Slaughterhouse-Five #3

In Slaughterhouse-five written by Kurt Vonnegut, Billy continues to journey through time and space to a different planet where his life is controlled and run by aliens. These aliens have him do strange things and I'm beginning to wonder whether any of that story line is too. I'm not sure what the literary term for intertwining two stories at one is called, but Mr. Vonnegut accomplishes this wonderfully. He has two stories of Billy going at once via time travel and within these many insertions of random stories and facts that contribute or apply in some way to the development of Billy over time. These continually cause me to go back and read and look for connections to the rest of the book. 

Near the end if section two in our reading, I think that I found a place where my Vonnegut may have led the readers to believe that Billy was actually only dreaming about the time travel. He writes that Billy time travels and then writes that, "He had had a wet dream about Montana Wildhack,"(134), which indicates that during his "time travel" he managed to have a dream about what happened to him during his time travel. I find that to be very unlikely and seriously wonder if Mr. Vonnegut is cuing us in on something bigger. Maybe Billy is just a crazy dude, I guess I'll just have to read more to find out.

Slaughterhouse-five #2

In my second blog for Slaughterhouse-five written by Mr. Vonnegut, I would like to discuss some topics that I briefly tipped off on in the first blog. First off, I'd like to point towards some repetition that I found and continually find more and more interesting as I read on in the book. One phrase that I continually see repeated is the phrase "So it goes" repeated over and over. I'll come back to the origin of the phrase in a later blog but as for now I'd like to discuss it's meaning and significance. I see it most commonly used after the death of a person, or thing really, that has perished in the eyes of a human. This must play some sort of significance for the stance that Vonnegut is portraying to the reader.
As of now, I'm not entirely clear on what Mr. Vonnegut's stance is towards war, but this continual use of the phrase makes me truly wonder what it is that fuels Mr. Vonnegut's use of "So it goes."  I wonder if it has to do with this concept that I have come up with after reading some ways into the book that death/perishing is unavoidable. Maybe because Billy has seen so much death and destruction he has become desensitized to the reality that at some point or another. I find that this makes so much sense to me because of the hallucinating and out of this world experiences that Billy Pilgrim is enduring. I started thinking along these lines when I read on page 43 that, "His attention began to swing grandly through the full arc of his life, passing into death, which was violent light,"(43) which gives me the idea that time and lifespan don't mean much to one that is continually moving from place to place within his own past, present, and future.

SlaughterHouse-Five #1

In SlaughterHouse-Five written by Kurt Vonnegut, the reader is taken through a journey that involves a man named Billy Pilgrim. But before Billy is properly introduced, a chapter is written from actual Kurt Vonnegut's point of view that makes me wonder who Billy Pilgrim is representing. Vonnegut writes the intro chapter of this book from his own personal point of view describing some things about himself and the war that are semi-hard to understand and relate to the next chapter. I found myself confused because I had trouble understanding what carried in seriousness from the first chapter to the next. It seems that some key phrases and concepts are repeated frequently by the author, but interestingly enough they are even repeated from the first chapter into the second that has a very different storyline.
See the end of the first draws me to the conclusion that we are moving on from the first to start something new and different. His introduction of Billy is what really makes me think. Why not tell the story from his own point of view if this is a story he has been working on for years? I would like to know if really Billy is Mr. Vonnegut and he is telling the story from this interesting point of view because of the impossible actions taken via time-travel. I hope that in time I will come to have a greater understanding of who this Billy Pilgrim really is and know wether or not Vonnegut knew him. The way that Mr. Vonnegut writes, "People aren't supposed to look back. I'm certainly not going to do it anymore,"(22) makes me really wonder this book is a sort of reminiscing of a different sort.

Acquainted with the Night

Acquainted with the Night written by Robert Frost starts very intriguingly with the repetition of "I have" to start several lines in a row. This occurrence helps to string the details of a very vague poem together to help create an interesting aura around the speaker. It comes off this way because of how almost embarrassed, shamed that the speaker puts off. He does this through writing, "Dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain,"(6) when describing passing a watchman. This makes it appear as though the speaker has done something that others wouldn't approve of and cause him to walk with the night when others would not understand or see this as acceptable.
Upon first reading this poem, I understood the speaker to be having relationship issues and feel inclined to walk out again and again. This makes the speaker "acquainted" with the night because of the frequent walks. I also though this because of the inclusion of the luminary clock. I thought this to be the moon and had a notion that the moon was keeping track not by moving throughout the night, but by changing day by day. The moon never judged him on being right or wrong for what he had done this time or that because at this point they had become acquaintances.

The Convergence of Twain

The Convergence of Twain by Thomas Hardy is a poem that I personally find very interesting. The time and detail put into this poem to create the shape and style of writing is very impressive. First off, to make sure that all stanzas will look the shape of an iceberg of a ship is very impressive. It seems that sometimes those small details can distinguish a poem from all others. These kinds of details make them memorable and very intricate the majority of the time. In particular for this poem, I found it effective because along with the gradual build of the grandeur and meeting of the two objects, the whole while we look upon stanzas that look similar to them.
Another aspect that I find interesting is the development of the way that the author describes the things made by man in comparison to the iceberg created by God. This author believes that God has destined the two to meet. This is seem in the end by line 31-32, "Till the Spinner of the Years Said 'Now!'" inferring that someone in control caused the collision. The author makes them seemed destined almost similar lovers through choice diction that would be used to describe the way a couple would eventually come together.

Sorting Laundry

This poem really develops in the most interesting time. Sorting Laundry by Elisavietta Ritche does this through some methods of varying lines, size development, and stress at the end of the poem. The varying lines was nice how throughout the beginning the consistency that allowed the reader to keep up well with the progression of the speakers laundry in relation to the relationship that she is in. The way that the articles slowly went from big to small also helped display the bigger, less important aspects of the relationship compared to the smaller, but increasingly important aspects.The way that this is how the speaker wrote to start the poem helped build for the switch up at the end when something changes. The author changes by starting to write about the idea of ending the relationship and how this would affect both her and the way she did her laundry.
Another part that seemed intriguing was how in the beginning, the lines really might have developed an issue only to reveal that it was not a big deal in this relationship and the people were able to get through it anyway. They also, in a sense, reveal characteristics that show aspects of their relationship to show how they work together as people. When the author writes about how they are laxative about how the laundry is sometimes, "All those wrinkles, to be smoothed, or else ignored,"(19-21) says something about how they deal with the problems in their relationship.

Dover Beach

I think that the poem Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold wrote was very effective for me because I have been to so many bodies of water before. The way that he described the water with so many various descriptions of both the sight and sound of it made me think back on times when I have witnessed bodies of water performing as written. This makes the sights and sounds of the water come to life for me and realize the deeper meanings of the bodies of water reflecting on life as we know it. TheIn the fifth line when it is written, "Glimmering and vast,"(Ln5) help to really display the characteristics of the oceans. The drastic descriptions help reflect back on the actual meaning that life holds. The hard way that we have to deal and cope with all that happens in both the large, intense sounds and the calm, everlasting years that life holds.
This all comes together perfectly through the weaving of the three bodies of water described. The first develops the solemn sense that life is harsh. The second shows how others before us have come to the realization that this is show. The last seems to be a fictional stanza that shows how possibly at one point things could have been perfect for all, but they are not. The last stanza really reveals how at one point or another we can make life bearable. This is only through a partner that we can really endure and get through all the hard times.