Pessimism

Many of Emily Dickenson’s poems focused on pessimistic topics: of death, loneliness, isolation, etc. Given her life story and personality of a recluse, we can probably guess why she wrote the types of poems she did. Emily Dickenson was probably a very pessimistic person and sought to express her sorrow in her poems. She didn’t have much to do being alone in her house, so she had much time to dwell on her situation and other important life lessons.

The author of the book The Handmaid’s Tale is the opposite of Emily Dickenson. Margaret Atwood was a feminist. She wrote the book as an exaggeration of the oppression of females to show her point of view. The author’s point of view is actually the opposite of the point of view of the government in The Handmaid’s Tale. The narrator in the story, however, is in a more similar situation as Emily Dickenson. Both women live in a society where men and women are not equal and women are not supposed to express too much emotion. Their situations differ in that Offred in The Handmaid’s Tale was forced to stay indoors most of the time while Emily Dickenson had chosen to hide from the public.

Speculation of Sci-Fi?

To me, speculative fiction and science fiction can be very similar. Both types of fiction deal with the future. The difference is that science fiction focuses on science and technology while speculative fictions deals with future societies. I think the two books that we read in class last year, 1984 and Fahrenheit 451, can be classified as a mix of both speculative and sci-fi. Both books have societal and technological aspects in the stories. The Handmaiden’s Tale, on the other hand, mainly focuses on society. I agree with the author, Margaret Atwood, that The Handmaiden’s Tale is a speculative fiction. Personally, I do not like reading either sci-fi or speculative fiction, especially ones about distorted utopia. They are mostly about oppressive governments, strict monitor systems and secret spies. I do not believe that our society would become that way in the future. I doubt that we, as human, would choose to go the backwards direction as to burn books like in Fahrenheit 451 or oppress women all over again like in The Handmaiden’s Tale. However, there is one speculative fiction I have read that I really liked. The book is called The Giver. In the story, there was no oppressive government, but a community in which all the history is remembered by one person, the receiver. It is a very touching story, but at the same time, kind of sad.

The Soul

In Emily Dickenson’s poem, “The Souls Selects her own Society”, she writes about how our soul has certain preferences towards people and once we have chosen, the soul shuts out everyone else. I do not agree with her depiction of making friends, at least not exactly. I do believe that we have preferences, but these preferences are sometimes not explainable. Mostly, we would think that we are attracted to people with common interests but this is not always the case. In some cases, we are attracted to those that are opposite of us. I believe friendship is a combination between of mind, feelings, and circumstances. We would like to talk to people that we are able to share a topic with. This can be affected by intelligence or family background. Feelings are pretty obvious. Sometimes there isn’t a reason to why we like a certain person, we just do. As for circumstances, I believe this is a very important factor to any type of relationship. In a circumstance, for example war, two people that might have been friends could end up being enemies. In a different circumstances two people who starts out hating each other can end up to be best friends. 

Real or Romantic?

I think Whitman is idealizing the situation of the workers. In the past, workers had to work for long hours with low pay. There weren’t any two-day weekends, so the workers had to work everyday. Whitman described all the workers as if they are enjoying their job, but this is most likely not the case. Many of the work he described are labor work.

One question I would like to ask Whitman is that is he had ever been in a place of a worker. Does he know what it is like? Even though he says he likes to look at things in other people’s perspective, he doesn’t seem to be doing so in this poem. Or maybe, the purpose of the poem isn’t to describe things as real as they are. I think, for the poem, Walt Whitman is trying to paint a picture rather than describing the facts and conditions. He makes an idealistic painting of life and work in America of being cheerful and happy. This poem might not be intended to portray the truth. It might be a song, as the title say, to make people in America feel happy about their life and their country. 

Work Songs

“I Hear America Singing” is a poem by Walt Whitman that celebrated the American occupations during his time. I believe that Whitman focused on occupation as a representation of America because it requires workers of each occupation to do their best to create a strong and successful country. By describing the work as different types of songs, Whitman gave the poem a more merry and lighthearted tone. It also makes it sound like all of their workers are satisfied with their jobs. One part I liked about the poem was the inclusion of domestic jobs for women. Whitman acknowledged the female’s role in society and not just the men’s. He wrote, “The delicious singing of the mother—or of the young wife at work—or of the girl sewing or washing”. Another part I liked about the poem was how he described the singing of each type of occupation to be unique, which is quite true.

This poem that Whiteman wrote was of occupations during his time. If he were to be writing in the present day, the occupations would be drastically different. There are more jobs related to high-technology and electronics, which the people didn’t have back then. 

Ode

I want to write an ode about post-it notes. I am still unsure about the exact details and I’m not sure if it will work out, but I want to give it a try. I came put with this topic because I wanted to write about something I use in my everyday life. I use post-it notes a lot because I am a very forgetful person and I think they make good reminders. I have post-it notes all over my table of to-do lists and all sorts or reminders. I also like them because they come in all kinds of bright colors and sometimes shapes. They are like tiny decorative reminders on my desk and they make me happy when I see them. I am also vey thankful of them because they have saved my live several times. However, I am not sure if I will be able to write a complete ode about post-it notes, so I am still brainstorming about other topics. So far, I want to work with he post-it note idea.

I did Google “ode for post-it note” today, but only to find a video on it. The video is actually quite interesting and cute. It is a short story on post-it notes and their founder. Although it didn’t help me much on the poem, I thought it was quite entertaining.

Oppression

Women have fought for equal right and opportunity for many years in the past. Today, women in the United States and in many other countries are treated equally as men. However, in several Muslim countries, women are still much inferior to men. They are often treated as objects and properties and are thought of as evil creatures that corrupt men into giving in to their desires. Women in Muslim countries have to cover up their bodies to prevent men from having sexual desires. Women also had to walk a few steps behind their husbands. I once read somewhere that a person surprisingly observed a Muslim man letting his wife walk in front of him. When asked why, the man said that there were explosives on the ground. He risked his wife’s life so that he can be safe. This act is extremely selfish and demeaning.

In The Handmaid’s Tale women who once had equal right as men were striped of all of their rights and were used only as tools for reproduction. The condition of the women in the story was unbelievable. Why would these women allow men to once again take away all their rights after they had worked so hard for it in the past? 

Holiday Reality

My Chinese New Year holiday went pretty much as planned. I went to Okinawa for four days and then stayed in Ping Dong for two more days. Okinawa wasn’t as interesting as I had hoped. Even though the island is famous for its tourism, I didn’t feel like it was a very special island. The most interesting thing that we did was probably a halfway submarine in a lake. We saw corals and fish, but the corals weren’t very colorful, so it didn’t seem as exciting. I found out that Okinawa had a lot of water activities so most tourists go during the summer. However, I did find out something really interesting. When I was on the plane ride to Okinawa, I saw a map that showed the depth ocean and noticed that if the water level got lower Taiwan is actually connected to Okinawa and to Japan! I thought this was pretty interesting. The most disappointing part about the trip was probably the food. We ate the same ting almost every meal except for the very first meal and the very last meal. Most of the food the island had was imported so meals were expensive. We couldn’t do much except eat instant noodles at night, which was fine by me.