Draft Revision

I feel like our draft is missing emotion. We need to act more like the scene is our reality. I think that our performance is not natural enough to be believable. In order for this to happen we must all know our lines very well and work on our reactions and emotion when certain things happen on the stage. Also, our stage setup must look like we live in Haiti. We need a curtain and we need blankets to lay on the floor. The reason why we need these things is because Lili does not have enough money to own a bed and they do not like in a house with different rooms, so the curtain is what separates Lili and Little Guy. The curtain is very important because it allows for Lili to work as a night women to protect her son from the truth. In the performance when Lili tells Little Guy that she is a night women, I have to be shocked at that. I also need to talk angrily to the angel and Guy when I tell them that I know that Lili is a night women. I have to act like I really want to work at the sugar mill because I really do not like the fact that my mother is a night women. Also, when I read my monologue at the end after Lili dies, I must say it in a slow mourning way because I know that she is dead This is important because this performance needs to be sold as it actually happening. It has to look like it is real life and each person in the group must become their character. Another thing that will help this performance is the lighting because it will help to set the atmosphere of what is happening.

Scene Analysis

Blog post due on how to best perform your scene to highlight the specific literary elements and analysis you have identified -- 300 words

In our performance, we want to show how important it is to Lili that her son Little Guy goes to school instead of work at the sugar mill. Throughout the performance, Little Guy is struggling to decide on what he wants to do with his life. He likes going to school, but he also wants to be like his father and go amd work at the sugar mill. It takes a long time for him to finally make the right descision to go to school onstead of work. The reason why this is so important, and is the main conflict is because Lili has become a night women to make money so that someday Little Guy would be able to go to school and be something more than his father. In our performance we can show this idea through arguement between Lili and Little Guy about whether he is going to work at the sugar mill or go to school. In our performance at first Guy will suggest that Little Guy should work but by the end of our performance he changes his mind and tells little guy to go to school because Lili has sacrificed so much. Also, Lili lives her life because of Little Guy. Her whole bieng is to make sure that Little Giy goes to college and has a strong future. Once he does those things, she has nothing left that she wants to accomplish or do in her life. Because of this, we decided to have Lili commit suicide at the end of our performance. This is very important because it means that Little Guy id safe and that Lili is now back with her husband. We also want to show how Guy realizes the mistakes that he has made through conversations with Lili and the angel that is with him. We want to show that Guy goes through a transformation over the course of our performance.

Uta Hagen 9 Question

1.) Who am I?
I am Little Guy
2.) What time is it?
It is night time in Haiti
3.) Where am I?
I am living in Haiti with my mother and we are very poor.
4.) What surrounds me?
The sugar mill is near by and the school that I go to.
5.) What are the given circumstances?
My father killed himself, I go to school because my mother wants me too, and our family is very poor.
6.) What is my relationship?
I love my mother and father very much but I do not understand them very well.
7.) What do I want?
I want to make money to help the family but I also want to go to school.
8.) What is in my way?
My mother does not want me to work at the sugar mill and I am in the way because I want to go to school and make money.
9.) What do I do to get what I want?
I have to make a descision on how I want my life to go and then if I want to work at the sugar mill, then I will have to convince my mother to let me or I will go to school like she wants me to.

IA proposal

My idea for the IA project is an adaptation of Caroline's wedding. This adaptation requires 3 people to perform. The characters are Grace, Caroline and Eric.

The performance begins with the fact that Grace and Caroline's mother is dead. Grace has adopted the Haitian tradition s that their mother lived by. The conflict is between Grace and Caroline because Grace wants Eric to ask her permission to marry Caroline since she is the oldest sibling. Eric will try to satisfy Grace's desires to have a traditional Haitian wedding, but it is not good enough. So Caroline and Eric will try to run off and Grace will try to prevent it from happenong because she does not want them to get married.

The focus will be on the importance of tradition and heritage. It will also focus on the relationship between family and outsiders. The setting is in New York because that is where Grace and Caroline live in the book story.

It will be interesting because it is somewhat similar to the book but different because Eric will be aware of the fact that Grace does not like him and that she wants a traditional marriage. This performance is like what would happen after the story in the real book ended.

Fall Play Review

I was very impressed with the performances in the fall play. The actors did a great job of memorizing their lines and an even better job of improvising if they forgot their lines or somebody else forgot their lines or went out of order. I really liked the props that were used. The backgrounds and the benches and the chairs really worked in explaining where the scene was taking place. I could easily tell that the city scenes were inside of a house and the country scenes were outside. I liked that the actors were able to exit and enter the scene in different ways. One of the ways was from the door that was closest to the stage. The other was down the middle all the way to the back. I really liked this way because it is different from actors just turning left or right to exit. I felt like there was the right amount of music. I liked that it was only between scenes and not during the acting. The lighting was appropriate for the scenes inside and outside. When the actors were performing in the city house, the lights were dimmer and I could easily tell that they were outside because they were very bright. The actors did a great job of keeping their composure on stage. They did not laugh at all when the audience would laugh and they did not break character at any point. I also liked that they could enter from behind the audience. It made me feel like I was right in the middle of the performance and not looking in from the outside. I really enjoyed this play and it was filled with important themes such as honesty. This was a very enjoyable play to watch.

25 Things

Wall of Fire Rising

1.) Fire
2.) Relationship between Father and Son
3.) Relationship between Mother and Son
4.) Sadness
5.) Depressing
6.) Hot air balloon
7.) Sugar Mill
8.) Guy
9.) Little Guy
10.) Lili
11.) Boukman
12.) The List
13.) School
14.) Suicide
15.) Freedom
16.) Consequences
17.) Passion
18.) Love
19.) Dissagreement
20.) Dissapointment
21.) Money
22.) Hierarchy
23.) Anger
24.) Obsession
25.) Short sighted

Answer 2 Discussion Questions

Grace
4.  Some people suggest they should follow the tradition, but some people suggest they should walk their own way.  Which side do you support?

I think that it is important to do both. I think that it is important to remember where you came from and never forget the traditions that your family taught you as a child and to spread them on to your children. But I also think that if you let your family's tradition consume your whole life, then you are limited in the things that you can achieve.  One of the biggest examples in the book where tradition is important is Caroline's wedding. Haitian tradition is very important to the mother. Her whole life is surrounded by the traditions that she has learned. The reason why she has conflict with Caroline is because she thinks that Caroline is to modern because she has grown up in America. Their mother continues to make bone soup and saves all sorts of things from Haiti that she had suck as the hanker chief that was given to her when her husband had asked her to marry him. She believes that Caroline should have a Haitian marriage because she wants to keep those traditions alive. " Ma wanted Eric to officially come and ask her permission to marry her daughter. She wanted him to bring his family to our house and have his father ask her blessing. She wanted Eric to kiss up to her, escort her around, buy her gifts, and shower her with compliments. Ma wanted a full-blown church wedding. She wanted Eric to be Haitian." This shows how difficult and stubborn Caroline's mother was about the traditions that she upholds. Caroline is very modern and she just wants her mother to stop bothering her with the Haitian traditions. She does not understand, but Grace does understand because she was born in Haiti and she has lived in the US. She is trying to figure out her life. Caroline shows that she is modern because she insults the bone soup that her mother makes all the time. She says that she is going to burn her face in it to prove to her mother that there is no magic in the soup. There is plenty on conflicts between Caroline and her mother about if she should carry on the traditions of Haiti or go their own way in life.


2. Why does the author name some of the characters and unnamed some of the characters?

I think the author is trying to show that there are people in the world that we do not know about that are living in poverty or they are dying because of their government or their living situation. We do not know their names because we have never tried to know them. I think the author is trying to say that people who are privileged should be aware of what is happening in other places and should try to help the people who are constantly struggling. In Children of the Sea we do not know the names of the male or female narrators. They were separated because the male was apart of a group against the government and he has to leave on a boat to America. On the boat, the male narrator meets an old man. The boy asks his name. "'It is Justin Moise Andre Nozius Joseph Frank Osnac Maximilien." His name is so long that we as the reader do not even care about it. I think that the male narrator does not care about it either because he is on a boat to the US that might sink, and he has left his girlfriend who he loves, in Haiti. The point is that without a name, we do not have any kind of connection to people who die everyday.

