Musee des Beaux Arts

(pg. 272)
Musee des Beaux Arts

About suffering they were never wrong,
The old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position: how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.

In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water, and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

-W. H. Auden (1907-1973)

This poem provides commentary on pain and disaster and the tendencies to overlook it. Two important devices used in this poem by W. H. Auden include irony and allusion. In this poem, the speaker notes how the Old Masters (aka the famous painters of that time) never neglected to show suffering in their paintings, and that they could find it every daily aspect.Then, however, the speaker goes on to neglect pain and suffering himself by describing others who have done it. He does this even more so when he describes Icarus. By doing this, Auden is alluding not only to Pieter Brueghel's famous painting, but also to Greek Mythology. In this myth, Icarus is given a pair of wings made by his uncle Daedalus, and told not to fly too close to the sun or else the wax will melt and the wings would break. Icarus, however, ignores this advice and does it anyway. As one would expect, Icarus ends up plummeting to his death. Brueghel's painting, Landscape with the Fall of Icarus is an illustration of this event, however the central figures in the paintings pay no attention to the disaster occurring as Icarus falls. Icarus, in fact, is only shown as a mere pair of legs splashing in the water. He is not even the focal point of the painting. Because of this, Auden is very successful in alluding to Brueghel's painting to make his point. It is the perfect commentary of ignorance of disaster to go with his own. 

I really like this poem for it's connection to art history. I think it was very effective for Auden to allude to a famous painting because, not only does he supply the reader with a description of the event, but the reader can actually look at and clearly visualize what Auden is trying to describe. I also like the look Auden takes on ignorance of disaster, and how people tend to forget about it unless it directly affects themselves. 

Woman Work

(pg. 271)
200. Woman Work
I’ve got the children to tend
The clothes to mend
The floor to mop
The food to shop
Then the chicken to fry
The baby to dry
I got company to feed 
The garden to weed
I’ve got the shirts to press
The tots to dress
The cane to be cut
I gotta clean up this hut
Then see about the sick
And the cotton to pick.

Shine on me, sunshine
Rain on me, rain
Fall softly, dewdrops
And cool my brow again.

Storm, blow me from here
With your fiercest wind
Let me float across the sky
‘Til I can rest again.

Fall gently, snowflakes
Cover me with white
Cold icy kisses and 
Let me rest tonight.

Sun, rain, curving sky
Mountain, oceans, leaf and stone
Star shine, moon glow
You’re all that I can call my own.
-Maya Angelou (b. 1928)


In this poem, Maya Angelou describes the duties of a hardworking woman and her connection with nature to escape from her work. A significant part of this poem is the rhyme scheme and the rhythm in the first stanza. While the speaker lists all the tasks she has to do, the very basic rhyme scheme emphasizes the amount of work she has. This, along with the lullably-like rhythm, makes the amount of tasks seem never-ending. This structure then quickly changes over once the woman escapes from her work and into nature. Another important part of this poem is the imagery. In the first stanza, the poem is lacking in vivid images, adding to the emphasis of the dullness of the work. However, once the woman finds herself in nature, the images become very powerful. A few examples are "Fall softly, dewdrops," "Cold icy kisses," and "Star shine, moon glow." These images help show how enchanted the woman is by the nature around her, and how much she enjoys the restfulness and escape. 


Overall, I really like this poem. I love the images Maya Angelou provides, and the contrasting structures of the beginning of the poem and the end. To me, the end of this poem can mean two things. The first is that nature is merely an escape for the woman. It is somewhere she can go and relax after a hard day of work. In my second interpretation, the end of the poem is metaphorically describing the woman's death after a tiring life. The dew drops, the storm, and the snowflakes all take the woman peacefully away from life and bring her to a place she is truly happy. 

We: Analysis, Quote, & Thoughts

      A somewhat minor, although important, symbol in the novel We by Yevgeny Zamyatin is hair. Zamyatin uses this symbol to create contrast between the strict, mathematical society of OneState, and the barbaric “rebels” on the other side of the green wall. In OneState, each person must shave his head. Through this image, Zamyatin provides a feeling of bareness and conformity. This can be associated with the lack of creation and imagination in OneState. Opposing this image is the image of hair, which represents wildness. Through out the novel, D-503 complains about his unnaturally hairy hands. As the novel progresses, and D-503 becomes more and more frazzled, this image emphasizes his lack of control. Hair as a symbol also appears when I-330 takes D-503 to the other side of the wall. The people he meets are covered with a fine layer of hair from head to toe. This emphasizes the wildness and freedom that these people have about them.

The quote that I found most interesting from We is:

            “All my madness seemed to be blown away from me all of a sudden. I was me again. One thing was clear: I hated her, I hated her, I hated her!”

