Us

The wind picks up, the lights flicker, and smoke rises from the chimney. Inside, the story is simple, but o so immaculate. A child rallies around the house in delighted hubbub, thinking of the cozy days to come. In they go, hocus- pocus, and out they come. A tasty treat for all to share as the cushy establishment of loved ones gather. One was immulated, and sent to us, and now it is our night’s center. We love, we devour, o yes so tender. A periwig of sorts sits upon the tree, in the form of a stella. Shining, glimmering in triumph, as it was not an easy task. Bulbs misfired, tilt was a menace, but the pizza eaten below made the evening worthwhile. The family perks, hearts ablaze, and a gentle melody carries throughout the home, whether by love or speakers. Nepotism is unlikely, for this place is made for three. When we join the rest, it will still not be a factor, for we are here together, and together alone. Words, exchanged; presents, soon to be given; love, so vibrant that it’s palpable. Mother has been the odalisque to the kitchen for days, and now, finally, we feast, and indulge in each other’s company. More wine, more egg- nog, more cheer, more snow, nippy it may be, but the cure is available. For we will not stop until the manger has been filled, and going home is no longer upsetting, but a relief from exhaustion. The fire’s warmth stays, the smell of the garland stays, but time does not, and neither does the tree, as it is tossed out the front door. There goes another one.

cushy- adj. easy, comfortable
hocus- pocus- n. trickery
hubbub- n. uproar, tumult
immulate- v. to kill as sacrifice
misfire- v. fail to achieve a desired affect
nepotism- n. favoritsm shown to relatives
odalisque- n. female slave in an oriental harem
palpable- adj. can be touched, felt
periwig- n. wig
perk- v. to become lively