4 discussion questions

1.) Explain the significance of hair between the epilogue and 1937.
2.) What is the significance of not naming characters in a lot of Danticats stories?
3.) Do you think that women in the US face the same type of problems that the women in the stories faced?
4.) What kind of message do you think Edwidge Danticat is trying to send to the people who read this book? How do her stories impact our daily lives?

Epilogue Reading Notes

- braiding hair.
- you look like your mother who looked like your grandmother
- be the best cook and housekeeper who ever lived
- writing is forbidden
- metaphors including cooking with writing
- writing is like braiding your hair
- diverse women in family are like different size and weight of braids
- mother is disappointed that you want to write as your living
- 999 women who went before you so you can stand here
- a thousand women urging you to speak through the blunt tip of your pencil
- women like you do speak
- the women in your family never lost touch
- sky will fall if you do not tell stories
- and this was your testament to the way that these women lived and died and lived again.

Thesis Statement And Quotes Caroline's Wedding

Identity and Traditions

Identity

Thesis: Identity is a major conflict within Grace who is the character because she is stuck between two worlds and she cannot decide if she should choose her mothers side of Haitian culture or Caroline's side of American culture. 

Quote: "When I become a mother, how will I name my daughter?" "What kind of lullabies will I sing at night?" "What kind of legends will my daughter be told?" 

Traditions

Thesis: Tradition is one of the big themes that cause the conflicts between Caroline and her mother because her mother is very traditional and Caroline is very modern American. This puts Grace in the middle of them who is struggling to find her identity since she is both Haitian and American. 

Quote: "Do you know how your father came to have me as his wife? His father wrote a letter to my father and came to my house on a Sunday afternoon and brought the letter in a pink and green handkerchief. Pink because it is the color of romance and green for hope that it might work." "Ma wanted a full-blown church wedding. She wanted Eric to be Haitian." 

Carolines Wedding Reading Notes

- In this story, it is about two sisters and their mother who live in New York.

- Caroline is getting married to a man who is from the Bahamas.

- this causes cobflict within the family because her mother is a very traditional Haitian and she thinks that her daughter should marry a Haitian man. 

- the mother is very traditional and she always makes bone soup for her daughters.

- she is really not happy with this wedding.

- when she want to Carolines fiances house, she barely ate any food because she does not like him.

- their father dies 10 years before this. 

- their mother was left in Haiti from her husband untill he could make enough money for them.

- in order to get to the US he had to marry somebody else to get their.

- this weighs on the mother a lot because he married somebody else. 

- their relationship did not feel the same after that.

- she is mad that the man did not adk for permission to marry her daughter.

- she talks a lot about how her husband asked her to marry her.

- her husbands whole family asked her family if their son could marry her.

- she cares a lot about this which is a big reason why she dies not like him.

- Caroline is angry at her mother because she does not like the idea of her marrying him.

- They start to prepare for the wedding.
- there is a small party before the wedding happens.
- Carolines sister has dreams about her father.
- she continues to dream about hin but she can never reach him or talk to him.
- it frustrates her because she wants to talk to him but he will not let her.
- Caroline gets married to her fiance.
- her mother goes along with it and they part ways.

Night Women vs. Day Women

In different parts of the world, women have all sorts to different roles that they play 3in society. In the US, women have all sorts off diefferent opportunities that they can do every single day. In day womem, the mother has a lob that han help to say thd bills of the house. Opportunity plays a big role in these storys because in Night Women the only way for that mom is to be a prostitute. He fells like that is the only way that she can make money. In Day Womem, the mother has opportunity to persue anything that she wants to do, In both stories, the mothers feel guilty for the jobs that they have. They feel like they are letting thier children down. In the US, women are allowed to have a bigger role in the world. They are able to go to college, have a job, buy their own house, participate in politics and are not just the role of a mother in society. In Haiti thats what women are only allowed to be or else they might get arrested. Being a mother is part of their identity. So when these mothers know that they are letting their children down because of their professions, it kills them inside because they feel ashamed for what they do. In Day women she us a nanny. The readon why she feels ashamed for being a nanny is because she is taking care of other peoples children instead of her own. Also the mother talks very rudely to her and ours always on her for anything that she does wrong. So she feels ashamed because she has always been hard on her daughter and she has been raising others children in a nice and kind way. At first the daughter feels cheated and jealous because her mother never treated her like that. But at the end of the story she understands that her mother was only doing this job to help support her in whatever she did. In Night Women, she is ashamed that she had to work as a prostitute so that she can put food on the table. She talks about how she would address it if her son woke up while she was with another man. She says that she would tell him that his father wanted to be with her and pay a visit to their family from heaven. But she is afraid for the day that her son finds out the real truth. She is afraid that he will be angry at her fire what she has to do for them to eat. She is worried because she thinks her will leave her. But her only opportunity to make money is by doing this job. This shows how desperate both mothers in the f story were. It also showsthe different opportunities that are available tho women in the US and Haiti. It shows that both situations can be similar but also very different. Both of these stories show how women's roles can be different in different countries.

New York Day Women

- mother is shopping outside of Brooklyn
- she is afraid to take the subway.
- She is happy.
- Mother is on her daughter about hee giving up her seat on the subway.
- In Haiti when you get hit by a car, the driver gets out and kicks you for getting blood on his bumper.
- Mothers words are in bold and her daughters are not.
- her mother watches the lottery every night but does not play it.
- Father drives taxi cab in Brooklyn.
- The mother talks to herself.
- The mother is trying to find a sundress for her daughter.
- But her daughter dies not want it.
- Her mother picks up a child at a park.
- The mother taught herself to read in Haiti.
- six of her seven sisters have died in Ville Rose.
- It is a group of women that watch each others kids in the park.
- Third World Parent-Teacher Association meeting.

Dianne Ackerman notes

- Her words are very deep in her poems. There is an extra meaning to words that she writes and it is for the reader to comprehend the meaning. "Searching for a lighthouse in the breakwaters of our uncertainty." There are a lot of similes and metaphors throughout the poem.
- Her poems are about love and happiness yet there is a feeling of sadness in some of the poems.
- One of the poems is about apricots.
- In this poem it is going into detail on what an apricot is and how to eat it.
- the way she describes apricot is like it is important but it is small.
- I think that it is showing how simple but detailed an apricot is.
-   Poetry is most powerful where language fails.
- Language can capture emotions and sensations that are not human made.
-  There are many ways to read a poem and there is no right answer because it is how you as the reader understand it.
- poetry reminds us of the truths of life.
- a poem knows more about human nature than its writer does.
- there are many lessons to be learned from rapture, danger, tumult, romance and intuition.
- the power to description can turn things on paper into real life things.


1.) Do you feel that as humans we have lost our touch with reality because of things like technology?
2.) In your opinion how does your work influence younger generations?

Between the Pool and the Guardians Notes

It starts with someone looking at a girl who is very pretty.
It is a woman who is looking at this girl.
She had miscarriages and her husband was sleeping with other women.
Same names in other stories. Josephine, Jacqueline, Cellianne.
We find out that it is an abandoned baby on the side of the road.
The girl who is talking is related to all of the previous women that we had read about.
Eve line died in the Massacre River, Defile died with a bald head in prison, Lili killed herself at old age because her husband jumped out of an air balloon and her son left to go to Miami.
People in Haiti do not like Voodoo.
She is a maid in a house.
She is explaining her life to the child who is asleep.
She talks about how she loved somebody but they cheated on her so she had to run away.
She was arrested because they thought she killed the baby.

In Class Performance Reflection.

