Like I wrote about before, the pingpong could represent the thoughts in his mind, and he is constantly battling what goes on inside his head -- the truth and the hidden, individual and society, etc. But nowadays he is losing the game, and he is falling into the dark, where insanity might take him over.

In this section, Ginsberg is focusing on how psychiatric patients are treated, with the demanding of lobotomy, which is the cutting of the brain in certain lobes, and electroshock therapy in hopes that it will jolt the brain back to "normal". At this time, homosexuality and PDSD were often causes of why someone had to go to a psychiatric ward, and the treatment was often cruel. Which is why Ginsberg seems horrified, at least to me, writing about all that is happening to the people of his time. Maybe he is also slowly going insane.

Flats, poverty, and jazz -- this reminds me of my research on Chicago's ghetto neighborhoods starting from the 1920s to even now, and how low/working families, in poverty, would resort to music (specifically jazz) as a way of coping with the poverty they live in. I believe that Ginsberg is troubled by the amount of hurt they see around him, and like jazz does to people, writing is a sort of way of coping. His generation is slowly going mad, and he can do nothing but write about it.

I see a contrast here: the heavens vs machinery, religion vs industry, etc. I think the "generation" that Ginsberg is talking about is trying to find a religious connection to the heavens, to God in the sky, but they are more connected to the machinery in their lives.Instead of feeling that spiritual level of being with the heavens and angels above, they have instead become industrialized as a people, Perhaps that is why the best minds are destroyed by madness, because of what society and its people has created now.

The theme of "zombie" or "walking dead" comes out throughout the poem. From the body being hidden in snow during the winter and spring showing where it is hidden, to death by water, this idea of the living dead comes up throughout the poem. The passage states that the those who have lived are now dead (obviously). But those who are currently living are in a way dead, or well on their way to dying. This can be seen sort of as the human curse: from the moment we are born we are already on our way to dying. With a little patience, with a little dash between birth and death is life (life - death), and we are venturing into death.

Speaking of venturing into death (literally on a boat), is in the Greek epic The Odyssey, especially Book 11 where Odysseus travels to The Underworld as part of his 10 years journey. So literally, travels to hell and back; he is walking among the dead, and the dead are walking among his living presence. For instance, Odysseus finds his dead mother, and is in shock since the last time he saw his mother she was still alive. Further into the Underworld, a line of the dead starts to form to try to talk to Odysseus, since of course hell doesn't get many living visitors, especially when they plan on leaving to return back home to their wife (who in the meantime is being hoarded by suitors). Odysseus also meets his old friends he fought besides in the Trojan war: Achilleus, Patroklos, Antilochos, and Telamonian Aias. The dead are talking to him throughout his entire stay in the Underworld. There is also a huge hint that Odysseus will die a watery death, which again eludes back to death by water in 'The Wasteland'. Odysseus is told to pray to the ocean god Poseidon for a peaceful seaborne death at an old age. So here we are again, with the knowledge that we will all indeed die one day. The day will come when we are of old age and all our patience of going through life is soon to come to an end. As sad as that is.

Relating back to 'The Wasteland', the idea of zombie is woven throughout. For instance,around line 70, there is a character that talks about a corpse that was planted in a garden. If it has begun to sprout or bloom. Even the dog is trying to dig up the dead. So as mentioned before, snow is what covers this body of the dead, hiding the past away hoping that it will not disturb you again. But it does later in the spring, in April, where the snow has dried up and the body has begun to "push daisies" as they say. So even in death, a new life emerges and is shown out in the garden. Gardens represent life, and blooming, and opening of flowers of life. So when it comes to it, the body, the zombie, will come to life in a different form. What I found peculiar throughout the poem were the titles: 'The Burial of the Dead', 'A Game of Chess', 'The Fire Sermon'. I shall explain what some mean to me:

'The Burial of the Dead' is interesting since it is the first title after "The Wasteland", which indicates that there are bodies needing to be buried in this wasteland. Bodies waste away, and they stink leaving a bad odor behind, which can be bad for the living's health, and that is why we bury them. Also, it is traditional to bury bodies.

'A Game of Chess' reminds me of a game with Death. Or rather, a game that is between Life and Death. They make moves on the board, slowly taking away each other's players, and this can by symbolic of taking away years of our lives. Life can hold out as long as it can, but in the end, it is Death that takes Life's king.

'The Fire Sermon' could be seen as the burning of bodies. As in the book Beowulf, the king Beowulf is burned on a boat with his treasures. So when a body is burned, so are the treasures that a person holds and they are kept with them forever. So any secrets and philosophies that a person holds is with them forever when they die, and no one will ever know. Also, zombies are burned after being killed through the pain, just in case, so they're burned to ashes and for sure cannot come back alive.

