cbceball’s Blog

Let me start off by telling a short story. I’ve been trying to find a copy of this play for the longest time, and I finally found one, last night, at the borders downtown. Being the studious student that I sometimes am, I decided, at 930 in the evening, to go on an adventure from the woes of park merced to downtown–a journey that girls like me seldom take by themselves. But hey, I’m glad I did it because it was one of the more interesting plays that I’ve read, The Crucible included. Ok, enough about me.

Loyalty plays a major roll in the downfall of eddie, catherine, B, rodolfo, and marco. Different takes on the loyalty between people ultimately causes conflict. for example, eddie feels a loyalty, maybe even an obligation, to catherine’s parents and to catherine herself to, in a way, “protect” her. it’s obvious that catherine is past that protection phase of her life and has to go out and experience new things for herself, but eddie can’t feel the same way–the tragic conflict of overbearing parents (parents being used very loosely). eddie’s loyalty to catherine can be misinterpreted as overprotectiveness (wait, doesn’t he kiss her at the end? that was weird) and doesn’t let rodolfo into catherine’s life the way catherine wants rodolfo in her life, and therefore he reacts the way he does to the whole situation because he can’t get over his “loyalty” to catherine.

I guess during that time, loyalty meant a lot to blue-collared workers because, what else had they? At least in the context of the story, every character had to be loyal to the other one if their housing of the illegal immigrants would work. eddie, b, and catherine all had a loyalty to rodolfo and marco to not get the caught. eddie, in the end, broke that loyalty and called up immigration, which caused this whole spiral into disaster and his eventual death. marco and rodolfo had loyalty towards their hosts because of the amount of legal trouble they could conjure up if they ever got caught. but once that loyalty was broken with eddie ratting them out, marco spat in his face, the ultimate “IT’S OVER” non-verbal signal.

This type of test towards one’s loyalty is, at least in my perspective, way intense. I’ve never been so tested in my loyalty to someone else in any aspect. the only thing i can think of that was remotely close to testing my loyalty was when i was at a party with my high school friends, and, lo and behold, the girl that caused all the drama our senior year walked in and shot my [drunk] best friend a dirty look. my best friend then proceeded to tell me that if it was going to go down, i had to come in swinging. I thought, “man, i’d fight, but i’d only fight for myself” but this was my best friend we’re talking about, a part of, a reflection of myself, which is in a way how eddie viewed catherine. eddie wanted catherine to see past rodolfo’s advances and see his “true” motives–true as a subjective idea. of course i’d throw down with my best friend THANK GOD IT DIDN’T HAVE TO.

Man, if there’s one decision that I would never have to make, it would be this one. The girl in the story, I feel, has more of broader sense of what she and “the American” are going through. For one thing, the girl sounds like she doesn’t want to go through with the abortion. The only reason she’s even considering the abortion is for her boyfriend, who “says” that everything will go back to the way it was once the baby is out of the picture. I think if the girl could have her way, she would keep the baby. Probably the main reason she’s having for the sake of her boyfriend’s happiness. The boyfriend isn’t ready for a baby or to give up his youth, but the girl just wants to be with him, baby or no baby. Even though the boyfriend doesn’t necessarily force her to have an abortion, he’s already stated what’s at stake with their relationship by saying “things will go back to normal,” and that’s reason enough for the girl to conclude that the path they’re starting on is one that they might not be ready for.

Hemmingway leaves us with our own interpretation for the ending. I personally think she goes on to have the abortion, and just to put a spin on things, it doesn’t go well. Hahaha, it’s messed up but when I think about times before abortion was at least a little accepted by the public, I always think about how black-market and “do it yourself” abortions, which usually end badly, like in Revolutionary Road. Hella crazy. And that was in the, what, 50s? Not to mention the couple’s probably going to get the abortion in Europe, which always sounds a little sketch. Sketch meaning like, unsafe.

Am I too late? I’m going to do it anyways. Hahah.

They shut me up in Prose –

They confined her in prose, as opposed to poetry

As when a little Girl

since she was a little girl

They put me in the Closet –

“they” put her in the closet of PROSE!

Because they liked me “still” –

but they liked her to see the world in one perspective

Still! Could themself have peeped –

still! if they could’ve seen her potential

And seen my Brain — go round –

like look at what she could accomplish with her mind

They might as wise have lodged a Bird

they might as well have kept a bird from flying

For Treason — in the Pound –

in something like prose

Himself has but to will

but he’ll never lose the ability to fly

And easy as a Star

like a star always shines

Abolish his Captivity –

and get rid of his captivity

And laugh — No more have I –

and be happy! which is what she has to do to escape prose.

corny reading? perhaps.

