Sonnet 138: When my love swears that she is made of truth By: William Shakespeare

When my love swears that she is made of truth 

I do believe her, though I know she lies, 

That she might think me some untutored youth, 

Unlearnèd in the world's false subtleties. 

Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young, 

Although she knows my days are past the best, 

Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue; 

On both sides thus is simple truth suppressed. 

But wherefore says she not she is unjust? 

And wherefore say not I that I am old? 

O, love's best habit is in seeming trust, 

And age in love, loves not to have years told. 

Therefore I lie with her, and she with me, 

And in our faults by lies we flattered be

The starting of this poem, lines one through three characterizes a  women as blind. Clearly, the women in Shakespeare's poem can not see that the he knows the truth, the truth being betrayal, and dishonesty. This mans that the women takes men for guaranteed, nonetheless, she fails to recognize a man's feelings, but these lines also portray a man's stagnation in the youth phase of life. He states that " she might think of some untutored youth;" a youth is still naive and oblivious to action around them and because of this, she is able to use men for her pleasure disregarding their emotions. This aspect of youth is important because it frames men and women into stereotypes. I think that Shakespeare, through this poem, expands on how society was viewed and sectored in the past- men were youthful and ignorant, while women were playful and arrogant. Furthermore, he frames women in a negative light- saying that they are immoral humans who lack the ability to understand emotions. Note that even though the women fails to be cognizant of his emotions, he falls in her trap. Why? Love has the ability to hide the truth. It is an illusion, more so a covering of the vain beliefs and the negativity n a relationship. Love is a healing and consoling power. What is seen in the poem is mutual deception- both know that they are lying, yet fail to come out of their bubble and tell each other the truth. Why, the question once again? Perhaps it could be the fact that they are stuck in love, blinded by it. They don't see that love is not just keeping the truth from each other, but also falsely telling ones self that they can ignore the dishonesty because they are blinded. Lines nine through ten begin to question this unjust and unfaithful relationship they have. In a sense, Shakespeare asks these questions in order to gain self understanding as to why he is this relationship in the first place. Could it because he is desperate? More so, I think he is restless and greedy for love and for a women in his life. It is weird that even after all this lying they are still together, in their old age. This makes me view this poem in a whole new light. Shakespeare is describing an old couple who has been together for a long time, maybe through their youth, and even though they may have ups and downs in their relationship, they will forever be together.  If a couple has been together for so long, there is no point in separation; they are old, they need someone to hang on to, why leave your youth love? Their love is inevitable, and regard age as just a number. Even though they are old, and should be together, they want to preserve the wildness and rebel sense of youth and live life to the fullest with no disagreement, arguments, or displeasure, hence he chooses to block the dishonesty and carry along as if nothing has happened. Also, these lies help them burry their faults and flaws, making their relationship seem more light and lively.  

Grendel and Plato's Allegory- They relate oh so well

Firstly, before I go on a rant about the relationship between Grendel and the Allegory, I'd like to take a moment and explain my take away from this capturing story. I came to a conclusion, more so an hypothesis that Plato was trying to emphasize man's ability to make his own realty based on a hero's journey. None the less, everything at the start of one's life is a blurry, more so, incomprehensible jumble of thoughts. This is merely because one does not acquire the knowledge to grab the true meaning of an object, rather, they have not developed their own perceptions to transform a blur into reality. An individual must live life as a journey to find existence and reveal their capabilities of object permanence and internal investigation (why am I here? what is my duty upon earth? Am I to jump the bandwagon or make life for myself? Who is my creator, perhaps a higher being?) Furthermore, being isolated or "chained" (as stated in Plato's allegory), hinder the release of perspective- is life outside the  real? What is reality? Now in reference to Grendel, this reality, or truth is the disbelief in a higher being, that is, one makes a world for him self. In fact, Grendel even states: "I create this universe blink by blink." By this, it can be inferred he views reality not based on the stereotypical views of the world around him, but on how you frame the world and predict it to be- the way you live it. Again in relation to Plato's allegory, I feel like Grendel is represented as the prisoner who is stuck in the cave and because the prisoner are "chained," there is emphasis on isolation (exactly what Grendel is facing at this point). Note that Grendel suffers from this isolation, he is envious of the men (seen in chapter 4 and 5) that have reliance and dependence from another, a source of love (which his mother fails to provide him with). I also think that Grendel is reaching a point of enlightenment as he ascends into the real world- this action gives him a sense of "awareness." The shadow and the cave imagery are highly used in order to extrapolate on the action of capture. He become en-lighted when he realized that he is a life, he is not part of anyone. This sense of realization occurs when his mother blinded him and hugged him (almost smashing him toward her bossom...she smelled like a pig). Note here that Grendel puts his mother in the animistic realm, different from his human like perception. And another interesting fact is that Grendel can not go back to his mother and tell her about his interaction with the outside world- now a real sense of divergence. Fundamentally, Plato's allegory and Grendel form a question of enlightenment- whether it is evil or good? Positive or negative? Is the decent back down, even worth it? 

Prufrock and Winesberg- Oh so similar!

Throughout "The love song of J. Alfred Prufrock," are many similarities to the novel Winesberg, Ohio. First let us start by discussing the theme of this poem that our group came up with; our so what: "through experience, it is reveled that life isn't necessarily all wonderful- it's complicated and sometimes ugly resulting in disillusionment." The meaning of disillusionment is a feeling of disappointment when someone realizes that they could have done more, achieved higher, or are missing out on something through a duration of their life; nonetheless, this definition was the basis of Winesberg Ohio, emphasizing that one should take precautions in life in order to decrease the chance of regret. A similar view is seen through Prufrock; especially in last section when he states "We have lingered n the chambers of the sea/ By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown/Till human voices wake us, and we drown." This excerpt emphasizes frustration and none the less the regret he feels for not preserving his youth, hence this feeling of disillusionment. Speaking of youth... this is yet another similarly we see. "Though I have seen my head [grown slightly bald] brought in upon a platter/ I am no prophet-  and here's no great matter." This quote eludes to the motif of aging- the loss of childhood. This aging, or youthfulness plays a big role in both the poem and the novel as it is a symbol for death. Through both, Prufrock and the old man mourn for death as they find it to be a place of serenity and peace. In fact, first they start of with the feelings of sleep and how it makes one so peaceful (line 75 of Prufrock) and later states that he is "Lazarus". Sleep is a state of stagnation, but temporary...because in the story, Lazarus was dead until Jesus brought him back to life. So in essence, this sense of death, is mostly a state of REM sleep- dreaming, perhaps a lucid dream. Note the dreams can not be controlled- hence his feelings for death. Also dreams provide one with a sense of silence- a time for introspection away from society. In both Prufrock and Winesberg we sense this feeling of isolation and withdrawal from society in order to conjure the reality- they want to face reality through dreams, to make it seem better, more lively (all leading back to the symbol of youth). 

Now we are going to scroll out of the meaning and analysis of the text, and take a look at the bigger picture...organization! One would never think that organization of a text can display so much information about the general theme or motif of a novel...but it clearly can. In both Whinesberg, Ohio and Prufrock, the text fragmented. In Winesberg, it is different stories that peace together, while in Prufrock it is different experience. This fragmentation of the texts, provides a different image throughout the novel. Nonetheless, the fragmentation aids in meaning of life- emphasizing that there are so many part to the universe that one can not piece together the complete meaning of life. In both texts we see the difficulty of piecing together a meaning of life, of what reality is.