Blog 16 : Final Reflection

In this semester, the most interesting class that I had was ENG102 because here I learnt may different things that helped in improving my reading and writing skills. This class was different from rest of the classes as the class had a new concept of Blogs and a theme Supernatural. It was really interesting as we were not limited to only one topic and were free to research and write about anything under the supernatural theme. The class did not require us to do essays on separate paper as we did all our essays on blogs. The blog really helped as we could see what our peers are doing and then give feedback to each other. Professor Smith and all the peers were really helpful in giving their feedback and improving the essay before the blog was graded. I learned to find the story hidden in the poem, its tone and the symbols in it and then analyze and interpret the poem. I learnt about the Dictionary of Symbolism as I did not had any idea about it and also learnt that Wikipedia can be used for research work. The other thing which I learned was Monomyth or Hero’s quest. I learned about Hero’s quest from the interview of Joseph Campbell, reading about Monomyth on Wikipedia, watching a film “Spirited Away” in class and then discussing about it with the peers and professor. Mostly all films have Hero’s quest in them in which an ordinary man has to go through a journey and do different kind of tasks and then in the end return as a hero and gain knowledge from it. I got an opportunity to apply what I had learned about Hero’s quest in my chosen film “Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within”. The experience of applying what I learned has helped me a lot as now I am more interested in watching films because now I can easily identify the different stages of Hero’s quest in them which I was not able to do earlier. The other thing that I learned was to pick a short story and for that I had picked “Berenice” by “Edgar Allan Poe” and apply the psychoanalytic approach to it and then analyze the different themes in the story. This helped me to analyze the characters and also made me understand that how different themes can be applied in one story. This class was a good learning experience for me as every day I learned something new and as I gained knowledge I got an opportunity to practically apply it which helps a lot as when you gain knowledge and practically apply it then you never forget it. The class gave me an opportunity to create my own blog and gave me confidence and also made me realize that even I can work and analyze poems, stories and films. The overall experience for this class was great and I would recommend all my friends to take this class as you get to learn so many things but in a different way and actually I did recommend the class to one of my friends because the concept of this class is different from the other English classes as there is no need to do essays on paper. The other good thing is you work on blogs and get to know what your peers are doing and can interact and give your feedback to them. Thank you Professor Smith for helping all of us in learning so many things and also making the class so interactive, interesting and enjoyable for us.

[Image :http://www.wolf-moon.co.uk/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=85_91_92&products_id=1254]

