In the Waiting Room

I decided to do my final post on Elizabeth’s Bishop “In the Waiting Room”. This poem really captured my attention because it involves plenty of thinking to decipher what she is trying to illustrate to her readers.

“In the Waiting Room” is poem that that is told in third person by a young girl in Worcester, Massachusetts. This girl goes to the dentist with her aunt and is sitting outside in the waiting room. While she is in the waiting room, she begins to read a National Geographic magazine that is showing “horrifying” images of “naked women with necks wound round and round with wire” and children “with pointed heads wound round and round with string”, but she “was too shy to stop” reading on. When she closes the magazine and looks at the date on the magazine, which reads February 1918, the day World War I began. Suddenly she hears her aunt yell a “not very loud or long…oh!” The girl then realizes that it was her who said that and how that remark reminded her of her “foolish” aunt. As she kept on reading, she felt as if they were falling and she needed to remind herself that she was going to be seven years old in three days, in order to get control of her emotions. She was trying to relate to the people she was reading about telling herself that she is “an I…an Elizabeth…one of them”. After coming to self-realization, she can no longer look at anyone in the room in the same light as she had before. She began looking at the “different pairs of hands lying under the lamps.” There seemed to have been a room full of women at the dentist’s office. After taking a glance at them and thinking about the women portrayed in National Geographic, she began to question herself again and what similarities she had with everyone in that office. She thought it was ‘unlikely’ what had held them together. She could not find a better term in order to describe what she was feeling. She wondered how she had “come to be [there], like them, and overhear a cry of pain that could have got loud and worse and hadn’t?” All of a sudden, she came back to reality and got out of her head, she was aware again of the waiting room and that World War I was happening. It was a slushy and cold winter night in Worcester, Massachusetts February 5, 1918.

This text is quite complex. I had to do some historical background of the author in order to fully understand how I should be viewing this poem. When you first read “In the Waiting Room”, it comes of as a story of a young girl in a dentist’s waiting room reading a magazine that she makes her view her world differently. When I first read it, I could not fully grasp what she was trying to portray to the audience. I did not know where she was going with comparing the magazine’s images to the reality around her. I also did not know anything about the repeated date, February 5, 1918.

After figuring out the dates and background, I found out that in this poem the young girl struggles with her identity because she is a female. Now it is time to see this poem in its figurative and metaphorical form instead of the literal interpretation. There is a young six year old girl who is sitting in the waiting room of the dentist’s office waiting for her aunt. She is looking at a National Geographic magazine that is showing images of minorities in other countries, women, children, and black people. She was seeing how terrible those women and children were being portrayed; the women had wires wound upon their long necks and their breast were “horrifying”. She also saw babies who’s heads were pointed because they had strings wrapped around their heads. She also saw an interesting picture of “a dead man slung on a pole – ‘Long Pig’”. Knowing that Elizabeth Bishop was a feminist, you can see why she put a man in her poem as dead. The girl shut the magazine and noticed the date in back, February 1918. She remembered that World War I had started that day. This made her frustrated to see how people were mistreated. Maybe she even wondered why everyone was not considered equal. Out of know where, she hears a familiar “oh” of pain in the air. She thinks that it was her aunt but it came from inside her too. She felt pain for these people she was seeing in the magazine. She could not wrap her head around these horrifying images. She tied in the sound of her aunt’s actual pain, due to the procedure, to her emotional pain with the people. She shows how she is so much like her “foolish aunt”. She felt hopeless also because of the war happening. It interesting to see that she reminds herself, that in three days, she would be seven years old. Deep down inside she sees this pain and feels that she wants a change to happen. Maybe with her saying that she is turning seven, it is illustrating that she is getting a little closer to being able to air her opinions on the situation of inequality amongst women. She felt like an outcast and a no one because she realized she was a minority. She reminds herself that she does have an identity. She is “an I…an Elizabeth”, but she also sees that she is “one of them.” She can barely lift her head to look around the room. She noticed that there were “different pairs of hands lying under the lamp.” The lamp symbolizes the sun and how, like the cliché, there are many different people under the sun. She saw this symbolism, but came back to notice that there is no equality amongst all these people under the sun. She tried to find the positive again by comparing herself to her aunt: “boots, hands, [and] the family voice.” She also compared herself to the women in National Geographic with “those awful hanging breast”. All these things held women together, so she thought. They were all ‘unlikely’ similar. She remembered the cry of pain, that “could have got loud and worse but hadn’t.” She could hear the cry of women and how they wanted to be equal, but their yells were not being heard by the government. She felt them all being swept under “a big black wave”, the wave being those that did not want to give women rights to anything. They did not have enough power to overcome these people. The young girl stepped out of her mind and fell back into reality. She fell back into the dark cold reality of that February 5, 1918 day in Worcester, Massachusetts.

