asserts  “And now: it is easy to forget what I came for among so many who have always lived here swaying their crenelated fans between the reefs and besides you breathe differently down here.” Which implies that once people attain their objective it is easy to be influenced by your success. It almost sounds like a warning to be cautious and to remember where you came from.  Throughout the entire poem, the author is referring to a goal he is trying to accomplish by using the exploration of the wrecked ship as a metaphor. And how the narrator keeps saying that “...I have to learn alone …”, which indicates that what he is doing is personal to him, which is relatable because a lot of goals or aspirations people have are very personal. This poem can be applied to many life situations whether it be obtaining simple goals or ambitious objectives, but the point is getting out there and actually doing it.

Blog #4 topic #4

        As a first generation American (I came to the United States when I was three years old) I have experienced some of the problems faced by the characters of Maxine Hong Kingston’s “The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts.” However when reading this story I found myself particularly frustrated with the story and with Kingston.

When I started kindergarten, I did not understand English. The only words I knew on my first day of school were: yes, no, and thank you. I do not criticize the silence of the girls in the story, as I understand what it feels to not understand anything. In my experience, I strived to learn English, to make friends, and try to be better than my classmates at math. I did not have any family or people close to me to guide me or help me. However, the teachers were very nice and supportive. I remember in first grade, when my class was learning the “th” sound, and when the teacher saw I was not able to say it right, she stopped the class and knelt down by me and for a few minutes made me try to use my tongue the right way until I was able to say the “th” sound correctly. I remember how happy and proud I was, and how for the rest of the day, I would show of how I could say “th.” I am frustrated at the way Kingston portrays the “Americans” in the story, and fails to acknowledge their kind efforts. I have experienced this country to be a true “land of immigrants” and a real “land of opportunity.” I have felt the way the government and specifically schoolteachers went out of their way to help kids like me. 

Kingston’s story of the mother forcing the girl to go to the pharmacist and force him to give her candy is ridiculous. I am not familiar with the Chinese culture and their superstitions, However I feel that any sane person would not act the same way the mother did. No matter what her superstitions were, the mother was in a whole different country, “everything” works differently here. In her case the people in this new country look, speak, dress, eat, and act differently than what she is used to. If one were to consider that she is the minority, in reality she would not come here and try to force things to work her way, she would need to make herself compatible to the way of life here. 

If I were to write a story about Immigrant experiences, I would make it more realistic. In my case, I feel that there would still be many “touching” stories without having to exaggerate or be ridiculous. In my story, I would write about people labeling me as a Russian, when I was in fact from Western Ukraine, a place that has a history of being used, oppressed, and culturally destroyed by Russians. People with my background typically hate Russia, Russians, and the Soviet Union and are very bitter about the history in that region. I remember myself constantly arguing with people that Russia and Ukraine are NOT the same thing. 

Every culture has its own identity, history and experiences. Immigrant experiences, for various reasons are different for each culture. I do recognize that I may have misunderstood Kingston, and what this story was intended for. I hope to find more stories of immigrant experiences and compare them, or perhaps even write my own. 

Blog Post #4 Topic 4

Being a first generation college student, I know the struggles that both Maxine Hong Kingston as well as Sandra Cisneros went through in their lives. From the interactions with people and them having expectations as to what they expect of you. Kingston allows for the interpretation of others perspectives in their encounters with people while Cisneros delves more into her daily life being similar to others.

For Kingston, in her novel Women Warrior, she decides to show her life through the eyes of her younger self. Her self that is not as mature nor knowledgeable about the experiences she went through. Her self that only saw the experiences as events rather than as experiences where she took information from. In her case, I do believe that portraying her life events this way will give a different view on what she went through but in my opinion it breaks from any really lesson she may want to portray. Since readers see the story from the perspective of a young child, themes that are more serious such as indoctrination and assimilation seem less intimidating than they actually are to others. I have seen my peers struggle to adapt because of the language barrier that they were forced to learn if not suffer consequences. Fortunately for me, I adapted with the English language eventually because my school "helped" me learn but also knowing my background. In Kingston's novel, she does include how she felt but at times some parts seem irrelevant to understanding why she would include them. For example, when she decided to bully the young girl because it annoyed Kingston that the little girl was not at the same level of socializing. Still, this event may seem irrelevant to understanding the problems that appear with being part of a different culture than the norm. Still, with her inclusion of these events, it goes to show that these are events she found important to finding happiness or rest when she was facing other issues.

