Yet Do I Marvel

Although Cullen believes that God had good intentions and is holy, he also acknowledges that God is the cause of evil in the world, which conveys how he is confused and uncertain about the higher power.
Cullen originally expresses the traditional Christian belief that God is both good and holy.  The first life, and ultimately the most prominent, is "I doubt not God is good, well-meaning, kind" (1).  In this line alone, Cullen expresses complete certainty regarding the subject, explicitly saying "I doubt not."  However, as the poem continues, extreme certainty about God and His intentions does not seem to be the case.
Following his seemingly certain belief in God's good intentions, Cullen then alludes to the bad things that God is responsible for, such as how it is odd and unfair that humans, though created in God's image, are not immortal and must die.  Cullen then alludes to the image of Adam and Eve, as he talks of one being "baited by the fickle fruit" (6).  However, Cullen does not express the situation being Adam and Eve's fault, he places the responsibility of not consuming the fruit on the fruit that was created by God Himself.  By using the word "baited," Cullen is removing the blame from those who ate the fruit since they were put in a trap that forced them to do so.
Cullen expresses how he aims to question God and his belief system.  This is seen in Cullen's attempt to understand God's motives and tries to comprehend "What awful brain compels His awful hand" (12).  He ends the poem by acknowledging how God was cruel to him.  God created him, a black poet, and is pushing him to share his work, which is an unfair and unusual combination.
Overall, Cullen is both impresses and displeased by God.  Although he knows and is confident in the fact that God is good and well-meaning, He can also be cruel and unfair, causing terrible events to take place, creating a contradictory belief system.

1984 Quotes

• "You had to live-did live, from habit that became instinct-in the assumptions that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement was scrutinized" (3)
• Party's slogans: "War is peace / Freedom is slavery / Ignorance is strength" (4)
• "In a lucid moment Winston found that he was shouting with the others and kicking his heel violently against the rung of his chair.  The horrible thin about the Two Minutes Hate was not that one was obliged to act a part, but that it was impossible to avoid joining in" (14)
• "Of course he chanted with the rest: it was impossible to do otherwise.  To dissemble your feelings, to control your face, to do what everyone else was doing, was an instinctive reaction" (17)
• "Tragedy, he perceived, belonged to the ancient time, to a time when there were still privacy, love, and friendship, and when the members of a family stood by one another without needing to know the reason" (30)
• "If the Party could thrust its hand into the past and say of this or that event, it never happened-that, surely, was more terrifying than mere torture and death" (34)
• "Don't you see that the whole sim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought?  In the end we shall make thought crime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it" (52)
• "It was assumed that when he was not working, eating, or sleeping he would be taking part in some kind of communal recreations: to do anything that suggested a taste for solitude, even to go for a walk by yourself, was always slightly dangerous" (82)
• "At the sight of the words I love you the desire to stay alive had welled up in him, and the taking of minor risks suddenly seemed stupid" (109)
• "She had even (an infallible mark of good reputation) been picked out to work in Pornosec, the sub-section of the Fiction Department which turned out cheap pornography for distribution among the proles" (130)
• "He learned with astonishment that all the workers in the Pornosec, except the head of the department, were girls.  The theory was that men, whose sex instincts were less controllable than those of women, were in greater danger of being corrupted by the filth they handled" (131)
• "Life as she saw it was quite simple.  You wanted a good time; 'they,' meaning the Party, wanted to stop you having it; you broke the rules as best you could" (131)
• "To hang on from day to day and from week to week, spinning out a present that had no future, seemed an unconquerable instinct, just as one's lungs will always draw the next break so long as there is air available" (152)
• "The terrible thing that the Party had done was to persuade you that mere impulses, mere feelings, were of no account, while at the same time robbing you of all power over the material world" (164)
• "The proles, it suddenly occurred to him, had remained in this condition.  They were not loyal to a party or a country or an idea, they were loyal to one another.  For the first time in his life he did not despise the proles or think of them merely as an inert force which would one day spring to life and regenerate the world.  The proles had stayed human" (165)

TTL 7

Throughout the novel, Lily goes back and forth on her opinions of Mrs. Ramsay and all that she embodies.  In some parts, Lily looks almost longingly at Mrs. Ramsay.  Mrs. Ramsay acts as a stereotypical housewife in the novel, providing endless support for both her husband and her children.  Lily, in contrast, is a working, independent, yet lonely woman.  In these instances, Lily acknowledges the work that Mrs. Ramsay puts into her life and how fulfilling and loving Mrs. Ramsay's life truly is.  At other times, Lily looks at Mrs. Ramsay with disgust.  In these instances, Lily views Mrs. Ramsay as a symbol of patriarchal society, saying that she could be considered so much more successful if she were independent, working, and helped herself instead of others.  Following Mrs. Ramsay's death, Lily initially shows no true feelings.  She cannot express herself in words, which shows her in contrast to Mrs. Ramsay's feminine side.  Finally, in chapter seven, Lily expresses her pain regarding the death of Mrs. Ramsay, especially when she realizes that after all this time, "she remained a skimpy old maid" (181).  As a fairly unfeminine character, this is a big step for Lily and her possible understanding of Mrs. Ramsay.  Similarly, the same goes for Woolf's feelings towards her mother.  Although Woolf oftentimes struggled to comprehend her mother's motives, given both that Woolf was incredibly young when she died and that Woolf was a strong, working woman compared to her stereotypical housewife of a mother.  However, in this point of the story, Woolf is finally able to accept the fact that feelings cannot be hidden, even for an unfeminine, strong, working woman.

