The Lipstick on the Mirror #217 pg.283

The Lipstick on the Mirror has two sides to it. One is the allusion to Snow White. The author refers to the woman as the "Wicked Queen" and uses the sentence "Who is the fairest of them all". This brings a fairy tale essence to the poem. The other side is the consumerism and materialism shown on the receiving end of her mirror. Women and girls yearn to be as beautiful as her and buy countless products to try to achieve it, but they never can be as beautiful as the Wicked Queen. She is always the fairest of them all because perfection of beauty is a fairy tale.

There is also an exceeding amount of cataloging. The mirror advertises shoes, sapphires, pearls, ribbons, lace, foundation, etc... to show how ridiculous the plight to be as perfect at the Wicked Queen is. "Industries sprang up like bramble", they gain wealth from the imperfection of the general public. The women are consumed with the need to be like the Wicked Queen that they will try and buy anything to come close. This is a satire to the media and how the beauty industry works. One or a few beautiful women are portrayed as the ideal type and all others will try and follow suit, no matter the cost. These women feed the industry which allows it to become more powerful and warps their minds even more into thinking that they are inferior if they do not look perfect, or like the "Wicked Queen". Yet no one will ever be able to attain perfection and the industry and the Wicked Queen will always win and be the fairest of them all.

Richard Cory #271 pg. 327

Richard Cory is "richer than a king" and a "gentleman from sole to crown", he has everything that could be hoped for. The "people on the pavement" are shown as below him in status and circumstance and they regard him as the epitome of happiness. These people go hungry only eating bread and yearning for meat and wishing that they could be Richard Corey. It is the shift in the last line that shows the true Richard Corey, the person that the people would not want to be, the person that "put a bullet through his head". The shift has a significant role in this poem, because it denounces the facade of the man that "glittered when he walked".

The tone of the work also play a vital role. Words such as "gentleman" "clean" "glittered" "rich" and "grace" portray Richard Cory as what would be the happiest man alive. The mood is lighthearted even to the second to last sentence, "one calm summer night", The last sentence states that he shoots himself in the head and yet the line before indicates that the night was "calm" this irony of tone makes the last sentence a shock.

This poem is interesting because it portrays a rich man who has every material thing yet he is so depressed that he commits suicide, yet when he walks down the street he looks perfectly fine. The poorer people wish that they were him yet both are unhappy. Money appears to be the answer to the poorer peoples problems, but the suicide of Richard Cory proves that money does not guarantee happiness.

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

The Ceremony and the Birthing scene in The Handmaid’s Tale are similar in construction. In the Ceremony, the Commander and the Wife are trying to have a baby, but the Handmaid is the machine to do this through. Even though the act is between the Commander and the Handmaid, it is as if she does not exist. Her purpose is to get pregnant and have a child, her name is erased and she cannot read or write or speak her mind. The Birthing is alike because the Wife takes all of the credit. The Wife with a pregnant Handmaid acts like she herself is pregnant. As the birthing is taking place, the Wife and other Wives are celebrating and having a party while the pregnant Handmaid is in labor. When the birth is almost finished the wives assemble in the room and the Handmaid is again placed below the Wife, as if the Wife is giving birth through the Handmaid. The fact that the other Wives congratulate the Wife and regard her as if she has done the work makes the Handmaid simply an object, a means of giving birth. The society claims that they abolished thinking of women as objects when they destroyed porn and covered all of the women in burkas, but they achieved the opposite affect. Women are objects more than ever. Whether Wife, Daughter, Handmaid, Martha, Econowife, etc… they are each used for a different purpose and one that purpose is gone, they are no longer needed and are thrown away like an old toy.

The Handmaid’s Tale is a novel about the extremist views and how Gilead takes freedom away from women. “Lilies used to be a movie theater, before. Student went there a lot; every spring they had a Humphrey Bogart festival, with Lauren Bacall or Katharine Hepburn, women on their own, making up their minds. They wore blouses with buttons down the front that suggested the possibilities of the word undone. These women could be undone; or not. They seemed to be able to choose. We seemed to be able to choose, then. We were a society dying, said Aunt Lydia, of too much choice” (25). Gilead takes freedom away from the people, but especially the women. They can no longer work, read, write, talk freely, dress how they want, marry who they want, etc… They are confined to specific roles that they cannot stray from. The society claims that they did this to stop men from objectifying women, yet this is what they have become. Even the idea of wearing a blouse with buttons is freedom, the choice to be undone or not.

I liked The Handmaid’s Tale because it had interesting construction. I liked the way the present situation and the extreme views of the flashbacks portrayed both sides of the extreme spectrums. With Gilead as an ultra conservative, false religious society and the past as an extreme feminist movement with some mutual views on women and how they should be treated made it interesting to read. I also liked how the character’s had a certain amount of depth to them. They were not good or evil, they were unique mixtures. Even Offred, who is the main character, is imperfect in her actions. Serena Joy torments Offred and yet the author shows a relatable side to her. The novel is not black and white, there are many shades of grey that if analyzed give the work more depth and meaning than is perceived at first glance. 

“We” by Yevgeny Zamyatin

The novel “We” by Yevgeny Zamyatin individuality versus conformism is a very important theme that pervades throughout the whole novel. D-503 is perfectly happy accepting the strict system of one state as well as forfeiting his privacy. He even praises the society for how flawlessly it is put together and he scorns the small amount of unscheduled time that he has and dreams of the time when even that space will be filled. I-330 is the opposite of D-503 and has no intent of going along with OneState. She seduced D-503 and countless others to gain control of them and whatever power and access they have. I-330 opens D-503’s eyes to the corruption of OneState and drives him insane. Zamyatin uses D-503 and I-330 to portray a contrast in the ways to live, to go along with society and be blind to the corruption, or rebel against it and become corrupt as well.

My favorite quote, "They could create only by whipping themselves up to attacks of 'inspiration'- some unknown form of epilepsy" (17-18). In a society in which even the creative aspects of life, such as music and poetry, is generated by a machine, true creativity and inspiration are idiotic to these people. Poetry and music's only use is to praise OneState or the Benefactor. To think of the arts as mathematical and precise is incomprehensible because it is the complete opposite. The arts are supposed to be chaotic and inspired by ideas and passion, to have it perfectly structured and correct is against the nature of it.

I like this work because it gives me a greater appreciation for the creative freedom that is available for me. OneState is a mathematical and logical society that loved precision and equations. I like how everything is extreme and dramatic, such as the absolute lack of privacy, the schedules, pink slips, and emotionless executions. I like how the author made every aspect of this society so unbearably strict to show his point of view.