In America, where it's supposed to be "This Land is your land, this Land is my Land", it's more one-sided, belonging to the majority group in that rules the country. In the country which is literally built on top of slave work (and taken away from Indigenous Native Americans), there is an inequality towards African Americans. They are brought by force to a country, and aren't even treated as equals. They are told what they can and cannot do, what they can and cannot become, and this is the oppression that is felt in their people. And this relates a lot to this one Chris Rock stand up comedy topic that made me laugh, but also made me question how America is built:https://youtu.be/9Kxp9CEJeAg And that's why in often scenarios of oppression and injustice, one of the greatest thing you can do is laugh, because it means you can still be human in inhumane situations

Often, African Americans would sing together as a sign of hope. In many traditional African tribes, the people would sing as a ritual for spiritual strength. Men were seen as hunters, and in order to keep the tribe alive they needed to be strong. So when they were in the times of slavery, they experienced a new kind of strong, the kind that requires to adapt and adjust to a place of imprisonment. Mothers would sing to their baby about freedom, and how one day the men will be strong enough to escape and set them free.

This is how slavery was before. Slave owners would brand their slaves, in case they were to run away and captured, the brand would indicate which farm or plantation they belonged to. Women were often raped and or used as breeders to birth babies that would eventually be born in slavery and grow up as one as well. And children were considered "bastards" because their fathers were sold to other slave owners, often across the state entirely since slave owners separated families in order to prevent their escaping together.

Water is mentioned a lot throughout the entire poem. And it's given this perception that it will kill you. A watery death can be painful, water can fill up the lungs. The ocean/sea is a dangerous place and no boats are built to withstand its worst storms. Nature has control of the earth, adn there is nothing we can do to stop it. We call earth out home, but also in a way this planet can feel like an exile to us. Like where do we go when we feel like we have no other place to go?

This is the human curse: from the moment you are born you are already well on your way to dying. We live everyday like this, just walking around knowing that we are slowly but surely dying, but we can't afford to think about it too much. In that way, we are the walking dead -- the living dead.

What I thought here was the role of the army in Albert's life. Perhaps Albert is looking for a good time because he's spent so many years in the army and he's tired of all the mindless things they do e.g. shooting, taking orders, etc. In a sense, the army is like the living dead. They take orders without thinking about it. They also shoot and kill, like zombies bite and kill.

Snow covers up tracks easily, and no one can follow you once your tracks are covered up. We find comfort in knowing we are not being follow by something or someone that doesn't want to follow us. We have our secrets to keep and private places we go.

But spring melts the snow and soon we are exposed, the sun reveals all our secrets and we cannot hide though we want to.

I looked up clairvoyante, or rather, the word clairvoyant. Which can relate to the passage. Definition: a person who claims to have a supernatural ability to perceive events in the future or beyond normal sensory contact. I saw this as a person who is able to make contact with the other side, with zombies, ghosts, the dead; anyone in the unreal city that we cannot see for ourselves.

I saw this as two forms of shadows that correlate to the narrator's life. The shadow in the morning is a form of spring, the sunshine/sunlight, and wanting to love forward. As the shadow in the evening is "rising" much like a zombie coming up from the ground. The evening shadow represents winter, going down memory lane, staying in one place, etc.

This shows how women, even young girls (in this line a 15-year-old) are sent out to do hard work. It only shows the harsh and real conditions that was happening to the country during this time.

Slatterns are by definition dirty, untidy women. Women during this time seemed to have been overworked and underpaid for their hard work, be it an actual industrial job or a stay-at-home wife-mother.

Railroading jobs during the 1920s were not doing so well with cut wages and inflation, which eventually lead to the stock market crash in 1929. In the railroad business, companies would hire replacement workers, so it was easy for any one of the regular workers to be replaced with these "devil-may-care men", simply working because they felt like it.

The woods can be symbolic of death, how it is lovely, but dark and deep, and you can't come back from it. You just go further and further into the woods and eventually you lose the light because of all the trees blocking you.

When he say promises, perhaps he is talking about the promise of living his life before he actually has to die. In the poem he could be contemplating on killing himself, but there are promises he must keep, perhaps he has family or friends or even his horse that wants him alive.

The last two lines are repeated, maybe because he is trying to convince himself that death is not an option right now, and he still has a long way to go before it could happen. And back to going down the woods, there could still be light where he is walking, and he still has many miles before it gets dark.

"There is only one god, and his name is Death. And there is only one thing we say to Death: 'Not today'." -Syrio Forel, Game of Thrones

The narrator saw that both paths have not had a traveler has through either one of them, and this adds to his indecisiveness to choose which path is the one he should take. Both decisions don't say what happens after you take them, so you have to make the decision on your own. The weight of your decision is based on how you think you'll be once you do make one.

Of course, by the end, he decides to take the road less taken by travelers. And in doing so, he's taking a chance with his life.

Circulating library as in the poems and thoughts the narrator put forth into her book called "Spoon River". She sold her book, her life's work, at an auction which other people could see and read. The narrator is giving the last part of themselves to others, since she has lived her life and has given everything she can in it. So she is paying it forward, in some way, to the next life.

