Lit Analysis 

Ok so has anyone received peer reviews?  I have only received one and I know the final is due Thursday the 2nd so trying to get a head start.  

This week I really enjoyed reading plays, although I didn't think I would.  Most of the plays we read told stories with great meaning to them.  I enjoyed learning about the different plays, how they are written, and the terminology behind them even though it still confuses me some.

This week we read the poem "Facing It" by Yusef Komunyakaa.  I enjoyed this poem as I used it told a story of a veteran who is visiting the Vietnam War Memorial Wall.  This was significant to me because I used to pass this wall every day when I lived in the D.C. area, it was on my way to work.  This poem hit me hard as I realized how many times I had passed that same wall without even thinking twice about the names etched into the wall and the lives that were taken to save mine.  The author used symbols to tell his story.  One example of symbolism in this poem is on line 10, "a women's trying to erase names: No, she's brushing a boy's hair."

This week our reading were focused on poems.  Reading poems has always been a challenge for me.  I often have a hard time understand the authors irony and theme.
"My Papa's Waltz" by Theodore Roethke tells a story of a dad who has drank to much whisky and is dancing clumsy around the kitchen with his son.  As the dance abrasively around the kitchen items fall of shelves, and mom is not happy.  Dad breath smells of whiskey, and his rough knuckles held the boys wrist.  The son does not enjoy the dance, but "hung on like death."  The boys ear is scraped by the dads belt buckle and the dad keeps time by hitting the boy on the head.  At the end the dad dances the boy off the bed.

This poem had a rough, negative attitude towards the dad, but yet I thought the author was trying the be somewhat joyful with the rhythms like knuckle and buckle.  I concentrated more on the drunken roughness of the father and how many children today are living the same circumstances.