The interpretation of “In the Waiting Room” is vital to understand in order to receive the proper message that Elizabeth Bishop is trying to portray. Bishop is expressing herself as a young girl who is screaming for equality. She feels so small and helpless in a world being run by men. She also does not understand the war and why men have to be against each other. This poem is also a cry for peace along with equality for minorities. Her pain is tangible in every part of her writing. She wants to be afloat and not drowning in the dark waves of injustice that are swallowing her.

A Life Changing Moment

I did not get a chance to go to AFI event a few weeks ago. I had heard so many wonderful testimonials about how it was. I had heard that they were having a Thanksgiving card making day and I wanted to volunteer to help. I felt inside that I should go and volunteer there. That morning, I left with Shantel, Cole, and Casey. I felt a little hesitant about volunteering, since I knew there were so many mentally handicap people there. I did not know if I would understand their behaviors or even feel comfortable around them. When we walked into the room, they greeted us and it was just a sea of smiles. I took one look at them and fell in love with them. It hit me that they are human beings; they are just little kids in grownup bodies. At first, I had sat away from them but then they wanted us to help them make the cards. I did not feel too comfortable at first but then, I began to talk to them as they talked to me. They were so nice and sweet. I met 3 lovely ladies who I sat down and spoke with a little more. They were very curious about me and asked them some questions about their lives. I wanted to know what life is like for them. They all had sad responses. My heart went out to them. One lady showed me a picture of her daughter and granddaughter. They do not keep in much contact with her. She told me how much she misses them. Another one told me how she wakes up depressed every morning. I left her with some encouraging words. I loved helping them make their cards. I found it interesting how none of them knew how to tie knots, but they could do almost everything else. And then there was an old man that caught my attention. I wish that I could have talked to him more. He looked like he belonged in Hollywood and have his own star. He just looked like an old time actor. He was very clean cut and tidy. I am actually going to begin a story about him.

Letters

St. Paul’s Letter to the Philippians was a great read. I like the Professor Corrigan took away the numbers so we could focus more on the text. It really helped me concentrate more on what I was reading. He also said something that I liked. He said something along the lines that people focus so much more on the verses then what was actually said. They know what a certain verse says, but do they know everything else surrounding that verse? He really had me thinking on that one. Maybe I just might start reading the Bible this way.
St. Paul uses a great amount of figurative language. I believe though that many things he said can be taken as literal instead of being viewed as metaphorically, such as dying to oneself. There are so many metaphors and so much figurative language that I do not even want to count. I believe that metaphors are used so much in this letter in order to get people to think. It helps people stay focused on the subject, especially this subject. St. Paul is trying to show people how it is to be a true follower of Jesus. Jesus is a man whose life and his lessons are hard to explain without metaphors and figurative language.
The more I keep learning about figurative language and metaphors, the more quickly I can understand what I am reading. The Bible is definitely the book full of both of these things where you can grasp so many interpretations from what you read. God came down to earth in a bodily form and took the time to see what he felt and everything else. We should take the time to try to understand Jesus and what He meant with what He said and what He inspired others with.

A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings...Not Really a Tale for Kids

A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings was a wonderful read. This story is such a complex metaphor. I am going to be honest and say that this story is the most interesting one I have read all semester. I had to read this twice in order to understand some things that I did not pick up before.
At first, it was hard for me to believe that this old man was an angel. I was taking everything in a literal sense at first, thinking that Pelayo and Elisenda were exaggerating and misunderstanding what they were staring at. I felt very sorry for the old angel, if that is what he was. The family and the crowds of people treated him so poorly. Even the priest was disgusted, in a way, by this angel because he was not what he expected him to be. The family obtained so much money from the crowds of people that came to see him, and became even more self-centered. They did not even care this old man with the money that had made, but instead used it for themselves to build a better life. I am so glad that in the end, the old angel could fly away, maybe to somewhere where they will care for him.
One interesting thing I noticed was the relationship between the angel and their son. The parents of this child always protected him from this old man. As he grew older, though, they backed away and he would hang around him. This young boy seemed to care for him more. They even had the chickenpox together, also, when the angel first came when this boy was an infant, his sickness went away. The child understood him more than his parents. I think the last part of the title, “A Tale for Children” refers to how adults need to revert to their child like mentality and see this man as hopeful. The adults in this story did not understand him, but the child did. I think to some this all up I would have to say that the lessoned learned here is to start seeing certain things in life like a child and you will see the hope you need.