 For Cisneros, she is similar to Kingston. They both have elements in their stories that show their character developments but never truly explain why such event may be deemed as important. To them, it seems that these events are what made their experiences unique. To Kingston, her sense of time changes from time gaps to leaps whereas Cisneros goes in a more chronological order with a relative speed of sharing the tale. In this way, Cisneros has the ability for readers to focus on characters and grow with them. As they discover the mysteries of the people and situations around them, the reader is also learning the environment perceived by the narrator girl. I find that by giving character development to multiple characters gives a more realistic vibe to the story where not just one character gets developed. I find that by being involved with others who shared a similar story with me and had experiences that made us grow, it made me comprehend different ways of life than just me experiences them. For example, when my peers explained that they were having trouble understanding basic American culture ideas, I would understand and we would not feel as estranged.

Therefore, though Cisneros and Kingston do go about telling their stories through similar yet different ways, they both attempt to show that their experiences despite being almost irrelevant or strange is what makes them unique. I find that by sharing their encounters, it distinguishes their voices from the typical literature.

Blog 4 Topic 4

I am a first generation immigrant. I moved to the United States 3 years ago in 2013 and have only had the chance to visit home, the Philippines, twice. I cannot fully sympathize to the “normal” struggle of many immigrants in the US considering that I grew up bilingual and had, sort of, better circumstances than a lot of other immigrants. I can however sympathize to some aspects of their lives in a different way.

Maxine Hong Kingston tells how she “spoils [her] day with self disgust when [she] hears [her] own voice come skittering out into the open,” and “it makes people wince to hear it.” In the same respect I had a hard time adjusting to the accent that Americans have but over time I was able to speak with their accent enough that they could properly understand what I was saying without having to repeat myself more than twice. I sympathize with the effort it takes to have to, in a way, learn to speak again because society doesn’t understand what you’re saying even if you’re speaking their language. Unfortunately for her she had to learn a new language altogether since at home they did not speak English. I on the other hand had already known English and I had also moved to the US at a much older state than she did. Much like her, “I didn’t know Americans don’t drink out of saucers.” It wasn’t exactly that fact that I didn’t know, but in the same way I didn’t know that they did things so differently in America. Growing up in the Philippines one could/would eat with their hands and have dinner with their family all the time. In America, I found that it’s somewhat unacceptable to eat with your hands and many families don’t even eat meals together. The culture change was something to get used to since standing out isn’t the best way to stay hidden in a place where you don’t know what to do.

I also share the same feelings with Sandra Cisneros as she writes in her story “Woman Hollering Creek” about  basing life off of what we see on the television. To be clear, in my own experience there are things that are spot on when it comes to TV mimicking real life and some things that don’t happen at all. The main character in the story, Cleofilas, was basing her life in America after the kind of life “the books and songs and telenovelas describe when one finds, finally, the great love of one’s life, and does whatever one can, must do, at whatever the cost.” Much like her, I had expectations to live a life that I saw on TV, whether it be something like “Glee”, “Gossip Girl”, or some other TV show. But, like a big surprise to the both of us, life was nothing like that of what we saw on TV or read in books. Of course I wasn’t expecting there to be any singing and dancing but the type of lives the characters lived, filled with drama and excitement, was something I was hoping for and wanted to live. Cleofilas wanted a love that could only be reached by someone being played in a movie or on TV and was destroyed when she realized that life wasn’t a reality show waiting for the host to spice it up.

