Shambhavi's Shells

     Defining and finding meaning line by line of any written piece has never been my strong suit, but with the poem my group chose for the poetry panel project, I find that it's necessary to understand every line in the poem since each line holds a valuable meaning that develops the underlying message of the poem. We are, I am, you are by cowardice or courage the one who find our way back to this scene carrying a knife, a camera a book of myths in which our names do not appear.      The stanza above is the final stanza in the poem Diving into the Wreck . During my first read of the poem, I found myself confused with what the poem was trying to say, at first glance the poem was really just about the speaker going on a dive to explore a wreck that she witnesses. Now since this is the poem from my group's poetry panel project I won't give out any spoilers, but I do want to mention that I admire how each and every word from Rich's poem carries weight to it....

     Last year in AP Lang we read a part of Cathy Park Hong's book Minor Feelings, specifically, The Indebted, and Hong's writing style and word choice stuck with me as impactful and gave me a new perspective on different ideas.      When thinking of beautiful words and poetry, the first thing that came to my mind was Minor Feelings and The Indebted. Although I haven't read all of Minor Feelings, there were two lines from the book that stuck out to me as beautiful.      “Innocence is both a privilege and a cognitive handicap, a sheltered unknowingness that, once protracted into adulthood, hardens into entitlement.” Hong's choice of words such as "unknowingness" and "hardens" brings a sense of (interestingly enough) innocence turning into the knowledge of self, which is exactly what Hong is trying to convey. Another notable word to point out is Hong referring to innocence as a "cognitive handicap", unlike others who would refer...

       As water shows us our reflections, I'm taking the time (partially since it's the assignment) to look into important water at this point in the school year.      First of all, senior year has honestly been going pretty well for me. Compared to online school sophomore year, I've been able to connect with others a lot more, and I've made so many new friends. Looking back on the first day of school I ended up sitting in a pod with Cecelia and Alex, both of which I had never spoken to before this class, now these two (plus Sonnet who I knew before) have become an important part of AP Lit for me so far.      I find that I always share any and every idea that comes to mind regardless of if the idea makes sense or not with my pod, and they find ways to add on to my analysis. reading and discussing passages as a pod was something I always enjoyed and something I hope to be able to continue doing second semester.    I found t...

In Pachinko and The Importance of Being Earnest, the difference in the marital relationships between eastern and western couples brings significant differences in the fulfillment and happiness of marriage and becoming married. In the first two generations of the novel Pachinko, we witness arranged marriages for both Yangjin and Sunja, two female characters in the novel. Arranged marriage is seen as a more frequent occurrence in eastern countries, so arranged marriage being the deciding factor of Yangjin and Sunja’s relationship and life is not unordinary, especially considering the time period of the first two generations of the novel. Both Yangjin and Sunja were in unstable positions before their marriages were arranged, whether it be financially or socially. Neither woman had the idea of “raising” their social status, rather they wanted to “save their social status. Although “this does not mean that one must be rich to make a marriage work. However, if one has the basic necessities o...

      Throughout the Stranger, we see the different portrayals of women and men in Algier in the 1940's. My pod discussed this often, even before we learned that Mersault was on the spectrum.      The way different male characters treated the women in the novel was both surprising and not surprising at the same time. Already noticing that Mersault seemed detached from the others in his life, the way he treated Marie compared to Celeste or Raymond differed greatly.      Although Mersault seemed distant from most people around him, Mersault's perspective and how he viewed Marie was similar to how someone views an object. "I wanted her so bad" or "I wanted her to stay with me" at first didn't shock me since many of Mersault's sentences (using the ctrl F feature 21times) started with "I want" and directly conveyed his feelings, but Mersault's possessive form of "I want" for Marie was not seen with other characters.      Now pa...

       (This blog post is merely thoughts and opinions)     Humor is something that varies from person to person. My pod happened to be discussing a topic that we found extremely hilarious: bananas.   After Cecelia brought up cucumbers in The Importance of Being Earnest , we started to talk about foods that are seen as phallic, bananas being one of them.      while the phallic nature of bananas was what started this conversation on bananas, we began to talk about bananas and the different ways to peel them. Although this topic isn't as funny as a stand up comedian's act, we found that being able to relate to what's being joked about makes it easier to laugh and find the conversation interesting.        Something as mundane as bananas became a topic that we talked about for a good amount of time and enjoyed talking about. So does humor really vary from person to person or is how we experience humor what make...

      In Toni Morrison’s Recitatif, the story of two young girls in a temporary orphanage and then zooming in on their lives multiple years later, the readers are taken through an experiment where the factor of race has never been clarified.       Throughout the whole short story, Morrison never clarifies the race of the two girls, Roberta and Twyla, instead Morrison leaves it up to the reader to figure it out themselves. This reminded me of those “choose your story” books from when we were younger, where one small decision we took could impact the rest of the story's experience for us. For those who assigned a race to each character from the beginning, the story could have become confusing, or our perspective could have changed throughout the story. For those who didn't assign a race to the characters, we could've used other means to decide the girl's social standings, like their economic situation or relationships(family and friends).   ...