Capital Punishment

Despite being the most obvious, the most interesting thing in the poem may be the repetition of "I am not a witness", followed by the final "I am a witness".  Perhaps the narrator (whom I presume to the the cook) is conflicted about whether or not her is in any way responsible for the deaths. A witness is expected to step in and do something. He is justifying his lack of action by saying "I am just the cook" and thinking he is not involved. However, at the end of the poem, he realizes that he is very involved and very responsible for the deaths and he should have stepped in and stopped the murder of this man. The author of the poem seems to be saying that EVERYONE is responsible for murders justified by capital punishment, whether you do or don't support the death penalty.
The cook's situation of being surrounded by death has resulted in his strange ideas about death. He obviously feels very different about death than the average human does.

The speaker gradually shifts from feeling unresponsible for the deaths for the inmates to feeling responsible.

Sharon's Old. Response

Several underlying themes work their way into Sheron Old's poems "His Stillness", "I Go Back to May 1937", and "Summer Solstice, New York City". Most prominent are the narrator's fixations with life and death.  Commonly, one or both of those words will find their way into the poem, leading me to believe that Sheron Old's herself was consumed by thoughts of what life is and what death will be like.  Another prominent theme is the mention of a mother/ father figure in each of her poems.  In "Summer Solstice, New York City", the narrator strangely notes that the cop wearing a bullet proof vest is a father to someone.  The mother also compares her imagined actions of the police to that of a mother who finds her child and, instead of welcoming him or her, screams at him or her.  In "I Go Back to May 1937", Sheron is assumed to be describing her parents, who are just now meeting, and wishing they would never meet.  The narrator mentions that her parents will eventually abuse children.  "His Stillness" is presumably about Sheron's father discovering he will die very soon.  The narrator seems to pity him, even when recalling his drinking problem. I read a bit about Sheron's childhood, and she seems to be still recovering (well into adulthood) from being abused physically and emotionally throughout childhood, then having a disturbed young adult life.  She is known for expressing her feelings about such things in her poetry.  

All three poems have a distinct "time stands still" feeling to them.  All three are rather dramatic moments- A man nearly committing suicide, seeing one's parents meet at young adults and wishing they would break up, learning that your father will soon die, but the poems seem calm and surreal.  The lucid feel makes the poems feel like descriptions of still photos rather than narrations of entire scenes.  The method of interpreting literature I have been commonly using is finding things that seem out of the ordinary, as I have found that when a phrase seems out of place, it probably means something deeper.  For instance, in "Summer Solstice, New York City", the narrator describes her worry that after the man backed down from the ledge, the police would beat him for scaring them.  This does not quite make sense to me, but instead seems to tie back to the narrator's childhood.  Perhaps Sheron was at one point lost and when she was found she was beat instead of welcomed.

Sheron Olds appears to be notorious for use of pronouns, especially when describing family members.  She takes ownership of them, such as with "my father", when she remembers them fondly, but simply calls them "him" or "her" when she seems to wish she was never born.  It is interesting how, at the end of "I Go Back to May 1937" and "His Stillness", she seems to welcome her parents back into her life.  This resolution brings hope to the reader and shows the narrator's power to overcome the injustice shown to her.  She eventually wants her parents to come together and create her so that she can write about her life and theirs.  She also realizes that her father has a certain kind of dignity at the end of "His Stillness".  She recognizes this and seems proud of him.                                                                                                                                                                                    

Pg 20 Assignment 1

I have admired Michael Cunningham's novel, The Hours, since I read it for the first time last year.  The story was full of intense imagery, themes that made the reader consider his or her life in light of the characters' lives, and a style that showed how effective certain elements of style can be.  This was the first piece I read with a seasoned, attentive eye for analysis and interpretation.  I saw for the first time how syntax could convey certain things to the reader, such as a complicated sentence showing the complicated nature of the scene being portrayed.  I observed long descriptions of the atmosphere in a certain conversation conveying the long literal pause in dialogue.  The symbolism Cunningham used was also inspiring.  I remember being blown away when I would finally discover a possible meaning for the flowers as a motif.  I liked the story because it begged serious questions, such as whether certain lifestyles have meaning or whether it is better to be a free lover or a devoted spouse.  The characters were all very real.  I believe Michael Cunningham achieved this by giving each of his characters a fatal outer flaw and a relate-able inner self.

I value the art in literature and the way that many people can master how to tell a story within a story.  A poet is able to conduct an entire commentary on her native people by writing about different types of guavas.  Michael Cunningham was able to weave an underlying story with Clarissa, Virginia, and Lauren.  

The Man in the Well Resp.

Ira Sher's "The Man in the Well" is mysterious and frightening.  The children find a man trapped in a well while they are playing in an abandoned lot.  Without even speaking, the children, who are presumably about nine years old, decide that they will not help the man.  The author calls attention to this point, but also makes it seem like one of the most sensible decisions in the story.  The decision to leave a grown man in a well could be interpreted as displaying the cruelty of the young children- a disturbing but "fun" and "cheery" form of cruelty that takes me back to of Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery".  In this case, the story would be about the cruelty of children, the false innocence that they can wear like a disguise, or the things children could do to adults if they had the higher ground.  The other way of interpreting the decision would be to examine what the man in the well represents.  He seems to be seen as a monster by the children instead of a man. The fact that we never see the man and there is never any dialogue between adults and the man leads me to believe the man could be imagined entirely by the children, or perhaps this is a commentary by Ira Sher on how adults often assume that children are imagining things, as this is most likely a conclusion that many readers will come to.  Most monsters are in dark, chilly places, such as under a bed or the back of a closet.  The bottom of the well is a perfect place for a monster.  Children are both fixated and utterly terrified of monsters.  There was some unspecified reason the children in the story kept returning to the well, even though they would most likely go running off in a panic and they were all so obviously scared and nervous around the well.  One possible explanation for the monster theory is that the parents of the children, who lived in walking distance and knew the children might play in the abandoned lot, conjured up a story about a monster who lives in the well to keep the children from going near the well and falling in.
Another interesting aspect of the story is how important anonymity was to both the children and the man.  In fact, we never do learn the narrator's name. Perhaps we can assume that it is Ira's point of view, but her name does not quite fit in with the other English names (David, Charles, Arthur, Wendy).  Not revealing their names had been "one of the rules"(118), and when Aaron discovered that his name had been discovered by the man, he felt betrayed enough to turn on the entire group.  The man in the well does not even have a face to put to the name, but he makes a big deal out of interrogating the children for their names, as well.  The two peculiar things the man from the well inquires are what their names are and whether it will rain.  I at first assumed that he was obsessed with the possibility of rain because he was thirsty, but the story's ending made me believe that the rain filled up the well and drowned the man or the man was able to swim up and out of the well.
Perhaps the strangest line in the story, and the one from which the most questions arise, is "but he wasn't going to help us now" (120).  This is after the man knows all of their names, and he is apparently now very much in control.  Knowing the children's  names gave him power of them.  Now the children needed help, but he was not going to give it to them.  Perhaps this is the beginning of his revenge on the children.  He asks, "Why didn't you tell anyone?"(120) and he seems so menacing to the children.  The abandoned lot becomes dark and the children are frightened.