The Study of Scarlet

by Arthur Conan Doyle

“No man burdens his mind with small matters unless he has some very good reason for doing so.” 

This was my first time I read a book of Sherlock Holmes, for I have seen him in movies, and I really like him. However, books are much better than movies, and I love books that are based on a Crime. In my opinion, Sherlock Holmes is almost a God; his intelligence goes beyond everyone. He can solve a cases and cases. At the beginning I wanted to know who the killer was, so I tried to read information on the internet, but I kept on reading and I found the answer; I could not have imagined. This book represents the Gothic approach because is misterious and its setting is dark. Today, I undestand the reason people in Victorian times enjoy reading about Sherlock Holmes.

Guanga Din

By Rudyard Kipling

"He was ‘Din! Din! Din!

   ‘You limpin’ lump o’ brick-dust, Gunga Din!"

This poem caught mi attentio becuase through the narration I was able to feel what Guanga Din felt when people screamed at him. This poem shows that the best human beings in this earth do not seek for revenge as Jesus said " “But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. 29 To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from one who takes away your cloak do not withhold your tunic[a] either."Luke 6:27-29 English Standard Version (ESV). He loved their enemies and gave his life for them.

IF

By Rudyard Kipling

"If you can dream --and not to make dreams your master"

The poem was difficult for me to undestand, but after reading it plenty of time I was able to undestand it. This poem shows the ideal man, a man that is mostly perfect that do good and no harm. That loves his enemies and always give the best to other people.

The virtues we as human beings try to achieve, but it is almost impossible that a man can have all these ones because that may show perfection and nobody is perfect in this world. I do believe that one man was perfect and achieve this virtues his name is Jesus.

Dracula's Guest

By Bran Stoker

"In fact she wants me to advise you if possible to give up the tea and the very late hours."

Before reading the story I had the idea that Dracula was the evil one in the stories. However, in this story, he is not a bad guy he saved and helped the man that wolf wanted to eat. For me, it is complicated to see Dracula as the good guy because through time movies,books have shown Dracula as the bad guy. Hence, this story totally changes the perspective that I have through my life.

The Signal Man

By Charles Dickens

" 'I was sitting here, when I heard a voice cry, 'Halloa! Below there!' ... The voice seemed hoarse with shouting, and it cried, 'Look out! Look out!''

This story really gave me shiverings becuase when the professor was narrating I could imagine myself in the place. At the beggining I did not that it was a Ghost, but at the end I realize that the story was refering to a Ghost. This story was very misterious and scary at the same time. I oncsider Charles Dickens is amazing and an incredible writer and this is a master piece.

Agnes Grey

By Anne Brontë

"I should like to be a governess." 

Before reading the book, I did not know what a governess is. However, the author give a very good explanation of what is to be a governess. Moreover, through the Anne Bronte's eyes, I could experience being a governess while I was reading. This was the reading that I like the less because I did not like the ending of the story; I would have written a diferent ending, for it is cliché and predictable. The ending is as all chauvanistic endings in which a woman gets married and that is he "happily ever after."

The author also shows the education children received in higher classes. Parents were barly with the children, for they spent most of the time with their governess, and for parents, it was most important to attend to tea parties or social events than spending time with their children at that time.

The Lady's Yes

By Elizabeth Barret Browning

"Yet the sin is on us both

time to dance is not to woo"

This poem shows that to claim you love a person you might be sure of it due to the fact that the girl in the poem is struggling with the fact that at night she loved a guy; however, in the morning,  he rethought about it and she said no, she is not in love. Normally, we say words that we don't truly feel because of the place or because we are having a good time, and our emotions mixed. Hence, this poem emphasizes this fact that she realizes she does not love him, but it is ok, for it is better to be sure of honest about what we feel.

              The Strange Case of  Dr Jekyll 
                         and Mr Hyde

  By Robert Louis Stevenson

“All human beings, as we meet them, are commingled out of good and evil: and Edward Hyde, alone, in the ranks of mankind, was pure evil“ 

I consider this as my favorite story because i do believe that human beings have their good and bad side and both fight against each other to be in the light. However, we cannot control our bad part.

There is evil in all us and this evil is also part of ourselves. In the readind Dr Jenkill wanted to discover this part, but at the end he cannot control it. This is our shadow that we hide from the rest of the world. A part of us that we hide and do not show.