Post a short reflection on your blog -- what did Tuesday's in-class performances reveal about the characters and stories presented? What was interesting and what did it make you think about or realize? 250-300 words   

I think that the in class performances revealed a lot about the characters presented in each story. One thing that I noticed throughout all of the performances was that there was one or more character who was in distress. In my group, Nan was Cellianne who was raped and had scars on her face. She was separated from her family. In Helen's group, she is the female narrator who missed the boat to the USA. The importamce of that boat was that her boyfriend who she loved was on it. In Yun's group, it is about how the husband can not see his child because he and his wife separated. In Josh's group, these two people are also separated from each other. All of the performances had this theme is common with each other. It seems like in every story, there is a horrible event that happens at the end. Most of the endings end up in death. Death is such a common theme in these stories because the person is either killed by standing up for what they believe in, or they see no way out so they commit suicide. I thought it was interesting how each group had the different characters meet. It showed that they all have similar lives. I felt like the scenes that were created were very creative and it helped me to understand how thr characters in each story are linked together. I feel like all of the characters in book will be similair to each other. 

In Class writing

One common theme in all four stories is that when the time comes, we have to let the people we love go. In every single story, it is about how there is a strong love for each other but it always ends up in death. In Children of the Sea, the two narrators love each other very much. The male narrator is on a boat going to America and the female narrator is back home in Haiti. They are forced to be separate from each other because the male is apart of the rebellion against the government so he had to flee from the country. I think the message of this story is very clear. That message is that in life, we "love" someone, but it never lasts forever. In this story, the male had to leave because he was against the government. The couple who loved each other was forced apart. Another message in this story is that after the person we love is gone, we have to learn to let go of them so that we can live our lives. That doesn't mean that you forget about the person you love, but it does mean that you can't let it drag you down every day or else you will might as well be dead also because you aren't living your life. At the end of this story, we can tell that the female narrator lets the person she loves go. "Behind these mountains are more mountains and more black butterflies still and a sea that is endless like my love for you."This theme is also present in 1937. This story is about a mother and her daughter who were separated apart from each other because the mother was accused of killing a baby and having wings of fire. She was arrested and thrown in jail for the rest of her life, so her daughter has to visit her in her jail cell. This story also shows the relationship we have with someone that we love does not last forever. It is evident in this story that her mother loves her daughter very much because she always protected her and made sure she was safe. She can no longer do this for her daughter because she is in jail. At the end of the story the girls mother is killed and then her body is burned. When this happened, the girl made a decision to live on for her mother. "Let her flight be joyful,"mInsaid to Jacqueline. "And mine and yours too." This story also shows the same message that we have to let the people we love go when the time comes.

Characte Analysis

The character that I am going to analyze is Guy from the third story.

1.) Who am I?
The characters name is Guy. He is married to Lili and has a son named Little Guy. He struggles to find work at the sugar mill. The reason for this is because the people who work there rarely ever leave and when they do, they give their position at the mill to a relative. So it is very hard for Guy to find work there. Guy is obsessed with the hot air ballon that is at the sugar mill. He always talks about flying it. Guy does not want to be like his father who was poor and struggling but that is who ends up being like.
2.) What time is it?
It is a span of about 3 days. The first day, Little Guy gets his lines. The second day, Little Guy gets more line. The third day Guy kills himself.
3.) Where am I?
He lives near the sugar mill. He lives in a poor rundown area and is house is very small.
4.) What surrounds me?
His house is split between the kitchen, where he and Lili sleeps and where Little guy sleeps. Outside of the house there is an open field and the sugar mill.
5.) Guy is married to Lili. He has a son named Little Guy. He has been trying to get his named called on the list. He finally does and cleans the bathrooms at the sugar mill. He wants to fly the hot air balloon. He helps little Guy memorize all of his lines for the play because he is Boukman. He flies the air balloon. He commits suicide.
6.) What is my relationship?
He loves Lili and he loves Little Guy very much. However, he and Lili disagree sometimes. One of the main conflicts is that Lili does not want Guy to fly the hot air balloon. This is because she is afraid that he will hurt himself. Guy does not like that she says these things to him because he is so convinced and determined to fly it. Another problem that they have is Guy wants to put Little Guy on the working list at the sugar mill. Lili does not want this and ends up convincing Guy to not put his son on the list.
7.) What do I want?
Guy's need and want is to fly the hot air ballon. It is described in the story that he has a complete obsession with the balloon. The story compares is obsession to the balloon to the way the men would look at women that they liked. He also wants and needs money and a consistent job. Part of the reason why he is depressed is because he feels like a failure because he is like is father. His father was poor and struggled to live. Guy said he never wanted to be like him but that is who ended up being himself. Lili tries to tell him that he is not a failure because their son eats every night and he has a place to sleep but Guy still feels the same.
8.) What is in my way?
The people at the sugar mill are in his way. They do not allow for equal opportunity because the people who work there hand their jobs to relatives. So that shows what is stopping Guy from working to make money to support his family. Lili's opinion about him flying the hot air balloon is in his way. He has an extreme desire to fly it so when Lili tells him that he can't or shouldn't, it makes him mad and feels like she doesn't trust him.
10.) What do I do to get what I want?
Guy doesn't do anything for his disire to make money for the family. He does act on his desire to fly the hot air balloon. The next morning, Little Guy walks outside and sees the hot air balloon high up in the sky. He calls Lili out because he knows it is Guy who is flying it. Lili is shocked and scared because he is flying it. All the people who are watching this are amazed because he was flying the hot air balloon by himself. Young Assad, who was the owner of the hot air balloon, was amazed that he was flying it by himself saying that it takes whole crews to fly it. When Guy is high enough, he jumps out of the hot air balloon and dies upon impact. This is how Guy gets what he wants.

Night women discussion question

1.) What role does the boy play in this story? Why is his dream so important to his mother? How does this show the importance of the relationship between mother and child?

KK stories 1-4 reading notes

1.)
It is a story between a male narrator and a female narrator.
The male narrator is on a boat heading to America and the female narrator is still in Haiti.
It is important that there names are not mentioned in this story.
There names are not mentioned because it is supposed to show that they do not matter to anybody accept themselves.
The male narrator was part of a rebellion in his country and that is why he was on a boat to the U.S. so that he can live his life with opportunity and not die in Haiti.
He writes about what is happening on the ship and the people that he comes across.
His writing has deeper meanings and is poetic.
The female narrator always talks about the bad things that are happening in Haiti.
Her writing is never capitalized, and it is very short.
It is very different from the male narrators writing.
On the boat, there is a pregnant girl named Celliane.
He thinks she is his age but she is actually 15.
The reason why she was on the boat was because he brother was part of the rebellion and soldiers came to his house. They made him be with his mother, and then they raped Celliane. She used razors to cut her face so that she was not recognized. Then she left home. This is important because this gives an idea on what would have happened if the male and female narrators would have been together.
In the female story, they have to move because the soldiers are after her.
He father gives the soldiers everything they have and they leave for Vila Rose.
The girls attitude changes towards him because he saved her life.
The father would not allow her to date the male narrator because he was apart of the rebellion.
She now understands why he was like that because he was protecting her.
The boat is sinking and the people are trying to throw things over board.
They try to take the baby but Celliane will not allow it.
Once she realized that the baby is dead, she throws it overboard and then throws herself overboard.
We can assume that the boy dies because of the black butterfly's in the female story.

2.)
This story is about a girl who visits her mother in jail.
In the beggining of the story there is a girl Josephine who is visiting her mother.
She brings a doll called a Madonna with her.
She is bringing it for her mother who is in jail because she was accused of killing a child and also that she has wings of fire.
In 1937 there was a Haitian massacre.
There was a river separating Haiti from the Dominican Republic.
Her mother had to cross the river to flee from the soldiers.
Her mother was caught and was cut up and killed in the river.
Because of all the blood in the river it looked like fire on the women crossing.
That is how the got the name wings of fire.
Everytime the girl can't  talk until the last time she sees her mother.
She also brings her food so that she can eat.
In the jail, they make the women throw water on each other to prevent them from flying away.
They are afraid that they will fly away and kill more children.
Her mother was very sick and the guards beat her and then they burned her body to keep her spirit from taking over another child.
Josephine understands her mother and wants to honor her.

