Emi's English Blog

We’ve been watching videos in World Since 1945 about nuclear bombs and the effects they have, from explosion to fallout. It’s pretty gruesome and scary, so reading about how Gunnar wants the A-bomb to drop on them is like really? But I guess the point is they just want to die, no one’s thinking about blood radiation poisoning or agricultural collapse. Gunnar really became something. At the beginning I thought he was a scrawny little kid with a resilient sense of humor who just wanted to make friends. He worked so hard to fit in. By the end of the book, he couldn’t have cared less about fitting in. It was impossible for him to—he was above everyone else, so he had no place among them on their level. He never actually fit in in the first place. With the basketball group he immediately became the best. In the gang he did things on his own terms. In school he was so elevated that nothing could touch him. His only group is his two close friends Scoby and Psycho Loco. Eventually Yoshik

I cried once during Beloved. There was a lot to cry about, and yet amidst all the scenes of almost clownish tragedy, the thing that really affected me was Sixo’s death. Sixo wasn’t a very important character in the book, but he was important to the thirty-mile woman. Just look at her name—thirty-mile woman. That’s a testament to how much she meant to him. How? I don’t know. How do people separated by thirty miles find each other? All I know is that somehow he loved her. He walked thirty miles for her. If he didn’t love her he would have just molested the cows. That sounds much easier. Morrison is truly amazing in the way she slips into different minds. She knows how people think, understands their view; understands it even better than the people themselves. The way she described Sixo and the 30 mile woman together was phenomenal. “they clutch each other and whisper. She is lit now with some glowing, some shining that comes from inside her. Before when she knelt on creek pebbl

Ever dreamed about how life would turn out? Many children, like me, think they will have it all—everything they thought they needed or deserved. Money, fame, a perfect romantic marriage. Janie probably thought she could have it all. Not the same “all” as us, but the “all” within her realm of possibility. At least, the perfect romantic marriage. It’s hard when life doesn’t go the way you wanted. You don’t accept it at first. You try to change it and return to that state of hopeful ignorance. Janie tried to do that by running off with Jodie. She still felt entitled to those happy things. Unfortunately, Jodie was not what Janie wanted him to be. Janie learned pretty quickly that she wouldn’t have the things she thought she would and adapted. We all adapt as life goes wrong. We experience injustices that used to exist only in our nightmares and tragedies that we read about in story books, and we normalize them. We expect them, and the next time they happen, we’re not as shocked. We ada

There isn’t quite as much blatant symbolism in Their Eyes were Watching God as there was in Invisible Man, but I think we’ve all noticed it recurring in one thing in particular: Janie’s hair. Janie’s hair is her most shining outward quality, long and luscious, with an intoxicating effect on men. Not one man is immune to her abundant waves of healthy dark hair, and the townies are obsessed with it (some a little too much, like that one guy who just kind of touched it). Her hair served as both bait and lure of Jody, reeling him in like a fat trout to a juicy shiny worm. Under the flouncing light of the sun, her hair flipped flirtatiously about, young and playful. This defining feature of Janie is an outward expression of her heart. It changes with the circumstances of her life and the weight they bear on her spirit. Janie lost her autonomy in her marriage to Jody. She lost herself. Her hair was robbed of its luster and glory under the jealousy of Joe, and became hidden beneath the head

     Ellison, man. You’ve got to let it go. We get it, black and white symbolize things and a lot of things can be colored black and white and be symbolic but, my gosh, not eVERYTHING has to be. Okay. Up until page 492, whenever I came across another black or white object it was still pretty funny, and I wagged my finger knowingly and thought that Ellison sure is something, there’s that symbolism again rubbed in my face in such a clever way har har har. But then I hit page 492 and somehow the subject turns to the narrator’s shoes AGAIN, and I was just like….why you forcin’ it Elli. I mean, we have this interesting Rinehart character come into action and then, of all things, we have to talk about his shoes? Who’s known for his shoes anyways (knobtoed, which by the way are basically just like any other classy black shoe ever), when he has such iconic other articles of fashion like his sunglasses and hat? Who would even be looking at his shoes? That creepy. Ellison please stop making ev

  The narrator of Invisible Man is a remarkable person. He knows exactly who he is, at least, he eventually does (once he is free from chasing the Bledsoe assistant life and the other stuff that came before his underground life with light bulbs). He breaks through all the pretending/societal conditioning, which is thrown at every one of us and shapes our thoughts and behaviors and expectations. He reaches enlightenment—literal enlightenment, with physical lights. He is being true to his nature, doing the rebellious thing his grandpa told him to. Unlike most of us, he is free. But is he? None of us are really “ourselves”—we’re just molds of our experience.   In his earlier life, the narrator thought the things society wanted him to think, the things he thought were the right things to think in order to be “successful,” and with effort, he suppressed that nagging memory of his grandpa’s words. We know that after several things happen, he rebels against the straight path and

A question haunted me through reading Native Son : What would have happened if Bigger gave Mary CPR as soon as he realized she wasn’t breathing? Would she have come back to life? Or would suffocating her have done too much irreparable damage? I like to believe that this whole situation could have been avoided if only Bigger had received CPR training, which as you can imagine is endlessly frustrating (obsessing over what could have been). The question “What if” became a trend throughout the book. Again and again I read of Bigger’s shenanigans and felt a tugging in my chest as I considered all the ways he could have gotten away by doing x y and z but didn’t. Why didn’t you just clean the furnace, fooool? I thought of all the things I would do differently if put in Bigger’s place, all the mistakes I would avoid doing and all the precautions I would take, though first of all I would probably have to find my way out of this glass house (where are the DOORS???) The reality is, Bigger i

