Hey everyone, it’s Brianna Peck, but everyone just calls me Bri. I am always wicked buisy with either tennis, coaching soccer and basketball, teaching sunday school/going to church functions, doing homework, or even just hanging out with my friends! I absolutely LOVE going to Stuco conferences (I’m the vice president!). And there’s not really anything else to say. I have three pets, my cats sizzle, pumpkin, and bounce! My favorite thing to do is have a good time and help others have a good time! 
A Streetcar Named Desire
Blanche DuBois, a character from Tennessee Williams’, A Streetcar Named Desire, is deserving of everything that happens to her. Lying and conniving, Blanche tricks her sister and ultimately herself into believing that she once lived the fantasy life. Her promiscuity and story-telling abilities led to Blanche’s downfall at the end of the play. From prim and proper to a soon-to-be mental patient, Blanche’s past has finally caught up with her.
For Blanche, lying to make herself look better has become a way of life. When talking about her future, Blanche never tells the truth about what has happened to her. After Stella, Blanche’s sister, asks Blanche how she could take time off from her teaching job. Blanche makes up an elaborate story, blaming her nerves after losing Belle Reve, which led to Blanche being forced to leave the job. Nerves did not have anything to do with Blanche leaving, which was caused when she had relations with a seventeen year old boy. The superintendent found out and forced Blanche to give up her teaching position in Laurel.
Blanche’s promiscuity is voiced when Stanley, Stella’s husband, lets known that Blanche was forced to leave the town of Laurel. Apparently, Blanche had many men in her life, who she would get with at the Flamingo Hotel after losing Belle Reve. It was not long before word of all her relations with these men got out, and her reputation in town was ruined. Blanche was kicked out of Laurel and the Flamingo Hotel, told to never come back. After moving in with her sister Stella, Blanche and Stanley do not get along at all. Blanche plays on their interaction and loves to get a rise out of Stanley, going as far as even flirting with him. This simple act was the downfall of Blanche, when Stanley had enough and acted on his attraction to Blanche by raping her.
No one, not even Stella, believes that Stanley has raped Blanche. Everyone figures that Blanche is story-telling and come to the realization that something is truly messed up with Blanche. Sending for a doctor, Stella and Stanley arrange for Blanche to be put into a mental hospital. Blanche’s own lying and promiscuity ruined her mental status and ultimately ruined her life.
The poet of the poem “Song of Myself”, Walt Whitman, is a man who is always pushing individualism. Whether it be in his poetry, relationships, or other everyday lifestyles, Whitman tries to be different then all the rest. He is not the type to do proper things, no matter who is talking about him. The lifestyles of Walt Whitman factor greatly into the movie Dead Poets Society.
Throughout the Dead Poets Society, individualism plays a key factor. When Mr. Keating, the English teacher of the group of boys the movie is based on, is teaching his students, he spreads his idea of being whoever you want to be. We notice this in the scene where Mr. Keating has three of his students start walking around randomly. After a couple of minutes the students are walking at the same pace, with others on the outside clapping with each step. Mr. Keating goes on to explain how not one student showed individuality in the group, they all followed each other.
Walt Whitman’s poems did not resemble other poems in his time. Whitman was not the type to follow set rules on how he was supposed to write poetry. His stanzas all had a different amount of lines, and in those lines there was no certain word count or rhyming pattern. Even though this style of writing gave Whitman much criticism, he did not change any of his poetry. Walt Whitman kept his individuality rather than become a follower like everyone else.
A theme of the Dead Poets Society is to find out what your true identity is. Mr. Keating quotes Whitman by saying, “O me! O life!… of the questions of these recurring; of the endless trains of the faithless… of cities filled with the foolish; what good amid these, O me, O life?” He then goes on to explain how Whitman is talking about many people live their life and do the same thing over and over again. Their lives are set up from the day they are born by their parents to be a doctor or a lawyer, but maybe they were not meant to be doctors and lawyers. They were made to be something more or less, to do something that they love. Keating wants his students to, “contribute a verse” to their lives.
Neil Perry takes the words of Walt Whitman and follows his dream to act. Neil tries out and gets the leading part in a play being put on by a neighboring school. When Neil’s father finds out about the play, he comes in right away to tell Neil that he has to quit. “Tomorrow I’m withdrawing you from Welton and enrolling you in Braighton Military School. You’re going to Harvard, and you’re gonna be a doctor.” Neil does not follow his fathers wishes and still acts in the play.. When his father goes through with his word and withdraws Neil from Welton, Neil kills himself that night.
When Walt Whitman’s work was not selling well, he used a letter written to him from Ralph Waldo Emerson saying how wonderful the “Leaves of Grass” was. Whitman mailed this letter into a newspaper that printed the letter into the book reviews page. Also sent into newspapers were “anonymous” letters about the “Leaves of Grass,” that was sent in by Walt Whitman. Even though many people were not reading Whitman’s work, he did not give up and found a way to get his work out there.
Walt Whitman’s poetry, relationships, and lifestyle factor greatly into the movie the Dead Poets Society. Whitman’s idea of individualism is taught by Mr. Keating and used by Mr. Keating’s students throughout the movie. While Walt Whitman never gives up in making his poetry well known, Neil Perry never gives up in fulfilling his dream of acting. Walt Whitman greatly influences the Dead Poets Society.
John Proctor is a complex man in the play, The Crucible. Throughout the writing, John shows the reader all of the good and the bad he has done. Even throughout The Crucible, a shift is made in his character in which Proctor grows stronger. All of these characteristics lead up to the ending of Mr. Proctor.
Human weakness is not about all of the strength that John has literally, it can be taken emotionally. One of the main moments that is found in the play would be John Proctor’s cheating on his wife, Elizabeth, with Abigail. Even though this affair has ended, a strain between John and Elizabeth is still shown. Abigail was his weakness when his wife was sick, and now the affair weakens him emotionally. He gets angered easily when Elizabeth still believes he is cheating on her. John says to her, “Woman. I’ll not have your suspicion any more.” John’s cheating is a weaknesses throughout The Crucible. Another of John Proctor’s weaknesses is when he is signing the paper that will say he had, “compacted with the devil.” This act will save John’s life, but will also lower the view of the Proctor family in the eyes of Salem.
Not only does John Proctor have emotional weakness, he has many strengths. When Elizabeth is convicted for being a witch, Proctor will not hear of it and starts to fight the court. He is willing to risk his own life to stand up for his family. The strength he has to stick up for his family, above all, shows how he has moved on from his affair and is willing to take his life to save his wife’s. Even at the end of The Crucible, John values his family and friends. Elizabeth has convinced him to save his life by confirming he has followed the devil. That is, John is convinced until he finds out about the signing of his name. John shows his feelings for his friends when he does not give any names as to who followed the devil with him. “They think to go like saints. I like not to spoil their names.” John’s feelings on his friends also follow in to how he can not even spoil his own family’s name. When the court tells John that they will hang his name on the church door to show that he has admitted to compacting with the devil, he refuses. John cries out, “Because it is a name!..Because I lie and sign myself to lies!..” He does not want to taint the family name.
John in the end of The Crucible shows the reader how he has overcome his weaknesses, to be a strong human. He makes the transition between having his affair with Abigail, to protecting his family name, and the name of others in Salem. In a time where people in Salem are letting themselves be tricked by young girls and turn on their own neighbors, John Proctor proves to himself and others that he is able to overcome all of his weaknesses in order to do what he feels as right. John Proctor is a complicated man who in the end, did the right thing and is hanged.
Recent Comments