Question

Poetry had many functions in the world until writing became prevalent in most cultures. Poetry served as a means of expressing important societal issues such as cultural ideals, friendship issues, and religious views. It was a way of morally enlightening and teaching young people about a community’s traditional beliefs, thereby uniting old and young people. Furthermore, poems were used to inspire good behavior, rebuke unethical conduct, and illegal acts, thus preserving virtue in society (James et al. 54). Furthermore, poems could be sung in the evening to amuse people as they slept. In the poem “Fredrick Douglas”, in between lines 10 and 13, the poet says that Fredrick Douglas shall be remembered not through songs, statues or praises, but through his bloodline (Feely and William 32). He says this because only his offspring will remember that he fought for their freedom from slavery. Other enslaved people would not honor the work he did to make sure that they were freed. This implies that a man’s memories are preserved by his offspring and not through song and art. The importance of begetting children is a theme here; despite his successes and the recognition that accompanies them, the subject’s legacy shall live through his progeny.

Question 3

Jane, who narrates the ”The Yellow Wallpaper”, is a mentally lady who is under treatment. However, as she continues to write the story, her mental condition worsens and she feels threatened by her husband, sister-in-law, and the yellow wallpaper. The writer uses a first person narrative as well as time and space to vividly describe her growing insanity enabling the reader to participate in her madness. The yellow wallpaper, drives woman insane as it represents her entrapment in society. The mental therapy she undergoes does not improve her mind but instead worsens it until she grows insane. This narration shows how people are wrongly diagnosed with mental illness and are put on therapy which worsens the condition.

Question 4

The author James Joyce in her short story, ”The Dead”, compares Gabriel and Michael Fury to Ireland’s nationality before and after colonization. Gabriel is Gretta’s new husband-wife (Ireland’s independence) and cannot be compared to her previous dead lover Michael (Ireland under colonization. Gabriel fails to understand her since she wants him to behave and treat her like her dead husband. In this story, the author shows how Ireland’s citizens have refused to embrace their independence and develop their nation. According to her Ireland is unable to move past her historical glory and into a better future like other countries (Joyce and James 45). In essence, Ireland has not moved away from its past. Gabriel seems unable to replace Gretta’s previous husband even postmortem. This is because the widow is stuck in the past and everything Gabriel does is measured against the standard set by Michael. In the same Ireland is still reeling from the effects of colonization and has not embraced its independence. Rather the country is still stuck in its pre-colonial times.

Question 5

In the book, ”A Tale of Two Cities”, Marquis is Darnay’s uncle and his father’s twin brother. Marquis who is a powerful, cruel, corrupt and immoral person likes to oppress poor peasants and believes that subjugation of the poor is the duty of the aristocracy. He wanted to keep power in his hands and continue oppressing them as long as he was alive; he regrets the ongoing reforms that have restrained or reduced the power to abuse the poor. He ran over a child by with a carriage yet no legal action was taken against him hence the Child’s father killed him (Shumaker and Conrad 251). Charles on the other hand, was a young upright man who was ashamed of the cruelty his family had done to the poor people hence decided to leave France and went to England. He hopes to ameliorate the wrong of his family which was his mother’s dying wish.

Question 6

The last lines in the book ”A Tale of Two Cities” were spoken by Sydney carton before he was executed. He ”I see a beautiful city and a brilliant people rising from this abyss. I see the lives for which I lay down my life, peaceful, useful, prosperous and happy. I see that I hold a sanctuary in their hearts, and in the hearts of their descendants, generations hence. It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known.” (Shumaker and Conrad 251). These are the same words that Gordon reads out during the final moments of the film ‘Dark Knight.’ The film and the book have a similar theme of sacrifice. One person sacrifices to die for the other one so as to give them a second chance in life.

In the book, Charles Darney comes from a wealthy family which oppresses the peasants in his nation. Charles got annoyed with his family action and left for England. Charles Darney was a good man, morally upright, and cared for the welfare of other people. In England, he worked as a teacher and then meets a new friend called Sydney. Sydney was a lawyer who used to drink irresponsibly and did not care about anything in life. They met a lady named Lucia and fell in love with her. After the revolution in France began, Charles’ uncle got killed and his property was destroyed. Charles decides to go back to Paris and is arrested because of aristocracy and the deeds of his family. The revolution demanded his execution because of what his relatives had done when he was away (Isaacman 104). Sydney who is Charles doppelganger gets word that his friend was about to be executed so he sacrifices his life to save him. He switched places with Charles Darney and got executed hence save him from the guillotine. Charles was set free to go back to England and start a new life.

In the film ”The Dark Knight Rises”, Batman and Bruce Wayne face the same condition as Charles and Sydney. Bruce Wayne is Gotham aristocracy just as Charles is French aristocracy. In his last act Batman returns to save the city just Charles returns to France (Isaacman 107). Batman died in the process and Bruce was left free to restart his life and correct his mistakes. The two pieces of literature depict sacrifice as a theme where the characters are willing to lose everything to save the lives of their friends. Sydney and Batman died so as to save and give their friends a second chance in life (Isaacman 108). The same quotes have been spoken during the death of these characters to show how people can decide to lose everything so that other people may be saved. In addition, Batman takes the blame for Harvey Dents murders and becomes a wanted criminal so Harvey can remain a beacon of war in Gotham’s war against crime. Gordon reads the passage to draw parallels between Batman’s sacrifice in Dark Knight and Sydney’ sacrifice in A Tale of Two Cities.

