The Lesson To Be Learned In William Carlos Williams The Red Wheelbarr

The Lesson To Be Learned In William Carlos Williams' 'The Red Wheelbarrow' The Lesson to be Learned in William Carlos Williams' ?The Red Wheelbarrow' Even though it consists of a single sentence broken down into four stanzas consisting of four words each, the poem ?The Red Wheelbarrow', by William Carlos Williams is a very complex work. Each stanza is further broken into two lines between the third and forth word. The opening stanza is ?so much depends/ upon'. Depend can be looked at in a number of different ways. The first thing that comes to mind as a definition of ?depend' is to count on, to trust to do something. Children are viewed as ?dependants'. If something is hung from a string it is said to be depending. Sometimes it can be referred to as a particular choice. You might ask your boss for a raise. Your boss may tell you that it all ?depends' on your performance on the job, that it hinges on your actions. This is what Williams is saying in this case. He is implying that a lot hinges on how you read the next line. He is trying to get you to ponder the poem itself. In effect what he is saying is how you view ?a red wheel/ ba rrow' is very important to him, and the poem itself. Williams wrote, ?No ideas but in things?, meaning that it was the poets job to deal with concrete particulars and to let ideas take care of themselves. Further meaning that for some poets, like himself a wheelbarrow is simply a wheelbarrow. Nothing that is outside the poem can be placed inside the poem. For instance, it would be simple to say that the wheelbarrow was the thing that a lot depended on. The last stanza of the poem, ?beside the white/ chickens' might cause the reader to see the wheelbarrow as a symbol. Perhaps ?so much depends/ upon' the wheelbarrow because it is an important farm implement. The farm could be inferred because the wheelbarrow is ?beside the white/ chickens'. However, Williams himself warns against doing this. How can we be sure that the farm exists? How can we know if a farm was what he had in mind? The reader cannot say for sure at all. When I was younger I kept a chicken for a pet and I didn't live on a farm. One cannot say that because a chicken exists that the farm exists as well. Williams himself tells us ?No ideas but in things'. If the connection between the wheelbarrow and the chicken is not a farm (and it cannot be because the farm is not in the poem) then what is it? The only thing in the poem is the wheelbarrow itself. Everything else is descriptive of the wheelbarrow. The other lines call attention to or enhance certain aspects of the wheelbarrow. The third stanza, ?glazed with rain/ water' these lines don't call attention to rain but rather the rain accentuates the wheelbarrow. The connotation would be a lot different if it said something similar to ?rain covered'. The way it is worded causes focus to be placed on the wheelbarrow itself. It's not the rain that's important. What is important however is how the rain is interpreted. Here the rain could also be said to be a symbol. Perhaps the symbolism of a rain-wet wheelbarrow could be hardship as in ?it always rains on a parade'. In this case I would argue that the rain is simply rain. It serves only as a method to further describe the wheelbarrow itself, to bring a clearer picture of it to the reader's mind. The next stanza ?beside the white/ chickens' also calls attention to the wheelbarrow. The chickens aren't symbols themselves. From the poem we know that the wheelbarrow is red. We also know that nearby are some chickens. The chickens nearby are white, that's what is important, their color not the birds themselves. The sharp whiteness of the birds is a dramatic contrast to the red of the wheelbarrow. Williams, instead of telling the reader that the wheelbarrow was a vibrant red, added some white chickens for a comparison. The chickens are only important because

