My Journey Through English 131

At the beginning of my semester, we read Streetcar’s Unspeakable Desires, which was an example and the bases for one of our first writing piece. Professor Lucas elaborated on the play, A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee William. This example writing elaborated on the key aspects in the play. Professor Lucas elaborated on the conflicts between Blanche, Stella, and Stanley, who were the key characters in the play. After reading the example, we were asked to craft a piece of writing that was based off our favorite TV shows, movies, poems, or book and elaborate on that particular subject. I chose to write about the movie, The Greatest Showman (2017). Though others in my class, chose TV shows, books, and a few of them chose to do other movies like Mulan (1998), Finding Nemo (2003), and Star Wars (1977- Current). They all had interesting takes on their choices. Some elaborated on the entirety of their particular subject or they focused on a key element within the subject they chose. For example, an individual focused on the musical aspects of Mulan (1998) and explained how they were Mulan’s way of expressing her internal thoughts. As we continued on through the semester, we began reading the narrative, Swing Time by Zadie Smith. Smith throughout the narrative tells the story of a nameless narrator that goes from past to present in presenting her story to explain her current state of unemployment and shame. Smith explains, “By the time I landed, our old girlhood dance was out in the world. I find it interesting that Tracey chose not to send it to me until two whole days after. In her vision of things, others would know who I really was before I did….[n]ow she had achieved the same effect with my life, placing the beginning of the story at an earlier point so that all that came after read as the twisted consequence of a lifelong obsession….it was borderline child pornography, if not in intention then in effect”(438). The next writing we began to dive into was the Fantasy, Gothic, and Mystery narrative, Serafina and the Black Cloak by Robert Beatty. Beatty tells the heroic tale of Serafina, a twelve-year-old girl that lives in the basement of the Biltmore estate. Her journey begins in this narrative, when Clara Brahms, who is a visiting the Biltmore estate disappears. Serafina throughout this captivating tale searches for Clara and the other children that were mysteriously taken by the Man in the Black Cloak. Beatty explains, “Serafina gasped in shock. One moment the girl was struggling to get free, and the next she vanished into thin air. The cloak had consumed her. Overwhelmed with confusion, grief, and fear, Serafina just stood there in stunned bewilderment”(20). The next writing we read this semester was Bruno Bettelheim’s Introduction: “The Struggle for Meaning.” The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales. In the excerpt from pages 3-19, Bettelheim explains that people need Fairy Tales and daydreams to cope with the harshness of reality. This writing also helped our class with our study of Serafina and the Black Cloak. The next piece of writing was an excerpt from the autobiography The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game by Michael Lewis. In this excerpt, Lewis elaborates on the Washington Redskin Joe Theismann’s play and shows the mentality of how the players break down the play during the game. He also speaks about how society believes football players are believed to lie awake at night worrying about their next game. The last pieces of writings we analyzed this semester was “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” by Bob Dylan and Thought Twice; It’s Not Alright by Jordan Makant. In Bob Dylan’s song, “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right,” explains how Dylan had to leave a woman he may have met the night before or potentially the love of his life to prevent himself from being tied down and living the life freedom, and being single. Though in the contradictory poem by Jordan Makant, Thought Twice; It’s Not Alright, explains how Makant believes Dylan’s song was a lie and that the girl needed to be let go in order to truly flourish. Throughout this semester, we had to document our writings on our personal blogs for this class and personally it felt strange posting my writings on a blog this semester. Though it was nice getting feedback on my writings and beneficial. This semester in English 131 I have gained quite a bit of knowledge from this class that will help me in future writings.