I may not know what the hardest struggles are when it comes to being an immigrant, but I do know what it is to miss your family that now live thousands of miles away, I know what it’s like to have to change the way you live to be accepted by a society that never really wanted you in the first place, and I know what it’s like to have to leave everything you know behind to go to an unfamiliar place for “better opportunities.” Unlike most immigrant stories that have people that don’t speak English or people that believe everything they see on TV, I want an immigrant story about the immigrant that already knows how to speak English and doesn’t believe everything they see on TV but still knows the struggles. I came here knowing English and knowing that life isn’t always what you see on TV but I had my own struggle that I had to go through that many people don’t always seem to realize.

Blog 4: Diving into the Wreck

During the late 1900’s, women writers, authors, and poets strived to make a presence for themselves in a men-dominated area. During this time, Adrienne Rich committed herself to the women’s movement despite a tough past. After years of marriage with her husband, Rich struggled with womanly expectations and left her husband; unfortunately, her ex-husband committed suicide a few years later and Rich came out as lesbian. The poem “Diving into the Wreck” is a metaphor for Rich’s unfortunate and confusing past. The wreck symbolizes Rich’s divorce and the tragic death of her husband while the dive represents the act of looking at the past.

One of the main components of the poem, the dive, is a metaphor for looking back at the past and deciding to take the journey to revisit those painful times of loneliness. The ladder in the poem represents the decision to take the trip to the past. Rich writes that the option to explore the past has always been an option, “The ladder is always there, hanging innocently.” Rich uses personification to show that the ladder is innocuous but also has the capability to transport people to a different place. As the person in the poem decides to go down the ladder, emotions of loneliness and fear are pronounced. Rich writes, “my flippers cripple me, I crawl like an insect down the ladder and there is no one to tell me when the ocean will begin.” For Rich, the option to finally look into her past is a difficult and completely individual journey. Taking the dive to explore what’s under the surface shows Rich’s hesitation with exploring her past.

The image of the wreck in the poem represents the suffering in Rich’s past from her divorce, husband’s suicide, and the decision to come out as a lesbian. Once the person in the poem enters the water, she says, “you breathe differently down here,” which signifies how exploring the past causes a big impact. Rich writes, “I came to see the damage that was done and the treasures that prevail.” Though Rich’s past was tragic, she explored the damage, to look for the benefits of the prevailing “treasures” or to possibly see the mistakes that were made. Some of the treasures that Rich could be referring to include coming out; if she had never divorced her husband, she never would have changed her sexual identity as a lesbian. As Rich continues through her past, she makes a point to nature, “we are the half-destroyed instruments that once held to a course the water-eaten log the fouled compass.” This shows that we are helpless against nature. Though the compass was to direct the ship to the final destination, nature changed course and the ship and compass sunk to the bottom of the ocean. Though Rich was probably expecting to live a normal life with her family, nature intervened and changed the course of her life.

Although Adrienne Rich’s later years of her life were content, her tragic few years were represented in “Diving into the Wreck.” The language in the poem points to a conceit of her divorce, husband’s suicide, and gender identity change. Exploring the past is proven to be a challenge for Rich, but is a necessity to see the good that came out of awful situations.          

Blog Post 4 Topic 2

“Diving into the Wreck” by Adrienne Rich is a free verse poem that is about a diver who explores a wreck in the ocean. Although the poem may seem to be on a diver’s experience, the poem uses this experience as a conceit, or an extend metaphor, on the Vietnam War.

Before her dive into the ocean, the narrator loads a camera and wears “body armor.” The body armor she talks about can be a wetsuit for diving. However, the way she refers to the suit as “body armor” implies that this armor may be the flak jackets soldiers wore during the Vietnam War. The narrator also mentions loading a camera, which indicates that the narrator may be a photographer. With a camera and body armor, the narrator may be a war photographer sent to Vietnam, to record the events of the war. She then descends “a ladder” into the ocean. Assuming this poem is related to the Vietnam War, the ladder can be the ladder on a helicopter that allows soldiers to dismount the helicopter when the helicopter cannot find a suitable area to land. Upon descending the ladder, she reaches the ocean.

