Essay 3 "America, America"

Pedro G. González Seda

Prof. Leonardo Flores

English 3202/01A

June 26, 2008

“America, America”

“God save America, My home, sweet home!” with these words Saadi Youssef the author of this poem introduces the readers to familiarize with the situation that the poem presents. Mr. Youssef is an Iraqi citizen who opposed both Saddam Hussein regimen and the constant attacks made by the United States of America to control Iraqi’s lands. The form to express his opposition to these situations is by using his poetic ability to communicate his arguments against these conflicts. This poem intention is to expose the armed conflicts between United States and Iraq, where many lives and blood has been poured. To prove this interpretation of the poem I will analyze the uses of connotations, repetitions of words and the use of the personification.

The uses of connotations in this poem have a crucial role to understand what the author wants to communicate us. In the first stanza we have the following words “God soldiers” vs. “Soldiers” that represents the vulnerability of the human being (the American troops) against the divine. In other words the only ones that are invincible and unbeatable are the God soldiers, better known as Angels. Another important connotation is when the author uses the word hungry to describe his God. We already know that a god don’t have the need for food, so the word hungry maybe refers to a need for justice, peace, freedom or represents the status of his sons, that are suffering with this armed conflict. The last connotation of this poem is at the end of the second stanza and refers to the desperate need of ending this conflict between both powers (Saddam regimen vs. America), because is destroying innocent humans lives. With this connotations the author is giving us a clearly view of the terrible living conditions of the Iraqis society.

Another important part of the analysis of this poem is the repetition of words like “gods”, “soldiers”, and “drowned”, because they give us an indication of the most relevant ideas that the author wants to communicate. When he uses the word “gods” he is referring to the diversity of gods that exist in his culture. On the other hand when he summons his gods in the poem is to illustrate an ambient of suffering, negative energies, and to indicate that they have bad fortune. We already discuss the word “soldiers” in the last paragraph, but the part that have not been analyze is the frequent use of this word that represents the oppression to Iraqi’s people from the militia of the United States of America. The word “drowned” is used frequently by the author to indicate the psychological state and the way the Iraqi’s nation feel. They feel drowned, because all the things that they frequently saw and lived were related with death and the agony produced by this “war”.

The third factor to be analyzed is the implementation of the personification in this poem. In the second stanza the author uses the word “lady” to give life to America. The importance of giving life to this powerful nation is to remember some internal and universal values like compassion, peace, goodness and right of LIBERTY that is the one of the greatest symbols and trademark of U.S.

“Let the water come” said Youssef to America and the readers to remember that always exist hope and nothing last forever. Water is a universal symbol of life, that is the most valuable thing in a person life and with this in the Iraqi’s side they can find their liberty from their oppressors.

Essay 2 Final

Pedro G. González Seda

Prof. Leonardo Flores

English 3202/01A

June 23, 2008

“When Dark finds its Redemption”

The word redemption is often used as an action in where a person finds balance between himself and with the environment that surrounds him. A perfect example of this is illustrated in the saga of Star Wars by George Lucas and in the story of Edgar Allan Poe called “The Black Cat”. Here the main characters are Anakin Skywalker or later known as Dark Vader and the narrator of the poem (the owner of Pluto). Both characters have some similarities that help us make connections between the two stories. Some of the most important similarities are that both destroy their own “empire” because of their evil actions, they begin their life’s as good persons, and in the end they both die. So, here the main point of this essay is to compare the connections between stories by discussing the similarities that they have and how both character found the way to redemption by analyzing their lifes and how they changed to the dark side which eventually lead up to their deaths.

At the beginning of stories we have that the main characters Anakin and the Owner of Pluto, they were good people and had respect for life. The first was a Jedi (person who knows how to use the way of the force for a good purpose) and his purpose was to defend and protect the republic and the innocents from the injustice. The other purpose was to exterminate “The Sith religion” (person that uses the force for his own benefit and wants control of the universe) that represent a lot of danger to the existence of the republic and rights of the people. On the other hand we have the main character of the “The Black Cat” that in the beginning he loves to be around animals and enjoys his life. Another important thing that they have in common is their love that they have for a woman, in the case of Skywalker was queen Amidala and for the other was his wife.

The second connection between both stories are the reasons that make the characters switch to the dark side or become evil. In the case of Anakin the mayor reason for his change was his fear to loose his beloved ones and his search for more power that drove him to become a Sith lord. Here George Lucas is trying to show us the temptations that Jedis try to avoid to become truly masters in the force and in some form can be added to the human behavior. In the case of the narrator of “The Black Cat” the motive that makes him change sides was his addiction to alcohol. This obsession drives him to madness and to loose everything he loves and possesses. One of the most important things that Edgar Allan Poe is trying to illustrate with this story is the negative effects that drinking alcohol in excess can make. From this point both characters have loss their good parts as humans and become dark persons that are quickly destroying their own “Empires”.

