Langston Hughes

Langston Hughes is an important figure in the Harlem Renaissance and African American literature. He expresses his pride of being an African American. In his poems, he promotes the African American culture and the racial pride in the black community. He points out the social and racial problems and also inspires some blacks to recognize their beauty and dignity of blackness.

We can see these from one of his famous poems"I, too" when he says:"Besides,/They'll see me beautiful I am/And be ashamed".He yearns for freedom and equality. In some day, whites will see beauty in black and feel ashamed of their ignorance.

Birches by Robert Frost

It is interesting to read this poem. One single item, birches, can make him think about it so much. From the point the birches is bending down, he imagines what makes it bent. In the beginning of the poem, he tells the truth that is the ice storm makes it bent. Then, he imagines that the lonely boy who is playing with a tree that make most of the trees bent down. He even gives the solution to solve the problem and compares to "fill a cup." In the last stanza, he expresses that he wants to be young again, so he can swing the birches. Maybe seeing the bending birches makes Robert Frost thinks about his youth memory.

William Carlos Williams

Spring and All by William Carlos Williams

By the road to the contagious hospital
under the surge of the blue
mottled clouds driven from the
northeast-a cold wind. Beyond, the
waste of broad, muddy fields
brown with dried weeds, standing and fallen
patches of standing water
the scattering of tall trees
All along the road the reddish
purplish, forked, upstanding, twiggy
stuff of bushes and small trees
with dead, brown leaves under them
leafless vines-
Lifeless in appearance, sluggish
dazed spring approaches-
They enter the new world naked,
cold, uncertain of all
save that they enter. All about them
the cold, familiar wind-
Now the grass, tomorrow
the stiff curl of wildcarrot leaf
One by one objects are defined-
It quickens: clarity, outline of leaf
But now the stark dignity of
entrance-Still, the profound change
has come upon them: rooted, they
grip down and begin to awaken

The narrator described the scene in the end of winter on his way to the hospital. In the first three stanzas, the narrator gave the reader a dreary mood like "contagious hospital," " brown with dried weeds." In the third stanza, the narrator began to use more birght colors like purplis and reddish, but still gave us a disconsolate feeling. From the fourth stanza, the narrator shifted to embrace the coming spring. He portrayed how new life will emerge from this landscape as it begins to wake up. He used the word "quickens" in the last two stanza instead of "sluggish" which he used it previously.

The Yellow wall paper

The narrator has a nervous depression. She seems like everything is uncomfortable to her. John is her husband and also her doctor. He doesn't agree with her thoughts and her illness. The narrator has an extraordinary imaginations. Her husband wants to cure her even stop her to do any active things, especially writing. She doesn't like the yellow wallpaper in her room, and argues with John to repaper it again.

Life in the Iron-Mills

In the beginning of the story, the narrator stares out the windows and always see the cloudy day that besiege the gloomy and dark iron mills. Deborah,a hutch-back, is in love with her cousin Hugh. She even brings him dinner to iron-mill in a cold and rainy day, even though she hasn't finished her dinner. One day, a group of men visit the iron mill notice Hugh's statue which is made from korl. The men tried to help him out, but it needs money. Deborah hears the conversation, so she steals money from one of the men, Mitchell. Hugh decides to give it back to Mitchell, but he contemplates the money because this money can changes his life!People catch him and he receives fifteen-year sentence. Deborah also sends to the jail, but she receives three-year sentence. Hugh is desperate and leads him to suicide. A Quaker woman comes to the jail and plans Hugh's burial place. She assures Deborah that he will be buried on a hillside.

An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge

The film begins with a man who standing on a railroad bridge, and he is sentenced to death. It is a surprise of Farquhar's death. His desire for escape makes him think he gets released accidentally. His fantasy is similar to the real world. In the video, it straight to the fantasy world that makes me think he really gets escaped. He unbinds the ropes of his necks and legs, and sees around him the nature and the soldiers who are ready to fire at him. In his fantasy, he is able to avoid all the attacks and makes it back to his family. But, he's still cannot escape the reality. In the film, it doesn't say why he gets hanged. When Farquhar touches his wife, the real execution forces him back to the reality.

1. I learned that Emily Dickinson was an interesting person. She kept aloof from most people, but I was impressed by her love of nature. During this research project, I read a lot of books about her, as well as some of her work. Although these were easy to read, it was difficult for me to gather all the information that I needed. Slowly, I started to discover interesting facts about her life. This is when I discovered her love of nature. The reason she wanted to segregate from people was because she wanted to be closer to nature. I dug up more research about her love of nature. I learned about her background and the people that surrounded her. The area that Emily Dickinson lived in was right in the middle of nature. Hutchinson, Newton, and Emerson were the three people who most influenced her in her study of nature.

2. My research topic was related to some of the works about nature that we have discussed in class. I compared the works of Emerson and Dickinson discovered some contrasting opinions between them. I furthered my studies by reading Nature by Emerson, and by studying Transcendentalism. Both Emerson and Dickinson were considered Transcendentalists. Dickinson kept secluded from society and bonded with nature. However, from her poems, I discovered some evidence that leads me to believe that she began to have some fears of nature. The most important difference in opinion between Emerson and Dickinson was that Emerson believed that human and nature are actually one.