Changes

Tupac Shakur

“I know it seems hard sometimes but remember one thing. Through every dark night, there is a bright day after that. So no matter how hard it gets, stick your chest out, keep ya head up... and handle it”(Tupac). A man of heartfelt compassion, strength, and social awareness; or one of anger, hate, and violence? Tupac Amaru Shakur not only influenced all of today’s hip hop world, but also broke deep inside the framework of it’s culture, changing the game forever. Through uplifting songs such as “Changes” and “Keep Ya Head Up”, he pleaded with his fellow man to be better, and take responsibility for there actions. He also related to the gang mentality through violent rhymes such as “Ambitionz az a Ridah” and “Hit Em Up”, a song aimed at his enemy Biggie Smalls, after Tupac was shot 5 times outside the studio where Smalls was recording. Shakur believed that Biggie and the rest of the Bad Boy Family were aware of the attempt on his life before hand. Tupac’s rough and gritty childhood showed brightly in his controversial music, but also in his socially aware pieces. His hard times, and prayers for better days helped him to connect with the world on a personal level unlike any other entertainer before. Tupac became an icon, a symbol of hope, for even as he spoke of blasting guns and smoking weed, he stood for love. Some say his compassion could be heard through the sound of his voice, but his music is a confusing idea to grasp. On track two he speaks of positive change, but yet on track twelve he says, “Little Caesar go ask your homie, how I'll leave you. Cut your young *** up, see you in pieces, now be deceased. You claim to be a player, but I $*$*$* your wife. We bust on Bad Boys, n***** f*** for Life”. There is no compassion in those words. Tupac possessed the deepest of minds and no one will ever know what he was truly thinking, because we only have his music left.
Tupac was greatly influenced by many different black activist groups such as the Black Panther Party, as well as by simple ideals like egalitarianism and liberty. His mother Afeni Shakur, was a Black Panther, and high constantly. At an early age Tupac was surrounded by violence and hate, but he still showed the upmost love for his beloved mother until the day he died. These unfit surroundings would influence his raps throughout his career. In addition, his exposure to Black Nationalism would encourage his hopeful songs, as well as his controversial lyrics referring to the white man as the enemy and the black man as the victim. “Cops give a damn about a negro. Pull the trigger, kill a n****, he’s a hero.” Changes” takes on many socially unjust issues and puts them in simple, truthful terms. Tupac cannot understand why drugs and murder are so prevalent in our society, and why we can’t just unite as one, and stand strong. But yet he brings down the cops he hopes to come together with in that very same song. Taking it one step further, the violence he witnessed as a child is almost positively spoken about in his more hardcore, murderous songs. This is where the mind of the greatest rapper to ever walk the earth becomes inexplicably complicated, but also where he influenced so many who came after him. Every rapper in the game today has studied “Hit Em Up” and “All Eyez On Me”, everybody remembers when Tupac survived two shots to the head, and three more to the body. How he walked out of the hospital three hours after his surgery. Everyone remembers when he brought the entire West Coast together through songs like “Changes”, and dared his enemies to try to murder him. Tupac didn’t influence a handful of today’s rap superstars, he influenced rap as a whole, and most of all, he forced us to think.
Eminem makes rap music, but Tupac Shakur is rap. Tupac made hip hop what it is, and who it is. He turned it into a way of life. If Tupac rapped about nature, then that’s what we’d still be hearing. He was a man who accepted his status as the face of his genre, but all while he strongly resisted stereotypes that he so often rapped and spoke out against. Tupac was his own being, and he was determined to be that being to the best of his ability. He intentionally broke the mold of general rap music in many ways. “I got love for my brother, but we can never go nowhere unless we share with each other. We got to start making changes, learn to see me as a brother, instead of two distant strangers.” This is a plead to the world to come together, and become aware of the people around you. Tupac spoke and lived his life in this manner, although at heart, he was still a kid from the streets. He wrote about killing and degrading women just like 50 Cent or Jadakiss, but if you truly look at Tupac’s music, you realize his rhymes are not what’s important, it’s his heart. He’s not putting down women, he’s asking why they allow themselves to be looked upon as bi****$. In every single song he cares, and in every single one he provokes us to think, and look into ourselves, whether he’s being positive or negative. That is noble in it of itself, and no one can take that away from him.
Respect, love, compassion, unity, and heart are words that merely scratch the surface of what Tupac was trying to communicate to the world. This world was personal to him, and even as he spoke of killing other men, a sense of hurt and anger was always present, for he was disappointed in his fellow man, and possibly himself. “And I ain’t never did a crime I ain’t have to do, but now I’m back with the facts giving them back to you.” Tupac, despite his roots and his tendencies was always pushing to be better, and make us better along with him. This shows that although it may have been too late for him to learn from his mistakes, he hoped his listeners would consider his music and learn from him. Through revealing the idea that some believe needing the money is justification for selling drugs to children, Tupac brings forth socially accepted phenomena that needs to be dealt with. Taking these issues head on shows that he was a very brave man because there wasn’t another rapper doing this like he was. “I see no changes, wake up in the morning and I ask myself, is life worth living should I blast myself?” Tupac wanted better from himself and his peers, and when this was not achieved, he felt as though he had personally failed. In the midst of his last trial before his death, he told his interviewer that he didn’t want his people’s last image of him to be in a cell, he believed they deserved better.
“That’s the sound of my tool, you say it ain’t cool? My momma didn’t raise no fool. As long as I stay black, I gotta stay strapped, and I never get to lay back. Cause I always got to worry about the pay backs.” This line is a typical and basic Tupac rhyme that is a perfect example of how his music can be taken by individuals listening to it. There are two ways you can understand this line. You may believe he is advocating using gun violence, knowing he may be killed due to his past, or you may see how sorry he is that it has to come down to this. He doesn’t want to kill a fellow man, but because of his mistakes, he may be in danger, and he must face it head on like a man. This idea is what should be taken from Tupac’s music. All he was attempting to do was open up people’s eyes, and then maybe there hearts would follow. Did this message get through to everyone who listened to Tupac? Probably not, because brothers continue to shoot at each other, but his positive presence remains with all the lives and minds he touched. “Rat- a- tat- tat- tat- tat, and that’s the way it is.”
Tupac was a character of epic proportions that changed the face of hip hop forever with his indescribable love and undeniable talent. Poetically, no one of this era may be able to match him, and as a person, no one could have overcome hurdles the way he did. Tupac will never be forgotten, for his music is stuck in your head for life, and his messages will seep into your soul. He foreshadowed his murder many times in his lyrics, as if he knew when he was to die, and when he finally did, its possible that he died knowing he did his best for the world, because he didn’t just attack the police or the white man, he tried to reveal everyone’s flaws, in hopes that we would embrace them and enact change. In the words of the man himself, “Don’t it make you get teary, the world looks dreary, but when you wipe your eyes you see it clearly. There is no need for you to fear me, if you take the time to hear me, maybe you can learn to cheer me. It ain’t about black or white cause we’re human, I hope we see the light before it’s ruined.”

Hypnopaedia

Hypnopaedia

We are who we are, no one can judge us from afar...unless we let them. Humans are naturally imperfect beings who judge one another based upon a variety of things. Whether deserved, or merely a slight prejudice, the only true judgement comes when the victim allows for the ideas to cause pain. I will judge a book by its cover just as quick as anyone else would, but prevention comes in the form of the individual, not the attacker. We will always pass judgement on our neighbors, its impossible to rid ourselves of that. So in defense of that reality, be one's self, care for whoever surrounds you, and don't look back at those who harshly judge the strong, but nurture the weak. For if that is not accomplished, we will forever be stuck in the quick sand of our fellow man.