Blog 15 : Final Draft

Pooja Kohli
ENG102.0821
6 June 2010

Edgar Allan Poe was born on January 19, 1809 in Boston. Poe was the son of the English-born actress Elizabeth Arnold Poe and David Poe, an actor from Baltimore. His mother died in Richmond on December 8, 1811, and Edgar was taken into the family of John Allan, a member of the firm of Ellis and Allan, tobacco-merchants. He died on October 7, 1849 in Baltimore, Maryland. He was an American writer, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. He was best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre. Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective-fiction genre.
One of his stories that I choose is Berenice, it is a short horror story and was published in 1835. The approach I used is Psychoanalytic Criticism. The psychoanalytic criticism argues that that literary texts, like dreams, express the secret unconscious desires and anxieties of the author and that a literary work is a manifestation of the author's own neuroses. One may psychoanalyze a particular character within a literary work, but it is usually assumed that all such characters are projections of the author's psyche. Psychoanalytic criticism can focus on the author, the characters, the audience and the text. In the story Berenice, the focus is more on the characters as the theory is used to analyze Berenice and Egaeus and the psychological theory became a tool to explain their behavior and motivations. The theory helps to make the story more realistic as the characters are analyzed so closely.
The theme of the story is horror and the beginning of the story helps set the tone. The story begins with the narrator’s complaint that “Misery is manifold.” He wallows in his self-pity, extrapolating that man’s fate is to always find what is to be an agony and to find pleasure in what might have been. In the story he tells his first name is Egaeus and declines to tell what his family name is. He suggests that his family is a prominent family and describes the richness of their family home, in particular the library. He lives in a mansion hung with tapestries and paintings. Egaeus was born in the library of the mansion and his mother died there. He grew up with his cousin Berenice in the mansion. She was agile, beautiful, graceful and overflowing with energy. Egaeus describes that how Berenice carefree existence was overtaken by a fatal disease which disturbed her own identity as a person and the recovery was abrupt and the disease left her to a form of epilepsy, which usually concluded with a deep trance that mimicked death. Meanwhile, in the story Egaeus experiences a rapid progression in his own illness, which takes the form of obsessive monomania. This monomania allowed him to have excessive concentration on one small object or detail for vast amount of time. This illness made him a day dreamer. He tells that he never loved his wife when she was young and beautiful as he used to see her as an object to analyze and not to love. He never loved her but blames on that moment when he decided to marry her and the only reason he marries her was that he knew that she had loved him from a long time. Egaeus after sometime started obsessing and dreaming about Berenice teeth which were long and narrow and incredibly white. The teeth were the only thing which used to stand out after her illness as now she had become pale and her hair became yellow. He realizes that the only way he can gain peace is to possess the teeth and this obsession blocked all the other thoughts in his mind and soon teeth became the essence of his life. He becomes so obsessed with the teeth that he sat in the library for two days and not knowing what is happening outside.
The story takes a turn when Egaeus hears moaning of sorrow and pain and gets to know that his wife has died because of an epileptic fit early in the morning and in the evening the preparations for the burial were completed. After sometime he went back to his library but now he was terrified as he heard the shriek of a female voice and recalls that he has completed something but could not remember what it was. He notices a small box on the table which resembles the one doctors carry. A servant arrives and tries to explain the situation to Egaeus. He tells Egaeus of wild cries during the night that roused the household. The members of the household discover the violated grave of Berenice and Berenice herself alive but disfigured. The servant indicates Egaeus to examine the state of his own clothes, which were covered with blood and dirt and points out to Egaeus the dirt covered spade leaning against the wall. Seeing this Egaeus screams and grabs the box and tries to open it but it falls to the floor and breaks open. When it falls open, dental tools and thirty-two small, white and ivory-looking substances scattered all around the floor.
The story has many symbols in it and one of the symbols is the shadow. According to dictionary of symbolism, shadows are identified with a person’s soul and are considered dark entities with a nature all of their own .They are the unconscious layers of the personality that are integrated into the structures of the experienced world. In the story shadow is used many times and in the paragraph 3 shadow is said to be vague, variable, indefinite and unsteady. In the story narrator again in paragraph 5 uses the word shadow but now relates it to Berenice character that she is so happy, careless and energetic that she does not even care of the shadows in her path.
Egaeus after developing an illness, started fixating objects obsessively and paragraph 7 shows how his illness made him observe things obsessively and one of the things he fixated was door. Door according to dictionary of symbolism signifies a passage from one place to another. Paragraph 7 shows how he started fixating objects for whole day and another thing that he started fixating was the perfumes of the flower as he used to dream about the flowers the whole day. A flower according to dictionary of symbolism signifies beauty and symbols of young life. In the story the perfumes of the flower captured all his attention as he was attracted to it.
In the story teeth are considered as an object of admiration. According to dictionary of symbolism teeth can be linked to age and help determine the age. Paragraph 15 and 16 shows how Egaeus was obsessed by the teeth of his wife as they were the only thing left that was still adorable after her illness.
Berenice is a story written in first person point of view in the persona of an unreliable narrator. The narrator in the story is Egaeus who is mentally unstable and lives in a mansion of his ancestors as their heir. He is considered unreliable because of his mental debility. The story is not the record of what actually happened but the record of what Egaeus believes happened and in the story he acknowledges his mental debility. Egaeus marries his cousin Berenice who grew up with him in the mansion. He says that she possesses extraordinary beauty and grace. Unfortunately her carefree existence ruins her identity and health after the epilepsy. The main theme attached with the story is horror, mental illness and Berenice as a mere object. The Latin quotation preceding the story helps set the tone, advising that visiting a grave relieves suffering. "Berenice" begins in a gloomy mansion in which the narrator says, "Misery is manifold." He then observes that evil comes from goodness and that sorrow comes from joy. From paragraph 3 we know that narrator believes he is reincarnated, becomes fascinated with a beautiful young woman who suffers bouts of epilepsy that end in prolonged illness. When her health starts deteriorating, he becomes obsessed with her perfectly white teeth. Unable to rid his mind of their image, he ultimately removes all thirty-two of them from her mouth—apparently when one of her trances mimics death and she is buried alive.
The narrator Egaeus, is obsessed with thoughts. In the story he himself admits that he is mentally ill. As a child, he was “buried in gloom” and “addicted, body and soul, to the most intense and painful meditation.” From paragraph 7 we know that as his illness progressed, it gained “the most incomprehensible ascendancy” over him, fixing his mind for hours on a single thought or on insignificant thing around him: door, the smell of a flower, the print in a book. His most incapacitating obsession in particular is the teeth; he becomes fixated on her gleaming, brilliantly white, untarnished teeth. The image of them occupies his mind constantly. The narrator says, “They were here, and there, and everywhere . . . I had no thoughts but for the teeth . . . . All other matters and all different interests became absorbed in their single contemplation. They—they alone were present to the mental eye, and they, in their sole individuality, became the essence of my mental life.” Egaeus appears to suffer from what modern psychology calls obsessive-compulsive disorder, a chief symptom of which is the inability to banish a thought that repeatedly invades the mind. Some victims of this illness develop obsessions only; others develop obsessions and compulsions. Typically, the compulsion rids the mind of an obsession temporarily or until another one takes its place. To expel his thoughts of Berenice’s teeth, Egaeus removes them when she is still alive–perhaps when she is in a catatonic state and appears dead.
In the story Egaeus regards Berenice as a curiosity to study and not a woman to love. She is like a captured butterfly, beautiful to look at and interesting to analyze. When Egaeus speaks of her, he sometimes refers to her as an object. For example, in paragraph 14, he describes the gauntness of Berenice as she stands before him in the library, he says, "I remained for some time breathless and motionless, with my eyes riveted upon her person. Alas! its emaciation was excessive, and not one vestige of the former being lurked in any single line of the contour. My burning glances at length fell upon the face." In the paragraph the words her person, its emaciation, the former being and the face are all impersonal. It is possible that the narrator's derogation of Berenice is due to envy of her as she was beautiful, graceful, light-hearted, and energetic and everything that he was not.
The story tells us that people who have mental illness create a world of their own and where the ideas of the dream become their everyday existence solely and utterly in itself. They think that what they are doing, thinking and believing is the reality but actually it is not as they are lost in their own thoughts and do not know what is happening outside in the real world as they are only concerned with their created world.

