Reflective Essay: Reminisce

Here I am, at the end of the line looking back at what I have gone through. All those times of struggle and all those times of panic all come down to this moment. The improvement of my skills in writing and reading has really depended on those times. Those nights with no sleep and those deep books that made me dread the class all not brings this glory and feeling and accomplishment. I feel that I have improved very much in my explication, discussion, and writing skills.

I remember the first day of English as if it were yesterday. We, the class were told what was expected of us and the magnitude of the work we were going to do and that just left me scared and fearful of the class itself. Everyday I would come in barely getting my work done or even not completing my work on time. Explications were like a wound to my grade every time one was graded. I never really got the concept of an explication until just recently. I thought that if you just expanded upon your very own thoughts that it would explain itself and give me a good grade but I was wrong. The problem with what I was writing was that I did not explicate the text but my own thoughts which made my papers so low scoring. It took me the full year to figure it out after I started to compare papers with my peers. Noticed the element that everyone else had that I did not and suddenly when I attempted to put it in my paper, it actually made my papers better. The eight page paper on James Joyce’s The Portrait of the Artist was what it took to improve my writing. This challenging paper forced me to look at other explications and realize what I was missing. When I incorporated in my paper what I lacked from before, my grade shot up and the teacher even made a remark that it was one of my best papers all year. This taught me how to help myself improve on my own. Peers are an excellent place to start when I needed aid in my work but in most cases, they came up to be no help. I learned to compare work and seek out I was doing wrong compared to other people and that improve my writing altogether.

This class was thought intensive through out the whole year. Our class discussions in my opinion are deeper and crazier than anything I have ever seen. The way a human mind can connect so many different items is so intriguing. Mr. Gallagher could connect the whole world to things at times and it would just blow me away at how a person can do that. This experience taught me of how to think and how to extract significance out of a book. For example, Hamlet was a book there the protagonist, Hamlet goes mad and speaks of such deep and loaded words that is hard to understand. Then Mr. Gallagher could just rip the words apart and just feed us piece by piece where we could understand and even expand upon the words. The word “nothing” to the average person would mean nothing, as in lack of anything. Then all of a sudden it can mean a woman’s sexual organ. These out of the box thoughts just blew me away. To think out of the box is not usually what most people do but this class really taught me how to do exactly that. With this skill now, I could make a discussion definitely more worth while and interesting.

English 12 Honors helped me mature as well as improve upon my skills. The topics that we dealt within the books in the class were beyond most things a teenager would think about and I think that helps kids get a feel of what live is really like out there in the cold and dark world. People are not as nice as one thinks in and around one’s neighborhood. The topics in the books are like a punch in the face of reality. It taught me how to deal and how to just look at certain things that go on in this world. This class is a great class for seniors who are about to be sent into the world because for me, it helped me gain so much knowledge about the world and the psychological side of people. Even though this class is so very challenging, I am confident to say that I enjoyed this class and thankful of what it had to offer me.

My First Job Experience

My parents have always told me that hard work would always be rewarded. I figured this out in the working world and that it is an important ingredient to being successful. It all began when I was sixteen and thought that it was time to be more independent from my parents so I got a job as a bus boy at an asian restaurant in Boston. It was my first job and I made all sorts of mistakes and errors. I broke plenty of cups and dropped plenty of plates but I did not give up even at times when I was discouraged. I worked harder and harder and soon I was one of the fastest bus boys in the restaurant. Within a matter of four months I was awarded a raise and a promotion to smoothie maker. In this experience, I learned that it pays off when I work hard.

Kaffir Boy: Notebook Entry

"The above message can be found written on larger than life signs... It is meant to dissuade white people from entering the black world. As a result, more than 90 percent of white South Africans go through a lifetime without seeing first hand the inhumane conditions under which blacks have to survive." (3)

Discrimination, a word discussed all over the world to end it but nothing has changed. The idea of being treated differently or unevenly because of differences of any kind plays a major role in life. Throughout time, nothing has changed and people still discriminate people based on differences no matter who they are. No one can say they do not discriminate because they all do in ways they just do not realize. In this memoir, the black people of South Africa are forced to life in horrid conditions under extremely limited and controlled lifestyles all because they have different a different skin color. The topic of study for this year is discrimination. People discriminate by other's abilities, disabilities, race, beliefs, and any other intolerable difference a person can have. The way society works is intriguing how we say we should stop this but it never happens.

