Brian Woodard’s Response to Zena Young’s questions on Axolotls
1. Why did the narrator think that the axolotls were capable of escaping? Because I believe the narrator envisioned him self within a prison as well whether it was being an outcast or the pressures of society. Otherwise why would he identify with something that he said was farthest from human compared to the other fish? I believe he felt that the creature had more freedom than him because he was now the creature’s prisoner.
2. Why was the narrator obsessed with the axolotl’s eyes? Because they were so different than the other fish because the other fishes, eyes resembled something remarkably human. So he chose the most different and interesting outcast like I believed the narrator felt about him
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Explain which reality was true and which was a dream? I feel that neither was true because like he said at the end he was living a lie and mocking his dream. Its normal for people to be in shock and denial and these situations and wanted to die a glorious death as mentioned with the sick boy in our previous story.
2. What is meant by “war of the blossom”? That is the most difficult question given to me by any of the students. The Egyption book of the dead says that we don’t really live until we die. The spirit world is so vast and beyond our comprehension that we are all apart of the galaxy and life is kind of like Halloween or dress up time because our existence is so much deeper than that.
3. What was the bad smell he kept smelling? It was a marshy smell like a swamp that he regarded as the bogs from which no one ever returned. The only correlation I can think of between no one ever returning is Louisiana’s high murder rate and the swamps being a very dangerous and hostile place naturally with the forces of nature. And I do know that part of the Aztecs migration and empire was around a swampland. That probably has a lot to do with
He teaches the kid what to do in order to successfully reel in a large, beautiful fish. Ironically, the narrator is the one who learns from the kid in the end. At the beginning of the story, everything is described negatively, from the description of the kid as a “lumpy little guy with baggy shorts” to his “stupid-looking ’50s-style wrap-around sunglasses” and “beat-up rod”(152). Through his encounter with the boy, the narrator is able to see life in a different way, most notable from how he describes the caught tarpon as heavy, silvery white, and how it also has beautiful red fins (154). Through the course of the story, the narrator’s pessimistic attitude changes to an optimistic one, and this change reveals how inspiring this exchange between two strangers is. This story as a whole reveals that learning also revolves around interactions between other people, not only between people and their natural surroundings and
He attempted this primarily through his portrayal of Montezuma’s system of governance as brutal and is people as disloyal to him. He described the apparent willingness of the peoples he encountered to abandon the Aztecs and swear allegiance to the King of Spain, “Although they were subjects of Montezuma … they had been reduced to that condition by force …and when they had obtained through me some knowledge of your Highness … they declared their desire to become vassals of your Majesty, and to form an alliance with me”(Second Letter, 38–39). Cortés justified his conquest further through his proclamation to the his king that he was acting in defense of these newly acquired vassals. Cortés wrote that Montezuma subjected the local people to violent and tyrannical repression and, “took from them their sons to be slain and offered as sacrifices to his idols”(Second Letter,
...Andrew L. “Yellow Fever and the Late Colonial Public Health Response in the Port of Veracruz.” Hispanic American Historical Review 77, no. 4 (1997): 619-644.
uncovers the truth about the fish, and how it and its environment was abused by the old
The book has vivid imagery making the reader imaging as if her or she was their right beside him in his whole investigation. Such as “In the winter of 1978, through, a fierce blizzard hit southern Connecticut. Temperatures were often below zero and at one point it snowed for thirty-three hours straight. Perhaps it was the cold that killed the fish, or the copper sulfate I helped the caretaker drag through the pond the previous summer to manage the algal blooms, or maybe even the fishermen id noticed trespassing on the estate one day, scoping out my grounds. But whatever caused it, after that never again did I spot a living fish in that pond again.”(Greenberg 12-13). This quote shows how good his imagery, tone, and diction is, when I read it all I could think of is that storm and the pond. The author has an excellent writing style and keeps the reader wanting more. Even though the book has a lot of good things for it the only thing I would tell the author would to give more connections of him to the story. It says “The transformation of salmon and sea bass from kingly and holiday wild fish into everyday farmed variants is a trend that continues with different animals around the globe.”(Greenberg 195). In every chapter about each of the fish it gives some connections to him but it would make it even
A major element of Aztec life was religion, as often is in the case in ancient civilizations. The Aztecs were a polytheistic people, and they often made use of human sacrifice to please their gods. Diaz often makes reference to the blood-stained walls of the Aztec temples in his account of the conquest. In reference to the success of Cortes and his soldiers, an anci...
the dream, in the end, he is left dead and without the hope of winning
In this poem called “Creatures” by the author Billy Collins there is a literary device called a metaphor when the reader is reading this poem. A metaphor is a comparison of two unlike things without using the words like or as. In lines one (1) through...