Works Cited
Berenice.Wikipedia.Web.6June2010.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berenice_(short_story)
Biederman,Hans. Dictionary of Symbolism: Cultural Icons and the Meanings Behind Them. New York: Meridian, 1994.Web.6June2010.
http://www.umich.edu/~umfandsf/symbolismproject/symbolism.html/
http://poestories.com/read/berenice
http://www2.cnr.edu/home/bmcmanus/psychcrit.html

Blog 14

I am using psychoanalytic criticism and symbols to explain the story and need to put direct quotes from the story while explaining their meaning. I need to focus more on what the symbols mean and in the end I also have to work on the interpretation and explain what the story tells us . For this I would focus on the theme and explain the characters more deeply.

Blog 13

Edgar Allan Poe was born on January 19, 1809 in Boston. Poe was the son of the English-born actress Elizabeth Arnold Poe and David Poe,an actor from Baltimore. His mother died in Richmond on December 8, 1811, and Edgar was taken into the family of John Allan, a member of the firm of Ellis and Allan, tobacco-merchants. He died on October 7, 1849 in Baltimore, Maryland. He was an American writer, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. He was best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre; Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective-fiction genre.
One of his stories that I choose is Berenice, it is a short horror story and was published in 1835. The approach I will use is Psychoanalytic Criticism. The psychoanalytic criticism argues that that literary texts, like dreams, express the secret unconscious desires and anxieties of the author and that a literary work is a manifestation of the author's own neuroses. One may psychoanalyze a particular character within a literary work, but it is usually assumed that all such characters are projections of the author's psyche. Psychoanalytic criticism can focus on the author, the characters, the audience and the text. In the story Berenice, the focus is more on the characters as the theory is used to analyze Berenice and Egoeus and the psychological theory became a tool to explain their behavior and motivations. The theory helps to make the story more realistic as the characters are analyzed so closely.
The theme of the story is horror and the beginning of the story helps set the tone. The story begins with the narrator’s complaint that “Misery is manifold.” He wallows in his self-pity, extrapolating that man’s fate is to always find what is to be an agony and to find pleasure in what might have been. He tells us that his first name is Egoeus and declines to tell us what his family name is. He suggests that his family is a prominent family and describes the richness of their family home, in particular the library. He lives in the mansion of his ancestors, apparently as their heir.He lives in a mansion hung with tapestries and paintings. Egaeus was born in the library of the mansion and his mother died there. He grew up with his cousin Berenice in the mansion.She was agile, beautiful, graceful and overflowing with energy. Egoeus describes that how Berenice carefree existence was overtaken by a fatal disease which disturbed her own identity as a person and the recovery was abrupt and the disease left her subject to a form of epilepsy, which usually concluded with a deep trance that mimicked death. Meanwhile, Egoeus experiences a rapid progression in his own illness, which takes the form of obsessive monomania. This monomania allowed him to have excessive concentration on one small object or detail for vast amounts of time. This illness made him a day dreamer. Egoeus tells that he never loved his wife when she was young and beautiful as he used to see her as an object to analyze and not to love. He never loved her but blames on that moment when he decided to marry her because he knew that she had loved him from a long time. Egoeus after sometime started obsessing and dreaming about Berenice teeth which were long and narrow and incredibly white. The teeth were the only thing which used to stand out after her illness as she had now become pale and her hair became yellow. He realizes that the only way he can gain peace is to possess the teeth and this obsession blocks all the other thoughts in his mind and soon teeth became the essence of his life. He becomes so obsessed with the teeth that he sat in the library for two days and not knowing what is happening outside.
The story takes a turn when Egoeus hears moanings of sorrow and pain and gets to know that his wife has died because of an epileptic fit early in the morning and in the evening the preparations for the burial were completed. After sometime he goes back to his library but now he is terrified as he hears the shriek of a female voice and recalls that he has completed something but does not remember what it was. He notices a small box on the table which resembles the one doctors carried. A servant arrives and tries to explain the situation to Egoeus. He tells Egoeus of wild cries during the night that roused the household. The members of the household discover the violated grave of Berenice and Berenice herself alive but disfigured. He indicates Egoeus to examine the state of his own clothes, which were covered with blood and dirt and points out to Egoeus the dirt covered spade leaning against the wall. Then Egoeus screams and grabs the box and tries to open it but it falls to the floor and breaks open. When it falls open, dental tools and thirty-two small, white and ivory-looking substances scattered all around the floor.
The story has many symbols in it and one of the symbols is the shadow. According to dictionary of symbolism, shadows are identified with a person’s soul and are considered dark entities with a nature all of their own .They are the unconscious layers of the personality that are integrated into the structures of the experienced world. In the story narrator tells that Berenice is so happy, careless and energetic that she does not even care of the shadows in her path.
Egoeus after developing an illness started fixating objects obsessively and one of the objects he fixated was door. It is a symbol which according to dictionary of symbolism signifies a passage from one place to another. Another thing which he started fixating was the perfumes of the flower as he used to dream about the flowers the whole day. A flower according to dictionary of symbolism signifies beauty and symbols of young life.
In the story teeth are considered as an object of admiration and Egoeus is obsessed by the teeth of his wife as they are the only thing left that is still adorable after her illness. According to dictionary of symbolism teeth can be linked to age and help determine the age.

