A Similar Difference

The definition of fable: “a short allegorical narrative making a moral point, traditionally by means of animal characters who speak and act like human beings” (Emery).  However, in the book Animal Farm,the animals don’t just act like people, they are actual people.  I am comparing the once well known and highly intelligent man, Karl Marx, to the simple and minor role of Major the pig in Animal Farm by George Orwell. 

Let’s start with how these two think: “Now, comrades, what is the nature of this life of ours?”(Animal Farm  28).  Here Major can be seen questioning the way of life.  Likewise, Karl Marx “…soon found himself having to consider communist theory” (Wolff).  Both thought something was  wrong in life and it needed to be changed.

Unfortunately, nothing changed until after their deaths.  The rebellion on the farm started after Major died because the revolution was kind of Major’s death wish. Karl Marx died and then his economic and political ideas gained rapid acceptance in the socialist movement (Kreis). 

This leads to their actual deaths.  “Old major died peacefully in his sleep”, taken from Animal Farm on page 35 relates quite a bit to how Karl Marx fell asleep in his armchair and died a few minutes later (Kreis).  A peaceful death fits perfectly with their personalities.

Both were highly thought of in life and even after their deaths. Frederick Engels wrote about Marx: “And he fought with a passion, a tenacity and a success such as few could rival” (Lepore). Karl Marx was a very respected man in life.  George Orwell also shows this in Animal Farm: “Old Major was so highly regarded on the farm that everyone was quite ready to lose an hour’s sleep in order to hear what he had to say” (25).

 

“A new revolution is possible only in consequence of a new crisis", quoted from Karl Marx himself.  (Kreis)  Yet in Animal Farm the animals rebel against an old problem. Another quote from Mr. Marx, “From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs” (Network).The animals worked as much as they are able to, but the pigs didn’t work at all, instead they just accorded to their wants.

This particular book creates a simply and slightly questionable fable.  Also, it hints and weaves in little details that help you realize that the book is actually all about real people.  George Orwell had to be revealing enough with his characters so they can understand what he was really trying to say.  He just about had Major exactly like Karl Marx except for a few little details here and there.  Karl Marx and Major could be twins, but even twins have their differences. 

                                        Bibliography

Emery, David. "fable- definition of fable." 2012. About.com Urban Legends. 28 3 2012

<http://urbanlegends.about.com/od/glossary/g/fable.htm>.

                                                                                                         

Kreis, Steven. "Karl Marx, 1818-1883." 2000. The History Guide. 19 March 2012 <http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/marx.html>.

Lepore, Mike. "Engels' burial speech." 1993. The Death of Karl Marx. 19 3 2012 <http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1883/death/burial.htm>.

Network, BookRags Media. "Karl Marx Quotes." 2001-2012. Brainy Quote. 19 3 2012 <http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/k/karlmarx136396.html>.

Wolff, Jonathan. "Karl Marx." 2010. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 19 3 2012 <http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/marx/#1>.

My Four Cornered Life

Author's Note: This piece is from the point of view of a book from the book Fahrenheit 451.

I create psychological warfare
I despise those TVs that create brain cell massacres
I am potentially dangerous
My sharp corners need to be smoothed
I need to be baby-proofed
I am such an inconvenience
So just feed me to the flames
Just toss away forbidden dreams
You can't run from your problems
You can't hide
So what makes you think you can burn them?

I am the Storm

It's raining. 
The drops are sliding down the window like the tears down my face.
The sky is cloudy like his eyes.
I moan thunder and scream light. 
My fury builds the pressure of the rain. 
I tunnel and twist through the air, leaving a path of destruction behind me.
My pitiful gasps rock the sea.
I pelt others with sorrow.
Yet others enjoy my glistening sadness.
My heart freezes over.
I speak one earth-shaking word.
Why

I thought I heard his voice
I thought
One thought
Drifting in my brain

His heart
Our love
Three words
One smile

One whisper
Four words
One tear
One ring

One moment
Six seconds
All it takes is one word
To make one broken heart

Wacky Words

Who created these words that we speak?   Why is something that sounds like baloney spelled bologna?  What is up with who ever wrote these crazy words?  Did they want us to have a really hard time learning how to spell?

