Representation

Author’s Note: I wrote this essay to demonstrate my knowledge of  analyzing symbolism throughout a text. In this essay I talk about the symbolism throughout the main character, Kaitlin’s, journal entry in the book Scribbler of Dreams, by Mary E. Pearson.

In all writing there is symbolism, whether  we see it or not symbolism is always there and always will be. Just like the book, Scribbler of Dreams, symbolism is everywhere. The novel Scribbler of Dreams is a twist on the classic love story, Romeo and Juliet. In the book the main character Kaitlin Malone meets a boy, Bram Crutchfield, and falls in love with him. She is horrified to find out that his family and her family are enemies, and her dad is the reason his father is dead, and his father is the reason her dad’s in jail. Kaitlin must choose between her true love and her family. The creative journal entry of the main character in Scribbler of Dreams, by Mary E. Pearson, uses an abundance of symbolism throughout. 

In Kaitlin’s creative journal entry, there is an abundance of symbolism. For example when she says, “I cross a black lake with a devouring monster lurking beneath its surface” (111). Black, the color of the lake, represents evil and death. The lake she describes is a representation of death and in her case, what would happen if someone found out her secret. The monster she describes in her writing is  a representation of someone waiting for her and her lies to slip and to reveal her secret that she is trying so hard to keep. In Kaitlin’s writing, she is describing the huge trap she will fall into once her lies fall through and the truth is revealed.

Also in the journal entry, the stones are another example of symbolism throughout Kaitlin’s writing. When she says, “The stones wobble and I prepare to die, but then I regain my balance. The other side of the lake seems so far away,” the stones Kaitlin is writing about symbolize the lies she tells in order to keep her secret. This is so, because she was telling a lot of lies about what she’s doing, and who she’s seeing, to her family and to her boyfriend, Bram. When she says that the stones start to wobble, it signifies her lies starting to fall apart. She somehow manages to keeps the truth hidden, but soon her lies will win and she will fall, revealing the shocking truth of her identity to her boyfriend and her identity of her boyfriend to her family. Throughout the writing there is a lot of symbolism, which creates a lot for the reader to think about. 

Similar to Scribbler of Dreams, the novel  Hate List, by Jennifer Brown has a lot of meaningful symbolism throughout the book. Hate List, is about a girl who made a list of people and concepts she hates with her boyfriend and one day her boyfriend opened fire on the cafeteria, his targets were people on the hate list that they created together. The quote, “So I opened my trusty red notebook and numbered every line down the column of the page an started writing names of people, of celebrities, of concepts, of everything I hated,” (134) is an example of symbolism throughout the book. The color of the notebook containing the hate list in it, red, represents blood and passion, which has a lot to do with the hate list. Mostly because of all the blood that was shed the day of the shooting, but also because of the passion between the main character, Valerie, and her boyfriend, the shooter, Nick. Their passionate hate towards bullies, people and most everything in their lives that they encountered. The symbolism throughout the book, Hate List, is alike to that of the journal entry in, Scribbler of Dreams.

Symbolism in books and stories gives the reader a lot to think about and gives clues to the story and characters that you find through symbolism. The journal entry from the book, Scribbler of Dreams, shows a much deeper meaning through symbolism in Kaitlin’s words. Remember the next time you read a poem, short story, book or even journal entry, think about  the clues to the story and character that are hidden by symbolism.

Parody

Author's Note: This is a parody of the poem "This Is Just To Say," by William Carlos. In my poem I changed it by writing from the point of view of a character to the main character in the book Hate List, by Jennifer brown.

Girl I've tortured since kindergarten

I have taken

your MP 3 player

and broken it

which 

you are probably mad 

and upset

about

Forgive me

it was fun

making you

so mad

A Way With Words (revised)

Author’s Note: I wrote this to demonstrate my knowledge of figurative language and tone. I also focused on A-B transitions and making my point clear and detailed.