3.)
The three characters are Guy, Little Guy and Lili
Guy and Lili are married and Little Guy is there son.
Guy is not satisfied with his life.
She is ashamed that they are poor and that he does not make enough money.
Little Guy is in the school play.
His character is Boukman.
Boukman was a slave who revolted against his master and gave all of the slaves freedom.
Guy cries everytime that Little Guy reads his lines.
Guy is obsessed with th hot air ballon at the sugar mill.
He was to fly it but Lili tells him that it is a bad idea to because she doesn't want him to get hurt.
Guy does not like this but does not really express his anger to her about that.
Guy wants to put Little Guy on the list to work at the sugar mill but Lili does not let him.
The next day, Little Guy gets more lines because he did so well with his original lines.
This is the night before he dies.
He is talking to Lili about how he is ashamed with his life and that he wants better for their son.
He asks her how a man is judged after he is gone as if to say that he will be gone soon.
The next morning little Guy discovers his father flying the hot air balloon.
Guy climbs over the side and jumps out and dies.
Little Guy recites his lines over his fathers dead body.
Lili keeps his eyes open to look at the sky.

4.)
We do not know the name of the mother or the son in this story.
The mother is a night women which means that she sleeps with married men as her job.
Her son is starting to grow up but is still a small child.
She mentions that his father dies which can hint that it is Lili from the third story.
She talks about her son a lot when she is watching him sleep.
She has to make sure he is asleep so that he does not wake up when she is with the man that is e in the night with her.
When it is morning the boy asks if he missed the Angels.
She responds by saying that the Angels have a lifetime to come to us.

Kirk Krak first Three Stories

There are many common themes that are in the first three stories of Krik Krack but one theme seemed to stand out. The theme is that in every story the person that somebody loves the most dies. In the first story, the male narrator is loved deeply by the female narrator. At the end of the story we can assume that he dies because the boat sank. In the second story, the mother of the girl dies in prison because she was thought to have wings of fire. In the third story, the father in the family jumps out of the hot air ballon that he always talked about flying. Something that all of the characters had in common was that they loved their family or spouse a lot. I think that these stories are trying to show that many people who loved their families died because of the government or because they saw no hope for their lives. In the third story the father of the family had always wanted to be more in life than what he was. He says to his life that he never wanted to be like his father who was very poor. He can't find very good work and so he is ashamed about this. I think that he jumped after he flew the hot air balloon because he felt like he reached his peak in life and decided that he was done. "I know because I remember my father, who was a very poor struggling man all his life. I remember him as a man that I would never want to be." He says this because he knows that he has become his father in that he is poor and is struggling to live. In the second story, the girl is going to the prison to see her mother. She was arrested for being accused of having wings of fire. The reason for this is because she was covered in blood when she was escaping the Spanish side of the island and she jumped across the river. Every day she brings her daughter to the river and they put their hands in it to remember their mothers that were cut up and thrown into the river. This is why the mother was arrested. So the girl is visiting her in prison and she brings her food and a Madonna which is a porcelain doll that drops tears. In the beggining of the story, it dropped one tear. "When I was the tear I thought, surely, that my mother had died." This is an important quote because he mother dies at the end of the story. It is also important because it is like the butterfly's in the first story where the colorful butterfly bring good news and the black butterfly's bring bad news. When the Madonna cries then somebody has died. As I was reading this part I knew that her mother would die eventually because I could feel it in the writing that the girl was depressed and so was the mother because they knew that they would not be able to live with each other ever again. All of these stories are similar in that somebody just decided to give up on life because they see no hope of any way out of their situation.

Children of the Sea

1.) Identify the characters
2.) summarize the plot
3.) Offering personal response/ideas about the story

Characters: Dad, Manman, Daughter, Boyfriend, Old Man, Celianne

Plot:,In the beginning of the story, there is this boy who is writing about the boat that he is on. He talks about the sea and how it is endless. The boy expresses a deep love for the girl that he is writing to. The reason why the boy is on the ship is because he was apart of the youth group that the soldiers are trying to find and kill because they are protesting against the government. He describes the people on the boat and he starts to center his writing about a girl who is pregnant named Celianne. At first we just know that she is pregnant. As the story goes on she ends up giving birth to the child on the boat. As this happens the boat has already started to fill up with water because there is a crack in the middle of it. As more cracks developed, there was more water entering the boat. The people take turns throwing out with a bowl but this is not enough, so they need to have less weight on board. People's personal items are thrown overboard. This is not enough and the big topic is that the girl should throw the baby overboard because it is too much weight. The girl refuses because it is her child. People tried to wait for her to go to sleep to take the child away but as the boy describes it, she was never asleep. But as the story continues, she ends up starting to fall asleep. She knew that the child was dead because it never cried and the lips were purple. So she threw the baby overboard and then herself right after. The boat is sinking even more now and the boy knows that he is going to die. So he is writing in this notebook and he talks about how much he loves this girl. The Old man asks him what he is writing about and he responds with "my will." He knows that she will never read the words he is writing but he still writes about hoe much he loves her. He had a dream that he went to heaven, but it was underwater with mermaids and he could not talk. At the end of the story he talks about how he was destined to die in the middle of the ocean. Then he does die.

The girl is still in Haiti because she was not able to flee because gas was not being sold so they could not drive in their van. She talks a lot about how her dad does not approve the boy that she is in love with. This is a common theme throughout the story. She also talks about the difference between colorful butterfly and black butterfly's. Colorful butterfly's bring good news while black butterfly's bring death and bad news. She talks about all of the killing that is going on where she lives. Their next door neighbors sons head was brought to her as the remanings of him. She hates the soldiers and one night they came to her house. They ended up killing her because she was yelling at them and talking about her son being dead so they killed her. And the girl and her family had to stand by and watch because they were afraid of getting killed by the soldiers too. So they finally leave and the next day her family leaves the town and goes somewhere else. At this point both her and the boy start talking about their love for each other. We start to get more of a story as it goes on. One of the important parts is that the soldiers were asking her father for her. What ended up happening was the father sold all of his land and gave them everything that had away to keep her alive. So now the girl who used to hate her father has to give him respect because he saved her life. A little while later in the story she starts to see black butterfly's. She refuses for one of them to land on her but more and more came. And at this moment she knew that her love was dead at sea.

Personal Response: I feel like this story is similar to Romeo and Juliet because there is two lovers who cannot be together not because of their family, but because their government forced the boy to leave because he was a protester. This is a great story because it shows the meaning and importance of love between two people. It is also a sad story because it seems like they never were able to be in a relationship even thought hey loved each other because of the father and then because they were separated.

Edwidge Danticat Research

Edwidge Danticat
She was born on January 19th, 1969 in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
She has written many books including Brother, I'm Dying and Breath, Eyes, Memory, Krik? Krak!
Krik Krak is s a series of short stories and it was published in 1996.
It's plot is about the struggle and survival in Haiti
She moved to America in 1981 after her parents left
She found adapting to the United States difficult especially in school
To escape her unpleasant situations she started to write stories
She has received the Pushcart Short Story Prize
Her book Brother I'm Dying won the National Book Critics Circle Award in 2007


Haiti's fight for independence/Toussaint L'Ouverture
1971- slave revolt erupted in a French Colony
- The leader of the rebels was Toussaint L'Ouverture
- He was a former slave in the colony
- organized a guerrille war and was able to defeat the French
- In 1795 he made peace with France after there was an abolishment of slavery
- He became the governor of the island and in 1801 freed the Spanish portion of the island.
- Toussaint was arrested and tortured and died in April 1803 because Napoleon wanted to introduced slavery back into Haiti.
- They defeated the French with British help and became the second independent country in the America's in 1804.


