Love is defined as a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person. The bible defines love somewhat similarly. “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, and it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, and always perseveres”. This kind of love is known in a marriage, however not all marriages are lucky enough to share this type of love. This love is also a spiritual love; not a physical attraction. In Donne’s Valediction, the author explains that true love is more than just physical and it continues even after death; while in Minty’s Conjoined, she shows how people in a marriage can have a dissatisfying connection. Both authors convey this by using figurative language such as similes and the use of diction, or assonance.
Many couples think death is the end to all relationships, but to Donne it is only another trial the couple faces together. In his poem, he writes using a simile that says: “As virtuous men pass mildly away, and whisper to their souls to go, whilst some of their sad friends do say the breath goes now, and some say, no”. This simile in the opening stanza is about the men on their deathbeds who are leaving their loved ones. One may think this is the end, but Donne shows that they will be apart for a short while, but then they will eventually be reunited in a spiritual life. These lovers are connected more than just on a physical level; they have spiritual love that will keep on going even if death separates them from each other. This simile explains that death is not something that is going to split a couple’s relationship.
Similarly, Minty uses similes to explain the purpose of her poem. She declares that the couple is “like the two-headed calf rooted in one body, fighting to suck at its mother’s teats”. This image is not only odd, but distasteful in one’s mind. This is exactly how the man and woman view their marriage. Both of them believe their marriage to be strange, and not ordinary. These married people in the poem are pulling at each other to satisfy themselves, instead of trying to satisfy their partner. The man and woman are conjoined or “joined as one” and that means that they are supposed to work together through everything to make their marriage work successfully, but the couple feels as if they are trapped in their marriage. However, the two people are not happy with the connection they share with one another and so they are constantly fighting each other just “like the two-headed calf”.
The assonance in Valediction helps reveal the author’s attitude on love. For example, Donne says that “Dull sublunary lovers’ love (whose soul is sense) cannot admit absence, because it doth remove those things which elemented it”. The beginning of this line uses the letter “u” to show how boring it is to only have a physical love connection. The sublunary, or “earthy”, love can only be lived on earth. It stops after death, while true love is just beginning after death. This also explains the word absence in the poem because that type of a relationship is lacking in real love. Real love does more than depend on physical attraction; it strives even when the love is miles apart. A couple does not have to be together all day everyday to be satisfied because that man and woman know that what they share is worth everything. It is a spiritual love.
The diction in conjoined does a great deal to illustrate the struggle of marriage. Minty states that “ the onion in my cupboard, a monster actually… an accident, like the two-headed calf rooted in one body… or like those other freaks, Chang and Eng, twins joined at the chest” is just like marriage. The author uses words like “monster”, “accident”, and “freaks” because these words provide a negative connotation about the life of a husband and a wife. The “monster” refers to the unhappiness of the couple. The when the marriage is compared to as an “accident”, this signifies how truly horrible the couple’s life is and thus, the author provides her audience with the image of the two-headed calf. The “freaks” or the twins give the audience an ultimate understanding of how this marriage is odd, wrong, and quite foolish. This marriage is a constant battle between the man and the woman who feel like they are conjoined, or stuck, with this person.
Marriage is an amazing joining of two people, only if they truly love each other. A marriage is nothing if it is based solely on physical appeal. Love is supposed to last forever. It should not stop after death; if it is a spiritual love, than the love will continue on eternally. In both poems, both authors use figurative language to convey their point. Minty demonstrates how marriage can be rough and not right for some people and Donne shows how spiritual love triumphs physical love.

This article that Jim Neilson wrote about The Things They Carried gives a whole new understanding on how to read this book. Neilson proves that O’Brien’s approach to telling made up war stories is a great way to explain the conditions and trials that the soldiers go through during the war. I realize how effective this method of writing is now that I understand why he is writing this way. Neilson says that even with O’Brien writing this way, he “has been faithful both to Vietnam and to the stories told about it”.
Neilson gives great insight on what The Things They Carried is trying to convey. I believe that the most useful insight I got out of this was about O’Brien’s style of writing while he wrote this book. Neilson says that “with the facts of Vietnam in such a flux, perhaps some small measure of comfort can be taken in the certainty that eventually everyone will be wrong. The facts, in Vietnam, make liars of us all” (59). “It is within this framework—the belief that the war escapes understanding and representation and even makes us liars—that O’Brien attempts to tell a true war story”. This basically explains that since everything is all messed up anyways, all people are liars. Since O’Brien’s audiences were not part of the war, they will usually believe anything that they hear because they were not there to witness it for themselves. This makes O’Brien’s approach very effective, because no one really knows if it is true or not. Neilson says that “those who have had any such experience as the author will see its fruitfulness at once, and to all the other readers it is commended as a statement of actual things by who experienced them to the fullest. This essentially means that people have to experience for themselves and make their own opinions on things.
Jim Neilson believes that O’Brien’s novel is not believable and he criticizes him for it. I agree with Neilson because I do not think O’Brien’s book is realistic. Maybe, since I have not seen for myself the events of war, I cannot fully understand this book; which clouds my opinion on this subject. Because of this I agree with the criticism that Neilson has towards O’Brien’s writing.

