“Spin” explores the idea of controlling reality and memory through story. Write a blog entry explaining how this is explored in this chapter. Be sure to explain concepts using detail and commentary.

One of the wonders of communication is how our reality and perception can be controlled by the messenger.  In the book, “The Things They Carried”, O’Brien uses his words and point of view in the story to control our reality and perception.  In the chapter “spin”, O’Brien uses his writing techniques to get the reader to basically believe everything he says.  His point of view changes from 3rd person to 1st person.  He tells the story as if he was actually there and this makes it more believable.  He uses the spin technique to capture his reader.  He says, “On occasions the war was like a Ping-Pong ball.  You could put fancy spin on it, you could make it dance.”  This is kind of what O’Brien does to his own story.  He adds to his story by making up that he was there when he actually wasn’t.  This technique is very effective to capture a reader into reading and keeping on reading a story.

The Things They Carried 

• List and explain 5 tangible things and five intangible things the soldiers from you stories carry.

Tangible Things

1. All the soldiers in the story The Things They Carried, carried steel helmets.  “By necessity, and because it was SOP, they all carried steel helmets that weighed 5 pounds including the liner and camouflage cover.”  The necessity of the steel helmet is an example of an object they needed to help them survive.  It protects their heads in war situations and could save a life.
2. Specific soldiers found own personal things they felt they needed.  One soldier, Kiowa, found it necessary to carry the New Testament.  “Kiowa, a devout Baptist, carried an illustrated New Testament that had been presented to him by his father…”  To Kiowa the New Testament brought something special that helped him with his time at war.  It could have been the fact that it was from his father or that he felt the book had faithful meaning to him.  Either way it was a necessity specific to himself
3. Ted Lavender carried tranquilizers.  “Ted Lavender, who was scared, carried tranquilizers until he was shot in the head…”  Lavender felt that having the tranquilizers provided extra safety and protection for him in Vietnam.  He seemed to be a scared soldier and perhaps the extra weapon gave him security.
4. Rat Kiley carried medical supplies.  “As a medic, Rat Kiley carried a canvas satchel filled with morphine and plasma and malaria tablets and surgical tape and comic books and all the things a medic must carry…”  The medic carried these supplies because they were necessary for his job.  He is supposed to treat wounded soldiers and the supplies he has made it possible to do that.
5. Almost all of the soldiers carried photographs.  Photographs bring good, joyful memories to soldiers.  The pictures provide an escape from the world there in now which is filled with killing and bad things to a world of peace and happiness.  The pictures give the soldiers faith and idea that there is a better place than the one they are in now.

Intangible Things

1. “They carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die.  Grief, terror, love longing….”  Throughout war the soldiers see things no normal human being would ever want to see.  They see their friends and fellow soldiers being killed right before their eyes.  With this experience of war brings things like grief and terror.  The fear of dying and of not knowing when the war will end is brought upon all these soldiers
2. “They carried the soldier’s greatest fear, which was the fear of blushing.”  One of the soldiers’ greatest fears was being embarrassed.  They would rather die nobly and courageously than stay alive because they chickened out of a battle.  The idea of being seen as someone who is a coward and fearful is the worst thing to the soldiers.  They want to be brave men and not be ashamed of themselves.
3. “Some carried themselves with a sort of wistful resignation, others with pride or stiff soldierly discipline or good humor or macho zeal.”  Some soldiers had a prideful way about them.  They carried their pride with them throughout war and didn’t allow people to see their fear.  They carried their pride to cover up their fear of dying.  Their pride was necessary to them to stay alive.
4. “They carried their own lives.”  The soldiers had to carry their own lives to protect themselves.  They had to watch their own backs and be cautious at all time.  It was their own responsibility to look out for themselves and keep themselves safe.  The weight of their lives was on their own shoulders.
5. “They carried the sky.  The whole atmosphere, they carried it, the humidity, the monsoons, the stink of fungus and decay, all of it, they carried gravity.”  The soldiers had to carry these things in order to keep living.  They had to deal with everything that was going on around them to stay alive.  They had to be alert and able to handle whatever obstacles were thrown their way.

