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Week 14 Analysis: Close Reading of Letter to A Prisoner
In this poem, Senghor writes to one of his comrades named Ngom in a German prisoner of war camp. He tells him about what he's seen in wartime Paris after being released from the camp himself. "I write you from the solitude of my precious - and closely guarded -/ Residence of my black skin." (Senghor, 682) This line expresses how he feels as an African man away from his culture. He admits that he is isolated, but rather than use that word he uses a similar one: solitude. Though they both mean being alone, they have very different connotations. Solitude implies that it was a conscious decision, giving him agency in his distance from the people around him. He feels that as a black man he cannot relate to those around him, so he closely guards himself and his identity. "Fortunate are my friends/ Who know nothing of the icy walls and the brightly lit/ Apartments that sterilize every seed on the ancestors' masks/ And even the memories of love." (Senghor, 682...
I appreciate your project submission it helps me a story that was pretty hard to keep up for me while reading it so it was hard to pull a lot from the themes it gave. Although reading your submission has cleared up a lot about this particular story. The quotes you gave close where very spot on when it came to backing up your argument of this mistreatment of Du's life. Also her life sounds really horrible since everyone wanted to just use her and you did a good job of explaining that in your essay. My favorite quote had to be the one when Du said a few words before she planned to commit suicide. Only one thing you need to fix and thats just to find another story to compare with this one you used and you submission will be complete to the fullest. Keep the good work up.
ReplyDeleteHi Veronica,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your project submission. This was a story that I have not read but I have a pretty good understanding on what it is about now. I thought your analysis of the story was really good. Your thesis in the beginning of the project is clear and you did an awesome job of explaining how the author portrayed Du's character. It ties back to your thesis statement in the introduction and proves your point. One thing you did an excellent job of was using quotes from the text to prove your points. Overall, I think you did a great job with your first project. It shows you have a very good understanding of the story because you were able to find details beyond the surface of the reading.
-Patrick
greetings Veronica
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed that you pretty much laid out the main point that you were going to talk about in each of the paragraphs because it got me ready for what the topic you are about discuss and what I was about to be thinking about. I think you had a great contextual evidence and you did a great job incorporating the literature and quotes from it into your project that made it flow very together. I also like how you did not just dive into but you gave a summary of the story which helped us understand what is going on in the story. Your project also answers your main question pretty well and you stayed on topic and were not all over the place. I could not really find anything wrong or you needed to fix. Overall, you did an excellent job on the first project! I enjoyed reading it
ReplyDeleteVeronica, I truly enjoyed reading your analysis. Immediately, you had strong facts taken from the story to substantiate your argument. Although I saw that Mama had treated Du Tenth as worthless and replaceable, I had overlooked how she belittled her “you lousy slut!” I did not understand this statement “Du believes her life has been shameful because she (delete “is”) was a prostitute, despite there being nothing inherently more immoral about sex work than any other type of labor that people do to make a living. Did you mean that “Du believes her life has been shameful because she was a prostitute, (considering) there ….. instead of the word (despite)?
What a profound statement “the idea that a woman can either be moral or sexual, but never both simultaneously” She was a moral woman but was forced as a young child to make what many would call unethical decisions. It was not who she was, but what she did. Great analysis!
Hello Veronica!
ReplyDeleteI want to start of by saying I am very impressed by what you were able to accomplish in this project so far. After reading it I found that you had given me a new perspective on what was written in “Du Tenth Sinks the Jewel Box in Anger” by Feng Menglong. I appreciate that you brought to light the (although incidental most likely) hypocrisy by which Feng writs off suicide as preserving morality and the criticism of prostitutes. The strongest point you made was the author talking about Du in the story. He flat out objectifies her, and you were able to cite sources that indicated such feelings. Also the dehumanizing of the mother is another strong point to be made in favor of your argument. I would say overall you summed up the story without making this a summary and supported all your ideas with solid quotes. Not much else to say except for great job!