The “ocean” the narrator refers to is Vietnam because the ocean is often associated with the vastness and the unknown. Likewise, Vietnam is a foreign place filled with vegetation and lurking threats. Another reason the narrator may be referring to Vietnam is that the narrator describes the place as “First… blue… then green, and then black.” This can refer to the scenery of Vietnam. The narrator first sees the blue sky, then the green vegetation, and then the black smoke from all the battles and fires. She then talks about a mask pumps her blood with power, which can be referring to the rush of adrenaline she experiences as she witnesses the events of the war. The narrator then adds that “it is easy to forget what I came for among so many who have always lived here” Perhaps the narrator can be criticizing the pointlessness of the war.

As the narrator arrives at the “wreck,” she mentions that she came for “the thing itself and not the myth.” In the beginning of the poem, the narrator reads “the book of myths,” which can symbolize the misconceptions that the Vietnam War is the fight for democracy in Vietnam. The narrator is looking for the truth of the war. She soon realizes the truth that the war is pointless and is just a blood bath. The narrator illustrates the scene before her, “the drowned faces always staring toward the sun… the ribs of disaster.” She then says that “we circle silently about the wreck… I am she: I am he,” The narrator may be saying that both men and women are united in opposition to the war. Finally, the narrator ends with “the one who find our way back to this scene… our names do not appear.” The narrator talks about how no one in the future will remember the terrible things that happened during the war and history will repeat itself. With numerous parts of the poem symbolizing aspects of the Vietnam War, it is likely Adrienne Rich uses “Diving into the Wreck” to express her stance on the war.

BLOG POST 4

“The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts” written in 1976 by Maxine Hong Kingston focuses on the stories of five different women. The focus of this blog will be on the memoir of Kingston as a young girl who had just immigrated to the United States of America with her family. The story is written in first person narrative and contains a lot of anecdotes that portray a young Chinese girl’s early experiences in the United States.  I sympathize with Kingston because as an immigrant, I have been through similar cultural changes and experiences. Through first person narrative and the use of anecdotes Kingston delivers an emotionally provoking story and successfully depicts an accurate account of an immigrant’s tough early years in a Western country.

Kingston gets an emotional response from the reader (especially readers who are immigrants) with her use of first person anecdotes in this memoir. By being placed in Kingston’s shoes we can see with a clearer lens, the struggle immigrants must go through to adapt to the United States. For the readers, like myself, who are/have been immigrants, this experience is relatable and thus we can sympathize with Kingston.  “She opened her mouth and a voice came out that wasn’t a whisper but it wasn’t a proper voice either. “An aspect of everyday life that an immigrant has to adapt to, is language. We see in this passage that a classmate of Kingston’s, is so frightened to speak because of the fear of making mistakes. The unfortunate reality Kingston is exposing is the criticism immigrants usually get for not being adept at speaking English. Since we are put in Kingston’s shoes, we can sympathize with her for the hardship she faces because we see the true fear and pressure put on the children to speak in a language that’s not even their own.

Furthermore, this can be extended to a metaphorical representation of western societies urging immigrants to speak and possess similar character traits to them. Immigrants usually get condemned for either not being fluent in English or speaking the language with a different accent. It is assumed that it is always an immigrant’s choice to leave their country and that they should be willing to fully adapt with ease to the way things work in the country they move to. Most of the time political and economic turmoil is what pushes immigrants from their countries.

Having experienced similar encounters to Kingston, I fully sympathize with her. Three years ago, I went to boarding school in the United Kingdom and although I was fluent in English, my accent was noticeably different from everyone around me. I got laughed at or asked why I said certain words and phrases in a different way, thus showing the pressure for immigrants to fully adapt to the new culture they live in. From a reader response approach, I feel that Kingston is criticising society for the lack of accommodation and understanding for different cultures. Although this was much more prominent in the 1970s, I feel that this issue is still very much alive in the western societies that exist today.