Porphyria's Lover 

by Robert Browning

"Porphyria worshipped me; surprise 

Made my heart sweel, and still it grew"

True love make people lose their minds, and perhaps, this crazy feeling can lead to obssesion and dependency. Also, love make people do crazy things that later they might regret. This poem seems to be pretty dark, for the love described it follows a dark path. The men seems to be obesssed with her that even when she is dead he performed inimaginable acts with her. This poem, I consider, shows the fact that loving can lead to madness, and for some this madness is understood as true love. 

A Man's Requirements

By Elizabeth Barret Browning

"Thus,if thou wilt prove me, Dear, Woman's love no fable.
I will love thee-half a year- As a man is able"

Women in Victorian times were considered as inferior if they are compared to men. They did not have the chance to give their opinios or ideas, even telling their likes and dislikes. In this poem, women are shown as an object that can be sold to men, for women have to fullfill all the requirements to get married. When men choose a wife, they not only have to look pretty to be selected by them but also be perfect as men want them to be. I believe that due to the fact the author is a woman, she criticizes in a sacarstic manner, the way women were treated in this period.

My last Duchess 
by Robert Browning

"Too easily impressed; she liked whate'er"

The poem showed the reality that women lived in the Victorian era. Women's goal was to get married and have children. When women got married, their husband owned all properties and money, and women depend financially on men. I consider that women were seen as objects, and in the haunting season, there were like paintings that people see, judge and take the best that they like. 

One part of the poem said that the girl was pleased with everything and all makes her happy. Therefore, women were easy to please because perhaps they never said what they dislike since they had to show they were happy all the time. If they dislike something, they did not have the right to share it. In conclusio, women were seen as objects that one went to the store and pick the best one.

Dover Beach

by Matthew Arnold

"Ah, love, let us be true 

  To one another! for the world, which seems

  To lie before us like a land of dreams..."

This poem has a sense of calmness, so while I was reading, I traveled to this beach. I could imagine what the author narrates. At the beggining, it was difficult to understand the poem. However, after readig it 3 times, I could analyze the poem. Also, at the end, I realized that the author was with his love. Therefore, perhaps the poem is about two lovers in ther honeymoon in the beach; enjoying their love. Two lovers enjoying and loving each other in the beach; it seems very romantic.

The Forsaken Merman 

by Matthew Arnold

"But cruel is she!
She left lonely for ever
The kings of the sea"

Before analyzing the poem, I did some research about the author, so I realized that he believed in science rather than Cristianity. Also, in his works, he related the stories with the Victorian era. In this case, this poem is related to Cristianity, which he critized it.

I can interpret the poem like this: Margaret lived happy in the sea with her family; she did not want it to go back to the land. However, because of her cristian duties, as she said "she must go," she went leaving her family in the sea. She never came back to the sea. This shows that sometimes people leaves everything behind for religion. Also, the poem shows women empowerment in the Victorian era in which women had to obey her husband and submit to him. However, in the poem, she empowered herself, and decided to do something for herself. As the poem shows, she lives in the sea; so she left her home to live with the merman, and sacrifice herself to live in the sea, but then she returned to his home and never came back to the sea. She decided to do what she really wanted.

I enjoy reading this poem, for I can imagine the sea, the merman very clearly. The author explains and gives many details. Therefore, reading this poem was an enriching experience. 

 Break, Break, Break

by Alfred Lord Tennyson

"Break, Break, Break

     To their haven under the hill"

When you lose someone you love, you feel that your heart breaks a little. This poem was created by the author when his friend Arthur Henry Hallan passed away. As the author sees the sea and some thoughts come to their mind. In this case, I consider that he starts remembering his friend, and all the moments he spent with him. In fact, the memories and thoughts are the only ones which remain when a person passed away.

It is interesting what it says in stanza 4 line 3-4 "But the tender grace of a day that is dead will never come back to me" I understand this part of the poem and I agree with it because as the tender grace of a day will never come back the time or moments you spend with a beloved person wil never come back. For this reason, we should live the present with the people we love as if it were the last day of our lives.

The Lady of Shalott

   The lady of Shalott narrates the story of a woman that is cursed. Hence, she is imprisoned in a tower, and she cannot see anything through the window only through a mirror. However, when a man walked by near the tower, she saw him through the window and the mirror broke; by looking at the window, the curse came upon her.
   
