Elephant Man

     The elephant man has a terrible deformity that caused him to be an outcast in society.  He is a man who lookes horrible on the outside but is a caring, compassionant and intellegent person on the inside.  The average person can relate to the elephant man because everyone has some sensitivity to their self image.
    We all struggle with feeling like we need to fit in and sometimes our self image is very negative.  Even when the Elephant Man gained respect for people in society he could never overcome the feeling of loneliness and isolation.  Everytime he started to feel good about himself someone would runn in terror from the sight of him.
      The play starts out with Merrick (the Elephant Man) in a freak show where he is discovered by a doctor who wants to study his deformity.  It is first thought by the doctor that Merrick is retarded.  After being in his company for a while the doctor discovers his warmth and intellegence and quickly forms a bond with him. His concern is so great that he wants to help him.  The doctor persuades the hospital to let him stay there for life.  At this point Merrick begins to believe that maybe he will be liked for who he is not what he looks like.  This is a feeling alot of people have; that they just want to be liked for who they are.
     Throughout the play Merrick has a seesaw existence where he has friends one minute and the next they become enemies.  He feels that he has been exploited all his life and in the end does not want to live like he has anymore.  So he decides to end it by committing suicide.  If only people would judge others by what is inside instead of what is outside it would be an almost perfect world.  Unfortunately the world will never be perfect.

Woodchucks, Anamil cruelty?

The speaker in the poem begins as a peace-loving farmer.  The speaker agreed with the general attitude held in his community that the woodchucks were a nuisance. You feel in the poem how much this was affecting the farmer and how deep the feelings of anger grew and grew for these woodchucks.  The speaker then aggressively participated in the first attempted extermination of the rodents.  Their survival and subsequent invasion of the garden is a turning point for the farmer.  He begins to take their presence personally.  When they "[nip] the broccoli shoots" and [behead] the carrots," he sees this as taking "the food from our mouths" (lines 12 and 13).  They have upped their rank from being general nuisances to personally targeting the farmer.  This is the last time the speaker narrates in plural terms; he continues on in first-person singular narrative. This represents how this has become a personal war for him.  The speaker in the end wishes the woodchucks would have died quietly like those who died in the Holocaust.  But does this make the speaker a more compassionate killer? I feel this is a strange poem to write considering the poet is an animal activist.  I feel it shows that a common person can turn to killer in the right circumstances.

What Work Is Analysis by: Chris Degarmo

Levine starts the poem by describing where he is at which is standing in a long line waiting at Ford Highland Park. For work.   The reader instantly feels what it would feel like standing in a long line waiting for work.  You know that the character in the poem is probably struggling to feed his family and you can feel his emotion that he has and that he has probably stood in this line before.  He gets you involved by using the pronoun you and make you feel how it would be to stand in this line and know what work is.  He makes you feel even more depressed by describing the rain that begins to fall.  The rain starts to make his vision blur and this is when he thinks he sees his brother ahead of him, maybe ten places.  He then wipes off his glasses and realizes that it is not his brother.  He then starts to think about his brother and describes what a hard worker he is.  He loves his brother and then starts to think about how he provides for his family and even gets up after working all night to study German.  The reader feels that the man wants to be like his brother and be able to provide for his family and still do the things that he wants to do, so he waits in this long line hoping for work.  You begin to feel the love that he has for his brother and how much he idolizes him and wants to be just like him.  He knows at the end of this line he is waiting in that there will be a man that says “No, we are not hiring today” but because he loves his brother he will continue to come back and wait in the line again. 

The poem is not so much about work but waiting for work, and what it feels like to wait in a long line and know that you may not be hired that day.  The man is determined to provide for his family so he doesn’t mind the waiting.  It gives him time to think about what is important in his life like family.  The poem was probably written about the depression when people actually waited in line in hopes of being hired for a job.  This waiting took place during the depression not only for jobs but for food.  People during the depression knew what hard work was but they didn’t mind it if it provided food for their family.  Levine was familiar with this time period and probably had experience or knew someone who stood in these long lines.  The poem though depressing gives us an insight into the love this man had in his heart for his family and his brother.  This love was so strong that he was willing to wait in the rain for a long time in hopes of getting a job to prove that he could be like his brother.  The poem shows that man values many things in his life, first of all his family, second of all his work ethic.  In the last line where he states “just because you don’t know what work is” shows that even though he might not know what work is he will do it for the love of his brother and his family.