Works Cited
Berenice.Wikipedia.Web.24May2010.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berenice_(short_story)
Biederman,Hans. Dictionary of Symbolism: Cultural Icons and the Meanings Behind Them. New York: Meridian, 1994.Web.24May2010.
http://www.umich.edu/~umfandsf/symbolismproject/symbolism.html/
http://poestories.com/read/berenice
http://www2.cnr.edu/home/bmcmanus/psychcrit.html

Blog 12

Edgar Allan Poe was born on January 19, 1809 in Boston. Poe was the son of the English-born actress Elizabeth Arnold Poe and David Poe,Jr.,an actor from Baltimore. His mother died in Richmond on December 8, 1811, and Edgar was taken into the family of John Allan, a member of the firm of Ellis and Allan, tobacco-merchants. He died on October 7, 1849 in Baltimore, Maryland. He was an American writer, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. He was best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre; Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective-fiction genre.
One of his stories that I choose is Berenice, it is a short horror story and was published in 1835. The approach I will use is Psychoanalytic Criticism. The psychoanalytic criticism argues that that literary texts, like dreams, express the secret unconscious desires and anxieties of the author and that a literary work is a manifestation of the author's own neuroses. One may psychoanalyze a particular character within a literary work, but it is usually assumed that all such characters are projections of the author's psyche. Psychoanalytic criticism can focus on the author, the characters, the audience and the text. In the story Berenice, the focus is more on the characters as the theory is used to analyze Berenice and Egoeus and the psychological theory became a tool to explain their behavior and motivations. The theory helps to make the story more realistic as the characters are analyzed so closely.The story has many symbols in it and one of the symbols is the teeth in the story the teeth are considered as an object of admiration and Egoeus is obsessed by the teeth of his wife. The story begins with the narrator’s complaint that “Misery is manifold.” He wallows in his self-pity, extrapolating that man’s fate is to always find ‘what is’ to be an agony and to find pleasure in what ‘might have been.’ He tells us that his first name is Egoeus and declines to tell us what his family name is. He suggests that his family is a prominent family and describes the richness of their family home, in particular the library. He lives in the mansion of his ancestors, apparently as their heir. He marries his cousin, Berenice, who grew up with him in the mansion. He lives in a mansion hung with tapestries and paintings. Egaeus was born in the library of the mansion and his mother died there. He grew up with his cousin Berenice who was agile, graceful and overflowing with energy.

Blog11

For this blog I choose a short horror story Berenice by Edgar Allan Poe.It was first published in the Southern Literary Messenger in 1835.The story is about a man named
Egaeus who is preparing to marry his cousin Berenice. He has a tendency to fall into periods of intense focus during which he seems to separate himself from the outside world. Berenice begins to deteriorate from an unnamed disease until the only part of her remaining healthy is her teeth, which Egaeus begins to obsess over. Berenice dies and Egaeus continues to contemplate her teeth. Deep in thought, he is interrupted by a servant who tells him Berenice's grave has been disturbed. Covered in blood, Egaeus sees beside him several dentistry tools — and a box containing 32 white teeth.Some of the themes applied by Poe in this story are mental illness,being burried alive and death of a beautiful woman.

http://poestories.com/read/berenice
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berenice_(short_story)

Blog 10: Reflection

In the past few weeks we have been learning about Monomyth or The Hero's Quest by Joseph Campbell.Reading about Monomyth on wikipedia, watching Joseph Campbell's interview and then watching a film Spirited Away in class has made me realise that all films and stories have the Hero's Quest in them.Hero's Quest was something new for me and after discussing about it in the class I got a understanding of it.We were suppose to choose a film of our choice and I choose Final Fantasy:The Spirits Within and had to identify and incorporate the things learned in the class and this helped me to get a better understanding of the hero's journey as I could easily identify the various elements in the film.Learning about the hero's quest has made me more interested in watching films because earlier I never paid attention to it but now I can easily identify the different elements of hero's quest in it.This helps to understand a story better and also makes a person interested in it.Mostly all films have Hero's quest in them and it shows how an ordinary person has to go through different kinds of tasks and in the end becomes a hero and gains knowledge from it.