·              Answer this question:  “What do you carry?”  List and explain what you hump around life, both tangible and intangible.

One of the tangible things I carry around is my wallet.  I find this to be a necessity in my daily life for it contains such things as my license and money.  It is very useful and important in my daily life.  Another tangible thing I carry around is my chapstick.  It may not be a life saving necessity but I use it all the time and it is part of my daily life to carry it around.  Some intangible things I carry around is worry, stress, and pressure.  I worry about my family and friends because I would never want anything bad to happen to them and I don’t know what I would do if anything ever did.  I carry around stress caused by school, college, and sports.  Having so much to think about and so much going on causes great stress.  Pressure is also an intangible thing that I carry.  It isn’t so much about the pressure other people put on me but it’s the pressure I put on myself.  For example, I feel very pressured by myself to do good in athletics as well as school.  I feel if I don’t succeed in these I have not accomplished any great thing that’s worth anything.

Song 

1.  What is the occasion of the poem?  What literary device does the poet employ?  Describe what you know of the speaker, the listener, and the “she” referred to in the poem.

The occasion of the poem is the speaker who is a man is courting a shy young woman.  The rose is personified and he uses this device to be his envoy.  He wants to go to the woman and plead his case for him.

2.  Paraphrase each of the four stanzas.

Go pretty Rose, tell the young woman that I love and who will accept or reject my proposal.  Tell her I think she is as sweet and fair as you are.  Tell her the young woman that is shy and hides form men that no one can appreciate the roses beauty if it had been in a dessert.  There fore, ask her to come out an show herself rather than being embarrassed bye my admiration.  Then die rose so she can see how rare beauty is and how little time it lasts.

3.  Describe the prosody, including stanza form, rhyme, meter and notable metrical substitutions(spondees), as well as the structure of the poem.  How do these choices help to reinforce the poem’s content?

There are four stanzas.  The rhyme scheme is ababb.  The structure of the poem reveals the message very well.  Each stanza is a complete sentence.  The rose is personified and is meant to deliver messages tot he young woman.  Each stanza tells her something different.  “Tell her…”  “Bid her…”  The speaker wants to tell the woman of her beauty and not to waste it by hiding from life and people.  Using a rose is a perfect object and personifying is a great method of developing the structure and meaning of the poem.

Virtue

1.  Consider first Herbert’s use of metaphor and personification.  In each case, what tow unlike things are being compared, and what do they have in common?

The first metaphor compared the marriage of earth and the sky to the day and how they are both brought together by light.  The dew is being personified, “dew shall weep thy fall tonight” saying the dew is crying.  The rose is also being personified, “sweet rose, whose hue angry and brave / Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye”.  This describes eyes being burned from staring directly at the sun.  Spring is compared to a box of perfumes.  Spring is a wonderful, beautiful smelling season but however the poem points out that it doesn’t last.  The last metaphor compared the soul of a virtuous person to seasoned timber.  The poem points out that when all else is corrupt the virtuous soul lives on.

2.  How is the poem structure, and how does this structure support its meaning?  Consider parallelism, order, and the turn in the poem.

The poems structure first personifies three different objects.  Day, rose, and spring are all personified.  Each is in a different stanza and all are called “sweet”.  The repetition of “must die” at the end of each stanza describing these objects lets the reader know that these “sweet” things all come to an end.  The order in which these object are presented is also significant.  They go in order of their length of life.  The day is the shortest which is the first  stanza, then the rose which lasts longer than a day, then spring is last because it lasts a few months.  This structure supports the poems meaning by giving the idea that good things come to an end.

3.  How does the prosody reinforce the poem’s meaning?

The prosody reinforces the poem’s meaning by using each stanza to show different examples of how things “must die”.  The idea is to show how nothing beautiful can last forever.  The speaker uses differ objects that don’t last forever to prove his point.  The rhyming in each stanza provides further support and creates a mood for the poem.  The last stanza is different from the first three ending with the word lives and reinforces the idea that sometimes things can live on if they are strong enough.