Sag Harbor isn’t the most spicy action book we’ve read this semester. Some would even say that nothing actually happened. I agree. However, it was still a striking read to me because of the recent semester project. If you are not a practiced writer, maybe you can relate to this thought: I’m sure I could write a bestseller if I wanted to, how hard can it be? I’ve admittedly toyed with this thought from time to time, usually because I’m reading a book that’s so good it seems to have flowed smoothly right from the author’s life onto paper. How hard could it be? Well, the answer is very hard, and every so often I am reminded by something like the semester project to take myself down a peg. Catch me racking my brain to come up with something to describe that isn’t Holden’s eyes or the color of the sky. Writing a book seems easy until you realize you have no idea how to string words together. Despite my mediocre end product, I really appreciated the semester project for what it taught

Jason Taylor is a guy we can get behind. He’s interesting and his thoughts and antics make us laugh. His shortcomings endeared him to me. I remember reading the start of the chapter Maggot where Jason was being bullied and outcasted for his stammer and exclaiming to Nika, “ I hate Ross Wilcox so much!” I know I wasn’t the only one who wanted Jason to rise up and tell Ross Wilcox to stuff it, winning the respect of the school and the heart of Dawn Madden (whom he would then reject because he realized he deserves respect). That’s why I felt that little rush of justice when Jason found Ross Wilcox’s wallet and then Dawn dumped Ross. The image of Ross’ dumb miserable face in my mind (I pictured him looking like Reese from Malcolm in the Middle) was a sweet one, as I thought Jason is rich now! Ross has fallen! Justice is served! Rah rah rah! It was a perfect blow to Ross—the rich bully lost his allowance, learned he can’t treat people badly, feels like an idiot, etc. We all know t

Living from boxcar to boxcar? That means no immediate access to showers, food, Netflix, toilets, beds, etc. Honestly, what’s the appeal? I don’t see it. I don’t understand transients in the same way that I don’t understand monks. But there probably is an appeal, because otherwise like why would people do it. I decided to do some research on what makes people pursue a lifestyle that means giving up all those human comforts that we are so attached to. Unfortunately people on quora were really unhelpful, so I’ll just think of some possibilities. 1.       Because society is meaningless Ruth sometimes reminded me of Holden Caulfield. Holden didn’t like the b.s. he sensed in the fronts people put up. He wanted to get away from it all. Ruth could have joined in with the popular dress-making girls, but she didn’t see a point. Both of them were overwhelmed by the pointlessness of a lot of the things people do in an attempt to cohabitate. Ruth wanted to get away from it all. 2.       Bec

I enjoyed my elementary education for the most part, but there was one teacher who will always haunt my memory. Mrs. Verdell was someone whom every kid wanted to please. Not necessarily because she deserved respect, but because she was an adult, and always had something to say. Kids hang onto the words of adults like lifelines in the middle of a sea. The world is a very confusing place for a kid growing up, and all they have to guide them is what adults say and do. Until kids someday come across the startling realization that not everything an adult says or does is from the fount of all wisdom, they tend to assume that adults can do no wrong. Sometimes that’s not so good. Mrs. Verdell taught art to all third and fourth graders, and so twice a week it was my class’s turn to file into the four by eight feet wooden-walled art room and learn how to use crayons and markers and properly administer liquid glue (a drop will do). Sometimes she would twist mannequins into a lifelike positi

           I wasn’t sure why the goddam room got so goddam hot all of a sudden. It was like someone had wrapped the whole stinking thing up in tinfoil and stuck it in an oven like a potato or something, it was that hot. My armpits started to work up this terrible sweat. Somewhere above, this rusty ceiling fan was spinning around and around . Slowest thing I ever saw. It kept on stirring that hot air up into even hotter air and all these guys in the bar kept loosening their collars and sneaking looks around as though they were checking to see if some random furnace had appeared or something. I had half a mind to take off my old jacket but this real nasty looking pack of girls over at the counter were sorta giving me eyes and I didn’t want to give them anything to look at. There really wasn’t much of a reason for me to keep sticking around, but I didn’t have anything better to do tonight. This nervous little guy over in the corner kept sneaking these nervous glances around like it was

Portrait of a Young Artist has spoiled us. Joyce opens his very mind and allows us to step into the life of another person. Other novels sometimes seem to place a sort of video camera in front of the character, and that is the view we have of them. Sure, we get inside their minds a little, with statements like “Oh, he made Clara so furious!” and “Jack had never seen anything so heartbreaking before, and he thought of his own mother,” or whatever, but PYA makes it seem as though we are Stephen himself. I personally have never read anything like this book before. Of course, this quality of PYA is also what throws off a lot of readers, because it is incredibly intense to get to know another person-- deeply know them. We are deeply getting to know Stephen--his most shameful thoughts, his most innate tendencies (which even he himself might not realize exist). This process is overwhelming for us, and the reason for that is Stephen is absolutely insane. But it’s not his faul

Maybe someone once told you that If you really want to know if you look bad, don’t ask your friends or your family--ask a child. Children are generally unabashed and quite honest. There’s a good reason for that: they have nothing to hide. Everything’s simpler as a child. You live life under the watchful eye of your parents. You are never unsupervised, you are constantly guided, and curiosity is smashed beneath the laws of behavior (in a good way). In your mind, everything makes sense. Nothing ever changes. You know who you are and what you stand for and that is simply what will always be. Of course, at some point in our lives we realize that everything is changing. It’s up to us to guide ourselves. Then we fall completely into the dark as to who we are, what we stand for, and what the future holds, stumbling towards any glimmer of light and grasping at things to find our way. It’s a long, hard, frustrating journey, coming of age, and sometimes we do some pretty weird thin