"Miniver Cheevy"

To sum up Miniver’s outlook on life, he is stuck in the past and pessimistic. He daydreams about the wonders of living with the Knights of the Round Table, fighting in the Trojan War, and being part of a powerful, rich Italian family. He cannot live in that era though, and that is directly stated in the text. He fails to realize that he cannot go back with a time machine. It is almost like he regrets his birth; he’d rather not live at all if not in that time period. I find him immature in this aspect. Similar to how some cannot let go of a grudge. He cannot accept the fact that some things you cannot decide, like time of birth. He is so caught up in this that he loathes the fabric of modern military clothes, since it is unworthy compared to the traditional iron armors. He is so upset that he cannot be a part of his dream that he forgets to live in his own time period. He slightly realizes this in the end, “Miniver coughed, and called it fate, and kept on drinking.” Miniver sees that his fate is otherwise that what he desired, but he still decides to be inactive about it. He makes the worst of his situation. He can move on and accept the thing that he cannot change, but chooses not to. This leads to him throwing his life away and spending his time downing out a bottle of liquor. Usually, someone spends their life regretting a life-altering mistake that they made themselves. He is not living the life he is capable of because he is dwelling on what could have been. He fails to help himself recover when all he does is regret a cause that was controlled out of his power. 

"Omelas" Blog

Gandhi and Humphrey, in their quotes, both focus on the needs of the people in the community that are lacking in some aspect. Those aspects consist of health, maturity, knowledge, and inexperience. Humphrey acknowledges those things more directly than Gandhi, but both are saying the same thing. Humphrey explains how the most important people of the community are the elders, children, handicapped, sick, and needy. The elders teach to the children; the future of the community. How you treat the handicapped, needy, and sick also shows a lot about the community that you are in. A community that doesn’t acknowledge or address these issues is naïve, careless, and negligible. If a community wants to be strong, united, and successful, it must pay attention to the weaker parts of the community. Youth may be seen as the most important of all the categories since they determine the future and fate of a community. If the youth are corrupted in thought, the outcome of the future is not pleasant. In the poem “The Ones That Walked Away From the Omelas,” this is exactly what is taking place, corruption of youth. Gandhi’s quote describes how a nation treats its weakest members determines the greatness of that nation. It is identical to a famous quote, “You are only as strong as your weakest link.” This explains how if we do not tend to the weak and strengthen them, one day it will catch up to us. I have heard this in soccer very often, when a player is weaker than others, they could cost a game off of one wrong move. In the “Omelas,” it describes a community that tortures one innocent child to ensure the happiness of others. It a morally wrong environment and those who have gone to see the child have never returned to the community. Which comes to prove that no one wants to a live in an unjust community. We yearn for better, but when we are blinded to the horrors, it becomes impossible to comprehend the morality of the community. This is what happens to the citizens of Omelas. It doesn’t matter if one or a thousand children, adults, elderly, sick, needy, or handicapped people are being tortured; it should not happen at all. Gandhi and Humphrey are saying that until no one is tortured, it cannot even be considered a good community. Until we abolish the bad and fix the problems, results cannot be successful.

"Digging" by Seamus Heaney

The most important symbol in the poem is the author's pen. Heaney's pen means a lot symbolically to the poem overall. It gives us a deeper understanding of the story by telling us that the author is a writer. That sets him apart from his family, since they have a history of farmers. He feels guilty that he is different from his family, and maybe he thinks that they are disappointed in him. Perhaps that is why he describes "the squat pen rests; snug as a gun." The gun implying that his mood is dark and regretful.He has an inner conflict to sometimes strive and crave to be different and stand out form the crowd. I know I do, I do not like blending in and being part of the crowd. There is a part of me that wants to show everyone that I am different and eventually everyone comes to show the part of us that they wish the world knew about. The conflict of the story is that yearning for you to show the world a part of yourself that few know, but the fear of rejection, humiliation, and the opinion of others. The shovel symbolizes the author digging up the history of his family, like a shovel unearths the soil. In addition, the shovel stands for the tradition of the family. The author sees no desire in following the footsteps of the people before him. However, the way the author explains, "But I've no spade to follow men like them," he describes his father and grandfather in almost a negative connotation. He is upset that they do not accept his lack of interest for what everyone should be concerned about. However, I do not think that he lacks a sort of respect for achievement from his grandfather and father, even if he is upset with them. I also think that the potatoes in the story symbolize children or offspring. He describes the feeling potatoes by saying, “Loving the cool hardness in our hands.” The potatoes are like his offspring, he tends them, he grows them, cares for them, and when they are prepared, he is relieved and victorious. He has a sense of pride that he raised good potatoes just like he has pride in raising his children. Overall, the author has a dark and eerie tone throughout the poem. However, it turns around and there is a sense of confidence in the last line when he explains, "I'll dig with it." It sounds like he is determined to show the talent he has as a writer in comparison to a digger. He is ready to show the world that he is different and is his own individual. He does not care anymore what others think and he has pride in what he is capable of, even if it varies from everyone else’s thoughts, like we should. 

Impressions from George Sanders

George Sanders Speech Reflection

           

            A thing that really stuck out to me while reading the speech is that Saunders mentioned that with age, you naturally become nicer. Maturity has a great deal in the evolution of “becoming nicer.” As he suggested, in our more mature state, we are able to recognize how illogical and insensible it becomes to be arrogant and mean overall. We are able to recognize the world in a larger scale or picture and realize that nothing really does revolve around any one of us; and if the world isn’t about me then it is about all of us. Therefore instead of focusing on me, I can focus on us in order to reach my attention to a larger scale and touch more people. However, in some cases I feel as if this may not necessarily be true. I sometimes picture older people to be more sour and bitter. There always is that old man on the street that hates noise and children, and ironically it seems to be a reoccurring theme. But there is also that universal truth that grandparents are the kindest and sweetest people. And they really are, maybe that’s why some old people are so bitter. They don’t have anyone giving that love to like grandkids, and they are wasting the love that they are capable of giving. Overall, I agree with Sanders that with age also comes the ability to be more loving, kind, and caring. I think the real point Sanders is making throughout the entire speech is that don’t wait until you are old to obtain this kind of love. Start using it now so that when you are old, you don’t look back and think, “I really should have started acting this way earlier.” So in reality, I guess he really is just saying to live your life with no regrets, but he is also saying that if you have regrets, don’t let it be about the moments when kindness was lacking but rather the deadly disease you got when swimming in monkey feces.