1.  Describe the subtle changes in setting and analyze how these shifts reveal Eve’s fall from grace.

The subtle changes in setting lead to Eve’s eventual fall by starting off with her innocence and than eventually leading to her disgrace-which ends up being a trap by Satan.  At first Eve is alone picking fruit in the garden.  Disguised as a serpent, Satan is awaiting Eve’s arrival alone.  He then persuades her to the second setting which is “Down the dark path to / the Blasphemous Tree”.  Here, Eve eats the forbidden fruit.  The next setting Eve is crying outside the orchard because she ate the forbidden fruit.  The last setting Satan is celebrating under the hill.

2.  How does the poem’s diction contribute to tone and meaning?  Consider the use of adjectives, verbs, and participles.  Look for patterns, contrasts, and surprising juxtapositions of words.

The poem’s diction contributes to the tone and meaning by using words such as “wading, whispered, pitied, crying” and the way Eve is described when she wades, picks fruit, wonder, and listens.  By using these specific words for Eve we can see her innocence and naiveness.  The reader pitties her for not being able to overcome Satans control over her.  Words such as “dark, Blasphemous, hated, and haunting” are words that can be used to describe Satan.  Satan is evil and and corrupt and the reader can see that through his evil ways and manipulations over Eve. 

3.  Consider the poet’s use of figurative language.  How does the choice of comparisons influence tone and meaning?

Comparisons such as “Mute as a mouse in a / Corner the cobra lay” which compares Satan to a mouse shows that he appears to be harmless and quite but he is really evil and has bad intentions on his interaction with Eve.  Eve is easily persuaded and Satan takes advantage of that.  The mood created is that of the sweetness of Eve but then Satan the seducer who intends on ruining sweet Eve.

4.  Describe the meter, line length, and pattern of enjambment.  What does the rhythm continue to the mod of the poem?

The meter is dactyllic.  The enjambed lines are mostly the short lines.  Each stanza contains just one sentence.  The enjambment and rhythm of the poem create a mood that is sort of the opposite of the meaning of the poem.  The structure of the poem has a dancing beat which would make one think that every thing is going well but in fact the meaning of the poem is quite the opposite.

5.  Describe the use of repetition and rhyme.  Look for patterns.  What does the repetition contribute tot he mood of the poem?

The repetition and rhyme of the poem provide extra details to the poem as a whole.  The poem repeats key words such as sweet and grass shows the qualities of Eve and creates an effect on what Satan does to her.  The repetition contributes to the mood of the poem that Eve is manipulated by Satan and her innocence shows through while Satan’s evil shows.

1.  Describe the form and structure of the poem.  What is the occasion of the poem?  What two reasons does the speaker give for refusing to promise a committed love?  What compromise does she suggest at the end?

The poem consists of three stanzas with eight lines in each of them.  It is in iambic tetrameter with every other line rhyming.  The occasion of the poem is the speaker is talking about marriage and commitment with someone.  She is against the commitment because she feel’s that they can never know each others past and she doesn’t know what is to come in the future.  The compromise she suggests at the end is instead of the commitment they can just be friends.

2.  Analyze the effect on meaning of such devices as syntax, repetition, parallelism, and paradox.

The syntax in the poem creates the tone the speaker is trying to give.  She doesn’t believe in committed relationships and thinks they are a waste of time.  The repetition of the word “promise” provides support to her claim.  She thinks promises are made to be broken like pie-crust.  The parallelism for example in the third stanza where it begins with starts off by saying, “If you promised” and then continues with “If I promised” shows that both people may regret the marriage commitments.  The paradox in line 22 saying “Nothing more and nothing less” show the strength and weakness of the friendship.  She doesn’t want to be committed to the person but rather just good friends. 