Imagine surfing, riding a wave with great power and strength.  Reading the poem “Song for a Surf-Rider,” by Sara Van Alstyne Allen is just like riding a wave, you can feel the waves below you and the strength of the current, just by reading her vividly written poem. The figurative language and tone she used puts a clear picture in your head as you read her so beautifully written poem. The poem, “Song for a Surf-Rider,” by Sara Van Alstyne Allen, shows a lot of tone and figurative language throughout the poem.

There is a lot of personification in this poem;  it helps give a clear image of what’s going on. The personification the author used to describe the wave, made it as though the wave was a human. One example of that, is how the author kept referring to the was as him or he. Another example of personification in this poem is, “We race together, the sea and I,” when the author says this it gives the reader a feeling of the wave as an actual person, or even friend and it gives the text a friendly feeling. Lastly when she says “His eyes flash with an emerald fire,” is another example of the personification used in this poem, to create a feeling of life and features only a living thing can possess. The personification in this poem gives a feeling of life behind the waves.

Not only is there a lot of personification, there is some metaphors as well. For example the author is consistently comparing the waves and sea to horse. The quote, “His hoof beats echo on the sand,” is an example of how the author used metaphors to compare the waves to a horse. Another example of how the author used metaphors to make the wave seem more like a companion than a body of water by comparing it to a horse is, His mane of foam flows wild and free. The metaphors in this poem help the reader understand the friendship and companionship between the person and the wave.

Similar to figurative language, tone helps make the writing much more clear and fun to read. Tone helps show the author’s attitude what she wrote and it’s express through word choice and style. An example of how the author used tone is when she says, “We race together, the sea and I.” When the author wrote this, it shows a friendship, like the sea and the person work together and are friends. Another example of tone that the author used is when she said, “Under the watching summer sky. To where the magic islands lie.” The tone the author used in this quote is a relaxing and safe kind of tone like the character in the poem is calm and like she is where she loves to be. Many good writers use tone, and they use tone to show the reader how they are feeling about something or how what they’re writing about makes them feel and the author Sara Van Alstyne Allen does a good job of showing tone in this poem.

Figurative language and tone are the main things shown throughout this poem and the author, Sara Van Alstyne Allen, shows it in a clear-cut way in “Song for a Surf-Rider.” The next time you read a poem or any writing piece at all, look at what figurative language and tone is in there and see how it impacts the way you feel about the poem or story. It could change from how you originally thought about it. 

The Journey

Author’s Note: I wrote this to demonstrate my knowledge of properly citing information in a piece of writing. This is a creative writing piece, from the point of view of an orphan, with real facts about the Pony Express.

April 3, 1860 (Walske)

The day the pony express started, my first day. The pony express is a mail service that travels to Sacramento California (Godfrey). Which is way better than how the mail used to be delivered, by wagon trail and station coaches and even ships, but it took so long to get your mail. Especially compared to how it is now which is only about twelve days in the spring, summer and fall months (Godfrey). The only reason I was doing this was because they randomly chose orphans like me. Nobody would care if I never returned, nobody would ever come looking for me. On the bright side, I should get a good pay, the mail costs are quite high, ten dollars an ounce (Godfrey). The time of the year scared me a lot, soon it will get unbearably hot. The dangers of this job are something that makes me hesitant to start, because I’ll be traveling through some hostile Native American territory (Encyclopedia). Possibly even encountering a grizzly and getting killed, or worse injured and dying out here where nobody will ever find me (Encyclopedia).  

April 4, 1860

The time between stations where was a long time to be completely alone, soon I would transfer letters to another rider and they would takeover (Encyclopedia). The load of letters are really heavy, I feel them slowing me and my only companion, Scooter, the horse I am riding, down. Although they are written on tissue paper, they still are slowing us down (Godfrey). I am like a snail, slowly moving along, with no hope of getting where I’m going anytime soon. I look up at the sky and stare at the blueness of the sky against the pure white of the stringy cotton ball clouds.