Dramatic Monologue

A speech?
I am truly not in the mood.
But I sure am hungry,
And I need to return to my roots.

My Papi is all alone,
Worn down, beaten up.
And I am here,
Speaking my heart out as if this show is something more than charisma.

My clock is perplexed.
I can’t even understand that so I don’t expect them to.
Nevertheless, my time is now,
And yet my time is passing with every breath I disappoint.

Where is my heart man?
I am Willie Stark.
For now, I don’t even desire to speak,
But yet they nag, as they always will.

Seriously though, I will triumph,
As will good.
The end justifies the means,
Except maybe when referring to death.

But death is a long ways off.
Death is not frightening.
For I have life,
And life I will give to my people.

But must they have a speech?
Do they not enjoy there meal as much as I?
Fiends I tell you,
But my people all the same.

Allusion Paragraph

In All the King’s Men Robert Penn Warren makes clever use of allusions to parallel Cass Mastern and the Greek mythological character Cassandra, as well as relate Telemachus, son of Odysseus, to Jack Burden. Cassandra received the power to foretell the future from Apollo, the God of the Sun. But later, Apollo summoned a curse upon her that no one would ever believe her claims. In relation, Cass Mastern was never truly heard by Jack Burden. Elements of the times and mistakes in Jack’s life can be spotted through Cass Mastern, but Jack is too stubborn to realize that truth. That is until he finds he was not the creator of the spider web theory, because Cass invented it long before his time. In addition, both Telemachus and Jack Burden were incapable of recognizing who their fathers were, all while they stared them square in the face. An allusion is implemented to represent the similarities between these two characters. Even after Odysseus shot the infamous bow and arrow that proved he was indeed Telemachus’ father, the young man still had trouble believing the news. By comparison, Jack Burden always looked upon Judge Irwin as a Father figure, but never his real Father. Ironically, Jack opened the can of worms that eventually led to the death of the Judge, discovering that all of his life his old man was just up the road, and he hadn’t the slightest inkling.

College Essay

Its dinnertime on a harsh February night in 2006. I remember how dark it seemed for that early in the evening. The sky was a blank nothing as Dad emerged from the basement, as was the expression on his face. He opened conversation blankly about his promotion to another branch of his company, in Florida. Tears welled up in my Mom’s eyes, I could sense the pain in my father’s voice, I felt it as well, but I fought against mightily.
Seymour, Connecticut is unlike any small town that I know. It’s a place where everyone knows each other, and where the town shuts down on Friday nights when the high school football team is playing. The perfect town for 15 years of my life, a close knit community, where my pre-school friends resided, and all things so close to my heart. I would miss the community, and I would miss the beautiful change of seasons. In Florida, I would have no family, much less love surrounding me, but time slowly changed that. I could think only of being strong for my family, who had never lived outside of Connecticut, knowing they were hurting more than I was. This focus on coping and strength sustained me through the move, until we arrived in our new home.
As I was immersed in this foreign setting, I made a conscious effort to show the new people in my life who I truly was. Speaking to everyone I could, I slowly became involved in more school activities, and I ultimately became the person I am today. I opened my heart to new friends, while the only friends I’d ever loved were many miles away. Through meeting the amazing group of people I now know as my brothers and sisters, I have experienced many more life changing and character forming experiences than I would have if I had not been strong, and looked upon our bad hand with cynicism, rather than optimism. Soon thereafter I took part in my first retreat, where I learned a great deal about myself and the people around me. I connected with people like I never thought I would, changing my life completely. Strength is part of my make- up, but hard work is my advantage. Before the move I had never played football. I took on the challenge, and met it head on with determination and persistence. Recently, I have been elected captain of the team, and I like to think it’s not because I’m the best player out there, as I’m surely not, but because I outwork my teammates. I learned that from living where I had all my life. That anything gained easily, isn’t worth anything. I may not be the smartest, the biggest, the best looking, or the most talented. I can’t build bridges, save thousands of young children in third world countries, or protect my parents from the ugly truth that they don’t love where they live anymore, but I promise that I will try, and I have learned about that from the experiences in my new home. I will stop at nothing. I love, I care, I miss, yet I endure, and better my life. Embarking on the next chapter of my life as a hopeful UF student, my attributes and qualities will impact the university in very positive ways, for I have learned so much, and I will never stop doing so.

