English 021 Creative Reading

Weblog - Entries for pdecoste
The Grand Controller
E3 Haroun Alice
by pdecoste

In both Salman Rushdie’s Haroun and the Sea of Stories and Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass the question begs to be asked: who controls the story? In both stories there is an overarching controller that dominates the flow of action. In Haroun and the Sea of Stories the mechanical...
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May 12, 2005, 12:35 AM
Carroll as the Aged Man and the White Knight
8 Carroll
by pdecoste

The “Aged Aged Man” is the proper name for the White Knight’s poem because the usage of ‘aged’ twice suggests two separate levels of existence in one person. The two levels of aging work synergistically to justify Carroll’s role in his own eyes. At the end of each of...
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May 05, 2005, 11:27 AM
The communication of the Red Queen's pun
7 Carroll
by pdecoste

“When you say ‘hill’ the Queen interrupted, “I could show you hills, in comparison with which you’d call a valley.” “No I shouldn’t,” said Alice, surprised into contradicting her at last: “a hill ca’n’t be a valley, you know. That would be nonsense—” The Red Queen shook her head, “You...
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April 28, 2005, 01:56 PM
The Machiavellian Ending
6 Rushdie
by pdecoste

Haroun’s “happy ending” to his adventure is true and certainly not clichéd. The Walrus did not force Blabbermouth to kiss Haroun goodbye which made him “extremely pleased” (202). The Walrus also, did not force Rashid to tell Haroun and the Sea of Stories to the people of Dull Lake....
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April 21, 2005, 01:30 PM
the secret language of poetry
E2 Possession
by pdecoste

Randolph Henry Ash uses poetry as a medium to communicate his true emotions on a high metaphysical platform. Ash’s communications to Chritabel LaMotte in “Ragnarök,” “Swammerdam,” and “Mummy Possest,” serve as the basis for their love affair. Ash’s poetry is his only true means of communication to Christabel. Ash’s letters...
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April 14, 2005, 02:25 PM
RHA and possessing himself
5 Byatt
by pdecoste

In Randolph Henry Ash’s case imaginary writing provides him the medium to truly possess and communicate his own emotions. An example of this occurs in Ash’s Ragnarök when he states, “Then Ask stepped forward on the printless shore/ And touched the woman’s hand, who clasped fast his./ Speechless they...
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April 05, 2005, 10:38 AM
Love's Possession
4 Byatt
by pdecoste

Possession when applied to Randolph Henry Ash means “a psychological state in which an individual’s normal personality is replaced by another.” Roland recognizes Ash’s possession when he states, “It was this urgency above all that moved and shocked Roland. He thought he knew Ash fairly well, as well as...
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March 29, 2005, 11:34 AM
Numbers, Infinity, Iris Acht, and Alphabetical Order
E1 Pale Fire
by pdecoste

Vladimir Nabakov’s Pale Fire supposedly ends in the death of the poem’s author John Shade. This is, however, not the case. Pale Fire is not a tale of death but of cyclical and infinite life. When the number “8” is taken symbolically and coupled “1” and the alphabetical arrangement...
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March 08, 2005, 01:53 PM
Iris and underlying connections
3 Nabokov
by pdecoste

Kinbote, in Pale Fire, does not ignore John Shade’s poem, but in fact echoes Shade’s symbols and shares his ideas in order to promote his own selfish reading of the poem. By claiming all rights to Shade’s actual text of Pale Fire, Kinbote feels he holds authority over the...
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February 17, 2005, 02:01 PM
X as the reader
2 Wallace
by pdecoste

The narrator in “Octet: Pop Quiz 6(A)” states, about character X, that “he keeps all his secret feelings of alienation and distaste and resentment and of shame and self-urtication even about the shame of itself completely to himself…” (117). This previous statement is a paradox because the narrator confides in...
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February 10, 2005, 01:06 PM
The fatal method of criticism
1 Wilde
by pdecoste

Believing in Willie Hughes is fatal because of the manner that Wilde, Cyril Graham, and Erskine all conduct their criticism of Shakespeare’s sonnets. These men cannot distance Shakespeare from his sonnets and due to this fact their criticism is fixated on attempting to find, as Wilde says, “the perfect...
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February 03, 2005, 12:13 AM
something cooler than not being able to see...
Test
by pdecoste

Well, this is my blog, I have to change my “really cool thing about me” I found two of them better than “I can’t see even with my glasses.” They are 1) I went to three different high schools and 2) I have never lost an eating contest in my...
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February 01, 2005, 02:25 PM