April 10, 1860

 I felt myself dosing off while riding Scooter when all of a sudden I snap back, as alert as ever. I realize that it was the rustling in the bushes and trees that awoke me. I could feel my pulse quicken. Slowly I stopped me and Scooter and stopped dead in our tracks. I fear that something was going to burst from the woods and spook Scooter into throwing me from the saddle. Slowly I turned us around and hopped off of Scooter. As I looked into the woods I saw two eyes staring back at me. Immediately I froze. I could sense I was staring straight into the eyes of a massive grizzly bear. I could only breath slow shallow breathes, I knew I not to move, the second I’d move he would attack so I remained perfectly still.  As time went by I knew I was not going to get off easy, this grizzly was not planning on just walking away.

I took a deep breath and slowly shifted my weight to my left, where Scooter and the open trail waited for me. I had a bad feeling about this, and I knew that if this grizzly bear did attack me and injure me, nobody would ever find me and I’d just die out here. Quickly, the bear jumped at me and I knew it was over. I felt myself scream and attempt to run but I knew running would be useless. With a loud roar, I felt teeth plunge into my leg, tearing and ripping into my skin. Immediately, I felt the warmth of the blood rushing down my leg leaving me unable to move, while the bear stood on over me on his hind legs. My surroundings became fuzzy, but then I only saw black.

I remember nothing between that moment, and waking up in this tent laying on a bed. I’ve been told that a man on the trail found me and took me to this tent where a medic stitched my leg back together. If it were not for this man I would have probably died out there.

Works Cited

Encyclopedia, The Columbia Electronic. Fact Monster. 2011. Document. 28 February 2013.

Godfrey, Anthony. Encyclopedia of the Great Plains. 2011. Document. 28 February 2013.

Walske, Steven C. Pony Express Mail. 16 November 2007. Document. 28 February 2013.

What am I

Author's Note: I wrote this to demonstrate my understanding of a metaphor.

I am a dog

Here to listen

Never to judge

Always here

Never to let my problems come before yours 

Always will I have your back 

Never will I let you fall

I am a dog, a best friend

Wealth

Author’s Note: I wrote this to demonstrate my knowledge of conflict resolution. This essay talks about the main conflict in the short story, “The Necklace” along with the resolution to the conflict.

Some people are born wanting and wishing to have nice things, although for a lot of people it’s not in the cards for them. The main character, Mathilde, says how she wishes to have nice clothes and feel beautiful, but she was born poor and most likely will always be poor. And when she is invited to a fancy party her husband gives her the money to buy a beautiful dress like all the other women there will have, so she can feel beautiful for one night. Once she has the gown, she still feels like she it doesn’t look complete. Because of this she borrows a necklace from her rich friend and after the night is over she realizes she’d lost. She never does find the necklace, so she ends up working for ten years to pay the bank back for the money she borrowed to replace the necklace. The main conflict of “The Necklace,” by Guy De Maupassant is person verses self.

The reason the main conflict is person verses self, is because the conflict was that Mathilde wants to have nice things and feel young and beautiful like all of the other women in her community that are rich and have many nice clothes and jewelry. So really, Mathilde is just making herself feel out of place because she feels like she has to be like all the rich women. The quote, “All those things, of which another woman of her rank would never even have been conscious, tortured her and made her angry,” really describes how Mathilde is torturing herself for not being rich and not having beautiful clothes.

Though, Mathilde has a huge conflict with herself, as you may think it would get resolved, it doesn’t. Mathilde never really does get over the fact that she desires to be like all the rich beautiful women. The quote, “Oh, my poor Mathilde! How you are changed,” shows how her friend reacted when she saw Mathilde after she had worked for ten years to pay off the money she borrowed for the necklaces replacement. She reacted this way because Mathilde, lost her youth and beauty which was one thing she could’ve had without being wealthy. There would have been a resolution in this story if instead of how it did end, is if somehow Mathilde got wealthy and got everything she ever wanted. This is why the conflict has no resolution.