Hi Veronica, you did a fantastic and brilliant job in your project. Your provided so much evidence from the story, and I really lied how you focused in on Du Tenth and the impact that beauty and her status had on her life. It is sad to see that she was treated horribly for being a prostitute and it was good that you addressed that. You mentioned that Du's name had been changed to a number and in this had completely changed how she was viewed, I had not noticed that at all and it serves as good evidence. Your content is good and your decision to solely focus in on one story was great because you truly go in depth and expand it. Your thesis is great and your paragraphs support very well. What I liked a lot was that each paragraph had their point and you thoroughly explained it without going off on a tangent, I am indeed impressed by how good your project is. Nice job.
ReplyDeleteHi Veronica! I enjoyed reading your first project submission because you had a really well-organized essay and incorporated quotes properly in order to elaborate upon the topic at hand. I like how your first paragraph after the introduction elaborated upon the theme of dehumanization because I found it to be completely agreeable, considering that Du Tenth was constantly dehumanized by those around her throughout the story. I love how you consistently mentioned the author's view throughout your project submission because the author's view point is what makes the story. You really did an amazing job on that. However, I feel that you summarized the quotes and story amazingly well but I feel that you should have analyzed the quotes a bit more, like maybe adding more of your own opinions. Besides that, I could not find anything wrong with your project submission because it was so well-thought out and thoroughly organized. Amazing Job on your first project submission! I cannot wait to read more of your work!
ReplyDeleteHey Veronica! I wanted to start off saying I really liked how you provided a short summary of what the story was about because it helps those who didn't read the story and for those who didn't fully understand the story. You did a great job at explaining that in your project submission and right away I knew your project was off to a great start. Du Tenth was dehumanized by everybody and you backed up that statement with evidence which was good. I think you could have compared this story to Ch'un-Hyang because she was mistreated as well. I think the compare and contrast of the two would've suit your project submission well. There's always next time to do so. I also liked how in the beginning of each paragraph, you gave a brief sentence on what that paragraph's main point was going to be focusing on. It made your analysis easy to follow along that way. Overall, I think you did an amazing job and maybe next time use two different stories to help dig deeper in the topic. Other than that, nice work and I look forward to reading your next project submission! Good luck!
ReplyDeleteHi Veronica, I finished reading your Project 2 and it was brilliant. Your thesis was focused since you were addressing the free will aspect in Bartleby.I really liked how you chose to center in on a single story because you are able to expand on it more thoroughly, which is what you did in this project. I noticed that you had incorporated your own experiences on free will and some similarities between the events with Bartleby and yourself, and that was great because it added more to the paper. I really liked how you had put in a lot of evidence from the text to support your claims, and the quotes you chose fit in very well. It was good that you mentioned Bartleby's shift in behavior in the "I would prefer not to" scenes because it was a major change in the story and quite important too. You also do a very good job of maintaining the paragraphs focused on a sole topic. One thing that I do suggest to fix is minor grammatical errors like spelling or punctuation, but overall you did a fantastic job.
ReplyDeleteHi Veronica,
ReplyDeleteWow! You are an excellent writer and I very much enjoyed reading your second project submission. It all flowed very well and you did a great job tying in your life experiences with the theme of free will that you analyzed from the book. I enjoyed this book and I found Bartleby to be an interesting, intriguing character that jostled a lot of questions in my mind when I was reading. I think you did a great job putting into words your own analysis of the book. I also think it can be a hard task to relate your own experience to such an odd story and you did this beautifully. Looking at your story and Bartleby’s story one might not see any similarities, but you successfully drew conclusions that tied both of your stories together. Nothing really stood out to me that needed critiquing, so great job! Keep up the good work!
Hi Veronica!
ReplyDeleteI very much enjoyed reading your project and I have to say it was very insightful as well! Reading your project really gave me a new look into Melville's story. I had not connected the idea or theme of free-will and chaos before in my initial reading of the story. Your connection with the story was also a perfect fit. I like how you tied it in with your parents and the idea of going after a "safe" job over something you may be more passionate about. The description you gave of Bartleby in contrast to the lawyer I felt was well written and adds depth. Your personal story that was interwoven into the writing was done very well. It stuck to the prompt giving a good amount of dialogue while still staying true the literature, so there was an overall balance. Aside from the option of adding in the potential other characters for additional depth (which doesn't seem necessary), there isn't much I feel there would need to be added or critiqued. Excellent work Veronica!
Hello Veronica!
