The Stranger - The Stranger 3 - Meursault's Detachment

In this section of The Stranger, Meursault continues to show his detachment from the world. When Meursault kills the Arab, instead of the text saying outright that Meursault shot him, it is written that "The trigger gave" (59). This description of the murder implies that Meursault did not feel like a conscious part of the action. Another showing of indifference is when Meursault tells how he "Then fired four more times at the motionless body where the bullets lodged without leaving a trace" (59). Shooting someone when they are already dead is simply overkill and is a peculiar action. This peculiarity is addressed when the magistrate asks Meursault "Why did you pause between the first and second shot?" and  "Why did you shoot a body that was on the ground?" and Meursault simply cannot answer these questions (67-68). Meursault is also detached from reality by not realizing the severity of what he has done. Meursault considers his case to be "pretty simple" (63). Not realizing the complexity of killing a man is a very unusual thing. Meursault doesn't even have it on his mind most of the time for he was about to shake the magistrates hand when he "remembered that [he] had killed a man", as if it were a complete afterthought (64). He states that the idea of being viewed as a criminal "[is] an idea [he] [can't] get used to" (70). Another detachment is in the form of how the narration goes from the scene of the murder to the magistrate without speaking at all about what happens in between. What happened with the party? Are Meursault and Marie still together? These facts must not seem to be important to Meursault as he tells this story, for they have been left out.

Body Paragraph - Chapter 11 - "Nothing Gold Can Stay" by Robert Frost

In "Nothing Gold Can Stay" by Robert Frost, musical devices are used to convey the nostalgic tone of watching seasons pass by in nature. Nature is personified as a female due to nature being referred to as "Her" several times (2). Gold is spoken of as "Her hardest hue to hold" (2). This alliteration is easy to read and flows off the tongue just like how the gold hue is hard to hold onto and slips away. The poem is made up of four rhyming couplets. The rhyming ties the two lines together no matter what punctuation separates them. Repetition of the word leaf in "leaf subsides to leaf" demonstrates the way that the cycle repeats itself over and over (5). There is allusion to the garden of Eden: "So Eden sank to grief, / So dawn goes down to day" (6-7). This allusion predicts that the gold will always leave, yet the idea that "dawn goes down to day" confirms that the gold will return just as day returns after night.

The Stranger - The Stranger 2 - Meursault's Indifference

Throughout the novel The Stranger by Albert Camus, Meursault is a detached and indifferent narrator. The writing style indicates this through it's choppy syntax, making sentences seem quick and straightforward. Meursault explains his life in this same straightforward manner: "Maman died today. Or yesterday maybe, I don't know" (3). While Meursault seems indifferent about the world, however, he cares about how others view him: "For a second I had the ridiculous feeling that they were there to judge me" (10). Meursault acknowledges that his "feeling" is "ridiculous", which is the one of the first times that he mentions his own feelings at all. He knows that people aren't actually judging him, or so he thinks. The idea of people judging Meursault seems to make him feel the need to tell others things such as "It's not my fault" though he later admits that it "[doesn't] mean anything" to say that (3-20). Mersault stays neutral on almost  all ideas posed to him, only rating them on if they are interesting or not. This causes people around his to see him as being a bit strange.

Body Paragraph - Chapter 10 - "My mistress' eyes" by William Shakespeare

In the sonnet "My mistress' eyes" by William Shakespeare, the tone of the speaker is playfully faulting for the first twelve lines and then changes to be truthfully honest and loving during the rhyming couplet. This shift in tone fits with the form of a sonnet for the first twelve lines are the perceived problem while the rhyming couplet at the end is a kind of solution to the problem presented. For the first twelve lines, the speaker tells of how his mistress does not posses hyperbolic qualities that are spoken about in many cliched love poems. He tells of how her "eyes are nothing like the sun" and how "coral is far more red than her lip's red" (1-2). This explains the "problem" that she is not like these cliches, but the truth is that no women are like this, for the standards of beauty set by love poems of the day are simply hyperbole. The comparisons of the speaker's mistress' beauty may seem as if they could be hurtful and faulting, yet they are really poking fun at the cliches and telling his mistress that she is not faulted at all to him. He admits that he does not view her as if she were a goddess, but as a human woman: "I grant I never saw a goddess go,- / My mistress when she walks treads on the ground" (11-12). This points to how he expects her to not be all of the exaggerated ideas that she was presented in contrast with. The couplet also points to this idea of truthful, honest love: "And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare / As any she belied with false compare" (13-14). The speaker tells that he only says what he says in the poem because he does not want to lie to the one he loves and wants to always be truthful with her.

The Picture of Dorian Gray - PODG #7 - The Orchids of Dorian Gray

In The Picture of Dorian Gray, flowers are used frequently as symbolism. One flower that is most commonly used is the orchid. Lord Henry describes an orchid as "a marvelous spotted thing, as effective as the seven deadly sins" (142). This associates orchids with sin, causing the purity and perfection that they represent to become tainted. Orchids also represent luxury and rare, delicate beauty. They are associated with ancient Greek culture, which also plays a part in Dorian Gray. The spots on an orchid are said to represent the blood of Christ in Christian theology, which ties in with the religious diction about the "seven deadly sins". Saying that orchids are "as effective as the seven deadly sins" insinuates that perfection and beauty lead to sinful nature, which has been Dorain's case. Orchids, like all flowers, must eventually whither and die when cut from the ground. Orchids symbolize how beauty dissolves overtime and how perfection can become skewed. This will happen to Dorian eventually, for it is just a matter of time before he is somehow cut off from the portrait's power and changed to be his true self again.

The Picture of Dorian Gray - PODG #6 - Distancing from the Murder

In Chapter 13 of The Picture of Dorian Gray, Dorian Gray murders Basil Hallward, the painter who painted the portrait of Dorian that collects Dorian's sins. The murder takes place in the room upstairs where Dorian keeps the cursed portrait. It is explained that "an uncontrollable feeling of hatred for Basil Hallward" took over Dorian "as though it had been suggested to him by the image on the canvas" (115). The painting influences Dorian to do bad things, since Dorian himself understands that he will never take on any of the repercussions in his own looks. Dorian feels loathing for Basil, an intense dislike of him, described as "the mad passions of a hunted animal" (115). Calling Dorian "a hunted animal" beings to light his fears of being sought out for doing the horrible things that he has done.

While committing the murder, Dorian tries to distance himself from what he is doing. During the struggle there is "the horrible sound of someone choking with blood" (116). Using the pronoun "someone" distances Dorian from the fact that it is Basil making this sound, and that he is killing his friend. The painter's "outstretched arms" and "grotesque stiff-fingered hands" are focused on during the murder, bringing to light how Dorian is not viewing the person being killed as an entire being, let alone a friend (116).

After the murder, Dorian admits that he is distancing himself from the murder when he states that "he felt that the secret of the whole thing was not to realize the situation" (116). The corpse of Basil Hallward is never referred to as being his, but is instead labeled as "the thing", "the murdered man", and "it" (116-117). Dorian views the body as peaceful, stating that if not for the wound and the blood, "one would have said that the man was simply asleep" (116). The idea that the body looks like it is sleeping conveys how Dorian is still trying to process that he killed Basil and yet is avoiding associating death with the body. He remarks to himself that Basil has simply "gone out of his life," also referring to a sense of leaving that is not death (116). Both sleep and leaving are not permanent and can therefore be reversed, while death cannot be. The body of Basil Hallward is also described as looking "like a dreadful wax image," which reduces the reality of the body being flesh and blood (117). Wax, like a dead body, is a substance that is first warm, but then cools and holds it's shape until heated again.