The short , “All Summer In a Day,” by Ray Bradbury and “The Necklace” may not have the same person verses person conflict, but they share the same ending without a resolution. “All Summer In a Day,” has a person verses society conflict, because the main character, Margot was bullied and not excepted by her classmates because she was different, and all she wanted was to get to see the sun for that glorious one hour every seven years. But, because she was different her classmates locked her in the closet so she would miss her one chance to see the sun for seven years. The quote, “They unlocked the door, even more slowly, and let Margot out,”  shows the similar resolution between the two stories. It shows how there was no resolution, Margot never got to see the sun that she had missed so much since she had moved to Venus.

Person verses self is the main conflict of the short story, “The Necklace,” by Guy De Maupassant. Not only is the main conflict person verses self, but it also doesn’t get resolved within the story. The next time you read a story just think about what the conflict is and does it ever even get resolved.

Cold

Author’s Note: I wrote this as a creative piece, for an assignment. It was a requirement to be creative, so I tried to show my creativity and word choice in this piece. I also demonstrated my knowledge of figurative language in this piece.

My ears were pounding, I could feel my adrenaline surging as he took eerily, slow steps towards me. In one swift movement he reached out and bashed my head full force into the counter. Like a deer in the headlights I stood there shocked for a moment. Then I felt the warm flow of blood begin to slither down my face and it started  to pour into my eyes. There was something different about how he was acting today, it almost felt like he was preparing for some horrible new punishment he had up his sleeve. I couldn’t calm down while this crazy monster had such a horrifyingly happy look in his eyes as he watched me lay there with blood running from my head. Slowly, my vision started to blur and all I wanted to do was sleep.

The slam of the door woke me from my deep sleep. I could feel the hard jaggedness of the ground pushing into my back. Unsure of where I was I slowly began to sit up, but the throbbing of my head kept me from reaching a full sitting up position. With a clump my body slammed itself right back into the cold hard ground. I laid there for a while before I regained the strength to try and pull myself back up again. Successfully, I managed to pull myself up to an upright position. With slow, smooth movements, careful not to send a sharp shooting pain through my head, I found myself in a enclosed shed. I kept thinking to myself, where am I, and why am I here?

Once I gained all the power I could, I pushed through the sickening pain in my right temple where that horrible monster plunged my head into the side of the countertop, I was able to somehow stagger to my feet and cling to the walls to keep myself from toppling right over like a baby taking its first steps. The worst part about this whole thing is that that terribly cruel person who found it necessary to cause me pain and humiliation day after day was my own father. How sick and twisted is that?

Steadily, I made my way to this blur of a shadow, which I was assuming must be the door to this old shack. It smelled of rotted wood and mold. My mind was crowded with so many thoughts, but there was one in particular that kept racing through my mind. Is this another awful punishment he has decided to torture me with, leaving me in the shed to freeze? As I finally made it to the door I felt around for the handle and when I found it, I gave it a pull but nothing. Once again I pulled on the cold metal handle, but the door didn’t budge.

My heart started pounding. Did he lock me in? It was January and I could see the shed getting darker as the sun began to set. If he left me in here all night I would freeze to death before he would come get me in the morning. That is if he even planned on coming for me at all. I know I must find a way out of here or I’m as good alive, as dead. The crisp air felt as though it was at most 10 degrees.  At the top of the shed I could hear the wind whispering through the boards in the rooftop.

After at least an hour of useless tugging and pounding for help, I couldn’t do a single thing.  I finally gave up and sat curled up on the freezing ground. My consciousness was a blur for a long time. Some points I’d be shaking ferociously on the ground trying to preserve whatever body heat I had left and other times I’d be unconscious laying on the ground.  Suddenly, I woke once more only to find myself whimpering in pain from the frostbite.

I forced myself to stay awake, by sitting up as best I could, worried I wouldn’t wake up the next time I closed my eyes.  After  waiting this long I knew he wasn’t coming back for me, He just left me here to die in the bitter cold of the night. Slowly I laid myself back down to the frosty ground and I felt myself drift away never to wake up again.