   The lady of Shalott lived all her life in the tower, and respecting the curse  looking at Camelot through the mirror. However, for a knight, she did not care about the curse and looked through the window. Sometimes, we live our lives in a tower looking a the mirror wanting to see beyond, but we are so affraid of the risks (the curse) that we don't see through the window because is too risky. However, there is always something o someone that makes us forget about all the risks (curse) and we forget all the risks (curse), and we look through the window; we do not care the consecuences of our acts due to the fact that thing or person is worth it. This lyrical ballad showed me that if the person is worth it, the risks do not matter.

"I am half sick of shadows" said the Lady of shadows

The Cry of the Children

Author: Elizabeth Barrett Browning

"Our grave-rest is very far to seek"

Children should be enjoying theit chilhood playing and eating without worring for money. However, one can think that I shoud not even write this, for it is too obvious that children must not work, but due to workhouses, in the victorian era was normal to see children working in despicable conditions. 

When I read the poem, I realized that death was common for them that became as normal as sleeping. I guess they live the present because they did not if in the future they survive. It sounds sad to digest, but that was the reality of all those children.

The goverment did not care about their children because the goverment was so focus on making the rich richer that they justify poverty, and they needed poor people to work in those workhouses, and depend on those workhouses to live. Sadly, children also needed to survive. Some might were born in workhouses.

"A Walk in a Workhouse"

Author: Charles Dickens

"I am greatly better in my health, sir; but what I want to get me quite round" with his hand on his throat, "is a little fresh air, sir ...

I really enjoy seeing a Workhouse through Dicken's eyes although it was not the best place to imagine. He described the place with so many details that it looks that I was walking in a workhouse. I realize that workhouses where similar to concentration camps only that in concentration camps they were against their will and in workhouses they went there by their own will. However, can you call that their own will when they had only two options: Dying because they did not have food or working in a workhouse to have food and work, but with non-human conditions. As the quote said without seeing the light and enjoyinng fresh for long periods of time.

The people there were call inmates which has synonyms such as captive, prisioner, convict (workreference). The word explains itself what they were without them noticing; they were prisioners of workhouses. Also, I perceived that in the text when they were interwiewing a inmate he tried to say that he was incredible there eventhough it was not like that. This looks like their boses obligating them to say pretty words and lie when they were asked about the conditions.

Likewise, derogatory words were used to describe women and no men nor children. For example: evil-looking women, ugly old woman, witch like, among others which shows how women were seen in those times.

Elizabeth Bentley, called in; and Examined

Author: Edited by Jonathan F. Scott snd Alexander Baltzly

          

            "How far had you to go for dinner?-We could not go home to dinner"

Before reading this, I was not aware of the fact that children had to work at such a young age in the Victorian era. I wondered if there were laws that permit children working so young. However, I will look for information to understand the laws in this era.

After I read this, I related the text to the situation that occurs nowadays in China where children work in sweatshops for long periods of time with a low salaries. Unfortunately, as Elizabeth, children started working in sweatshpos and continue working  there as they get old. They don't have a choice, so they accept all the poor conditons. I was shocked because in the interwiew, Elizabeth  said that she could not eat the appropiate amount of food, and she had to work for extensive periods of time. Hence, she only had time to work and work.

To finish, to survive Elizabeth had to work since she was a kid, and continue working there. For this reason, I felt grateful that I could enjoy my childhood playing and not worring about working, fot I needed food

Doffers:

The Importance of Being Earnest
 Author: Oscar Wilde


  At the beginning, it was difficult to undertsand the play; so I had to read the play two times and listen to the audio book. After, I watched the movie, and then I could get the idea of the play, so I enjoyed it. There were many words that I have not seen before, but I got the meaning by context. A problem that I had was that my classmates saw the comedy play as a comedy and they laugh or said they laugh while reading it. However, I did not laugh at any time, even I consider this play not to be a comedy. I guess my sense of humor is different from the rest or I did not understand the jokes.

I compared this text with the theory by Jung that talks about the persona, for the persona is the different masks people wear. In this play, the male characters invent a ficticious character as a mask that they wear to be other person and do aspects that they normally cannot perform. Also, I did a research about the author, and I realized that he was gay. For this reason, I think the play may be related to part of his life. In the victorian era, homosexual people were not well seen, so I believe the author had to have two different lives or made up names to hide the reality. 

Last, I analyzed the role of women on the play. I realized that women at a young age were thinking about getting married, and had to obey their parents. Sadly, in the text, the only aspiration that women had was marring and becoming a wife of a man call earnest because "of course the only thing that matters when you marry someone is the last name" (sarcasm). To finish, women had to look good all the time even though they had to wear uncomfortable clothes.