PENALOSA, James Ryan S.

LITERATURE 22 – A

AB Political Science – III SUBMITTED TO: Ma’am

Rina F. Hill

Title of the Work: Five Ways to Kill a Man

Poet: Edwin Brock (19 October 1927 – 7 September

1997)

Nationality of the poet: British

Country of Origin: London, United Kingdom : Scorpion

Press

Date work published: not recorded

Main Characters: Speaker of the poem

Commentary:

The poem does not really cater on HOW to kill a man; it's more of what
humanity is becoming, how it was and how it is still the same. All those allusions
have symbolic meanings. The last stanza requires the reader to seriously think. To
kill a man, leave him in the middle of the 20th century.

This poem DOES NOT talk about ways to kill a man, it's about HUMANITY. You
have to seriously read what is in the poem. If people think this poem is boring, it's
because they A. either don't understand or B. It just seems easier to dislike it.

This is one of my favorite poems. The key issue in this poem is power - from
the power of one to the power of many but also the power of the author over the
reader. Brock uses euphemism and connotation to represent his control over the
audience. Also he included the main literary technique, allusion. The deaths are
expected to be known and understood - this poem was written with accessible
vocabulary so any literate person should be able to understand it. The final stanza
simply states that there is no need for a planned and complicate plan that society
will eventually kill man that with time the world will eventually self-destruct.

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Title of the Work: The Dying Airman (One of the many parodies of ‘Tarpaulin
Jacket’)1

Poet: Anonymous

Nationality of the poet: N/A

Country of Origin: N/A

Date work published: N/A

Main Characters: Speaker in the poem & the handsome dying airman

Commentary: Though it is a parody, I felt pity to the fate that air mans have especially during the war. It is
evident that despite the harsh conditions that they may be in, the commitment to secure and to protect their
respective territories against enemies cannot be removed from them. It is indeed very inspiring to read such
literary work by an anonymous writer because it taught me personally the essence of commitment and
selflessness.

1 Tarpaulin Jacket (words attributed to G. J. Whyte-Melville (1821-1878);air by Charles Coote)

A tall stalwart lancer lay dying,

And as on his deathbed he lay,
To his friends who around him were sighing,
These last dying words he did say:

cho: Wrap me up in my tarpaulin jacket

And say a poor buffer lies low;

And six stalwart lancers shall carry me

With steps solemn, mournful and slow.

Had I the wings of a little dove,

Far far away would I fly; I'd fly
Straight for the arms of my true love
And there I would lay me and die.

cho:

Then get you two little white tombstones

Put them one at my head and my toe, my toe,
And get you a penknife and scratch there:
"Here lies a poor buffer below."

cho:

And get you six brandies and sodas,

And set them all out in a row, a row,
And get you six jolly good fellows
To drink to this buffer below.

cho:

And then in the calm of the twilight

When the soft winds are whispering low, so low,
And the darkening shadows are falling,
Sometimes think of this buffer below.
cho:

From the Scottish Students Songbook, 1929 edition.

A highly derivative (Prisoner's Song, Unfortunate Rake), highly
parodied (The Dying Airman, The Dying Skier, even Fiddlers Green) song
that's still current in the armed forces.( http://sniff.numachi.com/pages/tiTARPJCKT;ttTARPJCKT.html retrieved
last 05 May 2010).

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 Title of the Work: ‘Woman’ from The Third Notch,
and Other Stories (Selesai sudah)

Author: Shahnon Ahmad, Translated by Harry

Aveling

Country of Origin: Kedah, Malaysia (written);

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (published)

Date Work Published: 1980

Main Characters:

Siti – a young girl in the story who don’t want to be married to a man he do
not love.

Siti’s Mother & Father – they are the ones who arranged the marriage for Siti,
their daughter

Haji Rahmat – the eventual partner of Siti arranged by her parents

Two-Sentence Plot Summary:

The short story, Woman inspired by Shahnon Ahmad caters generally by

which human being’s personal desires go against the cultural conventions and
traditions. Siti, a young girl, rebels against the marriage arrangement her parents
have secured for her.

