English 021 Creative Reading

Weblog - Entries for lcolon
Power Relations for Kids
E3 Haroun Alice
by lcolon

Children must be taught to behave correctly in order to succeed in life. Salman Rushdie and Lewis Carroll both cared for children and, therefore, were invested in their futures. They both took on the paternal role, whether or not appropriate, of entertaining and teaching their respective child: Jafar Rushdie and...
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May 12, 2005, 09:36 AM
the aged guard of aging
8 Carroll
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The white knight’s poem should be definitively called “A-Sitting on a Gate”. This gate is representative of the transition into adulthood for Alice Liddell. The man who sits on top represents Carroll, guarding her entrance for as long as possible. The man on the gate is an “aged aged man”...
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May 04, 2005, 11:26 PM
The Queen of Specific
7 Carroll
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In “Wool and Water,” Alice “address[es] the White Queen” (p. 194), which the Queen takes for “a-dressing” (194). This discrepancy leads her to think that Alice is referring to putting on her clothing, an action she has had difficulty with. Because Alice has hit a sore spot, the Queen proceeds...
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April 28, 2005, 01:41 PM
Haroun's psychological lesson
6 Rushdie
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The end of Haroun and the Sea of Stories points out that self-fulfilling prophecy is a valid way to happiness; if you think or fake it enough, it will genuinely happen. Though seemingly unreal, The Walrus’s spell aided in the temporary happiness of a town and the return of Haroun’s...
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April 21, 2005, 02:18 PM
The Princesses Burn to Ash
E2 Possession
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Randolph Henry Ash, throughout A.S. Byatt’s Possession, is driven by sincere passion. He is passionate for women: both for his wife, Ellen Ash, and his mistress, Christabel LaMotte; for knowledge: he masters numerous intellectual fields including biology and metaphysics, and for poetry: through which he masters his readers. Ash’s passion...
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April 14, 2005, 01:24 PM
Roland is a knight...no, he's a comma
5 Byatt
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In the text, Byatt expresses Roland’s role as two textual elements: one being the comma and the other being a knight. The knight, being important to the content of the story plays a much more substantial role than a comma, which is only important technically. The very first poem in...
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April 05, 2005, 01:36 PM
Roland's psychological defense against his sad sad life
4 Byatt
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In Possession by A.S. Byatt, Roland experiences “domination by something” as a form of possession. He is most obviously in physical possession of Randolph Ash’s and Christabel’s letters, yet he is possessed, emotionally and intellectually, by these letters. Roland’s own sense of self is shaky and undefined; he is vulnerable...
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March 29, 2005, 02:28 PM
The Grim Reaper Plays Chess
E1 Pale Fire
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Despite a final suggestion that all of life’s events are random and unplanned, structure and order guide the actions of Vladimir Nabokov’s Pale Fire. The story is built like a chess game, with alternating movement of the white and black sides. This seems to juxtapose good and evil elements within...
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March 08, 2005, 01:34 PM
identity crisis
3 Nabokov
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Though Pale Fire is seemingly dominated by erratic tangents, there seems to be a link between Shade, the author, and Kimbote, the strangely divergent commentator. Both poet and commentator assume roles outside themselves within the text. Kimbote most obviously displays these dual roles with his story of Zembla and the...
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February 17, 2005, 02:12 PM
Wishing but dismissing meaningful "relations"
2 Wallace
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David Foster Wallace, in both “Octet” and “Adult World,” describes people who are either superficially connected to others or struggle to gain “true” connectedness, but fail or perish due to this attempt. “Pop Quiz 6(A)” shows superficiality within “close and intermeshed” relationships (“Octet”, p. 114) as being false due to...
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February 10, 2005, 01:54 PM
fatal? yes? no?
1 Wilde
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I believe the fatality of the theory of William Hughes stems from a lack of physical proof. Due to this lack, the researchers of this theory are forced to sacrifice their own physicality in search of his. Cyril and Erskine sacrifice their health and lives and, in a sense,...
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February 02, 2005, 07:56 PM
Lee's Test

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Testing, testing, 1 2 3........
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January 31, 2005, 12:07 PM