This is a self proclamation of what is good in the world. Everyone determines on their own terms what is good, what is evil, what is true, and what is false. To impose your morals and values onto someone, in my opinion, is an act of selfishness, and I think in their poem Masters is letting others know that they get to choose what they believe in, so they can become the person they want to be.

Again, another representation of her mind. She pulled out her sanity and no one can put her back as the person she used to be. She has now become one of the creeping women she sees around her house. She now cannot tell the difference between herself and then. Her insanity has blended in like wallpaper.

Gilman keeps referring to the pattern of wallpaper. With the illness she has, and has gotten used to, she probably knows all the patterns of the illness and how it works: when it is bad and when it is better for her mind and body. Her illness almost seems like another person, following her around the house, dragging her as she walks, and Gilman suffers from the exhaustion of carrying it along. She get tired easily and naps, and even in bed the illness keeps her slumped in bed.

The title of this piece is called "The Yellow Wallpaper", and here she is talking about her room with paint and paper with annoyance at how bad it looks. I think her room represents her mind.

She says "It is stripped off -- the paper -- in great patches all around the head of my bed", it could stand for her sanity and energy being stripped in patches in her own head. Gilman wants a room that she likes, but her husband disagrees with the ones she chooses in their home. Gilman doesn't feel comfortable in the room she shares with her husband, so this can also mean she doesn't feel comfortable sharing her mind with her husband either. Especially since he is a physician and he thinks he knows better about her body than she does, but that doesn't mean he understands her mind better than she does.

The mind controls emotions, and emotions can take a lot of energy mentally and physically on a person. The wallpaper of her house could well represent her mind.

Du Bois that America still stacks the odds against black folk. Even with education, some are still doomed to be cooks and waiters/servants. America is being hypocritical by saying black folk have an equal right, same as everyone else, but that isn't true, they are still one of the lower races at the bottom of the hierarchy. And for black folk to give up what they want to be -- to give up their dreams and ambitions and potential -- is to exterminate themselves as a race.

Here, there is change happening. With curious black men becoming more curious, more aware, and more defying against the power of the white man, they start to see the world through a new light. Education provides this light, and instead of being on the long, leveled road of Emancipation, they are now scaling mountains and reaching new heights.

Especially with the installment of the Fifteenth Amendment, they now have a voice in politics and how the government/country should be. But this does not necessarily mean what they ask for is what they get. Of course, there is still racism even today in America, and black men are still having the odds stacked against them no matter how well educated of conscious they are. But in Du Bois time, it was a start, and it is still influencing the culture today.

I think Bois is trying to decide what to do with his ambition with the racism that he sees and experiences. With decisions of reading law, healing the sick, or telling stories, he decides to do what he can, becoming a civil right activist, sociologist, and author.

He says that he has this ambition, but compared to the youth of black boys in his time, they do not share his ambition. Perhaps how society is built, and how it has crushed their dreams of ever being more, also known as racism and discrimination.

Du Bois now feels like an outcast among his own people, saying that he is one of the only that are willing to be something more -- to fight for something more than being just a black individual in an unfair society.

I think society has a heavy influence on the forces of nature and forces of science. Based on the people, they get to focus on what they want the most, and which one is more important to them because, well, it's their society and they get to choose which forces get their attention and energy.

I like how Adams makes comparisons on society's use of energy to the forces in Europe and in America, it shows that he isn't limiting himself to just where the Exposition is, but also how people on the other side of the world think of nature vs science, evolution vs religion, etc. I think he also wishes that there will be others with enough force like him, as a historian, to pursue the balance in these forces.

Adams is conjoining the forces of man (science) and the forces of nature/ God. He says that mechanics and men of science use symbols in their works to make it easier to understand the equations, and they don't deny the symbols. Then he says that the Virgin is also a symbol, probably the greatest force the Western world has ever felt before. And it is up to him as the historian to find out about this force, like where it came from and who supplied it.

I think it's interesting that symbols in science are not denied, while symbols in religion are controversial and cause trouble among people. It's this whole battle that has been continuing even up to now: Evolution vs Religion.

Translation: Lady, you are so great and so prevailing That whoever wishes grace and does not turn to you, His desire wishes to fly without wings.

Adams is focusing on the power of women, having talk about the goddess Ephesians. She was a force, worshiped for her power, much like the goddess Venus mentioned earlier in the text. And those who don't worship this goddess wishes not to go to heaven.

The same can apply to the Virgin (Mary), the mother of Jesus Christ. Those who do not turn to her, do not turn to Christianity, and thus, are not allowed to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

I did some research on Philip Levine, and found that he is from an immigrant family, and at the age of 14 he had started working in the auto factories. He worked during the Great Depression of the 1930s, so this poem may be referring to what he saw as a child growing up at the time. He said that he witnessed lots of blue-collared families struggling with poverty, including his own, and wanted to create a voice that spoke for those who couldn't speak out about the oppression of working class.