Commentary:

You can never question culture, which has been molded and practiced for
civilizations and times. The woman in the story is not triumphant yet still hopeful to
be liberated by the man she truly loves. Arranged marriage has been a part of
different Islamic, Buddhist and Hindu religious groups, but, despite it is arranged
and agreed upon; it should fall into different standards and grounds that maintain
good relation and a just bi-factional agreement. This is one of Shahnon’s criticism
and observation to the violated rights among women and flaws of Islamic way of
marriage which is evident and prevalent the time it was published.

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 Title of the Work: Circumcision

Author: Pramoedya Ananta Toer (born Feb. 20, 1925,

Blora, Java, Indon. — died April 30, 2006, Jakarta)

Translated to English by: Harry Aveling

Nationality of the author: Javanese

Country of Origin: Indonesia

Date work published: 2004, from the Book, “All That

Is Gone”

Main Characters:

Muk – the narrator in the story

Father of Muk

Tato – young brother of Muk

Kiai – the Islam Religious teacher

Calak – the circumciser

Two-Sentence Plot Summary:

Circumcision," which celebrates the innocent pride of an adolescent rite-of-

passage with Pramoedya's short-lived (naive) desire to fight in the nation's bloody
revolution (another rite-of-passage), the collection presents a surprisingly coherent
narrative (given the autonomy of the stories therein).

Commentary: The story serves like a door to take a glimpse to the Islamic dealings
in culture in Indonesia. It is evident that gender inequality is still prevalent. Among
men, there is a festivity done when a male Islam would be circumcised while the
women in the setting in the story don’t have. But there is a statement that I was
intrigued that was said by the kiai, that what is the use of all the gifts and festivities
before circumcision considering that the things a male ‘celebrant’ cannot use these
material things and worldly affairs in the heavens? The story made me realized that
there are also people in different parts of the world, like Indonesia, that are
desperate in organizing celebrations despite the financial conditions that they have
(as I assess the last part of the story); similar to the situation of the Philippines that
fiestas is a must. Desperate to celebrate, they would resort into shark loans and
money lending to do all the festivities.

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 Title of the Work: The Unknown Citizen

Poet:
Wystan Hugh Auden (21 February 1907 – 29 September
1973)

Nationality of the poet:

British

Country of Origin:

New York, United States of the America

Date work published:

1939 in The New Yorker; 1940 it was published in book

form

Main Characters:

Speaker of the poem

Commentary:

I've always enjoyed this poem as a brilliantly composed portrait of a Bureaucracy taken to
the excess -- the point where it dehumanizes individuals, its subjects, in the absolute. Auden
meticulously selects his words to express the obsessive inanity of this mindless, mechanized
State which knows its citizens only by letters and numbers, evaluates their worth with
statistics, and has a formulaic standard for virtuous living. The tone of the final two lines – a
spokesperson's spin on the situation -- is both ironic and chilling.

The ultimate question, of course, is whether this is a portrait of a society to come or perhaps
the society we already inhabit.

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 Title of the Work: The Jilting of Granny Weatherall

Author: Katherine Anne Porter (May 15, 1890 –

September 18, 1980)

Nationality of the author: American

Country of Origin: New York, United State of the

America

Date work published: first published in transition

magazine in February, 1929; published as a book,
1930. Made as a film, 1980.

Main Characters:

Granny Weatherall - A woman who’s about eighty. After she was jilted at the altar
by George

George - is the man who jilted Granny Weatherall, abandoning her at the altar on
what was to be their wedding day when she was twenty.