Voodoo Religion
- A creolized religion forged by descendants of Dahomean, Kongo, Yoruba and other African colonies
- Fundamental principle is that everything is in spirit
- The primary goal is to serve the spirits
- There is no single leader and no official spokesperson
- Some groups do try to create single leaders and spokesperson


Duvalier (Papa Doc)
- president of Haiti from 1957-1971
- regime became totalitarian
- was a physician by profession before he became the president
- His expertise in the field gave him the name "Papa Doc"

Theatre Terminology Reflection

For this year I feel like I am solid on 

Blocking

Staging

World of the Play

Given circumstance

Antagonist vs Protagonist 

Stage positions 

I feel like I can work on

The theorists and their works as it regard to acting. I feel like I know some of what they did but I don't know everything and I feel like this is important because I want to use their techniques to perform better. I also feel like I can get better at the different types of theatre and the different stages. I need to get better at improvisation and performing on the spot. Sometimes I am not sure what to do when I am asked to act with a random topic. I think this important for me to learn because it will help me perform my scripted acting better.

Fires in the Mirror Performance reflection

Aaron, Grace, Yun
Their performance was about the riots in the book. I felt like it captured a good picture of what was happening at those riots because people were getting arrested because they were expressing their opinions. There was a lot of movement in their performance because Grace was a police officer and she was arresting Aaron for telling the people not to run. The cop was going to arrest the protester until they found out that the mayor sent him to do those things. So she had to let them go. As I watched this I wondered what happened to the people who were not sent out there by people like the mayor.

David, Josh, Nan
Their performance was about these random people who were there when the riot happened. They talk a lot about the differences and the separation between the African Americans and the Jews. In Josh's performance he was talking about the kid who was arrested for stabbing Rosembaum saying that some people are dos and the others are "Bad Boys." Nan's performance was about the radio and how they couldn't turn it off and it talked about how the African Americans viewed the Jews. David's was talking about how some black people were friends wwith th some Jewish people.


Helen, David, Joey
Our group was about the different sides of the story in terms of what happened to the driver that killed the child with his car. Helen's performance was about the Jewish side where the driver tried to get out of the way of the people but unfortunately killed one and injured another. My performance was the Black person side of the story saying that the driver was drunk and that they didn't beat him. David's part was to talk about how it was an accident that was allowed to turn into something much bigger than what it was.

Verbatim Theatre

Please post a response to the following prompt on your blog:

Reflect on your experience last week exploring Verbatim Theater. Why do you think people do it? What does it accomplish? What was your experience like (and your group's experience)? Was the process difficult? And if so, how so? Were any aspects easier than others? Did you enjoy it? Why or why not? What did you learn?


I think that people do Verbatim Theatre because they like to turn a regular interview into an interesting performance. I feel like it accomplishes the fact that it's real and people can relate to it
 I had a good experience because I liked telling stories and hearing other people's stories and deciding which ones should be performed. The process was difficult when everyone was trying to remember their experiences. Nothing was really easier to do than in any other type of performance. I enjoyed doing Verbatim theatre because it was fun to watch people imitate other people. I learned that it is important to remember the small details in a performance.

What is Theatre

Consider the following questions as you write your post: What is theater, in your opinion? What makes it good to participate in, to perform, or to watch? Why do people do theater or watch it or like it? Why do YOU? What aspects of theater are most important for performers to learn and think about? In your experience, what is easy and fun about theater and what is challenging?

In my opinion theatre is any type of acting. It can be a movie, or a play or even a skit performed in a classroom. The lines could be scripted or improvised but it all counts ate theatre in my opinion. I think this because in all of these different examples, there are people who came up with an idea, and they are trying to entertain some sort of audience. What makes it good to participate in theatre is that people can create some funny or unique ideas and its fun to try new things in the performing world. I think it is good to perform because it represents a finished product that shows all of the hard work everyone put in to make the performance happen. It is good to watch theatre because it is entertaining or funny. I think people do theatre or watch it because they want to be apart of something that is separate from their daily lives. It is fun to try too be somebody you aren't once and a while. I like theatre because I can create different performance ideas and try them and experiment with my ideas by performing them. Also, I like to work in groups. I enjoy hearing other people's ideas and trying them out as well. The aspects that are most important for performers to learn and think about are to think outside of the box, not be afraid to fail with an idea, and to have fun when performing.In my experience, what is easy and fun is coming up with ideas and working in a group. I find that it is hard to memorize lines because sometimes you mix up the lines or sometimes you might forget them. I also find props to be hard to choose because in theatre the props might have a meaning beyond just the item that it is. 

Improv Performance Review

On Friday night, I went to the improv performance. I was very impressed with how all of the actors were able to think on their feet. I really enjoyed this performance because the audience was very involved with the performances regarding the setting, the characters names and their backgrounds. The performances were very funny and entertaining. One of the games that I liked the most was the blind dating game because it was really funny watching the performers act out the people that they were assigned to. One person was told to be a princess another was told to be a model and the other person was told to be a grandma. What made the performance more entertains was the crowd because the people there were into it and it made the improv a lot more interesting with people trying to act with them. Another one of the games was where the performers had to act out the scenes in 60 seconds then 30 seconds then 15 seconds and then 5 seconds. Watching this I realized how long 60 seconds really is on stage because I could tell that the performers were not sure what to act out. As the time kept going down the actors got funnier because they were trying to do the same performance in a lesser amount of time. By the time it was 5 seconds basically there was just a bunch of screaming and running back and forth on the stage. I didn't particularly like the last game where they had to get someone to get off the bench. I felt like it wasn't as good as the rest of the games and performance that were done before hand. If they would have thought of something else for the ending I think that the performance would have been even better

Group A link

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Sm1i-IIUAR5L4ALJ9YL8Wyxsvk7onB3GWnIG_s2DnAc/edit?usp=sharing 

Essay Revision 400 words

There are many things in this essay that I can definately change some of them will be easier and some will be harder. Some of the easy things to change are my citations and a title. This is an easy ten points that I can get back. I also had no quotes so that will be some thing that I can definately add to my essay. I can definately work on my ending sentences to each paragraph they are weak sentences. I can go deeper into the Literary features and I definately want to make my thesis statement I can do a lot of things to my introduction like taking the analysis out of it, strengthen my thesis and background information. Quotes are something very important that I can put into my essay. I will find a quote from the book and I will insert it into the right part of the essay so that it flows and I will de more literary analysis to back up those quotes that I used. I also want to talk more about my performance and and what I think Tom would be thinking when certain lines are being said. For example, when Tom yells at Amanda, I want to quote that sentence from the book, explain why it is important, and then talk about my personal experience delivering that line and what I think Tom in the book is thinking. I also need to really work on my conclusion. I need to do a better job of wrapping up the essay. I can talk more about my performance tactics. I can improve my reflection on my performance.    I could also talk about the good parts of the performance that I felt were successful and I would also talk about the bad. I could talk about forgetting any lines, stage movements and other small errors and mistakes that are normally made during a performance. I can talk about the changing of my voice from when I am absolutely mad at Amanda and also when I talk to Laira. When I talk to Amanda most of the time I am yelling at her. And the times that I talk to Laura, I am not as upset or angry I talk a lot nicer to her than Amanda. I think that I will be able to make a lot of these changes for my final essay.

What what Makes a Performance Good

There are many things that make a performance good. One of those things is the actor themselves. They have to memorize and understand their lines in a way that is appealing and exciting to the audience. When somebody performs and there are these long pauses, it gets boring and you start to wonder if the actor knows their lines. Another thing that makes a performance good is the props. Setting the scene appropriately gives the performance that aspect of it actually happening. For example, the clock that was used was able to give that room feeling. I felt like somebody was actually in their living room pondering their life. Lighting is something else that is important because it adds on a dramatic feeling to the performance. Music also has the same effect. Some bad things to a performance would be not remembering your lines, props that don't belong, music that doesn't quite fit, and lighting that is eat her too bright, too dark or stays the same the entire performance.