So, this book so far is very interesting to read and I think I like this book the best because it is somewhat down to earth, but it also has hidden meanings and themes. I believe that there are many different themes for this book, especially because I believe each chapter is portraying a different theme. For example, I think that the chapter “How to Tell a True War Story” represents how people tell stories to show the truth of what he or she experienced, but changing some details to show the true hardships that he or she went through. Tim O’Brien does this by having the characters constantly contradicting each other, which explains how the reader does not know who to trust and fully believe. O’Brien wants his audience to realize that real truth of a story is not as important as the actual story telling in general. Another theme for the book is described throughout the entire book and basically is summed up by the title The Things They Carried. The title of the book can have many different meanings and since reading the book, I have uncovered some of the meaning. I believe that when a person goes to war, they end up experiencing things that they will never forget. So, the title of the book reveals that the soldiers are carrying big loads, literally and figuratively. The men in the stories are carrying the essentials along with many heavy instruments that are needed in war. Not only are they physically carrying things, they are encountering bizarre things that they have to carry with them the rest of there lives. Some things they deal with are some of their friends being killed, trying to stay alive themselves, and just knowing that the whole country they are representing are all counting on them. This book is a true, fake story of what happened during the war through the eyes of a soldier. This book is filled with many themes, and I know I will encounter many more as I keep reading.

Alright, so first I am going to talk about the word modernism for a brief moment. “Modernism is a blanket term for an explosion of new styles and trends in the arts in the first half of the 20th century” (Postmodernism for Beginners). This basically explains that there are certain styles that are portrayed in this era. So, with that in mind what does postmodernism mean? Well, the dumb, easy answer would be to say that it is modernism (just a few years later). However, that is not all of it. “Postmodernism- whatever it is- is an attempt to make sense of what is going on” (Postmodernism for Beginners). Postmodernism is a way for people to understand what is happening in the world today. It is very confusing because everyone has their own opinions and experiences of what is going on today, which makes it hard to get a clear and distinct understanding of postmodernism. There is no one truth because the world can not come to an agreement about anything whether it is about religion, morality, politics, social life, of life in general. Along the lines of this is something called metanarratives, also known as grand narratives. Metanarratives are “big stories, stories of mythic proportions that claim to be able to account for, explain and subordinate all lesser, little, local narratives” (Postmodernism for Beginners). This is another reason why postmodernism can not be fully explained. Metanarratives are simply myths, which can change depending on who is telling the myth at the given time, making it almost impossible to know who is telling the truth, which justifies why there is so much trouble having the world believe the same thing. So, overall I am not sure what the real definition of postmodernism is, but I do know that it is a concept showing the new styles in society. Postmodernism can not be understood fully until the world begins to agree on some things.

Maus….well I have got to say that this has been my favorite novel/ comic book we have read this year so far! I feel that Maus is much like architecture. I believe that even though Maus is a well- known novel, people still believe it to be somewhat childish because the way that it is written. The comic book form that Maus has gives readers a feeling like they are actually apart of the story. Architecture is also criticized for its structure. If some buildings do not fit the ideal “standards” that critics place on architecture, then the building is somewhat disapproved. Strange buildings can have a more significant and more powerful meaning behind it than regular, plain buildings. This is the same for novels. Even though a comic book comes off as a more youthful reading tool, deeper meanings can be depicted from it.
The Scott McCloud comic strip things were read in class was very interesting to me. The part when he is talking about the mask was especially note- worthy to me. For example he says “when two people interact, they usually look directly at one another seeing their partner’s features in vivid detail. Each one sustains a constant awareness of his or her own face, but this mind- picture is not nearly so vivid; just a sketchy arrangement… a sense of shapes…a sense of central placement”. This means that when two people are looking at each other, they may think they look a certain way but they really are doing something completely opposite. This makes me wonder about when two people look at the same picture; do they see entirely separate things? I mean people can interpret things differently, but do they SEE different things too? I want to compare architecture to Maus and maybe compare something else, postmodernism maybe, I am not sure what else I want to discuss but it will most likely be along the lines of this.

Well, this is a bit late so I apologize to my group if they were trying to comment on my blog and it was not there. So I am just going to do it now, obviously. The article was interesting and I agreed with the entire thing pretty much. When Carr said that “Research once required days in the stacks or periodical rooms of libraries can now be done in minutes”, I could totally relate to that. Now I just need a computer with internet access. Every time I need to know something, I can easily just go online and look it up. It does not even matter what it is about. The web is very big and gets updated and just grows bigger everyday. For most people, the web helps save time and a lot of energy.
On the other hand, Carr mentions that “the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation”. This is very true because of experience. Since I usually go on the internet once a day now, I feel like I have way less patience for other things now. I feel like since the net goes so fast, that everything else should go that fast too. This also goes along with my concentration because I used to be able to sit on the couch doing my homework for like four hours straight without getting up and now I can barley stay concentrated for an hour at home.
Overall, I think the web was created and was intended to must ease everyone’s lives. However, for some people, it can make their ability to think for them to decrease and thus, make them less smart. My opinion on the subject is that I like the internet’s ability to make things faster and easier as long as people do not overuse it and it makes them loose concentration.

Ok, so the video we watched in class about the world and how it changed was very interesting. Most of it, I thought, was a given, but some of the facts were things I have never heard and it showed me how much our world has changed even in the last couple years. For example, in the video, it said that “half of what they [students] learn in their first year of study will be outdated in their third year of study”. I find this piece of information very interesting, just because it happened to me in math on Friday. My class was taking notes, and I thought I was doing the problem right, but then I found out that the rules had changed to do that type of problem, and so I have to relearn something I thought I knew. It was a coincidence because we watched this video during fourth period and I had math first period. Along with this, in Dr. Alan Kirby's article about "The Death of Postmodernism" he says that “Most of the undergraduates who will take ‘Postmodern Fictions’ this year will have been born in 1985 or after, and all but one of the module’s primary texts were written before their lifetime. Far from being ‘contemporary’, these texts were published in another world, before the students were born”. This, to me, is confusing. Why would we have to learn about something that we did not live through and that will end up changing later on down the road?
I believe that we are moving toward a new social paradigm because everything is becoming electronic. This, however, is not going to be the solution to all the world’s problems. Technology is transforming the world and is practically, taking over the world, in a sense. I think the technology is the power in country as of right now, and it will soon become all of our knowledge.