Kaffir Boy: The Amazing Cover

Ronald’s Kaffir Boy cover seems to be the best cover on the market! He has incorporated symbolism and colors into the cover giving it an attractive look with items making the reader ask “Why?” when they look at the cover. Everything on the cover was mentioned in the book and can be proven.

The two characters appearing on the cover is the protagonist, Johannes Mathabane and a black police officer. The police officer represents the black people that were manipulated by the white people of South Africa to help them enforce the laws. That evening the neighborhood was gripped by the rumors that the Peri-Urban police were going to launch another raid soon…searching for people whose pass books were not in order, gangsters, prostitutes, black families living illegally in the township, shebeen owners and those persons deemed ‘undesirables’ under the Influx Control Law. (16)”

In Johannes Mathabane’s hands two items. Each item represents an important idea in the story which leads to the ending. The tennis racket is what gets Mathabane his scholarship in America to finally leave for a new education which is symbolized by the paper with the A+ grade on it. It can be found in the book when Johannes receives a letter from Limestone College. The letter read Dear Mark, … I’m offering you a full tennis scholarship, which includes tuition, room, and board, and books. (342)”

Then the backgrounds in the cover show the two worlds that are present but where the black and the white people segregated into. The wasteland with two shacks is Johannes’ home which is Alexandria. Then the nice big house on the right is the white people’s homes which have green grass. The Black people had to go over there to work. In this case the cover depicts Johannes trying to get to the white peoples’ side showing that Johannes is trying to be equal and be on the same side and have everything they have. Then the police officer holds him back with the rope around his neck. The rope in this case represents the Apartheid which can tell the setting of the story. The Apartheid was the policy in South Africa in which all races were segregated. This happened during the 1970’s.This cover suggests all the important ideas of the story all in the cover. It would make a great cover for the book and is appealing to the eye because of its uniqueness, its details and its color.

Most Influential Person in My Life

My father never finished school nor did he have the chance. When he was thirteen, his mother became terribly ill. She could no longer work to support the family. My father rose to the call and dropped out of junior high to support this family, so most of his other siblings could go on to finish school. Through his experience, he gained wisdom and this mighty wisdom is what he hopes will better his children’s life.

He grew up in poverty in lurid conditions. It was a time when his country was at war. People lived in the streets and starved. Vietnam’s economy was a mess and money was hard to come by. My father would shine shoes for the wealthy hoping to get some change to bring home to his ill mother. That change would put some bread and clean water on the table. He did not want his son to struggle through the same life as he did. “To not live the life he had to live” is what he said. This is why I see my father as a great and influential figure in my life. He worked remarkably hard to give me this chance in life. If not for him, I would be in Vietnam working on his mother’s farm. This is why I hold my education close to my heart. My will to succeed stems from this man.

To be successful in my family is to complete school and to one day attain a career in a field the individual enjoys. Both my father and mother were not successful individuals and that is what created their standards for their children. Growing up, lectures of being successful influenced my thoughts and disciplined me to concentrate on this goal. I have been working diligently ever since in hopes of one day achieving what they consider “successful.” Nothing has been easy and school surely has been a struggle for me yet I know all this effort will earn me a future that my parents and I can be proud of.

Life in America is drastically different than life in Vietnam. My father did not have the chance to finish school so he never had the chance to have a pleasant paying job everyone else’s parents had. Yet he got through his hard life to raise me to have to opportunities he did not have. My father was hard working, persistent, and intelligent and that is why he is an influential person I look up to.

James Joyce Critical Essay

In society, politics is all about the struggle for power. In order to gain this power, an understanding of society and its habits are required to achieve and manipulate this power. In James Joyce’s “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man,” Joyce displays the evolution of the young protagonist in the story, Stephen Dedalus to show his coming of and how Stephen attains power. While growing up, innocent Stephen is suddenly thrown into the adult world of corruption and sin where he is to fend and learn for himself how the world works. Stephen’s environment and strong religious beliefs aid him in his quest for adulthood. Stephen’s evolution brings him the understanding of the world which gives him the political strength he needs to make it through. His control over himself and others seem to be bleak at the beginning of the novel but as he grows older and learns more, this power of his evolves and transforms Stephen into an independent and wise adult. Through Stephen’s journey of dealing with politics in the corrupted world, Joyce implies that power is found through trial and error in the real world. Life is not just simple as black and white or easy as one, two, and three. One can not just do something wrong or do something right since much of people’s actions are backed by thoughts that might be justified. The real life in society is concealed from children. When the children come to the appropriate age, they are left to find out for themselves how to survive in this world which is so diverse. Who one is around, who one associates, or just what one thinks all play effective roles in how one evolves into the adult they want to be. With those people and thoughts, people commit mistakes and it takes these mistakes for people to learn from them in a world so cold and dark.