Performance Link

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8CyvyUYraHQ

Poem I want to Perform

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

Author: Robert Frost

Seize the Day analysis

There were many words and sentences that stood out to me in the poem called Seize the Day. I really liked this poem because of the message that is sent especially to younger people. Through life, we don't always stop and look around at our surroundings. We are always on a schedule and we are all worried about our futures and trying to make sure we go to college and have a successful career. Some of the lines in this poem really represent this. One of the lines is "remember this day is a gift." This line makes you realize that life is short and that we should remember that we are lucky to be living on this earth. It is hard sometimes to remember this because there are bad days sometimes, but even these days are gifts because it helps us to be better people. I think that sometimes we forget to remember that we are lucky. I also liked like the words gold or fame. These words are what everyone thinks about in life. Everyone is so focused on making money because a lot of people do not see past money and riches. Fame is another thing that people care too much about. Even if it doesn't mean that your famous, people worry about being popular and a lot of people are also obsessed with being "internet famous." I know that life seems better when people are rich and famous but, the important thing to remember is that we need to focus on the people who we are around such as your family or your friends. The quality of people around somebody helps to shape his or her personality. In the beggining of the poem I really like the parts where they would talk about appreciating the goods thing about life, but it also says to appreciate the things wrong about life like the "fly that irks you." The common theme of this poem is to appreciate life and the things that are both good and bad about it. I found it interesting the parts about the water. I never thought about bathing in that way as if it was actually cleansing everything about you. I feel like it was saying that people should cleanse themselves of the things they have done in the past they regret. The importance of this is because if you cleanse yourself or what you have done in the past, then you can focus on the present situation like taking a deep breath of air when you wake up.  Enjoying the little things in life make you life happier and healthier. Appreciating your family and friends who around to support you is something that should be done every day. The parallel to that in the poem is when it says to pray and talk to your ancestors. I feel like talking to you family falls under that category. All of these things I feel are somewhat easy to see in the poem because there is so many things that talk about enjoying life.

Seize the Day Reflections

In class we performed the poem "Seize the Day." We were able to adapt it in anyway that we wanted to and we had a wide variety of options to choose from in terms of performing this poem. In my group, we wanted to show the comparison between a rich person and a poor person. Lesley was the rich girl and Josh was the poor boy. The reason why we did this was because we wanted to show that life is the same for everyone. Everyone lives and everyone dies. We switched back and for between two sides of the stage because we wanted to show the separation between the two worlds. But by the last two stanzas of the poem, the stage was completely lit and we could see both worlds collide together. Looking back on our performance I felt like we did a good job coming up with an idea. There was a lot of ideas that were thrown around within the group. When I was watching the performance it went the way that I thought it would go. The staging was very successful and the music that was picke out was a good fit for our performance. Personally, I messed up with the spashinsh words accept they were translated to English. In the video you can hear me talk when I should not have. It helped me to explore the words of the poem because we wanted to incorporate movements and lighting into out performance. I think this also helped me to think of ideas quickly because we had limited time to put this performance together.

I felt like every group that I watched had a different idea. None of them were really the same. Although, it was common for most groups to have everyone read a part of the poem. I really liked the direction that Nan's group went in by making a song out of the poem. I really found it interesting that Nan would sing the same lines throughout the performance and Jamaal, Jack and Ivan would read different parts. Their performance was unique because it was a song. I was also interested in what Jacob's group did by walking in circles. I feel like the closest one to my groups was Jamsines group because they did movements correlating to the words being read.

Nan's groups strengths was that they sang and rapped the poem which made it interesting. The weaknesses was that I couldn't hear some of the people in the performance. Yun's groups strengths was that they were at a slow pace and it was easy to follow. The weakness was that for a lot of the performance they walked back and forth across the bridge. The strengths for Jacobs group was that it was fast pace however the weakness was that it was too fast to follow almost. Cassidy's groups strengths were that they had a very simple performance. However their weakness was that it was maybe too simple for the poem. Jasmine's groups strengths were that they had some good body movements in their performance. However, their weakness was that they started to laugh and lose their composure but hey got it together and were able to finish the performance.

500 Words poem analysis

Poetry blog post #1 due Saturday by midnight -- choose any poem from the ones posted on the class blog (or Seize the Day from the handout) and analyze 1) how it works, and 2) what it means. 500 words.

The Poem That I chose to write about: 

Title: Are You Ready?

It was like every other day coming home from school
Little did I know that life was about to be cruel
My parents were sitting in the living room
I wondered why
But I would find out soon

When the word cancer is mentioned you shutter
I asked my parents who had it with a stutter
Your five year old cousin Will
I suddenly felt a chill

How could a boy so young and pure
Have a rare cancer without a proven cure
I can not answer this question
Life taught me an important lesson

Live each day like its your last
Think about the future and how you can right your wrongs in the past
Because life comes at you fast

And one day you might not be ready
For the hard truth that makes you nervous and sweaty
And when it hits you
It's very heavy

And I can tell you now
That I wasn't ready
For the hard truth
That made me nervous and sweaty

Will you be ready?


The poem that I decided to analyze was my own poem that I wrote at the Hip-Hop Poetry event that happened at school. The reason why I chose to analyze my own poem is because it really means a lot to me and I understand the back story and deeper meaning to the poem. So first looking at the poem it has 7 stanzas total and it has 25 lines. I did not use any type of pattern for lines and I broke the stanzas when it felt right to separate them and also sometimes when I change subjects for what I want to talk about in the poem. I tried to keep the lines as close together as possible because I didn't want the reader to forget about the rhyme that I was trying to incorporate into the poem. So the rhyme scheme was basically AABB. Sometimes there would be three lines in a stance and they would all rhyme together or there was five lines and two would rhyme and three would rhyme. Those two would looke like AAA and AABBB. One of the things that stands out in the poem is the last line. This is the one line with punctuation in the poem and it is also only one line. The reason why this line is so important is because I wanted to let the reader think about their own lives and reflect on themselves.
The meaning of the poem is very personal to me and my family. Basically my cousin was diagnosed with cancer and he is not doing very well now. This came to me to write about this in the Hip-Hop poetry meeting because we were asked to write about something that makes me upset. Possibly losing a family member to a horrible disease makes me angry inside and I wanted to write this because I want people to know that live shouldn't be taken for granted. One of the lines says  to "live each day like it's your last." I wanted people to hear this because sometimes we get caught up in the daily life that has no time to actually look around and see your surroundings until something bad hits you and then you see what you used to have. When people recognize what they have and they are greatful for what they have, then life will feel more satisfying. As the saying goes, life will slap you out of
nowhere. I wanted to let people know that life is a very sensitive thing and making the right descisions will make you feel more comfortable about yourself when it is coming to an end, that you knew that you lived your life right. In the beginning of the poem I wanted to show that it was just like any other day and them all of a sudden you hear something that takes your breath away and this can go either way. It can be a good thing or bad. Cherish the good moments and remember the bad because those make the good moments that much better.

Hip Hop Poetry

Title: Are You Ready

It was like every other day coming home from school
Little did I know that life was about to be cruel
My parents were sitting in the living room
I wondered why
But I would find out soon

When the word cancer is mentioned you shutter
I asked my parents who had it with a stutter
Your five year old cousin Will
I suddenly felt a chill

How could a boy so young and pure
Have a rare cancer without a proven cure
I can not answer this question
Life taught me an important lesson

Live each day like its your last
Think about the future and how you can right your wrongs in the past
Because life comes at you fast

And one day you might not be ready
For the hard truth that makes you nervous and sweaty
And when it hits you
It's very heavy

And I can tell you now
That I wasn't ready
For the hard truth
That made me nervous and sweaty

Will you be ready?

Reading Notes 29-34

• aliliteration-strictly speaking is the repetition of the initial sound of words in a line or live verse.
• sometimes alliteration includes the repetition of both initial sounds.
• assonance- the repetition of vowel sounds within words in a line or lines of verse.
• Onomonopoeia- is the use of a word that through its sound as well as its sense represents what it defines.

