Character Development in Bronx

Yes, the title is copy-pasted.

Janelle changed a lot over the course of the novel. At first she was focused on her weight and extremely self-conscious, as her first poem shows with, "Daily/I notice you frown/at my thick casing..." However, she realizes (slowly) that everyone sees her for who she is. With that, she makes light of the fact that she's effectively beating herself up over something no one cares about:"When no one is looking/I check to see/if anyone else seems/as scared as me..." Honestly, she went through a bunch of self esteem issues that would have taken years to fix in a few months. She's very dynamic.

To delve into how plot elements affect each other, allow me to present you with this diagram:
Setting-> Characters-> Conflicts-> Theme-> Plot

What does all this mean? Well, it means that the setting produces the characters (as the characters won't make sense in another setting). These characters produce the conflicts (which are specific to each character, and wouldn't make sense with any others). These conflicts, in turn, produce the theme (as the conflicts always end up making the theme), and the whole thing drives the plot. It's really simple.

I honestly thought this blog would be harder, but it was actually quite easy to write. And with that, we hopefully close the book on this book. Enjoy our hopeful new unit come Monday!

Found Poem

"On Hard Terrazo"

A voice called Retta
Looked up to see her riding a big escalator
Beyond a sun, behind a floor
On hard terrazo

The point of this is to make you think about what life would be like in such a weird place. This can be connected to cultures, disabilities, whatever you like, just be sure to give me credit if you cite it. (No one will notice I didn't intend for the poem to have a point.)

The theme of this poem is "weird places" as the entire poem takes place behind a floor, which is scientifically illogical and weird. However, the inhabitants there seem to have mastered it, as shown by the big escalator, thus showing a message about culture:What seems weird to you is normal to others.

Book Spine Poem

"Tangerine Wrestling"

An Abundance of Katherines
Tangerine
I, Q: Independence Hall
Wrestling Sturbridge
Pictures of Hollis Woods

The main point of this poem is to, in essence, be a gigantic mind bender. It's about pictures of independent tangerines wrestling. Does that make sense? It's not supposed to, and yet, it is also supposed to. It's a coherent sentence about a nonsensical topic. If you haven't somehow discovered the secret of antimatter or something stemming from nonsensical poems, you should have.

The theme of my poem is "complete nonsense making sense." It's a trope used, as I said earlier, to bend minds and discover secrets, and it is also a staple of low-quality children's books. If what I'm saying makes no sense, go stare at a hypnotizing image for about ten minutes and call me in the morning.
See you on Open Mike Friday! 

"Where I'm From" Poem

I was told to post this to Blogger. Enjoy!

Link

2-16 Blog:Bronx Masquerade-Viewpoint Contrasts

      As assigned, I have to compare and contrast the viewpoints of several different characters from Bronx Masquerade. There are a lot of contrasts here, so this shouldn't take long. Since introductions would waste some time here, let's get this ball rolling!
      The first pair I'm going to contrast is Lupe and Gloria. Lupe is very similar to Gloria, but they have their contrasts. She feels unloved by her family and wants someone she can love and who will love her in return, and for that exact reason she is envious of Gloria and her baby, as having a baby may (in her mind) fix her feelings of unlovedness. Gloria is on the other side of that; she had a baby, and that did not fix the similar problem Gloria had. I mean, she loves the baby, but it did not fix the underlying issues. In a sense, Lupe is like Gloria from the past: about to make decisions that will make her end up with a baby (possibly).
    The next pair I'm going to contrast is Devon and Diondra, who are, once again, very similar to each other. They're both tall people who are continually pressured about sports due to being tall; however, they each prefer different things to sports, and confront the pressurers in different ways via their poems. Diondra prefers art, and stands up to her accusers by literally accosting them with her poem;by contrast, Devon prefers literature and poetry, and, as more of a scholar is less like "Would you mess with me now? and more like "Look at the real me." They really defy stereotypes, which makes for an interesting read.
  I would ramble on about contrasts for a while, but I need to wrap this up. Have a lovely short week, everyone!