A Poem: The Music of Life

In Walt Whitman´s Leaves of Grass, he talks about America. He says that the country is made up of a lot of people from every culture and the diversity that there is. Whitman continues talking about the potential that every person has for poetic expression, and that America is an enormous poem. However, I couldn´t see how regular people have potential for poems, and what essence Whitman can see on them.

Reading the 14th poem of Leaves of Grass, Whitman adds to his thought by saying, “What is commonest, cheapest, nearest, easier, is Me; Me going on for my chances, spending for vast returns; Adoring myself to bestow myself on the first that will take me; Not asking the sky to come down to my good will; Scattering it freely forever.” (Leaves of Grass. Walt Whitman. 250-254) This first call my attention, because Whitman doesn´t take his time to answer of even put a question mark on the question he starts the paragraph with. Also, he capitalizes the word “Me”, and he answers his own question with the “Me”, therefore since the first line he is making an emphasis in the Me.

Reading, I understood that everyone cares a lot about themselves, and everything they do has a reason that feed their ego. Therefore, this self confident person is the poetic side of each individual. Their passion they have for themselves is what makes them make an effort every single day, and that’s the poem. A poem doesn´t have to be written, because it is made out of the feelings and a thought of the author, so just by having those emotions, a poem is made.

Cliche, Make My Life Easier

When I started to take my french classes I started to notice how hard it is to explain the simple things in our lives. In Walt Whitman's poem Leaves of Grass he states the same by saying, "A child said, What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands;/How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is, any more than he." (Walt Whitman. Leaves of Grass. 6.92). I mean, how can you explain to a child what is water without using any scientific terms?

Anyways, I really understood Whitman in this part of the poem, but it was his use of words that made me get the hang of him faster. Using the "stuff" (93) and "I guess"(94) break the ice that the name Walt Whitman and a poem creates. A poem tends to be a very complex text that requires a lot of close reading and analysis to understand, but the words he used make a poem fun. Also, he is doing what he is saying, by choosing simple words to talk about a simple matter, and trying to express a simple literal feeling.

However, I see most of the word choice as a cliche, since the word or expression has been over used. Nevertheless, I recognize that by the time that Whitman wrote the poem, the words weren't misused yet. Whitman was able to pull of expressions that were interesting enough to be instilled in a great number of people, and still be easy enough to use in the daily life and common language.

HOW TO GET WHITMAN'S STYLE

This master of style, breaks the roads of literature, wearing bright colors on the shoes and hats, but calming the neon with some simple shirts. He starts the look with bright ideas that come from his head and introduces. Later, calm the colors with some pastel colors, and use designs that everyone can wear and understand at all times. Finish the look, with more powerful colors in the high heel shoes, but remember it must make a smooth transition with a big statement.

Felicite, Relay on Yourself

Felicite, Flaubert’s character in A Simple Soul, is a very timid girl, living a life as monotony as her. Nevertheless, this character knows what love is and had a experience, though it didn’t go that well, and attaches to things that make her feel secure and won’t let her down, such as her religion and Loulou.

After some chapters in the book, Loulou is a parrot that was left behind in the moving of some neighbors. Gustave introduces Loulou starting by his name, “He was called Loulou. His body was green, his head blue, the tips of his wings were pink and his breast was golden.” His description about this character stands out, first of all because the author invests an entire paragraph on his physical description. Also, he had mentioned before he came from America, therefore, the reader can assume the description of the bird, and yet the author takes the time to do it.
“Loulou” is the repetition of “lou” twice, representing how the parrot would imitate Felicite, that both souls are leftovers from others, and that the parrot is mirroring Felicite. “The breast is golden” represents the golden heart the animal had since the beginning, and explains why this parrot meant so much to the servant girl. Also, Flaubert says “his head blue”, as well as he said that at Felicite’s deathbed blue smoke came out. The author is using blue to demonstrate the tranquility of the animal, and how he transferred it to the girl, leaving her only with that at the end of her days.

Felicite didn’t love herself or the live she was living. Therefore, she tended to rely on things that made her feel secure and promised never to leave, such as the religion. By the time Loulou arrives, starts looking like her: with his commitment to the job and the people they work for, the heart and mind they own, and how they were never wanted by anyone and were left behind. At the end Felicite starts to relay in the bird, and since then she starts living, because she started to relay on herself.

Chesse as your Weapon

Felicite is the character that Flaubert uses to narrate his story of this poor servant’s life. She is a very timid person that only takes care of her job without getting into her mistresses’ business and she is recognized and envied for her work ethic.
However, reading the book, the reader gets the impression that Flaubert doesn’t even like this girl, since she lacks character and a strong personality. We can deduce this from the style that he uses to refer to her and how he rushes listing her description without giving her much importance. In the first chapter Flaubert writes, “She arose at daybreak, in order to attend mass, and she worked without interruption until night; then, when dinner was over, the dishes cleared away and the door securely locked, she would bury the log under the ashes and fall asleep in front of the hearth with a rosary in her hand.” (A Simple Soul. Gustave Flaubert). To describe this girl, Gustave lists all her daily routine, in a fast and simple way. With this he is making emphasis in the monotony in her life, and how insignificant her work is, but yet she puts all her effort to it. Also, he adds a “rosary” when she falls asleep, to demonstrate that this girl only bares her life thanks to the religion she is faithfully following, and it is the only thing that she feels comfortable sleeping and resting with.
For this unlikeness towards the servant, I was impressed to see why the author added a scene were Felicite is a hero in her life. Gustave, mentions the family’s trip to the country, were the kids, Virginia and Paul mess with a bull and how “Felicite continued to back before the bull,
blinding him with dirt, while she shouted to them to make haste.” (A Simple Soul. Gustave Flaubert). In this scene Felicite saved the life of the family she worked for. However, it is an outbreak since Gustave made an emphasis to this moment, by inverting an entire paragraph. Nevertheless, the turning point that supports the idea that Felicite is a girl that lost a great part of her soul, is that she wasn’t happy about saving this three life’s. Felicite, only smiled but didn’t really care, because she is torturing herself every single moment and no longer lets herself feel joy or be proud of herself.

Felicite is a very insipid girl, and yet the author is able to use her, and make a strong statement about the monotony and miserable life’s of many. With the use of his style, he can pull of the statement, even though he is using a very common and simple character. Also, with his use of words we can deduce many hidden ideas that make the reader understand Flaubert.