This is Just to Say poem reflection

The backstory of this poem is about someone who ate the plums that were for breakfast. Some of he words that stand out to me are icebox, sweet, and cold. I can imagine the person who was saving them was angry at the person who ate them because they did not ask to eat the plums. I'm not sure what this poem really means.

35-75 Reading Notes

• turning the line
• each line of a poem can be broken down into feet and into stresses to reveal the pattern
• scansion
• iambic foot
• five iambic feet create an iambic pentameter
• most widely used line in English metrical verse
• tetrameter(4 foot)
• shorter ones makes reader pay more attention
• free form poems
• constancy
• Variation
• Wakes up the reader
• Dactyl
• Anapest
• Caesura
• The beginning of the line and the end of the line
• End most important
• Beginning second most important
• True rhyme
• Turning the line
• Conclusion
• Poems require a design
• Length, breath, rhyme
• The Stanza
• Syllabic Verse
• Free Verse
• Tone and Content

Reading Notes 19-28

• poems require sounds
• sounds differ from each other
• dingdong theory
• vowels perform a perfect sound
• W and y are sometimes a vowel
• Semivowel- sounded with a vowel
• Mutes- cannot be sounded without a word

2 Haiku's that I like

Tree:

How tall you grow tree,
From ground to sky you grow,
Much to big for me!



Lying in the sun
Thinking over things I've done
Summer has begun


I like both of these Haiku's because they sound right in my head. They also rhyme with a clear message when it is being read. The first one is about a tree that is growing and the second one is about Summer beginning. I think these are good because there is not a deeper meaning in the poem and they rhyme well. 

Peer Haiku

I heard a loud clap
I tried to pass it to Jack
Slap! I woke him up

I liked the one written by Josh because it was something that happened in class. Also, I like that the poem is very simple and it has a good flow to in. 

Haiku

1.)
I took off my cap
I picked up the old mouse trap
I started to clap


2.)
The flag was flapping
My hands are always clapping
But they do not snap


Every day I hear rap
I start to clap with rhythm
My fingers will snap

Third Draft

Joey Wright

The Glass Menagerie is a play that is about a very poor dysfunctional family that lives in St. Louis. The three characters are Amanda who is the mother, Tom who is the son and Laura who is the daughter. They all live together and Tom is the one who works to pay the bills for the family. Tom is 22 years old and is works in a shoe factory. He has dreams of being a writer but is stopped by his mother Amanda. In our performance project, we performed the first dinner scene mixed with one of the arguments between Amanda and Tom. We included costumes, music, lighting and props in our performance. I feel like it was an okay performance because sometimes we were off on the lines and stage directions. I believe that our group worked fairly well together, however, there were numerous times where the lines were changed so that definitely effected the way that I performed and even the rest of my group members.

Tom is a very angry person. One moment he is quiet and minding his own business and then the next moment he is yelling. This is for good reason though because Amanda is always telling him what to do. For instance, in the scene we performed, Tom had just arrived at home from his job and sat down and started eating. Amanda notices and starts to tell Tom how to eat his food in great detail. This always makes Tom mad enough to where he has to leave the room and get a cigarette.  His feeling towards Amanda is very negative. Because she constantly disturbs him, Tom has an extreme motivation to leave the house and let Amanda and Laura live on their own which is nods up happening at the end of the book. When I was playing Toms character I felt the anger he was feeling in the book. Playing his role really helped me to understand how angry he was because I needed to understand when to raise my voice. Tom feels trapped and the only thing that calms him down is smoking and drinking.

One of the only reasons that Tom stays is because of Laura. Toms stays because he knows that Laura would have nothing if he left because she is so afraid to do anything accept play with her glass menagerie. She does not have any life skills to use and Amanda allows her to not do anything. However, by the end of the book, Tom is so fed up with how Amanda treats him, that he leaves anyway.

In my performance we acted out a combination of the first scene and the argument between Tom and Amanda when he goes to the movies. We also included some of the beginning of Toms monologue. In the monologue I was talking very slowly and very sad. The monologue was to show that Tom is all on his own in the world. In the monologue, I felt like Tom was upset with himself because he left, but then he remembers all that had happened to him when he was living with Amanda and he then remembers why he did leave. In our performance, Tom entered into the scene from the bridge. We did this because we wanted to show Tom entering into his own memories. After the first scene that we performed, Tom exited out of the scene through the bridge.

There were two monologues that we did in our performance. The first one was for Tom and the second one was for Laura. We did this because Laura did not have very many lines but also because we wanted to show the audience what Laura thinks about when Tom and Amanda are fighting. Tom and Amanda froze and the spotlight was on Laura and she started to talk about her glass animals. This is important for Laura because she always keeps her feelings to herself and does not like to talk to other people at all. When Tom and Amanda are fighting, this is what Laura thinks about because she cannot deal with all of the arguing.

Our second part of the performance was the climax of what we performed. It was the breaking point for Tom. This was our way of showing that Tom left them for good. In the beginning of this scene, Tom is minding his own business and writing. Laura tells Amanda that Tom is trying to write and so instead of leaving him alone, Amanda starts to bother him by telling him to turn the lights on and to sit up. She does not understand that Tom wants to be on his own and he gets very angry very quickly. Amanda treats Tom like he is a child even though he pays for the house and he does everything for both Amanda and Laura. She does not own a single thing in the house yet she refers to the house as her own and Tom raises a valid point when he asks her "who pays the rent on the house?"

There are a few other aspects that can be included about the performance such as the staging that was planned, the lighting and the music that was played. On outer stage their was a bridge in the background because that was how Tom would enter and exit his memories. This is something that the audience might not have picked up on but that was the reason why I exited out of he first scene on the bridge. The lighting was used often in the performance. We sometimes had spotlights on certain characters at certain moments in the performance, and other times we had lights all over the stage. This was done so that the audience was forced to focus on certain things that we wanted them to focus on. Finally, the music that we played was a key part in the performance. The times that we played the music was in the beginning monologue with Tom, and the end of our performance. The music served as a dramatic extra to the scene. What I mean is that the music helped to make the scene even more dramatic along with the lighting.

When I was on the stage, I realized the complete frustration that Tom felt. Sometimes, when reading a book, you empathize, you hate or love a character that you are visualizing. As I was reading the book, I empathized with Tom. He was a 22 year old man who had hopes and dreams of a bright future in becoming a writer, and instead he is working in a warehouse and is being forced to take care of his mother and sister. Not only that, but his mother continuously badgers him about every little thing that he does. Tom goes through a transformation in this book. There is one common theme though throughout the book and that theme is the fact that Tom is constantly angry all the time. There is never really a moment in the book where he is happy with his life. Everything he does is done with a "bad attitude." He fully admits that he hates the way his life is going and that he wishes sometimes that he were dead. He expresses this in our second half of our performance. For some reason, Amanda thinks that she is in charge of the house and that she own everything, when in reality, Tom is the one paying for everything and working everyday to put food on the table. He is jealous of his father because he feels stuck in the situation but at the same time knows that he can let go at any point.

This house is very dysfunctional and Tom gets so sick of the same thing every day that he leaves at the end of the book and does not care what happens to Laura or Amanda. Tom had enough of the same day over and over again. Amanda drives him so mad that he does not care what happens to anyone accept himself. His conscious was wiped away by the annoyance of Amanda and the daily life of mediocrity that he was being forced to live. At the new of this whole process I definitely take Toms side of the argument because I was able to simulate the experience of this characters life. He was driven to the edge of his patience and then decided to jump off the cliff of his sanity and acted in an insane but understandable way.

In Class Writing Assignment

Julia Rafferty Paper:

Literature: 5

When I was reading the paper I could tell that the author fully understood the book of Romeo and Juliet. She analyzed Romeo's character  very well. She went into full detail about everything she interpreted about the character while reading a performing. 

Performance: 9

When I was reading the paper I felt like there was more literature than performance because she was going very deep about the character of Romeo. It just felt like there was more about the character and less about her actual performance. However, when the author explained her performance it was well described and I could imagine what it would look like on stage. 