Hapsy - is the youngest and apparently the favorite of Granny Weatherall's

daughters

Two-Sentence Plot Summary:

The setting for "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall'' is the bedroom where
Granny Weatherall is dying, though most of the action occurs in Granny's head. Told
as a stream-of-consciousness monologue, "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall" is the
story of the last day in the eighty-year-old woman's life

Commentary:

First of all, the two things that Granny Weatherall continually repeats are
"there's nothing wrong with me" and "that's for tomorrow." She's stubborn and
hardworking, but yet she procrastinates. When she felt death come upon her on her
bed that day, she wasn't expecting it, we know this because of the repetition of all
that she needs to do and that she'll get it done tomorrow. She also mentions that
she thought she was going to die once before, when she was back in her sixties.
From this near death experience, she somehow became invisible, immortal, in her
mind since she survived. Her father supposedly lived to be "one hundred and two
years old and drank a noggin of strong hot toddy on his last birthday. He told
reporters it was his daily habit, and he owed his long life to it". Granny Weatherall
also lived through milk-leg and double pneumonia, so she had no use or belief in
doctors or medicine. With Granny narrating this to us, rather than one of her
children, we're able to see how strong she is, while her children would probably
describe her as old, weak, and fragile.

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 Title of the Work: A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings
(Un señor muy viejo con alas enormes), from the book, Leaf
Storm

Author: Gabriel José de la Concordia "Gabo" García Márquez

(born March 6, 1927)

Nationality of the author: Colombian

Country of Origin: Bogota,Colombia

Date work published: 1968; 1955 (Written); 1988 (was

made into movie)

Main Characters:

Elisenda - In her marriage to Pelayo, Elisenda takes an active part in

decision-making. Her husband runs to get her as soon as he discovers the
old man, and they try to make sense of him together, apparently sharing the
same reactions.
Pelayo - the town bailiff, who discovers the old man with wings struggling face
down in the courtyard of his home after a storm. As the strange visitor begins to
attract crowds, Pelayo and his wife, Elisenda, exhibit him as a carnival attraction.

Spider-Woman - The centerpiece of a traveling carnival, the “woman who

had been changed into a spider for disobeying her parents” proves to be a
more popular attraction than the old man, causing the villagers to lose
interest in him and putting an end to Pelayo and Elisenda’s profitable
courtyard business.
Very Old Man with Enormous Wings - The old man is the story’s central
character and its central mystery. He is given no name but is precisely
described in the title, which includes everything that can be said about him
with any assurance: he is an extremely old man, in failing health, with all the
frailties and limitations of human old age, and he has a huge pair of bird’s
wings growing from his back.
Two-Sentence Plot Summary: It is a short story in which Death and Rebirth is a
reoccurring theme. The angel starts off nearly dead but he is getting attention. The
one day gets no attention and grows its wings and flies away.

Commentary: The story begins with odd, quasi-allegorical references to time. "On the third day of rain," "The
world had been sad since Tuesday," and other statements conflate time, the weather and human emotion in a way
that seems mythic and magical. On top of this, the world behaves strangely, supernaturally. The swarms of crabs
that must be killed, the darkness at noon-these strange events seem to foreshadow the eerie arrival of the
otherworldly visitor, the Angel. Note, however, that this supernatural setting does not greatly affect the people in
the story, who respond to the crabs with mere annoyance, and to the angel with less awe than confusion. He is a
curiosity, yes, but also very ordinary. His wings are choked with mud. This image in itself captures the balance of
sublimity and crudity that dominates the story. The old man is an angel, yes, but a decayed, aged angel. He is a
surreal coupling of the holy and the profane, and this trend continues throughout the story.

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 Title of the Work: House Opposite

Author: R. K. Narayan (Rasipuram Krishnaswami

Iyer Narayanaswami) [October 10, 1906 – May 13,
2001]

Nationality of the author: Indian

Country of Origin: India

Date work published: appeared in the collection

of stories in the book, Under the Banyan Tree, and
Other Stories (1985)

Main Characters: Hermit – considered himself as

a holy man; and, The Seductive Woman – known as the prostitute in the story

Two-Sentence Plot Summary:

The story includes a holy man (only referred to as "the hermit") that is living
along with the traditions of an Indian lifestyle and considers himself to be a very
good man, not succumbing to temptations. The hermit's preoccupation with the
prostitute served to destroy him, but unfortunately for him, the blame cannot be
aimed at her.

Commentary:

The short story, House Opposite by R. K. Narayan is an example of a man and

his struggle with his own humanity.