In school, Stephen’s lack of political strength leads him into trouble in his first encounter with an adult of higher stature and through this, Joyce constitutes that sight is power. Stephen accidentally breaks his glasses on the cinder path and is excused to have to take notes by his teacher, Father Arnall. Then when class is in session and another teacher, Father Dolan acknowledges that Stephen is the only one in the class not writing and is quick to confront him. When Father Dolan asks Stephen about his situation, Stephen “could not speak with fright” (55) Joyce uses the words could and fright to show the magnitude of the intimidation Stephen feels because Stephen lost his vision. Since Stephen has lost his vision, this is what makes Stephen inferior to the rest of the kids and to Father Dolan who also sports a pair of glasses. Joyce uses glasses in this case as a symbol defined as sight is power and superiority. Stephen is put down to a lower level than the other kids because he is “blinded” (55) and is unable to perform like the other children. He is picked out of the crowd because of this. His obvious weakness is seen by Father Dolan and he is attacked because of it.

This idea of being blinded also refers to the Oedipus complex. Oedipus blinded himself by gouging his eyes out after he had discovered the prophecy he had unintentionally fulfilled and then was driven out of his city Thebes, by his own people. Without Oedipus’s eyes, his control over his people was reduced to nothing and then was he vulnerable to be driven out. Sheldon Brivic states that “the loss of eyes is an image of castration” (Sheldon Brivic, 253). Brivic uses the word castration to suggest that the power is lost when vision if lost. Stephen, like Oedipus loses his eyes and becomes vulnerable to be attacked by others. Then Stephen “closed his eyes and held out in the air his trembling hand with the palm upward.” (55) Joyce suggests that Stephen castrates himself as he performs this gesture of surrender relieving himself of any power. This castration Stephen performs on himself takes the man out of Stephen. Since the general man likes to be in control of situations and able to lead, Stephen just takes all of that away when he places his arms up to the Father.

The almighty God has limitless powers as defined in human bibles and in human faith. If the messenger of god connects normal humans to this god then priests must have great political power as well. They forgive wretched sin and purify the evil and corrupt souls. Since these priests follow this god and achieve power through this god one can believe that power can be attained by following these priests who possess great power. Stephen with his sinful and shameful conscious comes to the priest in hopes that Stephen can find strength to overcome this shame that disturbs him so much. He enters the booth and starts the process of confessions and the priest is there to aid and help Stephen. In the booth Stephen “made the sign of the cross and prayed of the priest to bless him for he has sinned” (129) Joyce makes Stephen perform this task because it empowers Stephen with the faith that he has with god to be open and confess the truth of his sins. This strength Stephen conjures up creates a sense of confidence and boldness. Then when Stephen finishes confessing, “The last sins oozed forth, sluggish, filthy.” (130) Joyce uses the terms oozed, sluggish, and filthy to substantiate the magnitude of the sins which in turn reflects on the readers idea of how difficult this confession of sins is for Stephen. To the reader those three words give imagery to the texture and movement of the sin. It conjures up thoughts of dirty and viscous slime which add substance to the truths that Stephen pours out to the priest. After the confession, Stephen “bowed his head, overcome.” (130) in which Joyce defines the degree of Stephen’s overwhelming with the term overcome. With that Joyce suggests that his sin was heavy and so substantial that it overwhelmed Stephen to just confess it all.

Loaded words are words that carry more than what is perceived and in this case, Stephen has loaded words when it comes to his sins. This substance of the sin is created through the psychoanalytic belief of the maternal goal and the paternal threat. Steven lacks power at this point in his life “because his mind generates the paternal threat whenever it approaches the maternal goal, Stephen cannot sustain the active male role.” (Sheldon Brivic, 255) Stephen’s anxiety that created the substance filled sins all stemmed from this idea. The strumpet is Stephen’s maternal goal and God is the paternal threat in this case. This unconscious realization within Stephen creates this anxiety and shame. The paternal threat is the shame and anxiety that God hands to Stephen because he did achieve the maternal goal. Thus Stephen can not sustain the active male role which is the conventional, empowered, and self-disciplined man.