ReplyDeleteI have to say, you did a marvelous job on this project submission! My favorite thing about this project is the fact that you were able to relate the reading to your life, which is something I might have trouble doing since I feel like my life isn't interesting enough to relate to any of these stories we have read. I have to admit that when I first read this story, I had a troubling time understanding it and what exactly was Bartleby's character but thanks to your project, I have a better understanding about what the meaning behind the story and character was. I also like how you stated that the point of view in Bartleby's story was from someone who adhered to the norms of society, someone who viewed themselves as part of society, so it would make a bigger, dramatic effect when they start seeing Bartleby's actionc (or lack thereof) and see it as being odd. How do you think the story would've been told or how different would it be if it were told from Bartleby's perspective or if Bartleby decided to at least play along with society rather than outright refuse to do anything? Great work and keep it up!
Hi Veronica,
ReplyDeleteI just finished reading your second project submission. I thought you did an excellent job discussing the theme of free will in the story. I liked how you were also able to connect to the story and put your own personal thoughts in each paragraph. I think you should make your thesis statement a little more straight forward in your introduction, but aside from that I think you did a great job!
-Patrick
Hey Veronica, I just read your project and I really enjoyed it! Your introduction was very strong and engaging as it posed interesting hypothetical questions like "what if" I didn't do the thing I was meant or supposed to do. I also liked that in your essay, you analyzed quotations from the text and you used you told your own experiences as well to put emphasis o the theme about free will. I also liked that you balanced the examples from your life and from the text. I had the trouble of using too much of my own life instead of focusing enough on my analysis of the text. I ended up writing more of a reflection paper rather than a literary analysis paper for my first project submission. The only issue i was having trouble with was the theme of the story. I wasn't entirely sure whether your theme was about what if we chose to do nothing or was it about not having free will.
ReplyDeleteHi Veronica!
ReplyDeleteAfter reading your revision, I see a lot of great improvements that you made over the initial one. This has been one of my favorite projects this time around because of how you were really able to relate to it. I enjoyed seeing the connection you had to the story and reading about the struggles that you went through yourself. You did a nice job balancing the personal experiences with what you found in the story. You could have easily just written about your experiences but you didn't. You found the quotes it the story to back up your claim and you proved them. Great job!
-Patrick
Hi Veronica!
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your second project submission! I accidentally read the first draft of your project before I noticed a separate revision and I was going to comment that a thesis would be useful in your paper. I felt like it was so sudden the way you suddenly connected Bartleby to your life, but I can see you addressed that in your project revision. My only suggestion is to take those separate ideas in your introduction, the consequences of choices and your meaning of free will, and just combine them into one coherent thesis statement. Aside from that, I think you did an absolutely wonderful job on this project and I actually have no other comments to make as to how I think you could improve your paper. I really appreciate the fact that you were willing to share your own personal story within your paper to help us readers understand how you are able to relate your experiences with Bartleby’s experiences. I think you did a great job setting up your project and you made good use of the story while also showing the relevance of the connections from your personal life to Bartleby’s life. Great work!
Hi Veronica!
ReplyDeleteI really love your opening paragraph. I like how throughout your project you relate the situation with Bartleby with your own life. It is not easy to follow your own path instead of your parents and I applaud you for doing so. I also love your concluding paragraph where you talk about free will and what it means when you lose it. I especially love, If you allow anyone besides yourself to answer those questions for you, the powerlessness that comes as a result will leave you empty inside, feeling like a machine that exists only to execute commands more than a human being with their own individual desires. This was very insightful. Your project was well formatted and flowed together nicely. There is little to no error in grammar. Your project submission is easy to read and I enjoyed it. Overall I thought you did a great job!
Hi Veronica! I loved your second project submission. It was really interesting to read your comparisons between your life and Bartleby and by the way you wrote it out, I found it very smooth and easy to understand what you were saying. I can see that you can really relate to Bartleby and the way you described this relation made me see bartleby in a whole new light because I did not see the story as in-depth as you did. There was not really anything wrong with your essay besides just adding a clear thesis. Overall, you did an amazing job at creating a project submission that flows well and you argued and discussed your theme well. I can agree with a lot of what you said after reading your project submission, like how eventually a person will break after having their free will taken from them. I also like how you discussed this topic because you explained it very well and without error. I liked your project submission very much. Keep up the good work and amazing job!