Hypocrisy kills a man, but in the story, it didn’t kill him, but was trapped in
the baits of temptation. I have realized that the concept of karma cannot be
removed in the story, since; the story was inspired by Indian author and culture.
Karma revolves in the story when the hermit was tempted to accept the offer of the
seductive woman at the end considering that since the opening of the story, he did
all his effort to live as holy as he can ever be.

This serves as a very good explanation for what truly occurs in the story.
While neither is pure and good in the situation, the man who could not overcome
her existence and was ruined by her was much worse off. Even the woman was able
to overcome her humiliation at his remarks to her, and call him by a respectful title,
swamiji, and ask for forgiveness from him. The hermit remained a broken man, who
had been cast out of his home by the thought of such an "evil woman," while the
woman was able to hold onto her dignity.

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 Title of the Work: Looking For a Rain God part of a
larger collection of stories, The Collector of Treasures,
and Other Botswana Village Tales

Author: Bessie Emery Head (July 6, 1937 - April 17,

1986)

Nationality of the author: South African

Country of Origin: Botswana, South Africa

Date work published: 1977

Main Characters: Mokgobja – the elder of the land

in the story; and, Ramadi – characterized as a hardworking and a skilled farmer

Two-Sentence Plot Summary:

The lands where the people live have always been lush with vegetation, figs
and berries, flowering plants, and tress. Water has always been available to quench
the thirst of the people and travelers alike. But all this changes, a seven-year
drought casts its spell and soon the land where the people live become dry.

Commentary:

For me, this story is about desperation and the extent to which we humans
are willing to go to in order to survive. In such times, rationality is something that
we may lose to the more urgent and immediate physical need of hunger (and
thirst!)
It’s certainly a tragic story, with the two innocent girls not knowing what they have
done to deserve such an end to their only-just-beginning lives. To think that the
very people they trusted betrayed them is horrible!

This story also draws awareness to the barbaric customs and rituals of the
olden days, back when such things were acceptable, and in fact, expected. It is
horrifying indeed. It is baffling that the adults – the supposed more rational ones –
would resort to such baseless rituals.

However, I think it is easier to judge when you are not contained in that very
situation. Should I, myself, be in that very situation, for real, who knows what I
might be capable of.

Title of the Work: The Story of an Hour

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Author: Kate Chopin (born Katherine O'Flaherty February 8, 1850 – August 22,
1904)

Nationality of the author: American

Country of Origin: United States of the America

Date work published: It was originally published in the December 6, 1894 issue of
Vogue magazine under its original title, "The Dream of an Hour."

Main Characters: Louise Mallard, the protagonist; Brently Mallard, her husband;
Josephine, Mrs. Mallard's sister; Richards, Mr. Mallard's friend & Doctors, Physicians
who arrived too late.

Two-Sentence Plot Summary: This short story is about an hour in the life of the
main character; Mrs. Millard who is afflicted with a heart problem by which bad
news has come about that her husband has died in a train accident. Her sister
Josephine and Richard who is her husband's friend has to break the horrifying news
to her as gently as possible and both were concerned that the news might somehow
put her in great danger with her health.

Commentary: After reading through this story the first time, I had many questions
and many conclusions. For instance, it seems as if Chopin is showing us a social
situation of the times with the woman as prisoner of her husband. It is common
knowledge that marriages are not always about mutual love between two people
and during the time that Chopin was writing, this was more often the case. Marriage
was as much about monetary comfort, social status and acceptance as it was about
possible love. There are no children mentioned in this story which makes me
wonder if there was a sexual relationship between the Mallards. It seems from the
description that Mrs. Mallard has been trapped in this marriage for a long time even
though we know she is young. How young is she? Even though I say she is trapped,
do not misunderstand me: I do not think this marriage is arranged, instead that she
has been coerced by her society to marry despite what she may want to do in her
heart and soul. I believe she does love her husband, but it is possible to love a man
and not be married to him. This was not her case; if she were able (meaning a man
would agree with her decision) and she did engage in a loving relationship with a
man who was not her husband, she would have certainly been looked down upon. Is
her heart condition purely physical or is it also psychological and emotional? We
know the stereotypes, as Chopin did, that women are hysterical, timid, weak, and
irrational. Could it be that her heart condition is created by those tip-toeing around
her in conjunction with her own emotional weaknesses?