Power that purifies a man’s soul. Power that cleanses a man’s conscious. With the couple words of a prayer, a life is changed. The priest changes Stephen’s attitude with just that. The priest “knelt to say his penance, praying in a corner of the dark nave: and his prayers ascended to heaven from his purified heart like perfume streaming upwards from a heart of white rose.” (131) The simile Joyce uses creates the feeling of innocence in the scene. Perfume conjures thoughts of refreshment and enlightenment and the color white conjures thoughts of innocence and heaven which can describe how the healing in Stephen is happening. Joyce suggests that power is attained with being pure. Stephen after the confession changes to a whole new man. He is no longer distraught and depressed but empowered and happy. On Stephen’s way home Joyce writes that “the muddy streets were gay.” (131) Joyce forms this paradox because it presents and emphasizes the newly changed mood of Stephen. The word muddy is generally perceived as a negative term since it relates to being dirty but gay is defined as happy. Usually anything negative and happiness do not go hand in hand so it is a paradox. To see the dirty street and to describe it as happy shows his change in mood. Before Stephen steps into the church, he is pessimistic about his whole life. Then god forgives him and everything changes within him. This new mood within Stephen presents his political strength he attains. His depression just in the aftermath of his committed sin seemed to cripple him. His mind was a mess and he was not able to do anything or think logically. After his encounter with the priest, he “strode homeward, conscious of an invisible grace pervading and making light his limbs” (131) His limbs are made light which shows what strength he attains. His body with the sin was heavy for him to handle and it held him down. Now with the new strength god hands him, he feels that his body is light and easy.

Fear is what drives many people to do what they do. Fear is what scares people into thinking certain thoughts and not doing what we do. To overcome fear requires power and strength. One must find it within themselves to stand up strong against what they fear and oppose it. Stephen and Cranly watch through Pembroke and talk about their new lives. They talk about their futures and what they are going to do and not do. Also, they talk about their experiences and their experiences through their lives so far. Stephen talks about his fears to Cranly and says

- You made me confess the fears that I have. But I will tell you also what I do not fear. I do not fear to be alone or to be spurned for another or to leave whatever I have to leave. And I am not afraid to make a mistake, even a great mistake, a lifelong mistake and perhaps as long as eternity too. (213)

Stephen uses I repeatedly to stress empowerment in himself and put himself above Cranly to show strength and superiority. Then Stephen uses mistakes with a greater meaning word each time after each sentence to again show his superiority by suggesting that he is fearless to commit any mistakes. At this point Stephen is confident I himself and is politically powerful because he is able to make this bold statement. At no other point in the book is he able to make a statement so specific and so strong. He mentions that he does not fear to be alone when that is what bothered him through the whole book. He is able to confront his fears and stand up strong to it. Stephen’s evolution is to hit this point. His adventures are all there to take him to this point. A point where there is a realization of what to expect in life and what to not and be afraid of. Having the strength to confess such thoughts, is a sign of Stephens psychological development. When one is able to speak out against or voice such strong thoughts, the individual is politically on top and in control. In this instance, Stephen has control of the conversation since he is able to turn the conversation from being about fear to what he does not fear. This scene is not like when Stephen was sitting in fear listening to Father Dolan but Stephen is actually in Father Dolan’s position at this point. Stephen is able to take control of the conversation, manipulate it, and turn it around on Cranly. Stephen goes from confessing the fears that he has to that he “will tell… also what… does not fear.” (213) Just by saying that he will tell Cranly shows the strength within Stephen. Stephen is not asked to reveal to Cranly what he is does not fear but he voluntarily does. This puts Stephen in a position higher than Cranly since Stephen is clearly on the offensive when he turns the conversation around.