Blog 9: Hero's Quest and Film

Final Fantasy:The Spirits Within is a Japanese-American computer animated science fiction film directed by Hironobu Sakaguchi. The film was released on July 11,2001 by Columbia Pictures.Hironobu Sakaguchi is a Japanese game designer, director, and producer who is widely known as the creator of the Final Fantasy series. He took the leap from games to film when he made his debut as film director in Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, an animated motion picture based on his world-famous Final Fantasy series. The movie is based on year 2065 and the Earth is under seige as the meteor has crashed onto the planet, unleashing millions of alien creatures known as Phantoms which roam on the planet.These creatures are threatening and are extinguishing the life on earth and has driven surviving humanity into barrier cities that are built to protect the inhabitants of Earth. But the few cities around the globe are in decline and time is running out.The story follows Doctor Aki Ross and Doctor Sid in their efforts to free Earth from the deadly race Phantoms. They must compete against General Hein, who wishes to attack the aliens with the Zeus space cannon to end the conflict.
Monomyth which is also referred to as The Hero's journey is classified into three sections which are Departure, Initiation and Return. Departure deals with the separation of the hero before the adventure, Initiation deals with the adventures in the journey and Return deals with the knowledge and freedom acquired from the journey.
The departure deals with living a normal life and then receiving a call from the unknown world. The hero Dr. Aki Ross was infected by a phantom during one of her experiments and after that she used to get a dream in which there are only phantoms on Earth everywhere. She wanted to save Earth from the phantoms.Through Monomyth we know that the supernatural aid is the mentor or the one who guides through the journey and becomes known. In the movie Dr. Aki does not refuses the call and therefore Dr. Sid is her protecting figure who helps her to uncover a means of defeating the phantoms by gathering the eight spirits that can stop the effect of phantoms.Having responded to his call and following what he says,Dr. Aki finds all the forces at her side and mother nature also supports her in the task. The crossing of the first threshold means crossing the field of adventure and entering into an unknown world. Dr.Aki starts her journey by having five spirits and then going in search of the remaining three spirits where she is encountered by the phantoms. The belly of the whale means the final separation from the known world and going to the unknown world.Dr. Aki enters the crater to find the last spirit which is the eight spirit.
The Initiation deals with the start of the journey and the adventures in it. The stage road of trials means to go through tests, ordeals to begin the transformation.Dr. Aki had to go through a lot of tests and tasks to collect the three remainig spirits so that she could save the Earth and ascend the phantoms back into the space. The first test she had to pass was to collect the sixth spirit which was a plant and there she was cornered by phantoms but with the help of Captain Gray Edward and his three soldiers, she was able to bring the sixth spirit to Dr. Sid. The second test was to bring the seventh spirit were again she was attacked by the phantoms but was able to get the spirit which was in a dead soldier's plasma container with the help of Captain Gray Edward. The third test she had to pass was to bring the eighth spirit and combine it with others and she successfully passes this test also.The next step of a hero's journey is atonement with the father, in this stage the person confronts and is initiated by the ultimate power.Here Dr. Aki considers Dr. Sid is the voice who will help her lead in the correct path and to achieve the tasks.The stage apotheosis means when someone dies a physical death or dies to the self to live in spirit,this is a period of rest,peace and fulfillment before the hero begins his return. In the movie this stage can be seen when Dr. Aki and Captain Gray go into the crater and when the vehicle is destroyed, Gray sacrifices his own life to distribute Aki's wave, using his body to transmit it directly to the Phantom world spirit. The Phantoms transform into bright, floating orbs which return to space. The last stage of the Initiation is the ultimate boon which means achievement of the goal of the journey.This stage is seen in the movie when Dr. Aki is successful in finding the eighth spirit and combing all of them together.
The last section Return deals with the knowledge and freedom acquired from the journey.The magic flight is the shielded vehicle that takes Dr. Aki and Captain Gray into the crater and guards them from the phantoms.The next stage is crossing of the return threshold which means returning of the hero to the known world with the experiences and knowledge learned through the journey. Dr. Aki learns about the phantoms by having dreams about them after she gets infected by them. She succeeds in combining all the eight spirits together and saves Earth by ascending phantoms back into the space. After sending the phantoms back to the space and seeing a newly liberated world, Dr. Aki becomes the master of two world as she became successful by saving Earth.
There are alot of symbols in this movie which makes it more interesting and fascinating.The first symbol is Earth which signifies nourishment, foundation of life,fertility,infinite creativity and longevity but in the movie Earth is shown where there is no life.The next symbol is the Spirit which means a supernatural being or essence which is bodiless but can become visible. The movie talks about the spirit of Earth and the spirit of phantoms. Another symbol is phantom which means an object of continual dread and in the movie it is destroying the human life. There are some archetypes in the movie too like father which is seen in Dr. Sid's character because of the way he protects and defends Dr. Aki. General Hein played a role of wise man and villian who wants to tackle the phantoms by his own way and not agreeing with Dr.Sid and Dr. Aki. Captain Gray plays the role of a true friend as he helps Dr. Aki to get the three remaining spirits and wants to save her from death.
The story tells us that every human being has to go through different kind of things in the world and if one has the will, dedication and power and the right guidance then, one can achieve whatever he wants. As in the movie Dr. Aki had the dedication and will to find all the eight spirits and then to combine them so that she could save Earth and send phantoms back to the space and she could do all this because of the right guidance of Dr. Sid.