3.  Analyze the effect on meaning of the imagery and figurative language. 

The effect the imagery has is that it provides support to the speakers claim about marriage and promises.  She says, “Fades the image from the glass/ And the fortune is not told.”  The imagery used here describes the past of peoples lives being unknown and their future being untold.  The speaker doesn’t know what is to come in the future so she uses this as support to her claim of commitments being overrated.  The figurative language used such as in line five which says “the die uncast” refers to promises and marriages are all vulnerable under chance and fate.  No one knows if the marriage will work out and if promises will really be kept.   

1.  What imagery does Shapiro use in the first three lines to evoke sound and sight?  How do these images become increasingly significant in the context of the entire poem?

The imagery Shapiro uses is the image of an ambulance charging down the road with it’s sirens on.  He says “soft silver bell beating, beating” which makes me think of someones heart beating as the rescuers in the ambulance try to save it’s life.  “Pulsing out red light like an artery” also makes me think of a heart fighting for it’s life and again the ambulance is coming to save it.  These images become increasingly significant in the context of the entire poem because it leads to the other events and it builds up the poem to what is going to come next.

2.  On a literal level, what contextual significance do the following words and phrases have: mangled (line 9), “tolls once” (line 11), “terrible cargo” (line 12), “rocking, slightly rocking” (line 13), deranged and composed (lines 15 and 16)?

Mangled in line 9 refers to the bodies of the victims being mutilated or disfigured.  Tolls once in line 11 refers to the ambulance bell ringing and also referring to a funeral bell.  Terrible cargo in line 12 refers to the bodies being like cargo and not human anymore.  Rocking, slightly rocking in line 13 is referring to the ambulance rocking to try to save the bodies and derange and composed in lines 15 and 16 refers to the cops and witnesses.  The cops see things like this everyday so they are composed but the witnesses ware deranged with the horror of the accident.

3.  Analyze the metaphors in lines 3, 18, 22, and 29-30.  What pattern do they create and why is it appropriate to the poem?

In line 3 the light on top of an ambulance is being compared to a pulsing artery.  This creates a horrifying image of a pulsing heart fighting for it’s life.  Line 18 is comparing blood to a pond.  This creates an image of tons of blood that need to be cleaned of the streets.  This adds to the terrifying meaning of the poem.  Line 22 compares throats to tourniquets which tells us how horrified the witnesses are and what effect the accident has had on the people around.  Line 29-30 refers to the witnesses not being able to recover from the horrors they have just seen and they cannot heal the wound created by it.

4.  What is added to the theme of the poem by the metaphors in lines 20-21 and the simile in 24-27?

The theme of the poem is that death is not always peaceful and expected.  It can be sudden and horrifying.  In lines 20-21, “lanterns on the wrecks that cling” are compared to “empty husks of locusts, to iron poles”.  This adds to the theme of the violent nature of death and adds goriness of the poem.  The simile in lines 24-27 witnesses are compared to “convalescents intimate and gauche” saying the witnesses are so shocked and effected by the accident that they lose their senses and act as the victims themselves.  They are in great fear and have many questions that are left unanswered.

1. Describe the form called rime royal: meter, rhyme scheme, stanza form.

The rhyme royal stanza consists of seven lines, usually in iambic pentameter. The rhyme scheme is a-b-a-b-b-c-c. The stanza can be constructed either as a tercet and two couplets (a-b-a, b-b, c-c) or a quatrain and a tercet (a-b-a-b, b-c-c). This allows for a good deal of variety, especially when the form is used for longer narrative poems and along with the couplet, it was the standard narrative metre in the late Middle Ages.  I got this from wikipedia.

Spring and Fall

1. What is the dominant meter and line length? what is the rhyme scheme? Describe the poem’s structure.

The poem is fifteen lines and generally has four accents per line.  It is an iambic tetrameter.  There are rhyming couplets generally throughout the poem.  Lines 7, 8, and 9 however all have the same rhyme.  Lines 3 and 4 and lines 14 and 15 have the same words as there ending line. 

2. What is the effect of the frequent use of alliteration in the poem? Combined with assonance and consonance, what mood does this device create?