Language: 5

This paper had a very good use of language. Not only was there good language but it was always consistent throughout the paper. 

Samantha Weed Paper:

Literature: 5
When I was reading the paper I knew that the author had a good grasp of the book. She was able to describe the transformation of Juliet very well.

Performance: 10
The performance was described very well no she wwas able to describe the transformation of Juliet throughout the paper.

Language: 5
There was a lot of strong language present in the paper. 

Second Draft

The Glass Menagerie is a play that is about a very poor disfunctional family that lives in St. Louis. The three characters are Amanda who is the mother, Tom who is the son and Laura who is the daughter. They all live together and Tom is the one who works to pay the bills for the family. Tom is 22 years old and is works in a shoe factory. He has dreams of being a writer but is stopped by his mother Amanda.

Tom is a very angry person. One moment he is quiet and minding his own business and then the next moment he is yelling. This is for good reason though because Amanda is always telling him what to do. For instance, in the scene we performed, Tom had just arrived at home from his job and sat down and started eating. Amanda notices and starts to tell Tom how to eat his food in great detail. This always makes Tom mad enough to where he has to leave the room and get a cigarette.  His feeling towards Amanda is very negative. Because she constantly disturbes him, Tom has an extreme motivation to leave the house and let Amanda and Laura live on their own which is nods up happening at the end of the book. When I was playing Toms character I felt the anger he was feeling in the book. Playing his role really helped me to understand how angry he was because I needed to understand when to raise my voice. Tom feels trapped and the only thing that calms him down is smoking and drinking.

One of the only reasons that Tom stays is because of Laura. Toms stays because he knows that Laura would have nothing if he left because she is so afraid to do anything accept play with her glass menagerie. She does not have any life skills to use and Amanda allows her to not do anything. However, by the end of the book, Tom is so fed up with how Amanda treats him, that he leaves anyway.

In my performance we acted out a combination of the first scene and the arguement between Tom and Amanda when he goes to the movies. We also included some of the beggining of Toms monologue. In the monologue I was talking very slowly and very sad. The monologue was to show that Tom is all on his own in the world. In the monologue, I felt like Tom was upset with himself because he left, but then he remembers all that had happened to him when he was living with Amanda and he then remembers why he did leave. In our performance, Tom entered into the scene from the bridge. We did this because we wanted to show Tom entering into his own memories. After the first scene that we performed, Tom exited out of the scene through the bridge.

There were two monologues that we did in our performamce. The first one was for Tom and the second one was for Laura. We did this because Laura did not have very many lines but also because we wanted to show the audience what Laura thinks about when Tom and Amanda are fighting. Tom and Amanda froze and the spotlight was on Laura and she started to talk about her glass animals. This is important for Laura because she always keeps her feelings to herself and does not like to talk to other people at all. When Tom and Amanda are fighting, this is what Laura thinks about because she cannot deal with all of the arguing.

Our second part of the performance was the climax of what we performed. It was the breaking point for Tom. This was our way of showing that Tom left them for good. In the beginning of this scene, Tom is minding his own business and writing. Laura tells Amanda that Tom is trying to write and so instead of leaving him alone, Amanda starts to bother him by telling him to turn the lights on and to sit up. She does not understand that Tom wants to be on his own and he gets very angry very quickly. Amanda treats Tom like he is a child even though he pays for the house and he does everything for both Amanda and Laura. She does not own a single thing in the house yet she refers to the house as her own and Tom raises a valid point when he asks her "who pays the rent on the house?"

There are a few other aspects that can be included about the performance such as the staging that was planned, the lighting and the music that was played. On outer stage their was a bridge in the background because that was how Tom would enter and exit his memories. This is something that the audience might not have picked up on but that was the reason why I exited out of he first scene on the bridge. The lighting was used often in the performance. We sometimes had spotlights on certain characters at certain moments in the performance, and other times we had lights all over the stage. This was done so that the audience was forced to focus on certain things that we wanted them to focus on. Finally, the music that we played was a key part in the performance. The times that we played the music was in the beginning monologue with Tom, and the end of our performance. The music served as a dramatic extra to the scene. What I mean is that the music helped to make the scene even more dramatic along with the lighting. 

This house is very dysfunctional and Tom gets so sick of the same thing every day that he leaves at the end of the book and does not care what happens to Laura or Amanda.

Self Evaluation

Right now for my Liturature Analysis would be at a 3. I think this because my essay is not well organized right now and I need to group that all together.

For my Performance part of the essay I would give myself a 4-5. This is because I wrote about the Performamce but I don't think that I went deep enough yet and it is very hard to follow what I am saying.

I would give myself a 1 on the language because my essay is very hard to follow and not organized very well. I need to group together the lit analysis together and the performance together and try not to repeat the same thing throughout the essay.

Play Review

The play that I viewed was called Les Miserables. I saw the play on the 24th in the black box theatre. I really enjoyed the play and noticed a lot of the themes presented by the actors. I enjoyed the music and the singing and I felt like the main characters did an excellent job with their parts.

The plot of this play starts out with the main character named Jean Valjean. He is in a prison camp and is basically a slave. What happened is he is able to go on paroll. When he went to the city he ended up staying a a priest house. He stole some of the silver and was caught by a briars and was going to send him back to the prison camp, but the priest lies for him so that he can be free. The priest instructs Jean Valjean to use the silver to help him start his life again. The next scene we fast forward about 10 years and the scene is about a woman named Fantine. She is a single mother with a child who is sick named Cossette. She struggles to pay the bills and gets fired. Later, she is close to dying and she asks Jean Valjean to take care to Cossette. Meanwhile, he has turned himself in to Javert who has been hunting him for the last ten years. Valjean is the mayor of the town and everyone likes him. He takes care of Cossette and gives her to a family who treats her very poorly. Years after that he finds Cossette and takes her away from the family who he gave her to. Cossette goes and lives with Valjean and they go back on the run from Javert. Later in the play Javert is still hunting Valjean. He is determined to find him and take him back to prison. Cossette is now older and Valjean is getting older and tired. They want to stop running away and Cossette falls in love with Marious who is apart of this revolution against the government. Valjean helps the revolution while Javert tries to betray them. They want to kill him and Valjean asks that he is allowed to deal with Javert. He had the opportunity to kill Javert but instead lets him free. Javert wonders why he does this. Later Valjean finds out about Cossette being in love with Marious. He prays to God that Marious is kept safe during the fight. As the battle begins, Marious is shot and Valjean takes him a way from the fight and saves his life. Along the way he comes across Javert. He wants to arrest Valjean but somehow he lets him go because Marious was dying at the time. At this point, Javert has a reality check with himself and realizes that Valjean is not a bad person but that he is like a saint. Javert feels so upset that he kills himself. Later in the play Valjean wants to leave Cossette and let her live her life happily with Marious and he wants to tell her the truth about how he went to prison and his whole life story.  So he writes it down on paper and gives it to Cossette so that she knows the truth about Valjean. Cossette and Marious get married and they return to see Valjean. At this point Valjean is ready to leave and he dies shortly after he gives Cossette the story. This is how the play ends.

One of the themes that I felt was present all the time was that people make mistakes but that is not what defines them. Valjean shows this them throughout the play. In the beggining of the play we see a criminal and by the end we see an honestly all around great person. Valjean made a mistake early in his life and he learned that it was wrong. So what he did was he picked himself up and changed his personality and his values and became a great person.

My favorite actor in the play was the person who played Jean Valjean. She did a great job of shows emotion and I could tell that she knew her part very well. I thought she was the best actor in the show.
She was able to show all of the emotions that I imagined in my head. In the last scene was Valjean dies it was so dramatic and very serious and I was in the moment the entire time because of the music and the acting skills. The only thing that kept this from me thinking that it was real life was that it was singing instead of regular talking. Otherwise I could have thought that this actually happened.

Overall I really enjoyed the play and I would definately see it again. The actors did a great job and the stage crew, the director and the musicians. This was one of the best plays I have ever seen.