Title of the Work: Suicide Note

Poet: Janice Mirikitani

Nationality of the poet: Japanese - American

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Country of Origin: United States of the America

Date work published: not recorded

Main Character: the speaker of the poem, a Asian-American female college

student

Commentary: I found the speaker quite crazy, honestly.. And it's insane how much struggle
she went through in her short life span. I don't get why people say that this note "cool". It's not
cool at all. If you went through anything that this girl went through, you obviously wouldn't think
it was cool. Sure, her suicide letter was written with great skill, but the overall topic is
depressingly sad. I pity her and I wish upon PAIN to her parents for making her go through so
much tomfooleries.

It's sad how people can become so driven beyond normal human expectations, and be
forced to live up to something that is beyond the stars of their reach, that the only escape they
have is suicide. Suicide is never a chosen path, and as this letter teaches us, it shouldn't be
blamed on the person that commits it; it should be blamed on the people that push that person
towards that sad destiny.

Perfection should be illegal. I hope that you do know that this note, aka suicide note, is
not the actual note left by the girl. This was written by a poet about the girl. We know she wrote
it to her parents and we know it was about her grades being under a 4.0, but otherwise we don't
know what else was in it. This is not the note she wrote her parents.

Janice Mirikitani's "Suicide Note", the voice in the poem, a female voice, shows the reader
what it is like to get into the mind of someone who wants to kill themselves. She apologies to her
parents, whom she thinks that her parents have extremely high expectations for her. She gives
her reasons on why she is going to commit suicide. This girl also believes in perfection, believes
that is she can't get a perfect grade, and then there is no point in living. In the reoccurring line
"not good enough, not pretty enough, not smart enough", we see her thoughts on why she wants
to die. From reading in the part above we find that she committed suicide because her grades
were not high enough. She still continues to call herself a sparrow who can't fly in snowy
weather, but "I make this ledge my altar to offer penance". She can't not see through what
people will see past. All of her problems make her believe that they are "ice above my river", and
she feels by dying, this will be the perfect apology for not be the perfect person, or daughter. She
is the sparrow, and life is the storm.

For anyone who has ever had someone they know commit suicide Janice Mirikitani’s “Suicide
Note” allow you to see what makes a person take their own life. While reading this poem, the
reasons behind this college girl’s suicide are given. She has written this note as an apology to her
parents. She compares herself to a sparrow, wishes she was someone else, and believes that if
she is not perfect there is no point in going on. This poor girl feels
that she has to achieve perfection in everything that she does.

Title of the Work: A Narrow Fellow in the Grass

Poet: Emily Elizabeth Dickinson (December 10, 1830 –

May 15, 1886)

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Nationality of the poet: American

Country of Origin: United States of the America

Date work published: 1890

Commentary:

Good poetry, like "A Narrow Fellow in the Grass," is more than the sum of its
parts. This poem has all the necessary parts. The sum is probably one of the most
engaging and economically clever use of English to describe a snake, without ever using
the word "snake" in the poem. It demonstrates why Emily Dickinson was one of
America's greatest poets.

The reputation of the snake notwithstanding, we can smile at the poet's

description of a barefoot and vulnerable child walking outdoors hearing the hiss of the
grass as a snake slithers forward and the grass "opens further on." As the snake heads
for its preferred "boggy acre,/A floor too cool for corn," the poet reflects on "several of
nature's people," who "I know, and they know me." She feels "for them a transport/Of
cordiality..." But, alas, she never met this "Narrow Fellow in the Grass" without her
breathing quickening and feeling a chill in her bones.
The poet gives us several clues to why most people fear snakes. The last line of
the first stanza ("His notice sudden is.") alludes to the startle effect of the sudden
encounter with a creature who crawls at ground level leaving only the parting grass as
evidence of its passing. Further, snakes prefer "a boggy acre," (swamps) where all sorts
of slimy plants and insects lurk.
Without being excessively phobic on the subject of snakes, the poet quaintly and
with amazing deftness of language approaches the heart of most people's psychological
fear of snakes. We know from experience that most of the fears we take into adulthood
come from childhood experiences. So, when the poet says "Yet when a child, and
barefoot" - presumably more vulnerable to a snake's bite - we can relate to her fear of
snakes.
Even though the poem is about a cold-blooded reptile, this charming piece
encapsulates what good poetry is all about. The poet captures our imagination with
novel use of simile ("The grass divides as with a comb"), alliteration ("A floor too cool for
corn" - notice the double o's in "floor too cool." We have alliteration within alliteration
here), and metaphor ("And Zero to the bone" - which has been called one of the
greatest poetic lines ever).

