English 021 Creative Reading

Weblog - Entries for oradwan
Oedipal Alice?
E3 Haroun Alice
by oradwan

Children transition smoothly from a real world to a ‘dream world’ early in the beginnings of both Haroun and the Sea of Stories and Through the Looking Glass. While both children have similar passages between worlds, the immediate effects of the transition on their power are completely different: Alice gains...
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May 12, 2005, 11:46 AM
Last ever blog ever. ever. never again. not in a million years. not until the sun falls into the ocean. ragnarok will be over when I write another blog. etc etc.
8 Carroll
by oradwan

The most appropriate title for the White Knight’s poem is ,A-sitting on a Gate. This title draws a connection between the man on the gate and Humpty Dumpty sitting on a fence, both illustrating a character perched high upon a fence type object. Just as the man is “sitting on...
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May 04, 2005, 08:13 PM
Don't take me seriously.
7 Carroll
by oradwan

A strangely literal incident in the first chapters of Through the Looking Glass occurs when Alice first encounters the Red Queen: “Alice … explained … she had lost her way. ‘I don’t know what you mean by your way…all the ways here belong to me’ [said the Queen]” (161). The...
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April 27, 2005, 09:08 PM
A Bijective Function
6 Rushdie
by oradwan

The end of Haroun and the Sea of Stories is truly a happy one. The resolution to each conflict presented in the narrative is truly a resolution, not just a “fake” (208) happy ending patch. This is evident in one quote that occurs in two places in Haroun. When Haroun...
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April 21, 2005, 01:27 PM
beASHlebub
E2 Possession
by oradwan

Possession opens with the myth of Proserpina in a poem written by Randolph Henry Ash. The placement of this poem at the beginning of the novel begs the immediate question, which Possession character represents which Greek legend. The innocent Proserpina, whose presence on earth is partially responsible for the beauty...
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April 14, 2005, 01:19 PM
Ash and Poetry
5 Byatt
by oradwan

Randolph Henry Ash uses Poetry to communicate with women. The restrictions on his proper conduct in a Victorian age limit how truly he may communicate with members of the opposite sex, limiting him to formalisms and utmost politeness. However within the poetic medium, Ash can talk frankly to women in...
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April 05, 2005, 01:19 PM
Change in Possession
4 Byatt
by oradwan

The Victorian characters in Possession seem, to a modern reader, to be possessed by an inhuman amount of restraint. All of their out of date mannerisms make the first love letters sent to Ms. LaMotte by RH Ash seem very distant and collected. Yet as the book continues, Ash’s letters...
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March 29, 2005, 11:14 AM
The Unseen Power of Green
E1 Pale Fire
by oradwan

Throughout Kinbote’s life, the color green acts as his chief adversary. The use of the color green in the commentary to Pale Fire accelerates and animates as the narrative winds to an end. In the king’s youth and during his escape from Zembla, the color green is a minor,...
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March 07, 2005, 07:35 PM
A Hidden Contest
3 Nabokov
by oradwan

John Shade is a very open author. He makes no apologies for himself at all, even when he discusses some aspects of his personality that some might consider negative. In his autobiographical canto 1, he states, “Asthmatic, lame and fat, / I never bounded a ball or swung a bat”...
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February 17, 2005, 01:23 PM
An Impartial Recounting
2 Wallace
by oradwan

In the Pop Quiz 6(A) section of Wallace’s Octet, we are presented with a character, X, who is described to the reader rather clearly as suffering from a defect: “X secretly worries that the obvious selfishness (…) might constitute evidence of some horrific defect in his human makeup” (117). Throughout...
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February 10, 2005, 01:50 PM
Wilde Blog
1 Wilde
by oradwan

Willie Hughes walks hand in hand with death throughout Wilde’s story, yet I do not believe that Willie Hughes is a fatal idea. Rather, I believe Willie is an aphrodisiac for the mind—he creates manic devotion to a theory (whether the afflicted believes the theory or not does not...
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February 03, 2005, 01:45 PM
Oliver
Test
by oradwan

I'm just testing out the blog as per our assignment. I figured I would try to see what this format allows us to do. I'm going to try and attach an image of Aeneas fleeing troy with his father slung over his shoulder, because I was reminded of The Aeneid...
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January 27, 2005, 05:58 PM