The effect of the frequent use of alliteration in the poem is it helps to create a sad, gloomy mood.  The assonance and consonance combined with alliteration helps create this mood.  The alliteration in line 8 of “worlds of wanwood” and “sorrow’s springs” create this mood.  They add effect to the poem and help to establish the poems meaning and content.  The frequent use of it helps to get the message of the poem across and adds to the structure and flow of the poem.

3.  Comment of the effect created by such unusual diction as Golden grove and unleaving (line2), fresh (line 4), wanwood and leafmeal (line 8), springs (line 11), and blight(line 14.)  How do the connotations of these words create the poem’s mood?

The effect created by Goldengrove and unleaving in line 2 is the play on words they create a play on words.  Goldengove is the setting and it matches the autumn setting of the poem because goldengrove is a grove of trees whose leaves have turned gold in the fall.  Unleaving is also a good word for the setting because it describes the leaves falling to the ground in the fall.  Wanwood refers to a pale color and leafmeal refers to leaf mold and these words all have to do with fall.  Springs refer to the water sources in the ground and blight has to do with death in plants.  The connotations of these words adds to the gloominess and sadness of the poem.

4.  Analyze the poet’s use of figurative language.  How does it suggest the theme of the poem?

The poet’s use of figurative language suggests the theme of the poem by using it to show that a child will breakdown their norms of thought when exposed to death when they enter adulthood.  When the speaker says, “now no matter, child, the name:/ Sorrow’s springs are the same.” This line describes the effect death has on a child.

The Oven Bird

1. What is its meter, rhyme scheme, and structure?

The poem consists of 14 lines in iambic pentameter.  The rhyme scheme is aabcdbceefghg.  Frost repeats “he says” three times.  This repetition adds structure to the poem and it is the points where the speaker interprets the birds song to help with his own feelings. 

2. Paraphrase the three messages of the oven bird, then analyze the meaning of the word fall as it encapsulates the them of the poem.

The first message of the oven bird: in midsummer, the bird’s song says that the leaves are old and the flowers bring spring as you count from one to ten.  The second message says: The petals have fallen past when pears and cherry bloom after the rain shower on a sunny day when there is a moment of overcast and then comes fall.  The third message is:  He says the highways has dust all over it.  The birds leave and fly as a group and do not sing.  Fall is the changing of the seasons.  It is falling from spring to summer to autumn to winter and it symbolizes the fall of a man.

3.  Paraphrase the last four lines of the poem.  How does the oven bird symbolize the human condition?

The last four lines say the bird would leave with other birds but would know that singing doesn’t change anything.  The question that is brought up is what to do with the things that are destroyed.  The oven bird symbolizes the human condition of good things never staying and bad things are always to come.  Human beings ruin good things all the time and that is the message to humans that they are spoiling nature and its beauty.

1. Describe a villanelle by explicating the stanza pattern and the rhyme scheme of this poem.  How many different end rhymes are in the poem? How many times is each sound repeated? Which words are repeated exactly at the ends of lines, in what pattern? How does the lat stanza use the rhyming words? Why is this appropriate at the end of the poem?

A villanelle is a short poem of fixed form, written in tercets, usually five in number, followed by a final quatrain, all being based on two rhymes.  In the poem, “The Story We Know” there are two different end rhymes.  The end of each line either rhymes with hello or fine.  The word “hello” is repeated on lines 1, 6, 12, and 18.  The last stanza uses the rhyming words by incorporating them in all four lines.  They are used to sum up the poem and basically repeat what the rest of the poem was about.  This is appropriate at the end of the poem because it rephrases the whole point of the poem to get the point across.

2. What is the significance of each of these words to whole poem?

The significance of the word fine is it answers the question to “how are you?” which is the question people ask when they first meet.  Most people’s response to this question is usually “just fine”.  However, this happy state won’t last.  The significance of the word “wine” is the second stage of people first meeting each other.  They usually have a glass of wine to begin a conversation.  “Nine” is the time when people usually part from their dinner or meeting with a person.  “Line” is what people say to each other to attract their attention and to get them more interested.  The line “snow/ begins to whiten the air, and the tall white pine” refers to the deterioration of a relationship and people beginning to part from each other.  The phrase “cold white sign” refers to the final understanding of a relationship.