Work Cited
Beatty, Robert. Serafina and The Black Cloak. Disney/Hyperion,2015.
Bettelheim, Bruno. Introduction: “ The Struggle for Meaning.” The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales. Random, 1976. PP. 3-19.
Dylan, Bob. “ Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right.” Bob Dylan, http://bobdylan.com/songs/dont-think-twice-its-all-right, Accessed 2, Oct. 2017.
Lewis, Michael. The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game, Chapter One Excerpt. Norton, 2006. PP.15-16.
Makant Jordan. Thought Twice; It’s Not Alright. Impossible Angles. Main Street Rage, 2017.18.
Mulan. Directed by Tony Bancroft and Barry Cook, Performances by Ming-Na Wen, Eddie Murphy, and Lea Salonga. Walt Disney Pictures, 1998.
Smith, Zadie. Swing Time. 2016. Penguin, 2017.
William, Tennessee. A Streetcar Named Desire. 1947.
Annotated Bibliography
Beatty, Robert. Serafina and The Black Cloak. Disney/Hyperion,2015. In Robert Beatty’s, Serafina and The Black Cloak, Beatty tells the heroic tale of Serafina, a young girl living in the basement of the Biltmore estate. Her journey begins, the night Clara Brahms is taken by the mysterious Man in The Black Cloak. Throughout the novel, Serafina tries to solve the mystery of who the Man in the Black Cloak is, but also where the children or individuals with talent are taken. Serafina though is not alone in this journey. Serafina confines in a young boy her age named Braeden, who is the nephew of Mr. Vanderbilt. They both try to discover throughout the novel, the great danger that lurks within the Biltmore estate.
Bettelheim, Bruno. Introduction: “ The Struggle for Meaning.” The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales. Random, 1976. PP. 3-19. In the excerpt from Bruno Bettelheim’s, The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales. Bettelheim explains that individuals need fairy tales or fabricated daydreams to cope with the harshness of reality. We need it to escape the world around whether good or bad. He emphasizes that this could better an individuals growth in life.
Dylan, Bob. “ Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right.” Bob Dylan, http://bobdylan.com/songs/dont-think-twice-its-all-right, Accessed 2, Oct. 2017. In Bob Dylan’s Song, “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right.” Dylan conveys to listeners of how he had to leave the love of his life or a woman he may have met potentially the evening before. He Conveyed that he had to go before the woman consumed his life and time. He wanted to continue down the road of being single and continuing his career without being tied down.
Lewis, Michael. The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game, Chapter One Excerpt. Norton, 2006. PP.15-16. In Lewis Michael’s excerpt from The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game, Lewis elaborates on the Washington Redskins, Joe Theismann, and the explanation of the play between him and John Riggins. In the Second paragraph, he elaborates on the aspects, that people believe that they are immune to emotions and the aspect of them lying awake at night worried about their next game.
Makant Jordan. Thought Twice; It’s Not Alright. Impossible Angles. Main Street Rage, 2017.18. Jordan Makant’s poem, Thought Twice; It’s Not Alright. Impossible Angles. Contradicts Bob Dylan’s song, “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right.” Makant states in the poem that Dylan was lying throughout his song. He conveyed how that the woman in Dylan’s song needed to be set free so that she could live. Though also conveying that after seeing after months of being apart he realizes, she was better off without him.
Mulan. Directed by Tony Bancroft and Barry Cook, Performances by Ming-Na Wen, Eddie Murphy, and Lea Salonga. Walt Disney Pictures, 1998. In this captivating Disney movie, directors Tony Bancroft and Barry Cook, tells a tale of a young woman named Mulan, trying to bring honor to her family by marrying a wealthy and barring many sons for her potential husband. With the great war against the Huns causing China to request that one man from every family take up arms to protect China. Mulan fearing that her father could get herself killed disguises herself as a man to take her father’s place.

Advertisement

Young, Reckless, and Betrayal

In the novel, Swing Time, Zadie Smith tells a story about a narrator whose career was recently destroyed by scandal. Smith throughout the novel jumps from the narrator’s past and present to explain the circumstances that lead to her career being destroyed. As, the narrator tells of experiences the theme of betrayal comes into play. Smith uses this theme in many of the situations that take place in the novel. Here, are a few of these situations.

Smith Shows the theme of betrayal in the conflict between the narrator and Aimee. Aimee finds out that the narrator and Lamin, who is Aimee’s love interest, is sleeping together. “…I’d been fired. It was Judy who sent the text and the dozen like it that followed all of which were as stuffed with personal invective as they would have been had Aimee written them herself. I was a whore and a traitor, a f*** this and a f*** that. Even Aimee’s personal outrage could be outsourced to a secondary party” (430). Aimee feeling betrayed by the narrator, who was her assistant, fires her and uses Judy to relate her rage against the narrator. The narrator being in New York at the time of her firing is sent an email with a PDF file that contained the confidentiality agreement signed by the narrator years before. The narrator out of anger dismisses the agreement and post the “adoption certificate” concerning Aimee’s new baby, Sankofa. Smith tells, “ I looked at the PDF of a piece of paper I must have signed, age twenty-three…within these flexible terms the things that came out of my mouth did not belong to me any longer, not my ideas or feelings, not even my memories. They were all hers. Everything that had happened in my life in the past decade belonged to her. Rage rose up inside of me… I set up an anonymous account, chose the gossip site she hated most, wrote an email containing everything I knew about little Sankofa, attached the photo of her “adoption certificate,” pressed send” (434).

