Justice?

What exactly is justice? Is it someone’s name? Justice basically means the moral rightness of something. Nobody really receives any justice in To Kill a Mocking Bird. The main victim of the story, Tom Robinson, didn’t seem to receive the justice he deserves to prove his innocence. Although Tom Robinson receive some form of justice from Atticus who is willing to defend despite such great disadvantages and impossibility of wining the case, Tom is still convicted as guilty and eventually end up dead trying to escape from prison. Also, did Boo Radley receive any justice from his community that he is not some crazy lunatics? Throughout the story, the children have been suspecting the existence of this man by peaking into his house and asking stories about him. After some of the events, it seems to give Boo Radley some justice that proves him to be caring and warm hearted. Although Boo Radley killed Bob Ewell toward the end of the story, he did to save Jem’s life. Boo Radley received recognition from the children and some respect from the adult that he is not really that crazy as they thought. Did Atticus receive any justice? I don’t think so. Yes indeed that Atticus won many respect from his children and some members of the community who support African American. However, Atticus face threats from some of the racist town members.

Film vs Print

Books and writing art work has excited for thousands of years, yet movies have only been around for 50 years. Movies and books are extremely different in ways that movies are animated, with animated characters who talks and with awesome imagery and actions. “A picture worth a thousand words” With just probably 10 seconds of a scene in the movie, it would probably take an author to write 10 pages to describe with similar details and feeling. The tones and facial expression by the character often convey emotions that are indescribable through words. Despite all the advantages movies have over books, movies often have some flaws too. Movies limit our imagination in ways that we are only imagining and interpreting the world through the director’s perspective. With books, it allows people to have different interpretation of the story based on people’s own imagination and past experiences. With many movies such as Harry Potter that are derived from books, the audience often find them disappointing in ways that the character may be different from their own imagination and important detail of the story may be leaved out due to move’s time constraint. Books will probably still be popular for the next decade or so, however there’s a trend that teenagers start to read less book but more movies and moving pictures.

American Poetry Today

Today, poetry can still be found yet it’s not as popular as before comparing to the past. Poetries today tend to be free verse and less restricted  than in the old days. If we consider song as another form of poetries, I’ll consider that poetry is still popular today. Songs are like poetry in ways that it creates a beautiful rhyme scheme in its lyrics with combination of beautiful melodies. Although most of the words are not really rhymed like the ones in poems, the feeling we get from poem and songs are essentially the same type. We recite it and enjoy the melody and the up and down mood of the music. Although not as many people read and write poetry today, people start to create a new type of rhyming art called rapping. In many pop songs, people incoporate rapping to add varieties to songs. Although I do not like most rapping songs, but it is a new way of expressive poem that also uses rhyming, metaphor and other figure of speeches to express one’s feelings. Is poetry important to me? Probably it’s not that important to me right now because I haven’t really understood the deeper meaning underneath the poem other than its literal interpretation, but when I grow older and read more of it, I will probably find poetry to be really important.

Letter to the world

“This is my letter to the world/ that never wrote to me” These words demonstrate how Emily Dickinson has a relatively pessimistic view to the world. Being a recluse and introvert who dislikes being around people, Emily Dickinson strongly disagreed with the society around her. Probably a result from her failure to have a relationship with her clergyman, Dickinson disliked the world and felt as if the world was limiting and setting unreasonable expectation on people. In many of her poems, Dickinson often criticized how people praised and value extrinsic beauty and appearance of luxury instead of valuing knowledge and people’s individual mind. Dickinson felt that although she had wrote so many letters complaining how this world should be improved and had indentified the flaw in it, the world never seemed to reply her back. Instead, she probably felt being rejected and isolated. In her life, Emily Dickinson’s poem was continuously rejected and forcefully revised by her publisher. Her talent and art was not recognized until 70 years after her death. I sometimes share the same feeling as Dickinson, feeling that I have been rejected and unrecognized by the world. However, this is the reality of the world. Only with some good luck and perhaps by destiny, we will  soon be recognized for our unique talent when the time comes.