Ever heard about homophones and homonyms?  I or is it eye? She read the book that you will read.  I grazed my knee on the sidewalk as the cow grazed in the meadow. 

What about words within words? You can have u and she can have he, but how come I can't be in me?  Eat is in heat.  Are is in care.  Eel is in feel. 

Oh, and try flipping some words around.  Live turns into evil.  Since when is living evil? 

Well, eye just wanted too let u no about these weird words.  Just something two think about.  O, and do knot forget to remember these wards when u have a spelling test!

I hugged my knees to my face and closed my eyes.  They circled around me like crows circling around a dead body.  They screeched and they cackled as I shuddered and shook.  They, them.  Their twisted faces.  All contorted in mangled fury.  Me, just white.  Not pale from being scared, white as in innocence.  A grin on their face.  A tear on mine, not from my fear, but from my farewell to the future I was destined to have. A dripping blade, dripping black not red.  They were so dark, even their blood was marked.  I saw out of the corner of my eye, it was rising.  It stands.  Metal cannot kill it, not even weaken.  It must be killed by sacrifice. 

My time has come.  My time has run out.  My time is now.  Goodbye life.  Goodbye person I once was.  Goodbye my oaths and my promises. 

White is the easiest color to stain.  Black is the hardest.  But I am the strongest.

Live Your Life Without a Lump of Lies

I doubt you've ever met a person that has never told a lie.  The reason?  All of our lives are built on lies.

It'll be okay, the #1 lie in the world.  Why do we lie to reassure others? Lies are deceiving and so we lie to others so they lie to themselves.  They tell themselves it will be okay.  Even if they're in the hospital, dying of a fatal disease.  It won't be okay, but let's all pretend it will be.  Lies are horrible. 

Ever heard the expression "it's just a little white lie?  I do not think they should be called white lies. The color white implies innocence.  Lies are not innocent.

What you don't know won't hurt you.  Ever heard of that one?  So apparently if you don't know that your husband is cheating on you, it won't hurt you.  Or if someone broke into your house and is stealing your most precious and valuable items, it won't hurt you if you don't know.  Lies ruin lives.

Each person is living on one big temple of lies, ready to crumble and collapse at any given moment.  People like you better, you can achieve more, you gain more, and you get stronger from lies.  Yet the lies themselves are weak, feeble, and can easily be discovered.  Why do we depend on something so weak when we are so strong without it?

My hope, a flickering light, so frail, yet desperate to stay
My heart, a time bomb, ticking away
Tick-tock 'till the end
My time has not come
My tears will never be from
Pain
My eyes seek to see
My want has seeped out of me
Oozing out, forming a river that needs a bridge
My laughter is hoarse and echoes defeat
My disobedience has made me cheat
I cheat, but only death

Analyzing Starlight Brawl

             Edgar Allan Poe was one of the greatest writers in history.  Yet, does anyone even know exactly what he meant?  I doubt it, because I don't know what I meant in my own writing.  Take on the task of decoding Starlight Brawl and you will not come up with just one meaning.

          "Man vs. beast", can be interpreted as man vs. evil.  "The beast looked as if a bear, a wolf, and a rhinoceros were mixed", the three creatures could be a symbol for spite, greed and, temptation."The man was tall and broad with a bulky outline", here the man is strong, but maybe not strong enough for this "beast".  "The fight seemed never-ending", man is in a constant battle against evil." although both were tiring" they have equal strength. "The man was now winning and the beast knew it, he took to the sky and flew off like a bat"  whenever man wins, evil leaves, but is not gone forever.  "And the man  fell to the ground and could not rise.",evil weakens man.

"She would have helped", man needs to battle evil on his own, it is his fight.

