Author Archives: sydneypoynter

“The Swimmer” by John Cheever

Initiating Action: Neddy, our narrator, decides to swim home through the backyard pools of people he knows.

Crisis: When Neddy notices a “for-sale” sign in the Welcher’s yard and having no recollection of them moving, the first moment he realizes that his memory is lost.

The Climax: When Neddy is swimming back home, the storm that rolls in; leaving him feeling cold and at his weakest he’s felt during this entire journey.

Denouement: When Neddy finally arrives home and finds his family gone.

Exposition: We learn more through the people Neddy interacts with and the details of the backyards he’s exploring.

After reading the prompts for the final essay and the final portfolio, along with understanding my responsibilities in other courses this semester, I’ve come up with a plan that I think will help me finish these assignments to the best of my ability.

For my final project, I’ve decided to go with the 1,500 word essay choice. Since I’m writing it on a topic that I’m fairly passionate about and engaging with works I enjoy, I feel that writing this will go by somewhat smoothly. Honestly, my goal is to have both this assignment and the final portfolio done and turned in by Friday, July 2nd. I will continue working on this piece tomorrow, Monday June 28th, and plan to turn in my draft on Tuesday, June 29th. After this, I will begin to work on my portfolio- gathering all of the necessary pieces for it.

I understand that the peer reviews aren’t due until July 2nd, which would make turning in a finished essay on that day difficult. However, with the busy weekend ahead of me after that day, I feel that upon revision and hard work, I will come up with a satisfactory, cohesive essay by that time. I am just simply trying to work with the time I have, considering the fact I have other exams to do this weekend- making not only this week, but this weekend extremely busy for me.

Basically, for the next week, I will be putting my heart and soul into my work- trying my best to manage time correctly and to work to my best ability.

Even after a deeper analysis and a discussion, the works from this unit still amaze me. Something about them is so interesting to me, somehow even after a discussion and grasping a deeper understanding of the work it has grown to be more interesting. Before our discussion and a deeper analyzation, I was wondering to myself “what could these works possibly mean on a deeper level?” Yet now I understand, and as a result I am amazed by these works.

In particular, I think the discussion about “Entropy” by Thomas Pynchon both interested and taught me the most. That story was very chaotic, so much so that on the first read I couldn’t even fathom analyzing it and understanding it on a deeper level, but as you know from the discussion, the chaos is critical to the story and the deeper meaning. From this, I learned that in certain stories and pieces, the chaos and the madness may serve an important purpose when it comes to the deeper meaning.

From this discussion I learned just like the last unit, that each story is important on its own and not every piece in a unit has to connect. I learned to look for different aspects of every single piece, because throughout this unit there were very different levels of understanding between the various works: in Highsmith’s work it was the purpose of a character, and in Pynchon’s work it was the theme of chaos and “entropy”, and for Delillio’s work, we analyzed and understood the impact that he had on Postmodern Fiction, and his clever use of something new and foreign to the world (technology) in a fictional setting as a warning of the unknown.

Overall, I think that this unit was very enriching when it comes to understanding and analyzing literature, especially such odd and chaotic literature, pieces that I would not think on my own to analyze for a deeper understanding. I will continue to look at each piece on its own, and to not compare it too much to other works when it comes to analyzing and trying to understand the work deeper.

From a deeper analyzation and reading from these works, along with a discussion about them, I feel as if I now have a deeper understanding of the works from this unit. I didn’t know exactly what to look for during my first reading of these works, they all seemed so random and without connection, but I feel like the discussion this week really helped me understand the work if not in connection to the other ones of this unit, but of itself, by itself, and what it means on a deeper, more intellectual level.

I now understand that unlike many other units this semester, the works of the Postmodern Fiction unit isn’t meant to be analyzed and compared to other works, and that these works need to be fully enjoyed and understood on their own. It was when I understood this that I felt I got the most out of the pieces, and understood them to my best ability. Each piece tells us more than what it seems- this was proven and discussed in our discussions, and despite each piece being wildly different than the other, each of these works continues to teach us more about literature than we knew before.

For example, the use of seasons in John Cheever and John Updike’s pieces. While both use seasons as a metaphor and symbol throughout their stories, both use it differently- yet both use seasons for a similar purpose, that purpose being to connect with the reader in a way that is virtually universal (seasons changing and its ability to evoke emotion is something that almost every single human understands).

Overall, I learned a little bit on how to read deeper in a piece of fiction, and to not focus too much on trying to make every piece connect to the other, because sometimes a piece can stand for a purpose just on its own; and that’s what I learned throughout this unit and what the discussions really helped me do.

After reading the works of last unit (Postmodern Fiction 1), I was not anticipating the works of this unit, which threw me off. It was clear to me that after reading the first work of this unit, “Entropy” by Thomas Pynchon, that this unit would open my eyes to much different work than what we’ve covered so far in this course. Yes, it is similar in format to the previous unit (Postmodern Fiction 1), yet each piece proved itself to be much different than what we’ve covered so far in this course. Honestly, I haven’t even read anything like the works in this unit. However, I did find them fascinating and interesting in their own way.

While the pieces from this unit give me a lot to digest, so much that I haven’t even begun to analyze them after a first read, I am very intrigued and am anticipating moving forward into understanding these pieces and what is behind them. I find myself asking why did the writer write this? Of course, it’s fiction, yet I’m still left wondering why the writer would want to write a piece like this, just for fun or does this piece hold a deeper meaning? All of these pieces are wildly unique and are certainly memorable. I am interested in discussing them later on this week and getting the most out of these works as possible, and possibly even answering my question of why the writer would write something like this, and discovering any hidden themes and meanings within the works themselves.