Boot soles

Walt Whitman, one of the greatest American poets, wrote, “If you want me again look for me under your boot soles.” What exactly did he mean by this quote? It probably means what it says literally, meaning that a person might be under one’s boot soles. Although this may sound awkward, it probably can be possible in some weird circumstances. For example, if a person is trapped under the rubbles after a serious earthquake, the rescuer may literally be standing on top of the person beneath him without knowing. In this sense, the person can say to the rescuer, “If you want me again look for me under your boot soles.” But I think with this kind of quote, it’s impossible for it to be taken literally. Instead, this quote may be used to express unfairness and mock your opponent who is like standing on top of you and treating you like dirt under you boot soles. Also, it may just mean that this person is dead and buried underground. If one wants to look for this guy, one has to dig under one’s boot sole and find him. There can be so many different interpretations for this quote. To be exactly sure what it meant, we really got to look under our boot soles and ask Walt Whitman in person.

The Sound Effects in "The Raven"

In “The Raven” by Edgar Allen Poe, the poem is full of many different rhyme schemes, which make the poem sound extremely good and interesting when being read out loud. For example, Poe loves to use rhyming with every stanza ends with the word “Never more” and nearly most sentences that end with “ore” sound. This makes the poem flows smoothly. Also, alliteration is used to make the sentence to have similar constant sound being repeated throughout the sentences, allowing some variation within the poem. As the student in the poem kept repeating Lenore, the bird replied back by saying Nevermore. The rhyming not only makes the poem fun to read, but also creates the story’s atmosphere that the student is having a conversation with the raven. Without the sound effect, the poem might be boring that it will turn into a short story instead which the student is just mourning for his wife’s death with a lot of figurative of speech and long boring description with a lot of adjectives to describe the bird. The repeating echoes of the sound and the rhyming allow this poem to become one of the most popular poems during Poe’s time and is repeatedly read aloud as if it’s a top hit pop song today.

Symbol of Raven

A symbol such as a flag can mean just an object flag, but it can also mean something other than just being a flag. In Poe’s poem “The raven”, the raven symbolizes more than just being a black bird. The bird can also be symbolized as the messenger of heaven or soul. However, since the bird can only say “Never more” when the student tried to ask question to it, the student interpret the bird’s answer as the truth that he will nevermore unite with Le nore’s soul again. I think Poe choose a raven to be the character in the poem because a raven in European’s mind often symbolizes as a evil, devilish being like a crow. Since the raven is black and feeds on dead corpse, the raven is considered an evil spirit. Also, raven, like a parrot, can talk. It allows the bird to have interaction with the human character in the poem and make it as if they are having a conversation. This dark bird allows the poem to have a style of dark romanticism. With a man talking to a talking bird and taking the bird’s answer seriously, we can clearly see that the man might be just insane or the bird really is the messenger of the devil.

Ugly Reality

Generally I’ll say that it’s usually bad for children to be in court, especially with Tom Robinson’s case. First of all, the children at the age of around 9 or 10 shouldn’t be exposed to violence such as sexual assault, murder, etc. Unless the children are like Atticus’s children that Atticus is willing to explain the whole event to the children without hiding facts, children often time misinterprets the case and the case may forever change their perspective of the world. I personally agree that children should sooner or later realize that no one in the world is always nice and friendly. The racism and discrimination between people always exist throughout the history of mankind. Children will therefore mature faster that they will understand the relationship between each other and realized that people do ugly things to destroy one another. However, with this Tom Robinson case, it may be too much for the children to absorb. In the court, a strong racial discrimination is explicitly and directly shown that Bob Ewell kept mentioning the N word, which may have bad influence on Scout. However, since Scout is already kind of mature that she understood what the word means and the reason for it to be a harsh word, it is unlikely that she will learn to use this kind of word to insult other black people. I think the appropriate age for someone to be able to see court case should be at least 18 since this is the age where people are mostly mature enough to have enough knowledge and understanding of the reality of the world.