ReplyDeleteHi Veronica!
ReplyDeleteI'm commenting on your first Draft of your Final project, Project three! I loved that you chose to do an Anthology and that you wanted to have many different view points for the students that you had in mind!
Disclaimer: I don't mean to be harsh or come off as rude in my comments, I would just like you to have the best final grade possible! And these are just my opinions and what I would question as if I were grading your paper! So take it with a grain of salt!
Some notes on writing and citation:
You wrote in your fourth paragraph "As a poor, barely educated woman who lived in 19th century Japan her entire life until her early death, Ichiyo created realism with no influence from the European Realist movement. " - I found this sentence a bit difficult to read. The "until her early death" may be what is making that section a bit too much information for one sentence.
You did not include page numbers, So that may be a citation issue.
When you wrote about Kincaid, you quoted the title when it should be in Italics.
Notes on the topic/ prompt:
I did notice that you also had a wide range of ethnic diverse writers, but you also chose works that were on the more recent side (Not 21st century recent, but in literary terms). I would have perhaps recommended adding something from the 1500's or 1400's that we read in the first Anthology.
I also think that maybe adding some quotes that may provoke conversation would have been helpful illustrations as to how you would use those works.
Over all well done!
Hello Veronica!
ReplyDeleteI think that its awesome that you chose the anthology prompt. as I felt I wouldn't be able to do that but you managed to do quite well and I like the selections of works that you chose to be part of your anthology! You spaced everything out quite well and each work was in its own paragraph so it made your project a lot easier to read! And one thing that I really like was how your first selection was de la Cruz's poems who was a feminist advocate and your last work was Kincaid's, "Girl" who was also another feminist. However, Kincaid's work was more about the expectations of womanhood, contrasting Cruz's poems. I really like how the pro-feminist idea would come full circle in the end with another perspective on it. The only things I would say would be to maybe try to add some quotes from each work so readers can get a feel for what each work would be about and to support your description of each work, as well as maybe try to find an older work because I see most of these works are recent so maybe an older work can help round out your anthology! Besides that, I think you did a great job with your project and you had a really great idea for your anthology! Great Work!
Hi Veronica! I really enjoyed reading your third project submission! It is really creative and interesting that you decided to do an anthology prompt. It really drew me into wanting to read your project submission and by incorporating different stories, I was continuously entertained the further I read your project submission. I really like that each story was a different paragraph. By organizing it this way, it made it so much easier to follow and understand what you were trying to say. You also did an amazing job at incorporating your opinion into the project submission. I can completely see the different learning opportunities in each paragraph and story. The only thing I can suggest is to maybe incorporate examples through use of quotes. Besides that, you did an amazing job on your third project submission. In conclusion, you did a great job and I really enjoyed reading your anthology project submission. keep up the great work!
ReplyDeleteHi there, Veronica! Wow, I think you did a really incredible job! You set up your argument very clearly and then built off of it throughout the whole thing. I think your paragraphs were separated nicely into different ideas. I can't believe you chose 5 different selections! Wow, that's incredible! I can tell you put in a lot of effort into it and I was thoroughly impressed. The only thing I could think of to strengthen your project is if you propose your five different ideas at the beginning for your introduction's road map. Then get more to specifics with your body paragraphs. This can give your readers even clearer ideas of what you are trying to say and the message you are trying to convey. I think you pretty much hit the nail on the head with this project, but these are just little nitpicky things you could do to make it even stronger. Overall I really think you did a great job, though. Keep up the great work!
ReplyDeleteHi veronica
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed that you pretty much laid out the main point that you were going to talk about in each of the paragraphs because it got me ready for what the topic you are about discuss and what I was about to be thinking about. I think you had a great contextual evidence and you did a great job incorporating the literature and quotes from it into your project that made it flow very well together. I also like how you formatted your project it made it easy to read and follow. Your project also answers your main question pretty good I think. I could not really find anything wrong with your third project since you have had a lot of practices writing in this class. You did an excellent job I enjoyed reading your project you have grown a lot from your first project to last keep up the good work.