They begun destroying their empires by betraying their own believes. In the case of Darth Vader he betrays what he was supposed to protect and defend the republic, and by trying to kill his most valuable thing in his life that was is wife. On the other hand the narrator of The Black Cat begins his destruction path by pulling out one of the eye’s of his cat named Pluto that was his favorite pet and eventually hanging him in a tree. The consummation of both characters in to dark side was completed with the action of murdering their own wife’s.

Eventually they found redemption with their own deaths because they achieved a balance in where the good and bad things found an equal point. For Darth Vader to find this point he self-sacrificed himself to save his son’s life that was being attacked by the Sith Lord that was Emperor of the New Empire that at the same time was the “master” of Vader. The owner of Pluto found his point of balance when he dies hanging in the execution place in the same way he kills his cat. Now the two souls are in peace because they have paid their evil acts with ultimate price that is their own lives.

Essay 1 Final Draft

“The Othello’s Mastermind”

The reason for me to choose this title for this essay is based in Iago the “most important” character in the play named Othello, The Moor of Venice wrote by William Shakespeare in 1603. This character is the ancient of Othello’s army and he is drive by envy, ambition and revenge, because he doesn’t was promoted to rank of lieutenant. This makes him develops a master plan with the help of Rodrigo (in love with Desdemona) in where his primary target was to destroy Othello life and to control Michael Occasio that was the new lieutenant. Another important thing that motives me to analyze and comment about Iago is because he is the one that maintain the action and the play interesting. Here we will use as examples the movies that we sew in the class about the play to have a better understanding of the things that Iago do to poison Othello’s mind. So, the focus of this essay is to argue about the steps that take Iago to develop is master plan of destruction.

The first thing that Iago do to start shaping his evil plan is the alliance he made with Rodrigo. This alliance is produced by love that Rodrigo have for Desdemona, which is Othello’s wife. In Act 1 we see the first attempt of Iago and Rodrigo to destroy Othello by reveling to Branbantio (Desdemona father) that Othello is marrying her daughter in secret. This action was quite intelligent in the way that Iago uses Rodrigo to send the message of the secret wedding to Branbantio and by doing this he is protecting himself and almost gets rid off of Othello. At the same time Othello and Desdemona find the way to convince his father and the Duke of Venice to continue with they relationship.

Later on Iago uses a different strategy to harm Othello that is using Michael Cassio (Othello’s Lieutenant) reputation of being a ladies man to make Othello think that Cassio and Desdemona were having an affair. This tactic was the beginning of the end, because these start poisoning the reason and judgment of Othello’s mind. At this moment of the play Iago as gain a lot of confidence and trust from Othello. This was crucial for Iago success, because know Othello believes every single word that he said. The climax of Iago plan is when he is talking with Othello in the prison of the castle and Cassio appear and Othello hide in a prison cell. Iago in a lower tone say to the ear of Michael something about Bianca (Cassio lover) and Cassio say in high tone the things that they do in their intimacy. Othello listening to this he believes that Cassio is talking about Desdemona. Here Othello finally lose is mind and make a pact with Iago in where they going to kill Desdemona and Cassio. At the end Desdemona, Rodrigo, Othellos and Iago are dead by this evil plan.

Conclusion = in contruction!

HomeWork #1

Homework #1

“Respond to Iago Actions”

The reasons for me to analyzed and comment about the actions that Iago made in this play are based in the importance that he represent, he is the villain of this story and he is the one that maintain Othello play interesting. So, here my focus will be why he hated so much Othello and what things he makes to affect Othello life.

The first thing that Iago do to start shaping his evil plan is the alliance he made with Rodrigo. The reason for Rodrigo to make the alliance with Iago is because he is in love with the wife of Othello named Desdemona. Another action that we sew in Act 1 is the betrayal of Iago to Othello in reveling to Branbantio (Desdemona father) that Othello is marrying her daughter in secret. This action was quite intelligent in the way that Iago uses Rodrigo to send the message of the secret wedding to Branbantio and by doing this almost get rid off of Othello. On the other hand Othello and Desdemona find the way to convince his father and the Duke of Venice to continue with they relationship. Later on in the play Iago use another strategy to hurt Othello by using Michael Cassio (Othello’s Lieutenant) reputation of being a ladies man to make Othello think that Cassio and Desdemona were having an affair. This master plan of Iago makes Othello fight with Cassio because he believes that some between Desdemona and Cassio is happening.

The English Journey

At the age of 13 I started the process of learning how to speak and write in English. For the first time in my life I began to understand what the people behind the T.V. were speaking about. This learning process started with the boom of the internet and the computer videos games in 1999. Later in High School, my English skills improved significantly due to the Advanced English courses I took; also, because of a card game called "Magic the Gathering" which also helped me in expanding my vocabulary. Another important reason to dominate the English language is because I study Economics and finance, and English is the primary language of this areas. For these reasons I will divide these essay in the following sections; internet and video games, high school and the University.

The internet and the computer video games was the first reason that attract me to learn how to speak, understand and write in English. These attraction for this things started with the famous websites called Latin Chat and Yahoo. In those web's I was able to interact with other persons thats speaks in English.