Licked

“We were licked a hundred years before we started.” I think Atticus meant that they are already in a disadvantage that it seems like an impossible mission to defend Tom Robinson. Since the creation of the nation, African Americans are discriminated even after the Civil war ended. In a case of sexual assault, it seems impossible for Atticus to win the case for Tom. Unless there is an alibi or a clear evidence that Tom couldn’t have committed the crime, Tom will never win the case. Even if Tom is innocent, the prosecution will probably use witnesses’ and the victim’s biases testimony to convict him. I think Atticus is a courageous man who takes this impossible case in defending his honor as a lawyer and a man. He hopes to defend his moral rightness and proves this poor man’s innocence. In my opinion, the accuser of the case is probably just paranoid to accuse Tom just because he is a black man. Probably the accuser tries to cover up her own adultery by using Tom as a distraction to the public. If I were Atticus, I probably would do the same thing as Atticus, trying to prove someone’s innocent despite being called a traitor to defend a person who has a different r ace from me.

I dare you

“I dare you to do __ and ___. If you don’t do it you are a coward!” Out of boredoms, people often dare each other to do things that they may feel uncomfortable of doing it because it’s dangerous or embarrassing. Personally, I think daring people is an immature act. Immature people often take daring as fun and amusing, but instead it’s just an excellent way to ruin one’s day. I never quite remember myself being dared and accept to do it. Often times I’m just a bystander who watches a poor victim of a daring game embarrassing himself in front of his friend. I remember once when one of my friends dares me to cross a street when the stop sign is still green. I of course rejected the offer and instead dare him back to do it. To my surprise, this person actually accepted the offer and went across the street. He was almost hit by a bus and if he was like a second ahead of himself, he would be in the sky by now. After he successfully crossed the street, he was happy and dared me to follow him. I rejected the offer despite being called a coward or a chicken. I hated people when they take dare lightly. Some dares may result in a unexpected consequence and ruin one’s life with life and death situation.

Welcome back

        What did I do during my winter break?? I pretty much slept for the first week of my holiday. Every day I would stay up til 2 o’clock in the morning and slept till 12 in the noon. I didn’t do much, besides doing my math homework and some other subject’s assignment. I went to play basketball at UMC with couple of friends and watched a movie called Megamind. It was really awesome. I went to Japan on the 23, and it was great fun. I went with my family on a tour. The first day was pretty much spent on the plane and bus ride to the hotel. However, the hotel has hot spring and the dinner was awesome. The second day we visited an extremely famous temple, which the temple is cover with gold foil and beautiful drawing and carving. The next day was horrible. I was stuck on the bus for like 9 hours because of the snow and traffic jam. The highway was close and the road was blocked due to traffic accidents. It was said to be the biggest snow they have seen for the past 10 years. We missed a lot of famous sites however we got to have snow fight while waiting on the sidewalk since the bus is not moving at all. The rest of the trip was awesome. I did tons of shopping and eat tons of Japanese food (No Chinese food by the way). I didn’t do any New Year countdown.

America

        American dream!!! “America is a free nation full with opportunity and fortune. Everyone has the same chance as any other to succeed!!” Everything occurs by chance, but is it really possible that EVERYONE has equal opportunity as other to succeed. I strongly disagree! The world itself is cruel and merciless. Everyone is born into different families with different social status, wealth and background. Those who are luck to be in a rich family are more likely to succeed. You will have a great advantage from the beginning of your life compare to other little babies who are born in family that is not so rich. You will be given extremely good education, learning environment, and good nutrition. Although rich family may not necessary have that good of a family relationship that the baby, often times, is raised by his or her nanny, this baby has great advantages in a sense of education and opportunity. With a better education and relatively good wealth, the kid is able to go to a better school, being hired into jobs through parent’s relationship with big business owner, etc. Although you may argue that often time these rich kids are not as hard working as those poor kid that they have no motivation to work hard that they already have a perfect life, these poor kids will have to work extra hard in order to achieve what the rich kid can with a relatively small amount of work. Life is unfair, nothing is fair.