Title of the Work: The Gift

Poet: Li-Young Lee (born August 19, 1957)

Nationality of the poet: Chinese- American

Country of Origin: United States of the America

Date work published: 1990

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Commentary:

In "The Gift," Lee discusses two incidents involving the removal of a splinter
from another's hand. When he describes removing a splinter from his wife's finger,
he alludes to a skilled tenderness on his part: "Look how I shave her thumbnail
down / so carefully she feels no pain".

When his father had removed a splinter from a younger Lee's palm, Lee
responded with humble appreciation—he gave his father a kiss. Lee digresses—
offering some more boastful, even humorous possible responses to having
apprehended the removed splinter ("Ore Going Deep for My Heart," "Death visited
here!"), and reminding the reader that it is, in fact, he who grew into the adult who
removed his wife's splinter. He, by modestly giving his father a kiss, suggests that a
gift has merit solely on account of its being a gift—even if that gift is a removed
splinter. What ultimately matters is not that Lee had been feeling pain, but that, at
the moment he kissed his father, he presently beheld a gift from him.

Lee does not act particularly humble when removing his wife's splinter;
however, even though his father was a physician—because, regardless of what this
occasion had meant for him in the past, he was presently with his wife, able to give
her the gift of relief. Lee has grown and matured; he is able to proudly identify with
his giving father, rather than prolong his past identity as a receiving, humble child.

Title of the Work: In a Grove ( 藪の中 , Yabu no

Naka)

Author: Ryūnosuke Akutagawa (March 1, 1892 –

July 24, 1927)

Nationality of the author: Japanese

Country of Origin: Tokyo, Japan

Date work published: 1922 first published;

appeared on January 1992 in a Japanese literary
magazine, Shincho (新潮, Shinchō)

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Main Characters:

Woodcutter, high police commissioner, police man, old woman, Tajomaru,

Woman Who Has Come to the Shimizu Temple and the murdered man

Two-Sentence plot Summary:

Seven characters speak to a magistrate about their knowledge of a man

found stabbed in the chest in the woods near Kyoto after a woodcutter discovers a
dead samurai soldier in a secluded grove. The woodcutter reports to the magistrate
the details of the scene of the crime and the condition of the body, recounting that
the well-dressed victim was stabbed in the chest, but that there was no sword
nearby.

Commentary:

Akutagawa excelled in examining the darker side of humanity in his writings.

If you look at "In a Grove," I think each character has their own agenda; hence, each
person gives a different account of the story. Also, an important aspect of the story
deals with truth. What is truth? The age old question is important, and Akutagawa
challenges the reader to ponder that question as we analyze all the characters in
the story, not just the 3 main characters, but also the monk and the woodcutter.

Title of the Work: The Mother

Poet: Gwendolyn Elizabeth Brooks (June 7,

1917 – December 3, 2000)

Nationality of the poet: American

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Country of Origin: United States of the America

Date work published: 1945

Commentary:

The poem is about the remembrance of the children aborted and the little
things children do that the mother will miss. Many images are conveyed throughout
this entire poem. When Brooks mentions "the singers and workers that never
handled the air" it gives off an air of sadness. You get the feeling that Brooks is
trying to convey, to the mother, a sense of longing for those little things mothers
are known to be good at. This is shown in the line, "you will never wind up the
sucking thumb or scuttle off ghosts that come" .Then when she starts to address
the child saying, "you were born, you had a body, you died." it’s hard not to feel
some sadness or even a feeling of injustice.

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