Another situation that Smith uses to show betrayal is in the aftermath of the argument between Aimee and the narrator Soon after the narrator returns home from New York, a video of her and her childhood friend, Tracey, is released to the world. Their video contained them dancing in lingerie and music that was from one of Aimee’s albums. Smith explains, “…I was shown the “costumes”: two lacy camisoles taken from Mrs. Bingham’s underwear drawer…. When she decided we were ready our audience came was invited back into Lily’s brother’s room to sit upon the floor. Lily stood back, the heavy recorder on her narrow, pink shoulder….[s]he pressed the button that said “Record,” and by doing so put in motion a chain of cause and effect which, more than a quarter of a century later, has come to feel like fate, would be almost impossible not to consider as fate, but which-whatever you think of fate-can certainly and rationally be said to have had one practical consequence: there’s no need for me now to describe the dance itself. But there were things not captured on camera. As we reached the final chorus-the moment where I am astride Tracey, on the chair-this was also the moment that Lily Bingham’s mother….opened her son’s bedroom door and saw us” (81). Soon after the author and Tracey were caught doing this provocative dance. Tracey took the video and kept it. It wasn’t until later in the novel the video resurfaced again after the narrator’s downfall.  Tracey wanting to degrade the narrator, even more, published the video online. She wanted to publicly shame the narrator. Smith explains, “By the time I landed, our old girlhood dance was out in the world. I find it interesting that Tracey chose not to send it to me until two whole days after. In her vision of things, others would know who I really was before I did….[n]ow she had achieved the same effect with my life, placing the beginning of the story at an earlier point so that all that came after read as the twisted consequence of a lifelong obsession….it was borderline child pornography, if not in intention then in effect”(438).

Smith using these situations in the novel to elaborate on the theme betrayal. Shows the underlying conflicts between the characters. In the argument between the narrator and Aimee, we see the narrator realizing that her life over the past decade wasn’t even her decision to betray Aimee. By posting confidential files about the adoption of her new baby, Sankofa. Then we see in a different argument between the narrator and Tracey. That Tracey publishes a video of her and the narrator doing a provocative dance from when they were children. These exemplify the theme of betrayal in the novel. Even though this theme is recurring throughout, we also see this constantly in life. I know that I’ve had my share of this. Especially in past friendships and relationships, which in today’s society is where most common betrayals happen. Whether it’s a friend telling personal information to degrade you or a family member. It also could be a boyfriend telling you he loves you and at the same time checking out other girls while he’s on a date with you. Betrayal can come in many forms. Though it’s a horrible concept, it is also a recurring theme in life that we can’t seem to escape.

Smith, Zadie. Swing Time.2016.Penguin,2017.

Resume

Resume

Introductory Paragraph

Music has always been apart of my life. It began when I was in middle school. I signed up to be in the band my sixth grade year. I was excited to try something new and to start a new adventure as a musician. Of course the first two years of learning an instrument is always difficult because your lungs and mind is adjusting.  It wasn’t until my junior year of high school that I realized that I wanted to be a teacher and wanted to help others find their passion in music.Finding this didn’t come without struggle. I found that many things could interfere with my dreams of becoming a teacher. I found that true in my senior year of high school. I became conflicted with my priorities.  I let a person I was close to distract me from my dreams. During this time in my life it was a fight to keep my dream alive. I was slowly losing my passion for music. It wasn’t until I got help from my friends that I finally realized that person didn’t matter anymore and no one can get in the way of my dreams.

As I entered into my first semester of college, I found that the world of music was bigger than what was on the page. I began to learn how to be a better musician. Things began to fall into place. I found that being a great musician comes with practicing and perfecting my gifts. I learned that music requires me using my emotions and not just playing what’s on the page. I found my place in this world and are learning new things everyday that helps me become a better musician.

Music will always be apart of me and I continue to learn new things everyday about my identity in music.

The Journey Begins

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton