"A Great Female Thinker"

“A room of one’s own” by Virginia Woolf, is a piece of work that excellently depicts how women were seen during the 20th century. Nevertheless, we can still see some examples of women being looked down on by men and by society in general, including some women.
Regardless of the fact that women have not had enough room to express themselves, there are some powerful women that through politics, music, poetry, and so on, have made the world think about what’s going on with regards to women and life in general. This is what Virginia did in a marvellous way. It seems to be that she wrote everything she felt, and those thoughts, ideas, feelings, etc, have been passed on to us in a way that it has made us think about the role of men and women in society.
Luckily, the situation has changed in a rather violent way. In fact, we have two women who are president in Latin America, and I would definitely not be surprised if I see the same case in the States or in Europe. Nowadays, women are speaking up, they fulfill very important roles, they can study, work, be artists, and everything they want!
I truly believe that art can make a big change, and this is what Virginia helped to do in some way.

"Charles Dickens' great works"-corrected version.

I have realized that finding out more about the authors’ lives is really helpful. When we get to know different aspects of an author’s life experience, it becomes easier to understand his/her works. However, I must admit that I had to read “The Signalman” three times to get enough ideas out of it. In “The Signalman” the reader can see the trip that Charles Dickens went through during his life. Maybe he wanted to leave behind certain moments that affected him and that became ghosts in the end. I think that the train is all his psychological baggage. The train represents his story, memories, pains, and so on. Furthermore, when the train passed, some strange force wanted to challenge his mental strength, making him believe has was seeing a man. However, he fortunately realized it was a ghost. This story represents life. Life is evolving day by day, we are witnesses to new technological devices, but sometimes we do not go beyond the surface in order to think more critically and be more self-reflective. Thereby, the train may pass by us and we end up thinking why, but not even considering the fact that we probably did not pay close attention to what was happening in our worlds within, with our inborn life motivations, etc.On the other hand, we have “Oliver Twist”, a film that shows us how cruel life can be to a child who is deprived of the minimum conditions to survive. This story depicts Dicken’s own life. He wanted to take his past life experience into writing. He knew very well how sacrificed is to work from an early age. He could not have a family since they all went to jail, and so on. Dickens showed us how present individualism, abuse of power and social injustice were in the Victorian Age.

"Seeing without seeing"-Corrected version

Undoubtedly, “Frankenstein” is one of the most important literary works in the nineteenth century. Nonetheless, it still produces a lot of impact on the readers that are getting to know the story nowadays. “Frankenstein” was written by Mary Shelley, a brilliant English writer that had a very intense life, which apparently inspired her to create her works. With regards to “Frankenstein”, Shelley’s life experience seems to be absolutely present throughout the whole story.
I think that the creation of the monster was a way for Mary to say what she could not say when being through terrible moments like the loss of her baby. She felt devastated, wiped out by life, by her partner. Moreover, she “killed” her baby, so desperation, hopelessness, and any kind of guilt overwhelmed her. All those issues might have been the inspiration to create the story. Thereby, every detail I have mentioned helped to create the characteristics of the monster. Thus, we would be able to say that the monster is a kind of “dustbin” because all “bad feelings” like fears, guilt, frustration, were thrown away into it.
What comes into my head is the example of a person who feels lonely, singled out, with a low self-esteem, and eats everything he/she finds as a way to have some control over his/her actions. After eating, there comes some tiredness that makes forget. Perhaps Mary Shelley would feel relieved after messing around and behaving as a monster. However, in the monster’s inner self, there was a human, a human that maybe did not want to feel and needed some mask to speak up.
On the other hand, oddly enough, it was a man the one who gave birth to the baby (Victor creating the creature), so it is highly possible that due to the weakness the mother felt, she wanted to perform a man. A man was “for sure” going to be able to create a monster, but who was the monster then? Mary? or did she feel that she could only give birth to a monster? That is a question I do not have an answer to. Nevertheless, I imagine that by having a man giving birth to a baby, she could criticize a man not giving support to a woman who has just lost a baby.Despite everything I have mentioned, there is a theme that goes beyond the surface. I refer to the human capacity to create “monsters”. How far have we gone? Are our actions able to do harm to ourselves, to society? How powerful is the capacity of influence? Nowadays, we see on television terrible pieces of news. What shocks me the most, however, is that as time goes by, it seems that they are more and more.
What is happening inside our heads that we are so vulnerable? Where is the strenght that all of us are supposed to have? Stress, selfishness, “work slavery”, corruption, amongst other deplorable concepts, are taking control of human beings’ minds. The desire of success blinds humans, making them not realize the actions they make. It is really interesting to think about the possibility that humans are able to create their destinies, the possibility of being the ones to blame for their pains. The consequences of “blind actions” may cause a lot of damage. Ergo, as time goes by, the “train of life” may pass by us and without realizing how much we did not do. Some people end up being ill, embittered, lonesome, and then people say that the blind cannot see, but maybe they can see without seeing...

"The power of colours"

After seeing the picture, I can have two different opinions about it, depending on the colour the picture is shown. First, I saw the picture in black&white and I perceived something completely different from what I saw in the second time, when I saw it in colours. In black&white, the image shows me desertion, abandonment, autumn, coldness, regardless of the fact that the two girls do not seem to be sad or cold. That place is full of leaves, or garbage (I cannot really see what there is there), but anyway, dry leaves is a synonym of death, decline, etc. Nevertheless, some time ago those leaves were blossoming, and it was probably spring, so I can directly relate this description to “The waste land” and its part “What the thunder said”.
This part of this masterpiece has directly to do with death and decline. The text talks about the decay of eastern Europe, amongst other themes. “What the thunder said” says “...He who was living is now dead, We who were living are now dying...” Nonetheless, if I see the picture in colours, I can see two girls looking for something in an abandoned place, full of newspapers, probably old books, etc.

Having different colours can change the whole view we have about something. Colours are so powerful that they can give life, death, or any feeling to anything! I agree with those people that say “Give colour to your life” (I’m not sure if I can say this in English, it’s probably translated, but I want to express what I’m thinking of right now) And having attached images to a piece of literary work, text of any type, etc..can help readers perceive different things, read different messages, etc. This is why the objective correlative is so important. It makes readers feel more, understand more, make more relations between different topics, texts, etc.

General overview of Lawrence

What most impressed me of the two works I have read by D.H. Lawrence is the presence of very profound topics. He depicts some psychological issues in a very strong way. He talks about how a person can go mad because of ambition (The Rocking horse winner), living in solitude (Odour of...), living with someone that does not deserve your company (Odour..), seeing a mother putting pressure on his husband so that he becomes “lucky”, meaning getting money (The rocking...), amongst others.

I believe that Lawrence brings up social issues through very detailed pyschological descriptions. However, some of his writings are really ambiguous. This makes the reader have a hard time trying to get the message across at times. In fact, I had to re-read some sentences a couple of times to understand some more. But in general, his message is to make the reader think about what is going on. Lawrence, in “Odour..” for example, talks about “love”, but a very strange love however. The woman is used to living with his husband, she waits for him, despite the fact that he treats her badly. Then he dies, and after a while she realizes that she can be born again. In the end, not all the topics that the author presents are that sad or distress the reader. He shows both sides of the coin, and that is, in my opinion, an excellent way to attract most readers’ attention.

“The Rocking-Horse Winner" is a story that makes readers think a lot about certain topics such as: “richness”, money, competitiveness, “luck”, etc. When I was reading the story I could not believe how mad a person can go because of being so worried about money and luck. The woman ended up making his son go mad and then die. However, it seemed that she really did not care about it. I truly believe she was obsessed with “success”, maintaining a social status, and being lucky! Nevertheless, being lucky, for me, is not a synonym of money. You can be “lucky” and have love in your life, live happily, make friends, etc. I do not associate the word “luck” with “money”. Maybe at some point they are interrelated, but not always.
Unfortunately, the child got so mad about it, that he could not stop thinking about it. This is why it is so important to have and keep a good environment at home. By this I mean to have good energy, to be happy, not to be worried about social stuff, to be careful with the things we say in front of children. Children listen to everything and then they remember everything as well! That is why parents and adults in general must pay close attention to what they say, at least until children are a certain age in which they can decide, have their own ideas and opinions.

Do we see what we want to see?

In my opinion, this story needs to be read a couple of times to be understood. It is not that easy to get the main idea out of it, but once you get into it, you get the message across easily. In this short story, the narrator plays an essential role since he describes in an excellent way what is going on in the scene. The way he tells the story makes you get into it more and more. He describes very accurately the characters and makes the reader realize what the characters are like. He also gives important details (description of the scene mainly).
The girl is very self-centered, arriviste, and thinks she is an excellent writer but she is not. She is convinced that she is a great observer, although she is not able to realize who is around her. Moreover, she is surrounded by 8 Japanese gentlemen that attract people’s attention, but unfortunately she "can’t" see them. In the end, she is shown up as a bad writer. A writer who is not able to observe, cannot depict reality, the world, important events, and so on.
The title of the story is very illustrative because it utilizes the word “invisible”. The girl is not able to see the men....she thinks she sees but she sees what she wants to see.