A Tale of Two Cities Critical Approach

A Tale of Two Cities has been the most sold novel in history for quite a few years now, and there is most certainly a reason for that.  The book has everything that a reader could ask for: love, death, murder, mystery, the list goes on for a while.  But the book develops quite slowly.  The entire first chapter sets up the plot for the entire story, and Dickens goes very in depth in his description of everything.  Dickens is one of the most distinguished writers to ever live, and he uses his talent throughout the novel.  His attention to detail is critical in the development of the plot, and his use of duality most certainly helps the plot seem three demensional.  Dickens was from England, so of course he is quite biased when he writes about the French, but that is expected when he is writing to an English audience.  If I have to disagree with anything that happens in the book, I would have to say that I do not understand why Madame Defarge desire revenge so badly.  I understand that it helped move the plot forward, and helped give the story a tragedy, but her desire for revenge consumes the entire novel.  I am sure that I do not agree with this because I am not in the time period in which the novel was written, but I believe that people's desire for revenge and retribution is not as strong as it was back in the 18th and 19th centuries.  People, for the most part, are a little more civilized and allow the judicial system to deal the punishment for crimes that have been committed.  Anyway, the novel was written by a master of his craft, and he most definitely showed his mastery when he was writing A Tale of Two Citites.  The book has a well developed plot and has very three dimensional characters throughout.  This book was most certainly worth the read, and I would recommend that people read it in future years, but of course that is why you chose the novel. 

How Music Affects Us

      Throughout our lives, we all go through different phases of music.  We begin liking the same music that our parents like because it is what we are first introduced too, but around the age of thirteen or fourteen, we begin to develop our own music taste.  Around these years, we finally begin to understand what some of the songs mean, and we begin choosing what actually appeals to us and what does not.  When I was younger, I listened to a lot of Green Day and other rock bands, but I now notice that at age thirteen I began to prefer hip hop and rap.  I believe that music has greatly affected who I am today.  I have noticed that we tend to choose our friends and the people that we associate ourselves with by music taste; of course this is not the only reason as to why we associate with these people, but music gives us a shared interest and helps us begin talking with these people.  As I reflect on all of my friends, their favorite "musicians", or rappers, are the same as mine: Childish Gambino, Kid Cudi, Eminem, etc... I listen to these artists because I can relate with some of what they are saying.  Eminem tends to rap about his bad relationship with his mother, and I can relate to that because I have not always had a good relationship with my parents.  Around the time when I began choosing my own music genre, I did not have the best relationship with my parents.  They were always working or traveling, and it became very lonely for me. 
      Music allows us to become something that we wish we could be.  When we listen to music, we enter a world in which nothing ever seems to matter.  Everything in the world around you comes to a complete halt during that one song that you love listening to.  We try to relate ourselves to the things that are occurring in the song and that helps us forget about all of the troubles of life.  When I listen to the song "Kenji" by Fort Minor, I begin to think of what life was like for people during the second World War.  I try to imagine that I am one of the civilians that is being discriminated against by the United States government just for my nationality.  Everyone has one song that means more than anything to them.  We tend to choose this song because the lyrics talk about a time in which we suffered a loss, or we enjoy the sound of the music behind the words, or even just that song helped lift you up when you were in a vulnerable time of need.  Whatever the reason is, you know you have found your song when you get a tingling feeling up your spine, and you enter a world where nothing can possibly bring you down while you are listening to it. 
      Our taste in music distinguishes ourselves from everyone else.  It is a way we can feel independent and unique.  Everyone's music taste differs in some way from everyone else's, whether it be a view of one song, or an entire artist.  Music makes us independent and helps us feel like we mean something to the world.

The Meaning Behind Eyes of a Blue Dog

In class we were given a short story to read, and of course I was given probably the most confusing and longest story of all, Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Eyes of a Blue Dog.  In the beginning of the story, I found myself wondering what was happening.  The story just did not seem to make sense... The way Marquez linked the dream world to the real world seemed too abstract.  Marquez seemed to portray the dream world as a type of its own reality.  When I finished reading the story, I sat in my room looking at the wall wondering what had just happened.  Throughout the story, there were multiple references towards searching for each other outside of the bedroom, but the story never left the prison-like room he called a bedroom.  I read the story again after we gave our presentations just to see if the story made any more sense to me, and I still wonder why Marquez had the characters desire so much to make contact with each other, but have them never connect.  Marquez is mainly a magic realism writer, which most certainly shows in the short story, Eyes of a Blue Dog.  I believe that Marquez uses the two characters to show desire.  The two characters desire so desperately to meet and have physical contact with one another, but no matter how hard they try, the do not succeed.  This failure to make contact with each other shows how we are truly alone in life.  I also believe that the near empty bedroom in which they are trapped could represent the unconscious mind.  The two characters are trapped in a dream world and are not allowed to leave.  Dreams generally occur when we are asleep or when we are sleep deprived and are a result of our unconscious thought taking over.  The room is said to be all alone in a vast emptiness with nothing near it and the two characters can't escape, which sounds a lot like an unconscious mind to me.  The only reference to an outside world that is made is the statement that it smells of a farm outside of the room, this could be the mind thinking of past memories.  I still have not figured out why the story was centered on such useless items like the lamp and the pillow.  I do not know what they could symbolize other than something for the two characters to attach themselves to as a way to make them seem more concrete.  This story is one of the more confusing stories that I have read, and after reading it twice I still do not understand how someone can come up with a story like this.

Tolkien's Quests

I have been sitting in my room for about an hour now, ruminating on all of the possible topics that my first official blog post could be about.  I finally decided that I would write about a book that is very dear to me.  Ever since I was a little kid, I, like every other small child, had a strange fascination with tales of ancient soldiers, elves, and dwarves.  So my father introduced The Hobbit to me when he felt I was old enough to comprehend everything that was occurring throughout the novel.  This has been my favorite book for years, and the fact that a movie is finally being made about the book only increases my love for this novel.  I thought that I would talk about the quests that Tolkien always sends in characters on in his novels of Middle Earth.  Of course Tolkien is not the first person to use a quest in his novels, nor will he be the last; but he masters the telling of a quest in a way that I have not seen matched by another author.  His quests always consist of the same key features: A wise old wizard who has encountered many adventures in his days, a novice adventurer who does not think fondly of quests, and a few skilled warriors as protection.  This is standard in almost all tales of adventure, but Tolkien discovered a new way of presenting it which allowed the readers to know more of the events surrounding the quest and the hardships the characters faced.  I will always love Tolkien's novels and I know for a fact that I will be one of the first in line to watch The Hobbit when it comes in theaters in early December. 

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