Profile of Author Lois Lowry, Newbery Medal Winner

Profile of Author Lois Lowry, Newbery Medal Winner Author Lois Lowry is best known for The Giver, her dark, thought-provoking, and controversial fantasy, which is a young adult novel, and for Number the Stars, a childrens novel about the Holocaust. Lois Lowry received the prestigious Newbery Medal for each of these books. However, what many people dont know is that Lowry has written more than thirty books for children and young teens, including several series. Dates: March 20, 1937 - Also Known As:  Lois Ann Hammersberg   Personal Life Although Lois Lowry grew up with an older sister and a younger brother, she reports, I was a solitary child who lived in the world of books and my own vivid imagination. She was born in Hawaii on March 20, 1937. Lowrys father was in the military, and the family moved a lot, spending time in various states and in Japan. After two years at Brown University, Lowry married. Like her father, her husband was in the military and they moved a good deal, finally settling in Cambridge, Massachusetts when he entered law school. They had four children, two boys and two girls (tragically, one of their sons, an Air Force pilot, died in a plane crash in 1995). The family lived in Maine while the children were growing up. Lowry received her degree from the University of Southern Maine, went to graduate school, and began writing professionally. After her divorce in 1977, she returned to Cambridge, Massachusetts where she still lives; she also spends time at her home in Maine. Books and Accomplishment Lois Lowrys first book, A Summer to Die, which was published by Houghton Mifflin in 1977, was awarded the International Reading Association’s Children’s Book Award. According to Lois Lowry, after hearing from young readers about the book, I began to feel, and I think this is true, that that audience that youre writing for, when you write for kids, you are writing for people who can still be affected by what you write in ways that might change them. Lois Lowry has written more than thirty books for young people, from 2 year-olds to teens, and has received numerous honors. Lowry received the prestigious John Newbery Medal for two of her books: Number the Stars and The Giver. Other honors include the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award and the Dorothy Canfield Fisher Award. Some of Lowrys books, like the Anastasia Krupnik and Sam Krupnik series, provide a humorous look at daily life and are geared for readers in grades 4-6 (8 to 12-year-olds). Others, while targeting the same age level, are more serious, such as Number the Stars, a story about the Holocaust. One of her series, which she is planning to expand, the Gooney Bird Greene series, targets even younger children, those in grades 3-5 (7 to 10-year-olds). Many of Lois Lowrys most serious, and highly-regarded, books are considered young adult books. They are written for children in grades 7 and up (12-years-old and up). They include A Summer to Die, and The Giver fantasy trilogy, which became a quartet in fall 2012 with the publication of Lowrys Son. In discussing her books, Lois Lowry explained, My books have varied in content and style. Yet it seems that all of them deal, essentially, with the same general theme: the importance of human connections. A Summer to Die, my first book, was a highly fictionalized retelling of the early death of my sister, and of the effect of such a loss on a family. Number the Stars, set in a different culture and era, tells the same story: that of the role that we humans play in the lives of our fellow beings.   Censorship and The Giver The Giver is 23rd on the American Library Associations list of the Top 100 Banned/Challenged Books: 2000-2009. To learn more, see In Their Own Words: Authors Talk About Censorship, in which Lowry discusses reactions to The Giver and states, Submitting to censorship is to enter the seductive world of The Giver: the world where there are no bad words and no bad deeds. But it is also the world where choice has been taken away and reality distorted. And that is the most dangerous world of all. Website and Social Media Presence Lois Lowrys official website has been redesigned and the new, improved website debuted in September 2011. It is divided into five main sections: New Stuff, Blog, About, Collections and Videos. Lois Lowry also provides her email address and a schedule of appearances. The New Stuff area contains information about new books. Lowry uses her blog to describe her daily life and share interesting stories. Both adults and young fans will enjoy her blog. The About area of the site contains three sections: Biography, Awards, and F.A.Q. The Biography section consists of a first-person account of Lois Lowrys life, written for her readers. It contains lots of links to family photos, many of which are from Lois childhood. There are also photos of Lois as a bride and photos of her children and grandchildren. The Awards section provides a good bit of information about the John Newbery Medal (Lowry has two) and a long list of all of the other awards she has received. In the entertaining F.A.Q. section, she answers specific, and sometimes amusing, questions that readers have asked her. According to Lowry, the most frequently asked question is, How do you get your ideas? There are also such serious questions as A parent from my school wants to ban The Giver. What do you think about that? The Collections area includes Books Speeches and Pictures. In the Books section, there is information on all of the books in her Anastasia Krupnik series, Sam Krupnik series, her books about the Tates,  The Giver  trilogy, and her Gooney Bird books, as well as her other books, including her first Newbery Medal winner, Number the Stars. The Speeches section of the Collections area, the only area specifically directed to adults, includes more than a half-dozen speeches, each available in PDF format. My favorite is her 1994 Newbery Medal acceptance speech because of all of the information she gives about how specific life experiences influenced her writing of The Giver. The Pictures section includes photos of Lois Lowrys home, her family, her travels and her friends. Sources: Lois Lowrys website, Lois Lowrys Reading Rockets interview, American Library Association, Random House

A look into the Accounts of Love as depicted in The Symposium by Plato Essay

A look into the Accounts of Love as depicted in The Symposium by Plato - Essay Example According to Aristophanes the unification between a man and a woman results in an offspring whereas the unification between a man and man results in pure satisfaction with no other strings attached (Symposium, 191c-d) Thus, according to Aristophanes it is natural for a human being to pursue pure love where love actually "is the name for our pursuit of wholeness, for our desire to be complete" (Symposium192e-193a). Aristophanes' idea of human civilization is based on this love which is in its complete sense and this idea of love is the constant source of inspiration that makes the greatest of arts and formulates history (Symposium193c). Aristophanes also makes comments that devise the idea that the lovers with no strings attach are not able to evoke more desire as there is no structure of desire and the lovers would not be able to state anything substantial out of this union because they were unable to state what they did desire. According to Aristophanes this is the basic shortfall of human love but mentions that the desire to unite one's soul with its other half is what love truly is. Similarly, Alcibiades states that he is basically homosexual in nature because he's crazy about beautiful boys and it is in his nature that he pursues for their love whenever and wherever it is possible (Symposium216d). Alcibiades was a soldier by profession and what he said followed a straight path with comparatively less intellectuality involved in it though he was able to express his mind and thoughts without any philosophical doctrines involved. He was clear and unrepentant in his views. He clearly stated his views on love by expressing himself as an ardent pursuer of beautiful young boys though he did mention that whatever it is Socrates remained his lifelong love and explicitly stated that only he, Alcibiades, could be the true love of Socrates. Alcibiades explains to Socrates that as he is his only true lover, and this he can prove in a numerous way, his views to love is unscratched and pure therefore it is Alcibiades' idea of love, which corresponds with Aristophanes, which should stand true at the end. It is this reason Socrates should always support his views on love and finding a worthy lover in Alcibiades Socrates is better fit to help him reach that aim than anyone else (Symposium219c-d). But on the other hand there was Socrates. According to Socrates "love is neither beautiful nor good- as he desires good and beautiful things, it is clear that he is, in fact, lacking these things" (Symposium 200a-201c). This was Socrates' view on love in a nutshell but he began to explain love as a whole and in totality. For this he took the help f his memories where he had a chat on the same topic with the priestess Diotima. According to Socrates Diotima was the one who taught everything about love (Symposium 201d) and most of Socrates' idea of love is based on Diotima's idea on love and her idea of 'ladder of ascent'. Everything that Socrates narrates hereon in the symposium reflects the idea of Diotima on love and Socrates is presenting proof after proof to justify her views.According to Diotima, "love, in fact, is not a god, as he desires beautiful and good things, which the gods already have neither is he mortal- just as love's lack of beauty does not make him ugly" (Symposium 2 02a).