replacement blog

This is my replacement blog for one that I completely took the short way out of because I was having a hard time understanding something. At first I was having a hard time finding figurative language, but I think that’s because I was looking for ones that I could explain exactly what they meant, instead of just looking for the figurativeness (if that’s a word). Lines such as, “For to you it has been granted for Christ’s sake, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake, experiencing the same conflict which you saw in me, and now hear to be in me.“ I mean, we never saw him suffer. And what does the part about “..and now hear to be in me” mean? I don’t know, but it is still figurative language. The most obvious one I saw I thought was the one about being aware of the dogs. He obviously is not talking about the kind of dogs that go “woof, woof,”, so he is speaking figuratively. The most complicated one I think is “ For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain”. This is one that I distinctly remember going over in length about in class. There are so many different ways to take and interpret that, and none of them are right or wrong. That’s what is so beautiful about figurative language. Sometimes I wish God had been a little more black and white with certain things, but then again it wouldn’t be such a beautiful picture and we wouldn’t have to work as hard to get to know him better. These were just a few examples from a book filled with figurative language, and it’s been a best seller for years, you should check it out sometime.

Special Post #2

In “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings: A Tale for Children”, the basis of the story is that a newly married couple with a baby struggling to survive, finds an angel in their yard. It becomes an instant attraction to anyone within driving distance and beyond. It is kept in the chicken coop and not treated with any sort of decency by the onlookers who pay the couple in order to witness the angel. This causes the couple to be able to help their child regain his health as well as build themselves a mansion, all because of the people that came to see the angel. Now, the angel was not exactly treated kindly by everyone, in fact, it was quite the opposite. He was interrogated, burned, beat around, etc. The child ends up getting better and grows up with the angel as a part of his life. Towards the end of the story they try to move the angel inside, but end up bringing it to the barn. At the end of the story, there is a slight sense of hope as the angel regains his ability to fly and leaves the family as he flies into the sunset.

The reason I feel that this text needs to be interpreted is that you could read through it over and over and get something different out of it every time. It’s not a text that I can just sit down, interpret it, and that would be the end of it. Another reason that I chose this text was the fact that I didn’t understand the point to this text at all the first time I read it, so I figured it would help me grow as a reader and a writer to try and interpret it. So here goes….

In couple round about ways, this angel reminded me of what Jesus was to us. I mean, in the story the angel shows up “On the third day of rain…”, similar to how Jesus  arose from the grave after 3 days. The part that struck me though is how the angel handled his persecutors while saving the family and child’s life. Very much like our savior, he took everything without complaining because he knew its what had to be done. No amount of taunting, teasing, prodding could cause him to show emotion, which instantly reminded me of how Christ was ridiculed daily while walking the earth and how calmly he handled it.

A couple things I haven’t figured out quite yet how they tie in yet is why was the angel so old? Why did the neighbor want it dead so badly? Why did the family seem afraid of it?

The main part that I still haven’t decided how I feel about though, is the end. I sway back and forth from thinking it’s a positive ending full of hope, or a depressing ending and a sign of how sometimes we let blessings slip away before we realize they were there. At the end of the story it says “Elisenda let out a sigh of relief, for herself and for him, when she saw him pass over the last houses, holding himself up in some way with the risky flapping of a senile vulture….” See, that makes it seem like the woman thinks they will be better off without the angel. Though it makes me wonder if the author is trying to show how we can get caught in how smooth our life is going and not recognize when such a big blessing is right in front of our face. I mean, isn’t it possible that the angel that they found was their guardian angel using a creative way to save the family? If that is the case then its kind of depressing because they treated an angel so poorly for so long, meaning it probably will never come back even if they needed it.

After reading this a couple times, it really started to strike me inside. It made me think about everything I have to be thankful for in this life and how I show my gratitude for those things. Do I make sure to make it obvious that I am incredibly blessed and thankful? Or do I just lock everything up in a chicken coop because I make my own luck? I know that might sound corny but that’s what I got out of this story. Maybe some other day, some other time in my life I might be struck by something completely unrelated. Just as I am sure that other readers got things totally different than I did.

Overall, I never at once thought there was a clear interpretation to this text. As one of my friends put it, “Ambiguity reigns, and the people in the story-like the readers of the story-merely interpret events, never understanding them. Thus the story defies attempts at interpretation even as it stages the human need to interpret. In short, it is more concerned with the fact that we interpret than with what we interpret. It's a fairy tale without an interpretation; rather, it's a fairy tale about interpretation.” I think that sums it up perfectly. The point of the story will never be one specific thing. The simplest way I can think to describe it is to say that the point of the text is to cause you to TRY and interpret, not figure out exactly what it is trying to say.

“A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings; A Tale for Children”

“A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings; A Tale for Children”, was written by Gabriel Garcia Marquez in 1955. I have a sentence that sums up exactly how I feel about this story: What in the world??? I don’t even know where to start when talking about this story. Part of me wants to think that this was the child’s guardian angel and was just saving the baby in a very different round about way…maybe? But, why was the angel so old? Why were there crabs in the house? What was the point of the spider-girl? Its things like this that make me wonder what the point to this story was (if there was one….). Also, its title “A tale for Children”, really? At what point did this story resemble anything of a children’s book? I felt like many of the characters and subplots were far too complicated and uninteresting for a child to enjoy. I’m not worried that I don’t understand this story though, because I went through a couple people’s blogs and was reassured that I am not the only person who is struggling to comprehend its purpose. Also, why were the people that found the angel so un emotionally attached? Wouldn’t you think if an angel landed in your yard you would want to keep it happy? Because if it is in fact an angel, it could possibly have a lot of friends in some really high places. Although, the world in this story is obviously not our own so maybe an angel meant something different in that culture. In the end, although it seemed very strange and unfulfilling, I couldn’t seem to stop reading it. I found myself consumed with trying to figure out what the purpose of each character was and how it was going to end. So maybe that was the whole point to the story…? Haha I have no idea.

"The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas"

The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” was written by Ursula k. Le Guin. To be honest, when I started reading this story I became incredibly bored. I felt like I was being given a bunch of useless information describing these people and that the story was just going to be one big pointless waste of time. You would think, considering that I’ve thought that about the majority of our readings, I would’ve learned by now. I am still not sure what exactly the point to this story is, but at least it improved enough to get my attention. One explanation I read was Andrew said, ”A world without evil would be a fairytale land. Without evil how could we really enjoy happiness?” I can see where that makes sense at first, because it made sense to me when I first read it. But then I started to think about it biblically, and I disagree with what the book implies if they are in fact implying that we couldn’t enjoy happiness without evil. If you look back to Genesis, there was no evil in the garden at first. There was no pain and suffering. Are you going to try and tell me that Adam and Eve weren’t happy? Or that the only reason we are going to enjoy all of the pleasures of heaven is because there will be thousands of others suffering in hell? So I did not find this story, or what I found it to be implying enjoyable or necessary. I’m sure tomorrow in class though I will hear many different views and things I didn’t catch, so I will most likely change my mind. Oh, and one last thing. Why is it called “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”? the ones who walked away seemed like they had very little to do with the story as a whole.

world without evil would be a fairytale land. Without evil how could we really enjoy h