Release

Hello Fellow Bloggers,

In light of the essays we all handed in (hopefully), I have been thinking a lot about the poems and authors we have discussed.   In my Essay I explored Tagore and his wonderful poem "No. 5".  This poem was about Tagore's struggles as he dealt with the death of many members of his family in a short period of time.  Now there was just a short overview of the poem, but the reason for my essay and this blog is to talk about writing as an outlet.  As we have learned more and more about writers and their struggles everything from Wolfe and her suicide to Soyinka and his, Poems from Prison. 


I'm sure we've all done it, maybe not to the extent of a worlds best selling poem, but maybe through an email or a letter or a lesser selling poem in order to voice our feelings.  I know that when I am upset writing down the way I feel on a piece of paper makes me feel a lot better.

Through this class I hope we all master the skill on voice our opinions and feelings through paper and writing no matter how frustrated we get, writing can make us feel a little bit better.




Yours in Writing,
Hailey Browne

Mental Block

Hello Fellow Bloggers,

As I sit here today eating my breakfast thinking about English class, I feel a little bit shaken up from the last class I attended.  The class of Thursday April 12th 2012 was one to document in the books.
I had read the whole passage of Achebe envisioning the characters as I read with great detail.  To me the name Achebe sounded very much Asian, and to my surprise I found out he was in fact very.. not Asian.

The beat of the drums and all the talk of the ancient gods and traditions how could you not mistake it!  As we talked more and more about Okonkwo being a black man, I could not shake the vision of a big strong Asian man with a fu manchu.

In my mind:                                                                                                  Actual:
                       

As you can see it was quite a transition for the rest of the class to wrap my brain around the new look the characters in this story now had.   Now back to the actual story... I thought that we had made some steps forward in class when we talked about feminism and the role that women play, no longer being looked at as property but as equal, but this was not the case.  Women had gone back to their role of belonging to the husband and providing, cooking, and caring for the children.  There was a shining moment in the story during the trial when the elders said that "it was not brave to fight with a woman", but for the most part it was revolved around the wife beating, alpha male Okonkwo.

Although I did enjoy this story and the read went by quicker than others, I still will never fully appreciate a story where there is multiple woman beatings and guns fired in their direction.

Yours in writing,
Hailey Browne

First Blog!

Hello Fellow Bloggers,

Well, this is my first blog of the year.  In class we've explored into many realms of writing poems, short stories and fascinating authors.  We've discussed everything from suicides to pigs in the mud.  One of the areas or topics that really made my skin crawl and at times I did actually cringe, was the discussion of feminism.

Well obviously the fact that I'm a girl would probably be why this topic was so intriguing to me, but who wouldn't find it interesting to uncover the reasons as to why both the authors being studied committed suicide?  Even though Wolfe was a little bit loopy I really do appreciate everything that she has done in the strives to expanding the role of women in life, as well as Stourni although her "loopiness" before her death was justified by a horrible turn of events (her illness).

During the class discussions when Dr. Reed was poking fun at the way men of a past time thought and how women were treated, it really got me thinking.  There was a point in the class where I couldn't take it anymore and had to voice my opinions. Even though anyone in the 21st century living in America understands that women are equal it still troubles me that women in other parts of the world are still not granted this same respect.

I didn't really mean to turn this blog into a girl power sort of preach but I couldn't resist.

Yours in writing,
Hailey Browne