        All this leads to one question.  Who is this girl that slips into the night to watch this cryptic battle?  Perhaps it is the man's guardian angel, or a ghost from his past."So she ran back to the house and slipped back into the mirror".  Is this his house?  If so,could she be such a big part of his past that he is reminded of her every day?  Is that what the mirror symbolizes?  

           Are any of these interpretations what Melody Geffert originally meant by this piece?  I have no idea.  I'll have to ask her.

A Revised and De-Shelled Turtle

          Turtle necks, ew.  Fashion suicide and extremely uncomfortable.  Yet Melinda wears turtle necks everyday.  This is complete symbolism for Melinda being like a turtle and hiding inside of a shell.  The shell is her skin.  Melinda is hiding inside of her own body, but it she can't break out of her shell.  She is stuck inside of her own body.  This is why I believe the theme of Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson is being trapped.

          Readers can see that Melinda often shuts down around people.  As said on page 95, "I'm allergic to hornets.  One sting and my sting bubbles with hives and my throat closes up."  I believe that Melinda isn't really allergic to hornets, she is just trying to say that when she is talking to someone and they say something she is reminded of something that bothers her, she shuts down.  Like turtles, when they get scared, they go back in their shells.  It's like she is getting pulled back into her body prison as soon as she pokes her head out of her shell. 

          However, Melinda does reach out for help.  On page 47, it says "Now, when I really want to leave, no one will give me a ride."  Here Melinda is looking for someone to break her shell from the outside since her trying from the inside didn't work.  Yet there is no one to help Melinda, or more correctly, there is no one  that wants to help Melinda.
          What scared her so badly that she thought she needed a shell?  Well, it's not what, it's who.  The answer is... Andy Evans.  The least gentleman-like boy in high school.  After "the incident" happened with him at the high school party,  Melinda became the tied-up turtle, bound and locked inside herself.

          When most teenagers are breaking out in acne, Melinda is breaking out of her shell.  Melinda got stuck inside her shell by thinking it was a safe place, protection.  Unfortunately, by the time she realized that it was a trap, it was too late.  No one understood Melinda, but did anyone even try?  Melinda needed help to break out and be freed from the prison inside herself and when she finally received help,she was able to break out.  Melinda no longer needs her shell.  It is simply a discarded memory.

There's always a face at the window, looking into my heart.  Just watching.  Or perhaps waiting. For?  The everlasting beat of the song of my life to suddenly stop.  Or maybe for my steady pace to quicken.   In  fear of, Death?  Or fear for the eyes that once held so much life to suddenly become empty and lifeless. 

No.  Now I know why she is always watching.  She just wants to stay on the verge of my grasp.  Perfectly balanced on the edge of mine and hers.  She doesn't know how to love.  She thinks by watching me she will learn.  Yet it is something you know how to do, or you don't.  You are either born with love or born with hate.  So how was she born with nothing at all?  A human is born with a heart, yet she was born empty.  No good inside, yet no evil.  I am in love with a hollow being that has never heard a beating heart.

The deceitful daughters decide to die before the disaster occurs
Clouds run silently across the sky
Run, like the tears I will cry
Streams and rivers down my face
Betting their lives on who will win the race
Happiness yellow, sadness blue, envy green, anger red,blood red
Race over,tears shed
A Gossamer touch, and a bleak shadow

A blank face, a curtain drawn

A villain's mask, a hero disguised

A lock-less  door, a key inside

Invisible ink, hidden  secrets

A mute soul, an untold tale

Two shadows, one soul.

In the attic of my grandpa's old Victorian, a hole is hidden behind an old trunk.  Just simply sitting there.  The littlest bit of sunlight drifting through.  To you.  For you.  But you are not there to see it.  Nor have you seen the hole in my heart.  That you dug deeper with each look, each laugh, each smile.  How am I supposed to fill this empty crater?  With the artificial words you feed to everyone?  Or maybe all the lies you construct to break others down.  I'm sure you have enough to spare.  If each person lived off their own compassion, you wouldn't last ten seconds.  Yet despite everything, you managed to steal my heart and you still haven't given it back.