Blog 4, Prompt 1

Colette Weese

ENL3

585 words

Blog Post #4, Prompt 1

Diane DiPrima’s 1968 Revolutionary Letters are a partial response to the deep dissatisfaction in American culture and subsequent personal destruction in Allen Ginsberg’s 1956 Howl. However, DiPrima’s demand for conformity in order for systemic reform to succeed goes against Howl’s rigid commitment to individuality, so Revolutionary Letters cannot be a complete response.

DiPrima’s suggestion that it will take “a million earthworms/ tunneling under this structure/ till it falls” implies that in order for systematic change or government overthrow to succeed, there must still be conformity to the revolution, which doesn’t entirely fit with the hedonism and individuality presented in Ginsberg’s Howl. Still, the two writers agree on nearly everything else. Both doubt the value of universities, calling them “slum landlords, festering sinks of lies” and the “best minds of [Ginsberg’s] generation...were expelled from the academies for crazy” (DiPrima, Ginsberg). Ginsberg speaks of “battered bleak of brain all drained of brilliance,” and DiPrima laments “color TV, whose radiant energy/ kills brain cells, whose subliminal ads/ brainwash your children.” Howl expresses deep distrust and loathing for capitalism, suburbs, American greed, etc. by calling them “Moloch,” a false god that sacrificed children, and DiPrima says, “if you still want a piece/...of suburbia.../THEN YOU ARE STILL THE ENEMY.” The list of agreements goes on, making Revolutionary Letters initially seem like a good response to Howl.   

Where Ginsberg talks about being driven to suicide, DiPrima responds with suggesting that one should “be prepared/ at any time, to die,” presumably for the revolution that would allow others to live without feeling cornered into suicide. But again, part of the reason that it is difficult to provide suggestions for improvement in the Howl’s subjects’ lives is that much of their strife stems from fierce individuality, or “trying to conform to the rhythm of thought in his naked and endless head” instead of conforming to the rhythm of society. Really, the only people who can help them are themselves. DiPrima’s directive to join forces and take up arms isn’t necessarily the natural or best solution for Howl’s distraught subjects. The only hints at solidarity are for Carl Solomon and come in the repeated line “I’m with you in Rockland,” a mental institution “where there are twentyfive thousand mad comrades all together/ singing the final stanzas of the Internationale” (Ginsberg). The reference to the Internationale is important, because the final stanza translated from the original French reads, “Workers, peasants, we are.../ The earth belongs only to men;/ The idle will go to reside elsewhere./ How much of our flesh have they consumed?/ But if these ravens, these vultures/ Disappear one of these days,/ The sun will shine forever./|: This is the final struggle/ Let us group together, and tomorrow” (Eugene Pottier). This song mirrors DiPrima’s urges to take up arms, revolt, and unite, and it suggests that Carl and the other patients in the mental institution want to join together to fight against the ravenous society that rejected them for their either inability or refusal to conform. However, in the final stanzas Howl mentions, “the United States that coughs all night and won’t let us sleep,” highlighting that they are powerless to the forces that have institutionalized them.

While Ginsberg and DiPrima share a lot of opinions on American society, DiPrima’s violent notions do not seem applicable to Howl’s characters, who seem violent only toward themselves, and her call for unification is either undesirable or impossible for many of Howl’s subjects, making Revolutionary Letters and interesting but incomplete response to Howl.

Blog 4 Topic 4

As a second-generation Hispanic, I can relate to a certain amount to what Maxine Hong Kingston writes about in her story, The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts. In my own opinion, Kingston does not in fact portray the experience of immigrants properly. In her story, she expresses how when she was a child she attended an American school and had an enormous fear of public speaking. For example, “I stand frozen, or I hold up the line with the complete, grammatical sentence that comes squeaking out at impossible length”. According to Kingston she claimed that whenever she is forced to speak in public, she instead tends to remain mute or has difficulty saying words. When I was attending elementary school, I shared a similar fear of talking in public, mainly because I hardly knew how to speak English and because I previously attended a Spanish school. However, unlike her, I grew over my fear of public speaking and eventually learned how to speak English properly. Most immigrant children tend to learn English to fit in to society and to not be noticed as immigrants by the public. Moreover, Kingston also states, “It was when I found out I had to talk that school became a misery, that the silence became a misery”. Like what I stated before, I believe that the authors experience is different to that of my own. But, the difference between my own experience and the authors is the time in which we grew up. During her time, all immigrant children were afraid of participating and gaining the attention of the public, due to the fear of being deported back to their home country.