I found this quote humorous because the way D-503 acted towards his feelings for I-330 reminded me of the way a child would act. The feelings of love and seduction that I-330 shows towards him are completely foreign to D-503, so he rejects them. Once he is his “normal” self again, he declares three times that he hates I-330, when it is quite obvious that he actually loves her. He just does not know how to act towards those feelings.

      Overall, I did not really enjoy reading We. Although the overall topic was intriguing, I found it hard to follow at times, and I had to re-read chapters very often. I also found myself getting very frustrated at D-503’s ideas and statements. However, I did like how the sentence structure became more disoriented as D-503 became more and more confused. Because it was written in a journal entry format, I found this to be very effective at illustrating what D-503 was going through.

The Handmaid's Tale: Favorite Passage & Thoughts

A quote that I found interesting from The Handmaid’s Tale is the description of the FAITH pillow:

I go to the window and sit on the window seat, which is too narrow for comfort. There’s a hard little cushion on it, with a petit point cover: FAITH, in square print, surrounded by a wreath of lilies. FAITH is a faded blue, the leaves of the lilies a dingy green. This is a cushion once used elsewhere, worn but not enough to throw out. Somehow it’s been overlooked. (Atwood 57)

In this passage, Margaret Atwood characterizes the faith in Gilead through the description of a single pillow. The tone she creates with words like “narrow,” “square,” “faded,” and “dingy,” show how much true faith has been overlooked in Gilead. Religion in this society has as little faith as possible. People buy mass produced “Soul Scrolls” from machines that read in sharp metallic voices, and parts of prayers are constantly removed from sermons. This is very ironic considering the fact that Gilead is a theocracy. This quote shows that this treatment towards religion has taken a toll on the faith in the society. It has been worn out to the point where it is “dingy” and “faded.” However, the last few lines saying that the pillow has been overlooked show that even though the faith has been worn out, it still exists in some people.  

All in all, I really enjoyed reading The Handmaid’s Tale. The plot and concepts kept my attention throughout the whole novel. While the novel was not exactly happy, I did love the descriptions and imagery that Margaret Atwood used. My favorite description is when Offred is talking about her past life and she says, “We were the people who were not in the papers. We lived in the blank white spaces at the edges of print. It gave us more freedom. We lived in the gaps between the stories” (57). I enjoyed the image that Atwood conveyed through this description. I also liked the flashbacks that she used to tell Offred’s story before she was a handmaid. These were very effective in that they made the contrast between Offred’s old life and new life sharper. They also made me have more admiration for Offred to know what she went through in the past. Because I enjoyed this book, it let me form a deeper connection to Offred than I otherwise would not have been able to do. With this in mind, I have a greater understanding and appreciation for the novel.

The Handmaid's Tale: Analysis of the Historical Notes

In my opinion, the historical notes included at the end of The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood, provide an interesting and thought-provoking conclusion to the novel. Loosely speaking, these notes, which are written in the format of a college lecture and take place in the year 2195, act as an epilogue to Offred’s story. Margaret Atwood provides the reader with a vague description of how Offred’s story ended, and some details as to who the Commander was. However, Atwood did not choose to include these notes merely to provide details otherwise not mentioned. Instead, Margaret Atwood uses this section to comment on the continuous nature of humans to criticize previous societies existing before them.

            Each part of the historical notes contribute to Atwood’s point; the analytical speech of the professors, the titles of the organizations (i.e. the Gileadean Research Association), the laughter scattered through out, and even the name of the college, as in, the University of Denay, Nunavit (kind of ironic, huh?). Each of these provides the historical notes with a satirical tone. The lecture opens with recreational announcements, letting the reader know that this lecture, in a sense, is also just for recreational purposes. The professors crack jokes about missing lunch, and the audience laughs, even groans, at points when descriptions of the society are given. This laughter gives the people attending the lecture an air of arrogance. It shows that they look down upon the society of Gilead, and that they feel their current society is far more superior. These people could care less about the hardships that women like Offred lived through in Gilead, whereas, we as readers, feel as though we developed a personal connection to her, and become slightly offended at the analytical approach that this lecture takes towards Offred’s story.

            The historical notes also contribute a great deal of irony, which assists in further highlighting the main concept that Atwood conveys. Through out The Handmaid’s Tale, the ruling officials in Gilead believed that their society was exact, and they endlessly deemed ideas from the previous society to be wrong. However, here in the historical notes, the same thing is being done to Gilead. By demonstrating this, Margaret Atwood shows that society moves in never-ending loop; one society gives way to another, which thinks itself to be superior, and then that society gives way to another and the loop continues. While successfully conveying this concept, the historical notes in The Handmaid’s Tale, also show how easily a personal story like Offred’s can be forgotten in this chaotic loop, allowing a greater appreciation for the novel.

Now… Are there any questions?