Question 7

Whitman worked as a journalist for the New York Times” before starting to write poems. Many of his poems did not obey the normal writing styles that other poets used when composing poems. His poems were simple and easy to understand. He frankly wrote about things that affected the nation like the world war. He expressed his notions about democracy and criticized the wrong things that the government was doing.

In his poems, he used freestyles which did not apply alterations, figurative speech, rhythm, and rhymes. He would introduce words from other languages or use slang language in his writing. Some of the lines in his poems were longer than other lines making his poems lack parallelism. The writing styles he used showed his democratic power and freedom to write using any style he liked. His poems were thought to be more regular speeches rather than poems.

His revolutionary poetic styles enabled him to write his thoughts and feelings without confusing people. Most of his poems were criticizing the government when they went wrong in running the nation. His writing styles were able to change the writing the normal writing styles for poems hence new poets were encouraged to start writing. This encouraged poets to start writing poems in simple languages so that everyone could understand their writings.

Question 8

The sickly yellow wallpaper in the story ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ is used to symbolize the subjects own trapped illness or mental state. The wall paper is ugly and the woman in this story hates it. This is simply symbolic of how the woman sees herself; she hates herself. Her mind and body is placed under the restrictions of the chauvinistic world she lives in further complicating her mental state. The woman in this story started having mental problems after giving birth to her child. She was wrongly diagnosed with depression and was locked in a room to be treated. She was then put under therapy by her husband and doctor. The ugly wallpaper just like her ‘illness’ asserts its symbolic power over the woman’s mental state until she tears it from the wall in attempt to free herself.

The author uses the wallpaper to symbolize the domestic submission of women during her time. Husbands are shown to have complete dominion over matters that concern the health the health or wellbeing of their wives. Same way that the wall paper is trapped on the wall, the woman is trapped in the house and her life in general. Even though the intentions of her husband are good, they end up complicating her mental state. The yellow paper and its cage-like pattern symbolize the entrapment that the woman feels in her own life. Her attempts to leave can be interpreted as the wallpaper’s increasing dominance on her imagination. This means that the wallpaper is not only a symbol of her entrapment but in her mind it she feels trapped by the wallpaper just like the figures she perceives in its sub-patterns.

Question 9

I agree with Plato’s concept of art and truth. According to Plato, art and truth are opposing forces; art is a corrupt version of the truth. An artist imitates God’s creations (the truth) and art is merely a means of striving for absolute truth. He said that literature in the form of art cannot present the truth about a situation since it is full of false impressions (Wilde 67). He believed that the only true form of art is the art created by God. The rest are just a collection of shadows and images the way an image appears on a mirror. He believed that everything created by man had a former original form and changing them to new shapes could not change their original form. Any new item that is created is an illusion and fiction meant to fool the audience. He therefore proposes that art be examined in a moral light and only what is considered morally upright should be allowed into society.

According to Wilde, man controls his destiny and his work in attempt to express a personal truth. Man is the central figure in Wilde’s world and his works are devoid of references to a creator. Wilde says that anyone can write a piece of literature hence no matter the form of presentation, it should impress the reader. If an artist like a painter makes a drawing, it should not express his emotions, feelings, or his perspective towards a particular theme (Wilde 66). The painting should serve a purpose of decoration if convey the required message. If a literature is presented in form of a song or a poem, it should speak directly about the topic and let the listeners or readers understand it. He also argues that there is no such thing as moral or immoral art.

Wilde and Plato agree on the concept of form. However, their concepts of artistic truth differ very much. Plato believes in a universal truth while Wilde believes truth is subjective and personal. When representing a form of literature, the symbol, the way of presenting, and the material used to represent it should be made clear. Literature should be presented in a form which the audience can understand easily. This may be in the form of art, drama, music, written stories and poems. When representing a piece of literature, you should consider the type of audience you are presenting to and how it will have an affect their lives (Wilde 69). The piece of literature should be able to present the intended theme. Literature should also serve the purpose of its writing like educating, warning, or entertain the audience in a manner that can be understood.

Work Cited

Feely, William S. Frederick Douglass. WW Norton and Company, 2005.

Folsom, Ed. ”Hass, Robert, ed., Walt Whitman, Song of Myself and Other Poems, and CK Williams, On Whitman.“ Walt Whitman Quarterly Review, vol. 28, no. 1, 2010.

Isaacman, Sibren. ”A Tale of Two Cities.“ Proceedings of the Eleventh Workshop on Mobile Computing Systems and Applications. ACM, 2010.

James Winn, Anderson, and Yvonne Hopkins. Unsuspected eloquence: A history of the relations between poetry and music. Yale University Press, 1981.

Joyce, James. The Dead and Other Stories: A Broadview Anthology of British Literature Edition. Broadview Press, 2014.

Shumaker, Conrad. ”The Yellow Wallpaper.“ Dark Humor (2010).

Wilde, Oscar. The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: Volume IV: Criticism: Historical Criticism, Intentions, The Soul of Man. Vol. 4. Oxford University Press on Demand, 2000.