Final Reflections

This literature credit has been a thorn in my side when it comes to my graduation. I skipped this class for many semesters due to the plan of taking a CLEP test for the credit. I was lazy about that, so I was forced to add this class during my last semester. The reason for this is because I am generally bad at English and Literature interpretation. That is why I am glad to have taken this course. I may not be perfect at literature interpretation, but I definitely know I am better than I was when I began, and I definitely learned more during this course than I would have just taking the CLEP.

My two favorite short stories were Bartleby the Scrivener, and Sonny’s Blues. Bartleby was a very weird but silly story that really kept me reading due to the silly nature of the plot. Sonny’s Blues was a great heartfelt story that reminded me that I always wanted a little brother, but instead I was the little brother. Both of these stories are told from a narration point of view about the “titular characters” majority of the story revolves around the titular character but we never get to listen to their thoughts, or know what they are feeling, so our inherit knowledge of the Titular character is Biased through the eyes of the narrator. These two stories showed me that even though a character’s name was in the title, that does not mean they are the protagonist or antagonist of that story.

This class reintroduced me back to poetry, which I hadn’t read or thought about outside of Haikus in the past 5 years. The two poems that stand out to me are ”My Fathers Song” and “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” My history with poetry is very limited, but as a very small child my mom read me the small and silly poems by Shel Silverstien. They were hardly college level literature, but gave poems a small but soft spot in my life. “My Fathers Song” was the easier of the two poems to interpret. Quite a few of the allusions and references included in “The Love Song of J. Alfed Prufrock.” went over my head so my first read through I thought the poem was beautiful and ended somewhat gracefully, but as I realized references and allusions I realized how filled the poem was of regret and indecision and how sad the poem was. I was dumbfounded how I came to the earlier conclusion of a somewhat good ending.

Othello was the most difficult reading and interpreting due to the somewhat older Elizbethean English. I used some youtube videos of reenactments of the play to get a better understanding of the plot, specifically in areas where the wording or references escape me. Before this I had never seen or read anything by Shakespeare before, and if I had in the past it was 100% translated to modern english. This took the most time and effort not mainly due to the older English but just the sheer length of the play itself.

This class was an interesting experience for me. I left this class to be completed in my last semester, it felt weird going back to a general education class after so many Cybersecurity related courses. It was quite difficult to put effort into this class due to that very reason. However this class did reignite my passion for reading overall, lately I have been listening to audio books, but I think I will get back to reading actual books for once, it felt good.