In the story, Kingston also does not mention that her parents ever gain their independence, which means she remains an immigrant for a long time. Unlike Kingston’s story, I was born in the U.S. but had parents from Mexico that immigrated to the U.S. who gained their independence over time. This is one change that has occurred since the time that Kingston began writing her story. Now in this current age people can gain American citizenship by taking a test. Due to this test, both children and adults benefit because then they are granted numerous rights that they originally are not given. However, because of this some parents would not let their children attend field trips. Kingston states, “our parents never signed anything unnecessary”. For some parents, even today, they fear that their children will be captured by the police and then be deported, along with the parents. One thing that Kingston does not include in her story is that parents leave their original country to give their family a better life. In my experience, immigrant children already understand that they are in the United States for a better life, and that their parents work hard for that benefit. Overall, Kingston neglects to express how lucky she is to be in a country where she could be free, but instead she continuously speaks about how afraid she is to speak. In my opinion she does not write about the struggles her family went through to reach the U.S. and of the struggles she went through in her life while hiding from the immigration department.  

B4 Topic 4

As a second-generation living in the United States, Cisneros portrays an accurate description of the immigrant experience in my opinion. Yes, my parents came here for change my mother was a refugee from the Salvador Civil War in the 1980’s while my father sought after good work to sustain his family back home in Ecuador, they came for the American Dream. Cisneros writes of change for Cleofilas she left her home to get away from the obligated chores she had to do. A traditional home where the chores and housework fall on the female of the family, “the six good for nothing brothers”. A tradition that is a bit outdated yet its custom has not parted a lot of families. Cisneros writes of isolation in the English language that Cleofilas does not fully understand. This is a barrier that many of the second-generation kids understand their parents went through. The custom of having our kids walking around naked in all their babiness is something that is very natural in our homeland where when we come to a different place and we don’t fully understand the language it is hard to comprehend change. The nostalgia that Cisneros writes about is the one that we all experience when we leave our homes for an extended period of time. It is a sad story as she is abused and ignored by her husband, however, I think it really does speak of the immigration experience.

I sympathize with Cleofilas as she is abused and most likely cheated on by her husband in a new place where she does not know anyone. Her maltreatment reminds me of the many stories my relatives have shared on their experience as an immigrant. They knew very few people here in the United States they were here with really distant relatives or just friends with nothing in common but the desire for the American Dream. My mother had to endure the rude treatment of an aunt who she had never met until she could afford her own place. Her abuse and nostalgia ring a true part of the immigrant experience that many go through for a better life across the river.

Had I written a story about the immigrant experience I would have chosen to centralize my emotions towards the kids who immigrate with parents at a young age. Cleofilas is mentioned to be a mother but we don’t hear what the experience of the little boy Juan Pedirto is. There are many things to think about that will be difficult for her child. Cultures clash and sometimes there are aspects of each culture that are not tolerated by others. Learning how to adapt together as a family would show the struggles that they face in a new country and how they are able to overcome them. I could have also centered the relationship of her failing husband and how Cleofilas has to find herself, identify as a woman who is now across the river with no one with her but her child.   

Blogpost 4 Topic 3

The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts, written by Maxine Hong Kingston, and Woman Hollering Creek, written by Sandra Cisneros, offer contrasting portrayals of immigrant experiences based on the perspectives of two completely different characters. Kingston highlights the struggle of assimilation to American life for immigrants and Cisneros illustrates the disillusionment of immigrants caused by the idealized vision of the “American Dream.” Both authors utilize various literary devices to convey their messages across the board. Kingston’s story carries a more shameful tone while Cisneros embeds a miserable yet somewhat optimistic tone into hers. The two stories, though incoherent in nature, both depict the immense difficulties that immigration entails.

