Alternate Ending Heart of Darkness

"And you admired him," she said. "It was impossible to know him as well as it is possible for one man to know another."
The day was dark and dreary, lightly raining as it was in the jungle. Marlow thought for a second, "Kurtz was a remarkable man, but with the wrong intentions. he used the tribes against each other so they would make more money." As Marlow looks up at her she avoids eye contact in disgust that he would say such a thing. Marlow continues, "He never mentioned you, I just found a picture of you one day." Her face grew more sorrowful as Marlow finished telling her Kurtz's last words. "He died a lonely death with his final words being, "The horror, the horror." By the way Marlow said these words it was apparent he did not know the meaning, but he somehow saw she seemed to know what it meant more than he did. Marlow got up and left the house of Kurtz's intended as she wept, with the light rain falling from the sky. The Kurtz she once knew was now lost in the heart of darkness never to be seen again.

Evening Concert, Saint-Chapelle

       John Updike's poem, Evening Concert, Saint-Chapelle, has many literary devices in it.  He is describing a concert hall and the stained glass windows in it.  To do this he uses alliteration such as, "blazing blue," and "...violins vaunting Vivaldi's..."  He frequently uses colors to paint the picture in the readers mind of how this place would look.  He also has references to people named Vivaldi and Brahms.  These people were both composers and musicians.  This relates to the poem because it is describing the concert hall.  This also helps to create the picture of the setting.  Updike uses a few types of figurative language in this poem, but mostly uses alliteration to give the reader an understanding.  

To Myself by W.S. Merwin

     In this poem the author uses diction by saying "you," at the end of many lines, along with the word "I."  Once I thought about the meaning of the poem, I realized that it meant of reflections into the past.  He talks about his own past in a way which makes the reader think of their own past.  He does this by making it sound as if he is writing a letter to himself.  That makes sense because it ties back into the poem title "To Myself."  This poem has no stanzas, so it shows it as one thought rather than breaking it down into smaller pieces, so it is more like a letter.  Where he says, "I am sure you were here a moment before..." could mean how time seems to fly by.  This poem is a reflection of the authors memories and the purpose of it is for the reader to remember those times that have passed and reflect on them.

For a Duro

         A duro is a coin which is discussed throughout the poem to explain the benefits and what can be purchased for a duro.  The author, Philip Levine is very repetitive by using "for a duro," numerous times during the poem.  He does this because it emphasizes what the poem is about as a whole and even is the title.  The first half of the poem states what can be bought. "For a duro you could have it all, the cars, the women, the seven-course meal and a sea view." (which sounds pretty good to me.)  To create a structure the author then discontinues writing, "For a duro," and shifts towards talking about a soldier in uniform, a pet hospital overseer, and a few animals.  I wondered what these people and animals had to do with the duros?  Then I figured it out because the author says, "For a duro I bought a pack of Antillanas and gave one to the only traveller..."  This meant you can help others for a duro rather than just benefiting yourself.

Poety blog 1: 1943

        At the beginning of this poem it sounded like it would be about boxing because it talks about a person knocking out someone in the first round and also mentioning heavyweight finals.  It then changes and talks about the war.  I knew this was World War Two because 1943 was when much of the fighting was taking place.  The fourth line of the poem says, "...Dom died in the third wave at Tarawa."  This leads me to believe Dom was an American soldier because Tarawa was an island in the Pacific, where the U.S. were fighting the Japanese.  The poet then goes on to talk about memories back in southern Connecticut.  After reading through a second time makes it sound as if this is a journal kept by a soldier who is overseas fighting a war.  He is thinking of home and  wishing to be back, but knows that he has to continue to suffer through the difficult times and conditions even if survival doesn't seem likely.   

Heart of Darkness

          After getting about ten pages into this story I was more confused than I had ever been.  Frequently I was having to re-read and slow down to try and figure out what was going on.  This surprised and disappointed me because after reading the back cover of the book made it sound as if this would be a very interesting story.  Even though this book had the fewest pages, it definitely took the longest to read just as Mrs. White's note said. 
          One of the most exciting parts of the book was when some indigenous people tried to attack the riverboat and the pilgrims returned fire.  This would have been scary knowing you can be surrounded on both sides of the river banks and there is not many ways to escape. Even scarier would be being on a ship with cannibals aboard.  To the crew's relief the loud fog horn scared the natives away since it was even louder than the gunfire and the natives were very primitive.  To me finding Kurtz did not seem like it was worth all of the danger, time and money spent just to get there. 
          Joseph Conrad has a writing style that was extremely difficult for me to keep track of.  Even with annotating his writing style was difficult to pick up on.  As I would be reading I would often find my mind wandering to something else which then caused me to take even longer on the book and read through the page or selection a second time.  By the time I was at the third section of the book I think I was starting to pick up on his writing because it was gradually making more sense.  This book has an interesting story, but it was very difficult for me to get used to the author's writing style.  

The Great Gatsby

         This book was a fairly quick read but at times had some slow and boring parts where not much seemed to add to the story. 
         What I had to do was make a list of all the characters just so I could continue to understand who is who and how they were related.  As mentioned in the title, Gatsby was a major character along with the narrator.  Making notes on each of the characters seemed to be helpful and allowed me to keep reading through the story while understanding it.  I found myself imagining all of the events in the story such as the parties at the mansion to help comprehend each event and what order they happened in. 
         Since this book was written quite a while ago, the authors style of writing somehow seems different than modern books and harder to understand.  While taking some time to annotate the book and making notes of key events helps to realize what is going on and makes it much easier to go back and see what happened in a certain part.  Some parts seemed sort of clustered such as when Wilson was hit by a car, seemed to have a lot of events happen quickly and all at once.  Upon the conclusion of the book after Gatsby had died and the narrator meets Gatsby's family seems to wrap up the book in an unusual way.  Overall the book wasn't one of my favorites because a lot of times being difficult to understand, but there was a story that for the most part I was able to follow.