The Glorious Burn

Gimmie, gimmie, my name is Jimmy.
Did you know I am a Jew?
A language of schoolroom propriety.
I long to leave what you call me,
I long to be what they call you.
The 8 the 10 the 20 the 40.
No matter what, I am nothing, except maybe what I want to be.
But even then, what am I?
A being, closer to being, a separate being from myself.
A ray of the sun, but nothing like a shining star of sorts.
I laugh and love, you don’t.
Who are you?
Which is the way?
Or is the way nothing but a road with no signs, or a man with no soul.
Summer, Spring, Fall, Winter, what season is it?
Uncle Sam will be gone by April, I’m sure of it.
That was a picnic I never forgot.
That was before the day of mr. sen- sen puckett,
Who is that?
Who cares?
Have they got holes in the knee?
Well if so, walk slowly,
Or the shadows of age and wear will grab hold of you, and take me where?
Time is wasting.
But does anyone really mind?
It is an imagined burden,
But yet, it runs out.
Who says?
I shall die, and shall be spared the end,
And that last bitterness of war.
To burn is certain, but will it not be scalding
Will it warm our hearts and leave us in a tight knit pile of what?
Who knows?
Who cares?
May a common salvation lift us both from the dust,
And if we burn, who will burn along side my charred remains.

Paradox

O’Neil uses paradoxes in Long Day’s Journey into the Night in order to represent the relationships between the members of the Tyrone family in an appropriate manner. The Tyrone’s do love each other, they are family after all. Although there is a screen held up between each member of the family. Jamie loves his brother Edmund more than he hates him, but Jamie forever attempts to suppress Edmund’s potential and happiness. When your own brother truly wants the worst for you, all hope has been lost. In addition, Mary Tyrone claims throughout the play that she loved her husband dearly, all while she despises James for apparently placing her in her present state. She feels as though her life would have been changed drastically if they had never met, but yet, she does love him dearly.

Setting

In O’Neil’s Long Day’s Journey into the Night the Tyrone’s house is haunted by the family’s past and present state. As the fog covers the area surrounding the home, a murky mood is set as well. The lives of the family members are shadows of the past, while Eugene, Mary’s son, long since past, leaves an indelible mark on the Tyrone’s souls. Through Eugene, and the other unfortunate circumstances of their pasts, the Tyrone’s house is haunted, all while their shelter has no characteristics of a true home. Mary Tyrone, haunts the family framework, but is also haunted herself. Edmund, referring to Mary once stated, “She’ll be nothing but a ghost haunting past by this time, back before I was borne.” Mary haunts the halls of the house carrying her dead wedding dress as if it was a dead body. The house is a shaken and contorted being, controlled by the people within it, as these people are troubled beyond all comprehension.

Works Cited (Long Day's Journey into the Night)

1. Gassner, John. “Eugene O’Neil”. American Writers: A Collection of Literary Biographies Vol. 3. Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1974.