The narrator in Kingston’s memoir conveys a very shameful tone when she speaks about her experiences as an immigrant, seeing that she undergoes much negativity that impacts her perception of immigration as a whole. Throughout the entirety of the memoir, she carries an underlying tone of embarrassment for her culture--the narrator is stuck in a sort of limbo, unsure of whether to cling on to her Chinese traditions, which prove time and again to be incommensurable to American ones, or to completely assimilate to her newly-adopted lifestyle in America. Due to her lack of confidence in her English-speaking skills, the narrator “became silent.” Her hostility towards “that one girl who could not speak up even in Chinese school” is a direct reflection of her internal inhibitions towards herself--she so strongly loathed the little Chinese girl because in her she saw herself. This is made evident through the narrator’s blatant diction: “I hated her when she was the last chosen for her team and I, the last chosen for my team.” The narrator disliked the little girl because she knew that deep down she was a mirrored reflection of her. In her abusive encounter with the little girl, she violently insists that the girl say something, anything--this correlates directly to her own inability to speak when she first immigrated to America. She so desperately wanted the little girl to speak because it would have constituted as a form of redemption for her own muteness years ago.
Sandra Cisneros illustrates a completely different perspective on immigration through the character Cleofilas. Rather than having a shameful and embarrassed outlook on immigration, Cleofilas harnesses a pure sense of optimism, mixed with internal conflicts between her actual reality and her perception of reality, as portrayed by the “telenovelas” she watches. Her idealized vision of the “American Dream,” in which possibilities are endless and happiness is bountiful, is destroyed by her controlling and abusive husband. Despite her husband’s violent outbreaks, including an instance in which “he slapped her [...] until the lip split and bled an orchid of blood,” Cleofilas does not complain; she merely accepts her circumstances, praying for better days to come. Perhaps this is why the story is written in third person--Cleofilas is not given a first person voice because she is too afraid to speak up for herself and face her true reality. There comes a point, though, when she finally realizes that she had been living in an illusion; she decides to go back home to Mexico, leaving the ungraspable phantom that is the “American Dream” behind her.

Blog post #4 topic 2

“Diving into the Wreck” is a metaphor-rich poem of ten stanzas written in free verse. In the poem, the writer portrays the mission of the speaker in her investigation of the submerged ship in order to find the reason for the debacle and rescuing the fortunes that had remained. In her arrangement to dive, she charmed herself in the "book of myths" to guide her in spite of the fact that she understands she should abandon the book in order to increase coordinate learning. On closer examination, the poem is an extended metaphor and this is depicted through the language and other literary devices used to structure it.

“The wreck” is the title image of the poem and is an extended metaphor that carries a lot of weight. In reality, the wreck alludes to an actual object which is a sunken ship that the diver is attempting to reach. However, it also seems to allude to other kinds of metaphors. The narrator says, “ I came to explore the wreck”. The wreck can be considered to be a metaphor for difficulties that human encounters with. In some form of way, the wreck in this regard is a representation of the remains of events or disasters that have changed the lives of a human being. All disasters leave behind some form of wreckage, which the person can always come back to (something that one can always dive to for reflection). Additionally, the narrator exemplifies 'the wreck' when he alludes to its "ribs". The ribs allude to the strong beams that make up the frame of the boat. Be that as it may, in this regard the "ribs" can't resist the opportunity to make reader think that there is a human bodies that are floating around in the ocean. The representation of the wreck and the symbolism seen here amplifies the illustration of the wreck that adequately turns the disaster of the wreck to reverberate a human tragedy.