As we ease into Postmodern Fiction, starting off with the works of John Cheever, John Updike, and Raymond Carver, we are now beginning into the short works of fiction that are common today. The first thing I noticed about these works is how familiar they seemed, since I am an English major I have had many opportunities to read modern fiction, especially short stories such as these ones. Because of this familiarity, I was bound to be fond of the stories, just because of this familiar territory and the ease of reading them.

I believe that it was this familiarity and the ease of reading these stories that caused me to breeze through this unit and to particularly enjoy it, even if the stories themselves weren’t so exciting in plot to me. I couldn’t necessarily find connections between the stories themselves, proving each story to serve a different purpose for the reader than the other, but I am looking forward to discussing this unit with the class because these works do give us a lot to work with. In particular, fiction is one of my favorite subjects in literature to discuss (although I am not so good at writing it), so as I read, I enjoyed analyzing it to my best ability during a first read, and look forward to analyzing these works even more.

So far in this course, we’ve used many techniques when analyzing texts in order to get the most out of our outcome as possible. This happens mainly in each of our discussion groups, whether you are answering the question or creating it itself. Either way, these discussions remain valuable in getting the most out of our work and really digging into the meanings of them.

All of the readings so far have proven to be valuable pieces of information that’s been essential to our learning of American Literature. Because of our diverse background of writers, we get a full, well-rounded view of literature in America. Along with the pieces themselves, we have also been given many readings and different articles that only further teach us about the essential backgrounds to these writers and that also includes other information we can use in our discussions or blog posts.

I feel as if the concepts and the knowledge gained from our study in American Literature really shows most in our first impression post, to our final post about the unit. It shows how much we’ve grown when it comes to the work after closer analysis and study.

The historical and political context often comes up in our discussions, especially in earlier units such as the Harlem Renaissance. Because of this, we get to understand the motives behind many of our writers, and whether or not politics and the history of our country has influenced them. Either way, this information is important when it comes to having a discussion about the work and whether or not politics will be involved.

Considering the fact we need to cite any source we use, whether it be from our readings or otherwise, it is clear to us how to use outside sources clearly and legally.

Each of our units provides us with a group of legendary and influential writers, each being well-known for a good reason. These works are important in our learning of American Literature and many of these writers we have even read before this course, proving their influence and importance in the Literary world. Through these units, our discussion allows us students to control the discussion on what is most important in the unit, and often we find and discuss a trend that happens in this unit of American Literature.

I see both a lot of connection between the works of this unit and also, at the same time, a lot of differences between the works of this unit and the works we’ve covered so far in other units. This unit has showed us a lot in the way of diverse writers writing about similar situations, while in the past, our units have not been so diverse.

For the Middle Generation poets, we have a diverse group of writers writing about very different topics, yet all show us their personal experiences and together, these works work well together as a unit. We have both men and women writing, both people of color and white people writing- all of these people have had experiences that have moved them and that have lead them to writing about them, all of them writing intentionally for the reader to understand their deeper intention and meaning. While in the previous units we’ve had units of both white people and people of color, hardly have we had both in the same unit, writing about similar topics.

For the Confessional Poets unit, we have both men and women writing about “taboo” topics such as mental health/illness and deeper emotions. This is uncommon and has yet to be covered in the previous units. So far, we have talked about events affecting the writer but never have we done so in such an intimate, deep level as we have in this unit. This unit differs from the rest as we dive into deeper topics that are unseen before this time.

As we progress in these works, we see different topics coming to light as a result of the time changing, and the future coming closer and closer. While in the previous units, topics such as mental illness and the struggles of a white person weren’t discussed much, but as we dive into works of literature that occur later and later in the years, we see these topics arise as a way of everyone telling their stories, whether they be a man or woman, or a person of color or white person.

Reading the works of this unit really opened my eyes to the Confessional Poets unit/era. I always have read and admired the works of Sylvia Plath, yet being introduced to other writers similar to her gave me a deeper understanding and appreciation for her work. I personally enjoyed this unit and analyzing these works, although they often spoke about sad topics that haven’t been mentioned a lot in literature up to this point.

However, after analyzing these works and after our discussion, I now understand the impact they had on future literature. After these works, the discussion of topics such as mental illness and more emotional pieces were much easily accepted in the literature world than they ever had been before.

What I got from this unit is to really feel the writers emotions in their work and to understand how these emotions, whether they be past or present, has affected them and their life choices. From this, I now am keen to the presence of connection in poems and works- that meaning, I am now much more observant of the idea that a past event or emotion can connect to a present one, especially in emotional works such as these.

While reading and discussing the Middle Generation Poets unit, I found the importance of analyzation when it comes to realizing just how the author wants their work to be perceived. This being said, many of the works this unit could be perceived differently by other people, but I most certainly put energy into trying to figure out just how it should be perceived by wants of the author.

Another thing about the works of this unit is that all of the authors are not the same. By this, I mean that the authors all come from a diverse background and none of them are the exact same. We have authors of different races, different sexes, different backgrounds. This helped lead us to having a broad understanding of the impact this unit had on literary history.

While I did not understand the intent of this while reading, after discussing and analyzing these works I have come to an understanding of the reasoning behind this. While it would be easy to understand the intent behind a few works of extremely alike writers, it is much harder to when the writers are all different and diverse. However, the understanding and the education behind this is much greater and is much more useful. Trying to read through the writers eyes gave me a deeper understanding of the work and applying this to future units will be beneficial for me, as a reader, as well.