3. What variations in meaning are present in the following groups of repetitions and what is their effect?

Line 1 of the first group is referring to the hello when people first meet.  Line 6 is referring to the hello when people go on their first date.  It is a little more formal than the first hello but still lacking meaning.  The hello in line 12 is talking about things always ending up the same and not much change.  The hello in line 18 is saying that all stories begin and end the same way.  The good-byes in group two start off as an introduction good-bye then develops into a relationship where people say good-bye.  After that the good-bye’s change into a sad and lonely good-bye.  The final good-bye refers to this being the only story and the way is supposed to end.  The third group of lines all refer to this story being the only story we know and that every story starts and ends the same way.  Things start off good and happily but end in sorrow and that will never change.  The repetition of “story we know” adds to the poem to truly get the point the speaker is trying to make across.

1.  In describing the prosody of Alvarez’s poem, you will be describing a sestina. 

A sestina is a poem of six six-line stanzas and a three-line envoy, originally without rhyme, in which each stanza repeats the end words of the lines of the first stanza, but in different order, the envoy using the six words again, three in the middle of the lines and three at the end. Alvarez’s poem follows this pattern throughout the six stanzas.

2.  In the first stanza, what is the effect of personification and allusion? What is the Spanish counterpart to each? Sum up the meaning of the stanza.

The effect of personification and allusion have on the first stanza is we see the attitude the speaker has towards the English language.  She personifies the language by saying, “this snowy, blonde, blue-eyed, gum chewing English.”  We see she somewhat is hostile towards the language.  The allusion to America’s national anthem in line 3 where is says, “dawn’s early light” tells us the speaker had some experience or memory of this event maybe back in her Spanish country.  She uses Spanish words in the stanza to add effect.  The whole stanza summarized is about her conflicting attitude towards the English language and her memories of her past Spanish experiences.

3.  What mood or feelings are evoked in stanza two?  How does language create this mood?

The mood and feelings created in stanza two are innocence and pleasant feelings.  She talks about her being a child and the innocence and carefree worries that come with it.  She has memories of Spain when she lived there as a child.  She says, “The sounds of Spanish/ wash over me like warm island waters”.  The speaker wishes to be in her beautiful home country where she can be like a child with no worries rather than being an adult in her new foreign country.

4.  What do we learn in stanzas two and three about the difference between names and vocabulary words?  How does the example of the plant called the morivivir help illustrate this gap?  What does the metaphor of the genii in the bottle tell us about the nature of language?

We learn that names aren’t vocabulary words and that they are two different things.  Vocabulary words are just labels for things and names actually have specific meanings.  The plant morivivir helps illustrate this gap because the plant is given this name because it is one specific plant with certain characteristics.  The metaphor of the genii in the bottle tells us about the nature of language that people use metaphors all the time to mean something different than their literal meaning.  People just know how to interpret them properly by the context they are used in.  Understanding connotations of words is a very important skill in doing this.

5.  In stanzas four and five, why does the speaker invoke Gladys and Rosario from her childhood?  How is her childhood sensitivity to words inextricably bound to Spanish, her first language?  What is significant about the allusion to Adam, the first man?

The speaker invokes Gladys and Rosario because they are memories from her childhood and she misses them.  These two people mean very much to the speaker and they have been a big part of her life.  Gladys seems to have taught her Spanish numbers and Rosario seems to have sung to the speaker.  Her childhood sensitivity to words inextricably bounds to Spanish because it was the first language she learned.  The Spanish language is what she grew up on and it is a big part of her life.  She grew up knowing the Spanish language first therefore it would cause her sensitivity to words.  The significance about the allusion to Adam is to show the effect Rosario had on her.  She says “not Adam, not God, but a country girl numbering the stars,…”  This line shows what kind of effect Rosario had on the speaker.  She compares her with Adam and God and this shows she had great respect for Rosario.