Works Cited
Final Fantasy:The Spirit Within.Wikipedia.Web.30April2010.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Fantasy:_Spirits_Within
Julien, Nadia.The Mammoth Dictionary of Symbols: Understanding the Hidden Language of Symbols. New York: Carol and Graf Publishers, Inc., 1996.Web.30April2010.
Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. 2008. Merriam-Webster Online.30April2010.http://www.merriam-webster.com/
Monomyth. Wikipedia. Web. 30April2010. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monomyth

Blog 8

The Devil curses and his vision starts with poverty and poverty brings all the displeasure, miseries and all kinds of problems in the life. If there is nobody poor on the Earth and all are happy and satisfied than there is no need of Mercy and Pity.The curse of poverty makes human week, dependant and helpless, this unhappiness and unsatisfaction remedy is Mercy and Pity.
The conclusion of Angel’s singing and Devil’s curse is that if the people on the earth are hardworking, sincere and honest than there will be nobody poor and no more pity. If everybody is rich in this world than they will be happy and satisfied, if they are rich and satisfied than they do not need mercy and pity. Prosperity makes human happy and satisfied.

Blog 7:Hero's Quest and Film

Final Fantasy:The Spirits Within is a Japanese-American computer animated science fiction film directed by Hironobu Sakaguchi. The film was released on July 11,2001 by Columbia Pictures.The movie is based on year 2065 and the Earth is under seige as the meteor has crashed onto the planet, unleashing millions of alien creatures known as Phantoms which roam on the planet.These creatures are threatening and are extinguishing the life on earth and has driven surviving humanity into barrier citiesthat are built to protect the inhabitants of Earth. But the few cities around the globe are in decline and time is running out.The story follows Doctor Aki Ross and Doctor Sid in their efforts to free Earth from the deadly race Phantoms. They must compete against General Hein, who wishes to attack the aliens with the Zeus space cannon to end the conflict.
The movie has alot of elements of monomyth.Monomyth which is also referred to as The Hero's journey is classified into three sections which are Departure, Initiation and Return. Departure deals with the separation of the hero before the adventure, Initiation deals with the adventures in the journey and Return deals with the knowledge and freedom acquired from the journey.
The different stages of departureof Hero's journey that can be seen in the movie are call from the unknown world which is saving the Earth from phantoms, supernatural aid which is Dr.Sid in the movie,the threshold was to find the three remaining elements.The different stages of Initiation were road of trails in which Dr. Aki had to pass the tests to have the spirits,another was atonement with the father which again is the voice of Dr. Sid who leads her in the correct way. The different stages of return that are seen in the movie are magic flight wich is the shielded vehicle,the crossing of return of the threshold, master of two worlds by having a close encounter with the phantom and then coming back to Earth by saving the Earth.
Works Cited
Final Fantasy:The Spirit Within.Wikipedia.Web.30April2010.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Fantasy:_Spirits_Within
Monomyth.Wikipedia.Web.25April2010.

Blog 6: Essay 3

I Heard an Angel by William Blake

I heard an Angel singing
When the day was springing,
'Mercy, Pity, Peace
Is the world's release.'

Thus he sung all day
Over the new mown hay,
Till the sun went down
And haycocks looked brown.

I heard a Devil curse
Over the heath and the furze,
'Mercy could be no more,
If there was nobody poor,

And pity no more could be,
If all were as happy as we.'
At his curse the sun went down,
And the heavens gave a frown.

Down pour'd the heavy rain
Over the new reap'd grain ...
And Miseries' increase
Is Mercy, Pity, Peace.


William Blake was born in London on November 28, 1757, to James, a hosier, and Catherine Blake. He died on 12 August,1827. Since early childhood, Blake spoke of having seeing God and angels. His parents discouraged him from lying and noticed that he was different from his peers. Blake learned to read and write at home. He believed that his poetry could be understood by common people and was determined not to sacrifice his vision to become popular. His first book of poems, “Poetical Sketches” appeared in 1783 followed by “Songs of Innocence” in 1789 and “Songs of Experience” in 1794. Blake's poetry was not well known by the general public, but he was mentioned in A Biographical Dictionary of the Living Authors of Great Britain and Ireland, published in 1816.