The information people gather from the sources around them all contribute into shaping and forming of a personality and proper morals. Stephen develops and grows up substantially over the course of time in the book. His superego develops as he does with every incident and in the end it transforms him into his powerful self. “The superego is ‘outside,’ since much of what it tells us to do or think we have learned from our parents, our schools, or our religious institutions.” (What is Psychoanalytic Criticism, 237) Stephen through what he experiences and what he learns from the church father, his education, and his parents all bring him to this point where he shines. All these incidents where Stephen loses his political strength and has no power over anything, it serves as a lesson for Stephen to learn about the world in his journey through the new world he is to discover. Father Dolan overwhelms Stephen in a political sense even with his mistaken intuition. Stephen with his blindness is reduced to nothing as a man with a strong voice and a higher hierarchal position. With vision, Father Dolan has authority that Stephen did not and that helps Stephen realize later on in his life that people are quick to jump to dishonest conclusions even when accidents happen. The Priest plays another role in helping Stephen to realize proper morals and to obtain political strength. After the sin, Stephen is distraught with anxiety in his mind and he does not function right. Just the realization of his actions to a woman made him go berserk with shame. This anxiety and shame render him powerless. He is left vulnerable to attacks from people and his negative thoughts. Finally when he comes to realize that the only way to heal this disease of sin and strength absorbing anxiety, he was to go to god. God’s morals taught by the priest through to the people help empower the people with righteous thoughts. When people have righteous thoughts, people believe in what they do and they perform in confidence and force. People will see the morals as logical and perform it without any thoughts of deceit or evil. Stephen talks to the priest and admits his sin. This acknowledgement of his actions and that he is forgiven by god sanctions him with political strength and changes his thought process upside down. His insecurities fade away and he is his own confident man. Confidence is a result of power because through confidence, nor fear or anxiety is affecting any actions performed. With confidence, Stephen is able to walk the streets and just live life with no worries and open to carry out any task. The morals Stephen learns from the school and priest help Stephen develop his superego strength and system of morals. With a developed superego, one can go about life in confidence knowing what they do is either right or wrong and to be able to fight for what they believe in and this will to fight for what one believes is a clear presentation of strength.

Joyce conveys the idea that power and strength is obtained through trial and error. As Stephen matures, he learns and has to fend from the world. He is clueless in the beginning of his adventures which leads him to have so many troubles and insecurities. As the book goes on and the adventures, he makes mistakes and learns from them and also learns from the people that he observes and happens to stumble upon. When he is a child, he gets in trouble because he is blind at school which can be seen as that he is blind to the world ahead of him and Father Dolan is there to give him a taste of the corrupt and dishonest world that lies before him. This blindness is Stephen’s loss of power. He is inferior to everyone around him since this blindness stuns him from completing the work that he should be doing. He is powerless to complete any task or even perform any task. Even though the father comes to the wrong conclusion, it is actually a learning experience to Stephen so he will know that there are people out there who will try to find ways to cheat the world. Then as he grows older, he commits sin with a strumpet which is morally wrong on both their behalves and seeks the aid of a priest to help him. At this point of time in Stephen’s life, Stephen is blinded by the guilt, anxiety, and depression. These emotions handicap Stephen so much that he can not find the strength or power to think or work properly. His mind is clouded and dark so that he can’t do anything straight. Stephen gains strength from the Father and the Priest and also gives him an understanding of the world. Knowledge is power and with this knowledge Stephen obtains, he develops his righteous superego that gives him power to do whatever he likes without fear or anxiety.

Independent Reading Discussion: Ghetto Nation Post 2

Achievement is something that I have witnessed that can be tied to race. “By the time I was a senior, when my schedule was filled with nothing but demanding classes, I had virtually no black classmates, even though I was attending a black school. Truth is this gap between white and black achievement… was popping up in schools across the country.” (152-153) If we take percentages of classes with difficulty and races/colors I think something can be said about certain people. My honors chemistry and math class last year had a high percentage of Asian kids and every other race seemed to be a minority. Who are we to speak for these individuals and say that they don’t try but statistics show that Asian kids, assumed by me, are a bit more achieving. I don’t mean to offend anyone but don’t you think that it is safe to assume that a lot of Asians have good math skills? I don’t speak for everyone but the majority of Asians at least. Then when we start creeping into the cp level of things, race becomes indifferent. It is just about diverse and even with every race. Subject matter also matters too. I might be stereotypical with the Asians and their good math skills but it does hold true most of the time and I’m very sorry if I offend anyone. When we move on to Technical Education classes we barely even start to see any Asians. I guess you could say every the ethnicity of other peoples will more likely have more physical than mental thought. Asians becomes a minority in these classes. Daniels starts to see this in her classes in how all her black friends that used to be in her AP classes are no longer with her when she gets to the very advanced classes. She was with the white people who seemed to be performing better than the black kids in their school work. If the city or town is a diverse town, I think that this would happen in the school system also. One ethnicity would be more common in some classes more than others. Have any of you guys observed any of this?