Omelas, Omelas

The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas is an interesting passage. When I began reading it, I fell in love with the description. It contains many vivid and interesting metaphors. When I read the 3rd paragraph I immediately thought of a utopian empire. This area has no leader, yet they live a much better life then we do. This passage makes them seem well off and not having a war mentality and them not even letting the media influence them. I feel like the author is trying to tell people of a place that seemed to exist long ago, but he says that it is still alive today. Maybe he can be talking about a certain decade or any time period, prior to the currant day that was happy and orderly. “They were mature, intelligent, passionate adults whose lives were not wretched.” As I read on further, I can see that the main theme here can be how true happiness is achieved. The people from Omelas are simple; it is the simple things in life that make them happy, unlike anywhere where else where it is all about luxury, etc. I am half asleep, so I am trying to understand why in the world he is talking about nude priest and other nude people. Is Omelas a nudist utopian colony? I like his idea of no government and no one ruling over you. It is every man for himself; man dictates what it wrong and what is right. I wonder what kind of festival is going on that he keeps talking about. The ending of this story was very interesting. He says that people walk away from a joyous place, to some other place that is not even imaginable. He says it might not even exist, which is ironic because Omelas seems more like the non existent place. Maybe he is talking about their unimaginably harsh reality; their wretched real lives. Omelas is a much easier place to imagine than a bad place.

Accepting Who You

A Temple of the Holy Ghost caught my attention. I was a little hesitant because I did not feel like reading all of it, because this week has me so worn out and tired, but I finished it. It was a great read, that I think I might give it another read later.
Now, this story contains a great deal of symbolism. I enjoy trying to solve what all the symbols mean. This one, though, was a wee bit challenging. I was lost at first with who were the main characters of the story and whose thoughts I was reading about, and then I figured it out that the two sisters had a little sister who did not like the way they acted.
I thought the last paragraph beautifully described the way the younger sister viewed life now, after the story of the hermaphrodite. That story made her realize that God made everyone different. She should not be praying to not be like her sisters. She should love them as the crazy people they are. “The sun was a huge red ball like an elevated Host drenched in blood and when it sank out of sight, it left a line in the sky like a red clay road hanging over the trees.” I believe that this sums up her new feelings. The sun setting is symbolizes the end of something, and I think that it is the end of her negative perspective about certain people. The sun left behind a mark in the story, just like the story she heard. The red clay road can mean how this situation molded her into someone else. It led her to become a different person on the road of life she thought she knew she was on. I am positive that does not make sense right now.
Doing the reading, interpreting, and criticizing exercise in class with those great videos helped me remember how to analyze stories better again. It helped me focus on what I was reading tonight.

To The Man Who Came To Dinner, Can I Have My Money Back?

Let me start off by saying that this play was boring. I do not even think that is the right word for it. To start, I am a big film and play critic. I went with Alicia, which was fun. We both agreed on one thing, and that one thing was that we had no clue what was going on. Seriously, I tried my best to catch on to the action, but it was so hard to focus. I usually catch on right away. I think the big problem for me was the acting. I know this is not Broadway or anything, but a few of the actors broke character so much that it caused me to lose focus. There was one actress that kept tripping over her lines and focusing more on getting them right then expressing what she was saying. I am an actress myself. I know how hard it can be to not forget your lines and all. The best character was Sheridan Whiteside, the main character. He was funny and knew what he was doing. There were many moments in the play where I just did not listen because some of the characters bored me with their monotonous lines. The set was really nice though, and so were the costumes. The play felt like it dragged on forever! When I saw that there were two more acts left, I almost cried. We went to the 2:30 showing Saturday afternoon and when we got back, we felt like our day was wasted. It was so long and dragged out. I barely chuckled at all, except for a few parts mostly having Dan Prevette and Elizabeth Charlton in them. What really annoyed me was the ending. It was sudden and anticlimactic. It felt so abrupt. I just read the description of what the complete play was about, and I obtained nothing of what was described of the play in the play. I want my money back.