The poem has five short stanzas and each stanza has four lines and the total number of lines is twenty. The poem is placed on the left side of the page. The rhyme scheme is AABB in all the five stanzas.

The poem “I Heard an Angel” describes the scene that poet is visualizing about the angel and the devil. The poet hears an angel sing(line1) when the day was bright (line2), the angel’s singing had mercy, pity and peace (line3)which is the world’s released(line4).The angel sang all day(line5)till the moon appeared(line6) and the sun went down(line7)and the haycocks appeared brown(line8).Then the poet hears a devil curse(line9)over the uncultivated land with furze(line10) and the devil said that there could not be any mercy(line11)if there were no poor(line12).There would not be any pity(line13)if everyone would be happy(line14). When the devil was speaking the sun went down(line15)and the heaven showed a displeasure(line16).There was a heavy rain(line17)all over the gathered grains(line18)and this increased the miseries(line19)as this was not mercy, pity and peace(line20).

The symbols in the poem are (1) Angel, mercy, pity, peace, (2) Devil, miseries, curse. (3) Sun, moon, rain, heaven. The angels are referred to as superior to human beings who show mercy, pity and peace. According to Dictionary of Symbolism, angels are made up of pure spirits and are messengers of God between heaven and earth. Devil is referred to as prince of darkness by the Dictionary of Symbolism with whom all the bad luck, curse and miseries are concerned. Sun gives a ray of hope and according to Dictionary of Symbolism it is considered as the center of being and intuition, it is the knowledge, warmth, glory and splendor and Moon is the feminine symbol representing the rhythm of time. Heaven is the home of Gods and is considered spiritual and a place of utmost happiness. Rain is referred to as life-giving or life-destroying, it is fertilizing and makes an act of purification.

The tone of the poem is poet hearing a song by an angel who is spreading happiness and hope while the devil is cursing and spreading darkness and miseries. The tone is happy in the beginning and then becomes sad. The words “peace”, “world’s release” tell us that the poet is happy when he hears the angel sing but the words “frown”, “reaped” tell that hearing devil speak everything changed as hearing devil speak was a displeasure.

The poem “I Heard an Angel” has two thoughts attached to it, stanza 1 and 2 explain the happiness hearing the angel sing and the stanza 3,4 and 5 explain the sadness and the displeasure hearing the devil. This poem is about an angel who is innocent , full of life and superior to all human beings who is also a messenger of God send to earth to spread peace and happiness so that everyone can have a state of freedom. The poet enjoys when he hears the angel sing early in the morning till the evening when the moon came up, making the world a happier place to live. The devil is referred to as the mean, evil or an unprincipled person and when the moon came up, the poet could hear the devil’s cursing all over the uncultivated land and small bushes and hears the devil telling the world that there is no more mercy in this world because mercy is there only if people are poor and if everyone on earth is happy and satisfied by what they have then there will be no more pity. The poet describes that when devil started cursing the sun came down and there was darkness everywhere. The heaven also showed displeasure to devil’s curse and the heavy rain started and in line17 it is described as life-destroying as it destroyed the newly gathered and stored grains which caused a lot of problems and miseries.

Works Cited

Blake,William."I Heard an Angel".Famous Poets and Poems."n.d."Web.11 April2010.
Blake,William."Biography".Poets."n.d."Web.11April2010.
Blake,William."William Blake".The Literature Network."n.d."Web.11April2010.
Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. 2008. Merriam-Webster Online.11April2010.http://www.merriam-webster.com/
Julien, Nadia.The Mammoth Dictionary of Symbols: Understanding the Hidden Language of Symbols. New York: Carol and Graf Publishers, Inc., 1996.Web.11April2010.
Biederman, Hans. Dictionary of Symbolism: Cultural Icons and the Meanings Behind Them. New York: Meridian, 1994.Web.11April2010.

Blog 5: Essay 3 Preview

After reading Essay 3 and Sample Essay 3, I think for our next essay we need to choose a poem or song so that we can identify the poetic form, symbolism, tone, mood, motif, archetype in the poem and also use internet to find their meaning. We also need to write the summary line by line or stanza by stanza of the poem or song that we choose and then analyze and interpret the poem or the song. We also need to do research and find about the brief information of the author and write a brief biography in the essay. All the sources have to be in MLA format. I am confused that we can choose any poem or have to use the poem used in Essay 2 because the poem that I had selected in Essay 2 for that the author is unknown as only the person who has edited is known so it is difficult to write about the author's biography. To complete this essay we need to have a better understanding about the terms in a poem and also research their meaning in detail. I would like to write about some other poem whose author is known so that I can write about his biography and also write a detailed essay incorporating all the things learned in the class about the poetry.