What i liked about the assignment was that it was really easy to see how people interpreted the text with their visual and how easy it was to get to their blogs to read about it. it also gave me a chance to sit down and give my own intepretation of the poem, even if my interpretation was kind of weird.

what i didn’t like about the assignment is how we had to sign up for a totally different website that now keeps sending me emails that i don’t care about. also the format of the poem was kind of screwed up by the end because of all the different sized pictures, but that was unavoidable.

I chose the PUR water filter as the picture that relates to Whitman’s poem because it relates to the line “You shall listen to all sides and filter them from yourself.” Like the water going through the water filter, we must separate from the impurities and distractions in our life to find ourselves without influence from the outside. On a personal level, the PUR picture reminds me about a time where i thought someone was “pure” or at least not fake (like water always seems to be) but when he went through the filter, i only saw how much dirt and lies were filited out and saw him for what he really was. I only listened to what he had to tell me, but if I had listened to “all sides and filtem them from yourself” i would have found out sooner that he was a phoney. UGH!

It took much effort to lean into the parting kiss between my Faith and me. As I walked the cold, darkening streets of Salem, my Faith called me back with the ribbons of her pink cap twisted in the wind. She whispered in my ear,”Keep your journey off until morning, stay with me tonight. I’ve had troubled, troubled dreams about my husband. Pray you stay with me tonight, of all nights of the year.”

I spoke to her with the same troubles. “My wife, this is something that must be done tonight, of all nights. it has only been three months into our marriage, and now you begin to doubt me?” She gazed into my eyes with a piercing beauty I have never seen. “May you find what you need, God Bless you.” I assured her with an “Amen! Sleep well tonight, no harm will come to you.”

And so I parted ways with Faith. As I turned the corner at the meeting house, I catch the gaze of my Faith. A gaze so dismal and miserable even with her pink cap on. “Poor little Faith!” I yelled on the inside, “What poor unfortunate soul I am to leave her on such occasion, to leave her and reassure her troubled dreams, as if her dreams had warned her of this night. But my angel would never come to think of such doings. HARK! When i return, I shall cling to her and follow her to heaven.” With this resolution, I found justification to proceed with the evils lied before me.

The narrator of the story takes a weird fascination with “the man of the crowd.” i believe this is so because the most of the story is the narrator scrutinzing all of the people he sees walking in front of him, but when this strange, old, crazy looking guy walks past him he’s flabbergasted. Of all the people that he can draw out a life story for, he can’t unravel the old guy’s past. so, with the amazing amout of time he has to spare, the curious narrator decides to follow the old man, if only to understand the old man more clearly. but what really makes me wonder is why the old man didn’t acknowledge the narrator at all. i mean, was the old man really oblivious to this guy following him around for most of the night? or did he just not care? even the narrator is confused by this, which is maybe another reason why he so facsinated by this because the narrator notices almost every single little detail about every he ever comes across, but now he crosses paths with a man who notices almost nothing around him–nearly a complete opposite of him. and you know that saying that “opposites attract.”

Haha, The Office is on tonight!

I guess an example of “pollution” that comes to my mind right off the bat is drinking and driving. The two can be fun by themselves, but when mixed together, its results can ultimately be fatal. I’m pretty sure most people can conclude that drinking, or just being not sober, and driving are probably two of the worse things that can be near each other, besides a Cardinal’s fan and a Steeler’s fan,. Also, you could say any solid object in my water that isn’t ice, pollution. We generally fear these polluted things because they’re usually detrimental to our own definition of well being, which is pollution is all about. Brown considered himself a “polluted wretch” because he now knew of things that sinners should know, and he took a blow to his idea of “well being” because he believed he could only be altogether a sinner or a saint–he was now contaminated with the thoughts a sinner.

In contrast, Robin found to embrace the pollution. An example of things that should be kept apart but yet our society seems to embrace it could be deep fried, unhealthy food. These delectable little pieces of heaven do serious damage to our bodies and not to mention cause unsightly fat to accummulate. But despite the consequences of eating the entire super sized curly fries by yourself, we tend to not care because of how tastey they are and forget that we’re basically polluting our own bodies with trans fat and oil deposits. Like Robin, we all participate in eating our free grand slams tomorrow morning between 6am and 2pm or joining the riot against our kinsman because it gives us a feeling of satisfaction and fullfilment and, in some cases belonging.

Hi! I’m Charisse Ceballos and I’m in your American Literature class. I’m 18 years old and a freshman from the nicer areas of Vallejo, CA, just a mere 45 minutes away from SFSU. I am a clinical science major, but I’ve always had an interest in literature aside from biology and chemistry. I enjoy watching movies, napping, reading, and playing badminton–a sport which I believe is constantly underestimated. I love the TV show, The Office, and I love to quote from it. I drive my dinged up 2001 dark blue Toyota Corolla like it’s a brand new Mercedes Benz. Basically, I’m a pretty chill girl with an open mind and a good sense of humor.

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