Monthly Archives: November 2011

November 12, 2011


H.L. Mencken and Noel Coward on work:

“I go on working for the same reason that a hen goes on laying eggs.”

H.L. Mencken

The only way to enjoy life is work. Work is much more fun than fun.”

Noel Coward

Considering that the semester is halfway through and that you are thoroughly familiar with all of your classes, try and take an optimistic view of work.  After doing so, relate your perspective on this through your own work: describe and discuss one project or assignment from school, and one from my assignments to you, as examples of the above two quotes.  Use one example for each quote. 8 sentence minimum.

 

 

 

 

November 6, 2011


SAMMY X

Response

“Writing fiction has developed in me an abiding respect for the unknown in a human lifetime and a sense of where to look for the threads, how to follow, how to connect, find in the thick of the tangle what clear line persists.”

I understand this quote as “Writing fiction has helped me respect what I don’t know about life. It also taught me how to look for clear and correct direction in a mess of directions.” I think this means that when Welty writes, she starts to respect what she doesn’t know about the characters she creates. She may have created her characters so well, that when you read it you recognize real people. And since you respect real people, she respects her human-like characters. I think it also means that when she writes fiction, she has to choose carefully how the story will end and what the events will be; because in fiction, anything can happen.

I can relate this to “A Worn Path” because when Phoenix entered the doctor’s office, I expected her to get some kind of medicine for her grandson. But instead, Welty chose to give her no reason in being there – she completely forgot why she walked the entire trail. This shocked me because I expected her to do what most people would do when they go to a doctor’s office (to get medicine). This was a good example of how Welty carefully chose the direction of the book (in the quote “correct threads”).

November 3, 2011


Response to October 17th posting:

Writing fiction has developed in me an abiding respect for the unknown in a human lifetime and a sense of where to look for the threads, how to follow, how to connect, find in the thick of the tangle what clear line persists.
Eudora Welty

 

Notice that Jessica matches Welty’s syntax in her interpretation. This allows for more accuracy.

 

When I take apart this quote, then reconstruct it using my own words, I get:

 

Writing fiction has caused me to feel a lasting respect for the unknown in our lives and a sense of where to look for clues, how to follow, how to connect, how to find that one great idea in the thick tangle of my jumbled up thoughts where the clear best idea persists.
To me, this quote makes sense as I have had the same experiences, not only with fiction writing, but with other essays and writing pieces as well. It is mainly an issue while writing fiction, though. There are so many different plot twists and different ways you could manipulate the characters’ actions to come up with entirely different outcomes. It’s challenging to find the perfect plot, not perfect so much as most entertaining for you and the reader. Non-fiction, persuasive, and analytical essays all go in one direction once you figure out your topic, whereas fiction pieces, once the topic is established, can still go in any direction. It takes a strong writer with a clear goal in mind to write an incredibly strong fiction work as Welty does.
While reading Welty’s First Love, my thoughts, too, became jumbled up, and I wasn’t even the one reading the story! I was confused at how Joel could know what Burr was saying if he was deaf and also who his first love was. I was taking things too literally, too shallowly instead of looking for that double meaning.

 

~ Jessica Cheng