Blog 4 :Reflection 1

I knew about blogging but never made my own blog but in ENG102, I got a chance to make my own blog which is really interesting and enjoyable. The blog helps me to stay connected with my classmates and professor and also helps me to learn, interact and see what other classmates are doing. It also helps me to know beforehand what we will be doing in the class the following day. Blogging is helping me to learn and improve on my writing as others can view my blog and give their feedback. Doing essays on blog is a whole new concept for me but now i am getting used to it.
The theme of our class which is Supernatural is really exciting and fascinating because it is a topic to which I find interesting. Till now I have learned to find the hidden story in the poem, the tone and different literary elements and these have helped me to understand literature better. This English class is different from all the other english classes I have ever taken in which I had to just read textbooks and write essays but in this class it is not only reading but we are free to talk and research on any supernatural thing we like and the best thing is we are not limited to only one topic. These all things have helped me to think,read and research which is helping in improving my reading and writing skills. I usually use google,jstor,yahoo and bing search engines to do my research work. I know about wikipedia also but i used it rarely as my other professors told me it is not a good search engine but after coming to this class I learned that wikipedia is also very useful and can be used for research work so all thanks to Professor Smith for introducing to wikipedia.I really enjoy my time in the class because it is so interesting and interactive because of blogs and group discussions as we can share our ideas with the other classmates and professor and thank you Professor Smith for making english class so lively and interesting for all of us.

Blog 3

The poem that I choose is "God",the poet is unknown but the poem can be found in the book "Poetry for the Spirit" which is edited by Alan Jacobs. Alan Jacobs is a retired businessman and an art dealer. He has made a lifelong study of mysticism particularly focusing on the teachings of G.I. Gurdjieff, J.Krishnamurti and Douglas Harding. Mr. Jacobs is the Chairman of Ramana Maharshi foundation in the U.K. This poem tells us that God is the only Superpower, the spirit of spirits and the creator who cannot be seen. He is the truth and the only one everlasting and also explains that comfort and sustenance can be achieved by following his path.
Tone is a literary technique that is a part of the composition,which encompasses the attitudes toward the subject and toward the audience implied in a literary work. Tone may be formal, informal, intimate, solemn, somber, playful, serious, ironic, condescending, or many other possible attitudes.The tone in this poem helps in understanding the overall mood of the poet and his feelings, ideas and emotions for God. The tone of the poem tells us that God is the only one and he is the divine power and besides him there is no one. The poem has lines like "maker of all his creatures" and "Father of all" which tell us that he is the creator of all the creatures and these help in enhancing the meaning of poem.
Symbolism means the frequent use of words, places, characters, or objects that mean something beyond what they are on a literal level. Often the symbol may be ambiguous in meaning.Symbolism helps us to understand a poem better.But it is our knowledge and experience that helps us to relate to it.The symbolism in the poem helps to connect to it more easily. The poet has used many symbols in this poem like, "God is one and alone ", "God is a Spirit", "God external", "God is hidden", "God is Truth", "God is Live" and these all lines convey the same meaning that God is the only one and there is no one besides him.
The poem explains us that God is the only Super power who has control over everything and he is the only one who helps us by showing the right path and also the path of enlightment. God is the only one who has created all the creatures. He is there from the beginning when nothing existed and he is unseen from the eye of the human.
Links:-
http://www.poetseers.org/spiritual_and_devotional_poets/anon/god/view/
http://www.poetseers.org/spiritual_and_devotional_poets/contemp/jac/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tone_(literary)
http://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/lit_terms_S.html

BLOG 2: POETRY

I wanted to write about either Gods or Angels and with the help of Google search engine I found a great poem that inspired me alot which is "God" and the link to this poem is http://www.poetseers.org/spiritual_and_devotional_poets/anon/god/view/ .

GOD
is one and alone.

and there is none other beside Him.

God is One and alone.

the maker of all His creatures.

God is a Spirit,

deep-hidden from the eye of man and from all things.

God is the Spirit of spirits,

of creation the Spirit divine.

GOD is God from the beginning

before all things were He was God.

Lord of existences is He.

Father of all,

GOD external,

GOD is the One everlasting,

perpetual, eternal, unending.

From endless time hath He been

and shall be henceforth and for ever.

GOD is hidden,

and no man His form hath percieved nor His likeness.

Unknown of gods and of men,

mysterious, incomprehensible.

GOD is Truth,

and on truth doth He live;

King of truth divine is He.

God is life;

and man liveth through Him,

the Primeval Alone.
- Ancient Egyptian
- Translator unknown
From: Poetry for the Spirit Ed: Alan Jacobs

I like the poem "God" because it tells us that there is only one Super power and the creator,who cannot be seen. The divine power of "God" always shows us the right path of life and he is the guide and inspiration to us. He is the one with whom we share our feelings, whether they are good or bad. He is the power who tells the reality and truths. The person who follows the path shown by the divine power is always humble and helpful to the community.

About me

My name is Pooja Kohli. I am from India and I am Scorpion. I love playing basketball and skating. I love listening to hindi and punjabi songs and when i get time i try to catch up on bollywood movies as I really enjoy watching them and I love eating indian cuisine .

I am a btec in hospitality, travel management and aviation from India but now studying in Newyork for Dietetic Tech so that I can be a Registered Dietician.