volverte a ver, es todo lo que quiero hacer.

"I have good dispositions; my life has been hitherto harmless and in some degree beneficial; but a fatal prejudice clouds their eyes, and where they ought to see a feeling and kind friend, they behold only a detestable monster." p. 95

This line made me sad. also, I think it's funny that the creation decides to tell one of those "so, I have this friend..." sort of stories to figure out what he should do. that's really... intelligent. I know most people blogged about this last time, but it's just now starting to hit me that this creation is really intelligent. it bothers me a lot, in a way. I understand I'm supposed to just go along with the suspended reality, but that doesn't work so well for me. the only way I can console the two is if I convince myself that his brain retained the information of the previous owner (makes it sound like a car... show me the carfax?) and the creation just had to... restore it? maybe.

were you just singing a TLC song?

I'm pretty sure you were.

AAAANYWAY.

The familial relationship here really bothers me. It's not so much that the family doesn't get along. that I understand (to an extent). it's just that somehow Biff is the one who is at fault here. and I don't get that at all. I think even his name makes him automatically the "black sheep" somehow. I mean, his brother's name is Happy! I think "Sunshine" and "Rainbow" are the only two names that are more positive than that. so right off the bat, Biff gets the short end of the stick. plus, he failed algebra and caught dad cheating when he tried to tell him. that's a pretty rough life right there. and things never really got better for him. bummer. =/ what really bothers me is when Willy gets excited about Biff's potential job, but then yells at people for "interrupting" and then suddenly turns sour on everyone. I get that he's got issues. but that just really bothers me. It's just irrational. and I don't understand that, I guess...

oh, hey, my blog title involves reality...

quesetion one: does the play involve realistic or nonrealistic conventions?
yes. (ha! caught you in a compound question!)

but really, I definitely think it employs very realistic conventions. maybe a little far-fetched and dramatized... but still plausible.
back again with the themes - they're definitely things that nearly everyone can relate to! some themes (like ones with daddy issues *coughMetamorphosiscough*) just don't apply to a wide spectrum, so the events that build that theme are not as realistic. this pulls conflicts straight out of real world drama (Real World drama, maybe?) that definitely makes things realistic, even if erring on the side of slightly stylized.

this question also asks about departures from normal conventions and their effects...
the only real departure I see is that Iago gets away with it the whole time. NO ONE catches on? really? I find that really hard to believe, but maybe that's the dramatic irony at work. because we know what's going on the whole time, we don't notice how slick he's really being?

ugh. I don't know. I still don't like him.

to bash or not to bash?

that really isn't the question. not in "My Mistress' Eyes", anyway. sure, on the surface it seems that the speaker is just talking smack about how his girl can't compare to all of these other beautiful things. he says that her eyes don't shine like the sun and that her skin was a gray-ish hue at best. that all sounds pretty harsh, right? right, but that's not what he actually means. by using all of these cliché comparisons, he satirizes those who use them. he feels that all of those silly poets who shower their girls with this absurd compliments are ridiculous, and it shows in the satirical tone that the poem takes on. the sonnet form of the poem allows the reader to break up the first part into the satire and then the last four actually expressing what he really feels. what he REALLY feels is this: she's beautiful. sure, maybe she's not a goddess, but who has seen a goddess anyway? no one. he finds no value in lying to her about how beautiful he thinks she is. his love isn't any weaker than those super mushy poets just because he's realistic.

I'm with this guy.

you mean the summer novels actually have relevance?!

reading "APO 96226" reminded me of reading The Things They Carried. it intensifies a reality that was realized in the novel. there's no way to accurately describe war until you've been there. the mother of the soldier asks how things are, and, of course, the soldier gives her basic, vague, pleasant images of the world he's surrounded by. this isn't enough for the curious mother, of course. she continues to ask for more detail, "don't hold back. How is it there?", and the son, not wanting to upset his mother, still says simply, "the sunsets here are spectacular!" the true irony of the piece comes when the son finally tells her a gruesome detail after all of her pleading and the father says, generally, don't do that anymore; you're upsetting your mother. despite what she's said all along, the mother really doesn't want to know "all about it".

the reality of all of the war is that no one knows what goes on if they're not actually there, and even those who think that they want to know what goes on really don't when they finally hear.

since I don't entirely understand

"Ranas" oh, wait, "Toads" (it might as well have been in Spanish), I figured I'd blog about it and hope that someone comments it along the line and makes me feel better about myself. or worse. whichever.

The first "toad" is obviously work. the speaker states that right off the bat. I love the diction and imagery that the author uses here too. In the first two lines alone we have "Why should I let the toad work/Squat on my life?" then it begins to get more gruesome in the ways that the speaker wants this toad gone. it's a plague to society, he seems to feel. however, it's a necessary evil. the speaker realizes that without work, life just wouldn't function the same way. he also comments though that people complain all the time about the work they do and how their kids would "starve" if they were to stop working, "and yet/[n]o one actually starves.

the other toad I think is reality. just in general. the two are always there. they go hand in hand, but there's a balance. one can't put all of his time and energy into work, or he loses touch with reality. but at the same time, work exists as a part of this reality. it's a delicate balance that must be maintained. and while these two prevent one from "getting/[t]he fame and the girl and the money/[a]ll at one sitting," (lines 30-32), the two are intertwined, but not connected. I feel the speaker sums up the relationship nicely in the last stanza, particularly the last two lines: "But I do say it's hard to lose either,/[w]hen you have both."