TTL #6

In this section, Lily clearly acts as Woolf through her late exploration of the feelings she feels towards Mrs. Ramsay, who symbolizes Woolf's late mother.  Lily first expresses complete distress and confusion towards the lack of Mrs. Ramsay's presence, very similar to how Woolf must have felt as a child following her parents' deaths: "What does it mean then, what can it all mean?" (Woolf 145).  Lily then attempts to put her feelings into words and finds that she is incapable of doing so: "what did she feel...?  Nothing, nothing-nothing that she could express at all" (Woolf 145).  Words are not complex enough to explain the overcoming of emotions that one feels after a loved one dies, especially when the person himself, namely a child, is not complex enough to explain his feelings.  In this way, Lily acts as a young Virginia Woolf, where the feeling of loss and the concept of death are unable to be described by the simple mind of a child.  However, Lily's remembrance of the painting and determination to complete it is also a symbol of Woolf's relationship with her late mother.  Many years later, Lily decides to finish the painting that she had started which was inspired by Mrs. Ramsay.  This act is like Woolf writing this novel so many years after her mother had passed.  Both acts are the respective artists trying to more clearly understand a loved one after her death,

TTL 2

In this section of To the Lighthouse, Mr. Ramsay contemplates his reputation due to his abilities and mental vitality.  In his analogy, humans theoretically have the capability to start at point A and end at point Z, however, very few make it that far.  He, himself, is metaphorically stuck at R, which displeases him, even though only "one in a generation" will make it all the way to Z (35).  However, Mr. Ramsay does not seem personally distressed with his own failure, but he seems to be worried as to how he will be perceived.  He asks if he is "to be blamed then if he is not that one [who completes the alphabet] provided he has toiled honestly, given to the best of his power, and till he has no more left to give" (35).  At first, it seems as if Ramsay is personally upset at his inability, meaning that he wants to try more to live up to his fullest potential.  However, he then comments that "it is permissible even for a dying hero to think before he dies how men will speak to him hereafter... His own little light would shine, not very brightly, for a year or two" (35).  His seemingly persistent thoughts of improvement are then shown to truly be selfish acts of vanity; He only truly cares about how society perceives him.  Although this idea of extreme vanity might seem over the top, it is one that many people can relate to, especially seniors in high school.  Society sets such high standards that every person feels he must reach in order to be successful and seen as such.

TTL 1

In the first chapter of Woolf's To the Lighthouse, the characters are introduced to the reader.  One of the most prominent characterizations that stands out is that of James Ramsay.  After his father disagrees with his mother, James feels a violent, murderous feeling towards his father: Had there been an axe handy, or a poker, any weapon that would have gashed a hole in his father's breast and killed him, there and then, James would have seized it" (4).  First, this statement is alarming and makes the readers question James, though we know very little about him.  It seems as if he is mentally unstable and incapable of making logical decisions.  Although hearing disagreeable news can make someone upset, he or she should not feel violent as a result.  The readers also learn about his relationship with his father, which is clearly an unhealthy one.  James's feelings of violence are not solely a result of the news his father brings, but result from "his [father's] mere presence," which is a sign of an unhealthy relationship, very different from most father and sons (4).  The readers also gain insight on James's relationship with his mother, since he believes his mother to be "ten thousand times better in every way than [his father] was" (4).  These combined aspects that are used to characterize James in the first pages of the novel leave the reader wondering about who he truly is as a person, why he is this way, and what will happen as a result.

Traveling through the dark by William Stafford

In Traveling through the dark, the speaker addresses the grieving process in an abstract way.   Driving along a narrow, dangerous road, the speaker encounters a recently killed deer.  The driver knows that it is safer to move the carcass than it is to swerve around it and risk hitting another animal or causing a fatal accident.  As the speaker is moving the dead body of the deer, he notices that the side of her body is still warm.  He realizes that this is because the deer was pregnant, and "her fawn lay there waiting, / alive, still, never to be born" (10-11).  In this description, the speaker is showing how this encounter means more to him than just seeing a dead animal on the road.  He stops and almost grieves as he hesitates and is unsure of what to do.  However, time is passing and the speaker realizes he cannot wait there forever, which the reader can tell by his describing how the car is still running: "The car aimed ahead its lowered parking lights; / under the hood purred the steady engine" (13-14).  He then pushes the dead deer and her trapped fetus into the river.  This encounter symbolizes the grieving process of losing a loved one.  One must first face the issue, coming to a realization that the person is dead, as seen by the person stopping his car and assessing the situation.  Then, one can grieve and face his loss, as seen through the speaker hesitating and looking into the deer's condition in more detail.  In the end, however, life still continues, much like the running car waiting to move on to the next adventure.  As a result, one must let go of the past, try to put aside the death, metaphorically pushing it into the river, and continue on with his life.