Mini Research Paper

Eugene O’Neil was a playwright who embodied and described realism, truth and the depths of the human condition. O’Neil himself is eerily present in his creation of Long Day’s Journey into the Night, especially through his ideology behind the main character known as Edmund Tyrone. Edmund, as the sickly youngest son in the play, and O’Neil, the like within his family, endure a similar lifestyle, but also show strong comparisons in traits and beliefs. Eugene O’Neil was a man who was not content with the world in which he lived. O’Neil stood by and watched his family crumble, and witnessed countless more destructive families end as his did throughout his life; before it started. “For the author himself, it was only a brief holiday from his most persistent memories, which were normally bleak, and from the contemporary world, about which he never felt particularly cheerful. That it represented only a vacation from a gloomy view of la condition humaine” (Gassner 11). In Long Day’s Journey into the Night, the life and times of O’Neil’s past manifest themselves into forms the title: day, journey, and night, creating a dark and hopeless view of the American family unit.
Days represent what is obvious in the life of Eugene O’Neil and within the play Long Day’s Journey into the Night. As the light from the son brightens the sky, seeing is easy in the day, and there is nowhere to hide faults and failures. O’Neil’s father was an actor, as was James Tyrone in the play. They are both described as “Penny pinchers”, and showed little regard for their family throughout their acting careers. Eugene was kicked out of college and went to Central America in search of gold. Edmund was also removed from his place of study, but instead of gold digging, he went out to the sea. Edmund describes multiple times how free and wonderful his experiences on his ship were, when there were no worries, only nature and his body. Novelty wore off quickly, and both returned to everyday life soon after. Both Eugene and Edmund were greatly affected by their fathers, and they would never fully recover from what they were put through.
As the journey through life rolls on a story is what forms from the past and is carried, whether true or altered into the uncertain future. Eugene O’Neil had an unlucky but fitting start to his journey. He was born in a hotel room, a place of which he would become quite familiar with as he traveled around with his father throughout his early years. “Usually,” O’Neil declared to a reporter in 1932, “A child has a regular, fixed home, but you might say I started as a trouper. I knew only actors and the stage. My mother nursed me in the wings and in dressing rooms” (Gassner 2). Edmund did the same in this play, and as a result, he never felt as if he had a home, or even knew what home was. Certainly that lifestyle is not suitable for a child, and both Edmund and Eugene miss something in their life through that experience, they are homeless. This is what leads them to go off and explore places such as the sea and Central America, they need something more. They needed to find a deeper meaning in life, or they would be left wit nothing.
The night and the darkness hides what people are unwilling to reveal. The darkness, like the fog in the play, represents a screen that no one wants to remove out of fear of the unknown. Eugene O’Neil’s mother had a drug addiction, as did Mary Tyrone. Both O’Neil and Edmund had alcoholic brothers as bad influences as well. These are things that both of these people unsuccessfully tried to shield from their lives, but the fact of the matter is, it consumed their lives. Darkness did not help, because at the end of the night, there was day, and amidst day, their journey was staring them in the face.
Eugene O’Neil implements his entire being into the play Long Day’s Journey into the Night. O’Neil’s life is fully represented through the work and specifically Edmund in content, ideology, and events. This makes for a very deep and full work that digs viciously into human emotions, and shows us a true American family.

Conflict Paragraph

In O’Neil’s Long Day’s Journey into the Night, James Tyrone and his son Jamie are in constant conflict throughout the play, and deal with the fact that they aren’t much different from each other. This is precisely the reason why they are at such uncontrollable odds; Jamie is truly his father’s son. All while Jamie accuses and blames his father for the gradual deterioration of there family, Jamie possesses the same qualities and characteristics his father does. James Tyrone was a poor Irish immigrant who is no stranger to rough times. Through growing up with very little money, he learned a great deal about the importance and scarcity of those precious pieces of paper. Throughout the play, James exhibits this idea as he sends his wife, Mary, to an awful sanatorium, leading to her ongoing addiction to morphine. He purchases undesirable land that will do nothing positive for him, instead of investing his money in a true home( which they don’t have), and on multiple occasions, he insists on keeping the lights off whenever possible. Jamie refers to his father as a miser, and accuses him of being cheap with his wealth, but that isn’t the only reason James insists on the lights off. James doesn’t want to see the destruction that has shook his family. If the lights are off, he is symbolically ignorant to his surroundings, including his poisoned wife, and his children. Jamie Tyrone also has problems with his money; he squanders every dime of it. Jamie uses his father as an example of someone he doesn’t want to become, but yet, in his early thirties, he has already become his father. He has no money, no sense of pride, and no true morals. His spending consists of alcohol and prostitutes, and while he believes he is doing the opposite, he’s really shaping into the same being as his father. Both men want to believe they have done the right thing through their years, but in their hearts, they know that is not the case. Both Jamie and James cause the family bond slip away, and it’s remains to spiral out of control. As long as they continue on their merry, selfish ways, they will never come to terms with each other, and the family will only suffer more, as the guilt upon their shoulders gains weight.

"We Lean, and We Lean"

A river flowing through and through,
stinging, pinching through to you.
I would no longer speak if you only knew,
the words I should cease to speak to you.

The levees fail, and the depths of mind are revealed,
and my lips are far, so far from sealed.
But through the shields forth I go,
as I hurt you, hurt me, hurt us so.

I know not why or where this comes from,
whether pain, or love, or tradition, or rum.
Thought does not come into use,
the blind say words deserve abuse.

With nothing to say, but much to hear,
to learn, I fear, I turn my ear.
For I have something more profound to say,
and by God I will say it, till I turn grey.

For the wind never stops, even when you cant see it,
and neither do words, so I say so be it.
But on the contrary, can this be stopped,
or on weak wooden sticks is this world propped.

For when a heart is made solely of stone,
all that’s left to savor, is blood, and bones.
And when we are all gone, dead as dead gets,
I hope we can sit down and play on the frets.

Pour us some whiskey, or some glasses of beer,
For brothers are brothers, there is nothing to fear.
But I do know this, where the grass lays green,
Love, Love, and Love, we lean and we lean.