The phrase “to dive” has also been metaphorically used to explore various elements. At the literal level, “to dive” means the action of the narrator in which she actually dives to explore the remains of the wreckage in the ocean). Metaphorically, “to dive” means the indulgence of the narrator in exploring subjects bothering her mind, heart and the experience of life that have, for a reason or more, not been explored and examined). In this regard, it alludes to the process involved in exploring the surface, conscious levels of the mind and the daily realities encountered in life and the gradual descent into the deep subconscious levels that have largely been neglected, repressed and suffered distortion in the course of time. The schooner (a part of the sailing ship), on which the narrator stands is a metaphor for the everyday world as it exists. The water into which he dives is a representation of the deeper levels of the mind of the narrator. The discovered components of the ship are a representation of the elements of the inner self and psyche that have not been acknowledged by the conscious mind.

In sum, the poem is an extension of metaphor in the way it symbolizes human tragedy and the exploration of the inner self of an individual. The wreck symbolizes human tragedy or disaster and what remains after it has happened. Diving helps in recovering and salvaging the unconscious parts of the individual that have not been explored which are significant in helping the person take on life more confidently.

Blog #4 Topic #1

                                                Driving into the Wreck

The poem offers a metaphor for the emergency and needs that must be known as a separated "it" in "Attempting to Talk with a Man": "Turning out over here we are up against it" (my accentuation). However, as Cary Nelson has noted, "driving into the Wreck" is not really a solid or altogether grounded ballad since the hermaphrodism it supplies misrepresents sexuality and is itself a myth.

From the earliest starting point, the speaker is in a remarkable position of being distant from everyone else but then associated with others. "I am doing dislike Cousteau with his indefatigable group on board the sun-overflowed yacht yet here alone." Notice that the most emerge picture in this piece is the 'sun-overwhelmed boat', which however it is differentiated to the speaker's own particular voyage and not used to portray, regardless it sticks in the mind's picture of the setting (Gale, 2016). Tonally, it's an announcement with no unmistakable feeling connected to it, as will hold on all through whatever is left of the ballad aside from apparently in the last passages, close to its peak. The emotions display in the start of the sonnet are less extreme than they will turn out to be later, however, at no time will the speaker ever uncover these sentiments unequivocally.

It is a mythic story that she is presently setting out on. Once more, there is the update that she is separated from everyone else, "I need to learn alone to turn my body without constraining in the profound component" Once under the water "it is anything but difficult to overlook what I wanted … I came to investigate the disaster area. The words are purposes. The words are maps. I came to see the harm that was done and the fortunes that win." Story, maps, words… to recount the story, to encounter the story, she needs to jump into the disaster area. She can't see from the watercraft over the surface of the waves what the disaster area is, however, should depend on her book of myths.

 Since she rejects those myths, or all the more exactly tries to go past them, more remote than they permit, she comes into the water, taking her own particular excursion to discover "the disaster area and not the tale of the disaster area the thing itself and not the myth" a voyage that is without a doubt "another story … not an issue of force"(Gale, 2016).  

It is just in finding the disaster area that she comes into more profound contact with those other people who have taken the trip, as appeared by the changing portrayal in the lyric from I to us. All of a sudden she is no longer alone. Curiously, this is additionally where the strict reality and quiet feelings that described the principal segment of the ballad are supplanted by a more legendary, typical reality and the inwardly charged environment. In the first place the speaker is joined by others and after that, as a result, turns into the disaster area itself. For there is no understanding the disaster area without getting to be it, if just for a minute. "The hermaphrodism of the jumper proposes not a unique solidarity but rather the normal obligation of inadequacy, misfortune, and dilapidation shared by all selves" (Templeton). In shared depression, every one of the individuals who has made the excursion meet up, and through the recounting the sonnet, the speaker gives the peruse some of that blessing, that comprehension. Those on the excursion have not lost themselves; this is not the slightest bit a voyage of misfortune however of revelation and recuperating. They are still travelers, still journalists, still storytellers, "the person who discover our way back to this scene conveying a blade, a camera a book of myths in which our names don't show up."

At last, using a withdrew condition that never handles her too positively on one side or the other, Adrienne Rich imparts point by point pictures of separation and group that make us think profoundly.The essayist is, at last, an assume that extensions both sides of human presence.