"The Loss of the Creature" starts off with the definition of beautiful, which is a key point throughout his essay. Next, he moves in to his example of a family of tourists, and their experience (through his eyes) at the Grand Canyon. He describes his theory of the sightseer, and the discoverer; "Does a single sightseer, receive the value of P, or only a millionth part of value P" (pg 1) Value P, being the experience, and the beauty in which that person collected. Following the sightseers was a couple who stumbled upon an undisturbed Mexican Village. The couple thoroughly enjoyed their first experience, but could not wait to return with their friend the ethnologist. When they did return with him, they were so caught up in what his reaction would be; there was a total loss of sovereignty. Due to their differences of interest in the village, the couples return trip was a waste. The second part of the essay includes a Falkland Islander who comes across a dead dogfish lying on the beach. Furthermore, he explains how a student with a Shakespeare sonnet, has no chance of being absorbed by a student due to the surrounding's or package of the class room. The two students are receiving the wrong messages, on one hand we have the biology student with his "magic wand" of a scalpel, and on the other hand the English student with his sonnet in its "many-tissued package". Both students are unaware of the real experience they could undergo, and the teacher might as well give the dogfish to the English student and the sonnet to the biology student because they will be able to explore and learn more within the different setting, and without the surroundings and expectations (pg 6).
Most of the poem is talking about the barracudas fish physical features. The narrator describes the fish as “long mirrored-chrome bodies heaped like eel fillets" (Lee). The mention of humans is only in the beginning and end of the poem. The poem does raise awareness about the affect fishing has on the fish. The narrator raises the question" What is it like to die with your eyes wide open in the bright sun? (Lee). This question makes the readers feel sorrow for the barracudas fish and every other fish. The narrator is trying to get the reader to see the suffering the animal goes through once it is caught in the fisher's net. The narrator is showing the reader although the fish may seem ugly or scare it suffering is important too. Although the fishermen are being responsible with nature it is still harming a part of it by making the barracudas fish
In 1531, ten years after the capture of Mexico City, a poor Indian named Juan Diego left his house to attend divine service in the beginning of December. On his way he passed the hill of Tepeyacac ("Hill of the Nose", in Nahuatl) and he heard beautiful music from the top of the hill. The music was heavenly; he heard the most beautiful songbirds singing soft and pleasant. He wondered if he was worthy of hearing such beautiful music, and if maybe it was a dream. He thought he might have died and gone to heaven. Over the sounds of birds Juan heard a voice from the hilltop; however, it did not frighten him. In fact he was strangely set at ease by the voice. He climbed the hill in search of the mysterious voice. When he reached the top of the hill he saw a magnificent woman who appeared to glow like nothing he had ever seen before. She radiated like the sun, and the stones that she was standing on were like gems beneath her feet. The foliage surrounding the magnificent woman was full of translucent colors that glimmered in the radiating light.
For the young, grasping concepts as expansive as death is often nearly impossible. Vardaman Bundren, the youngest in his family, is having a difficult time coping with, or even understanding, his mother’s death. The rest of his family is too preoccupied with their own misunderstandings and problems to attempt to explain death to him. Consequently, the phrase “My mother is a fish” appears several times and becomes significantly more important than the reader expects (84). Because Vardaman catches and kills a fish on the day Addie Bundren dies, he associates her passing away with the death of the fish. This is a feasible theory for him to grasp considering he realizes that both the fish and his mother no longer exist so, within the realm of his mentality, they must be the same. In his point of view, nothing was more comparable to his mother than the fish. For example, “It [fish] slides out of his h...
The first reason and most important reason that I believe the Aztecs were defeated by the S...
The dream becomes so real it takes on characteristics of reality. “It was a curious dream because it was full of smells and he never dreamed smells.” (Cortazar #266). He is 5 senses are used in reality and also in his dream. Throughout the dream his description of what is around him is very descriptive “Far off, probably from the other side of the large lake, they would be burning bonfires; a reddish gleam rose in that part of the sky.” (Cortazar #267). This same descriptiveness is used in reality as well. The only difference between the dream and reality was the definitiveness of the dream. In reality he was not aware what happened during the accident. In the dream, though, he was able to receive a more tangible cause of death where he knew all that had happened. With the illusion mirroring reality so well it is not a wonder the protagonist had such a hard time differentiating between what was his dream and what was really going on. With the added incentive of knowing exactly what happened in the dream it was easy for the protagonist to prefer the illusion over the reality. His mind had the ability to create such a lucid mirage as a way to cope with his
One might say we are presented with two fish stories in looking at Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea and Herman Melville's Moby-Dick, a marlin in the former and a whale in the latter. However, both of these animals are symbolic of the struggle their hunters face to find dignity and meaning in the face of a nihilistic universe in Hemingway and a fatalistic one in Melville. While both men will be unable to conquer the forces of the universe against them, neither will either man be conquered by them because of their refusal to yield to these insurmountable forces. However, Santiago gains a measure of peace and understanding about existence from his struggles, while Ahab leaves the world as he found it without any greater insight.