The Nether World

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight’s all a-glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet’s wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore,
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray,
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.

Question: The poem was read by Frankie to Maggie as she lay on the bed. What is the theme of the poem and why did Frankie chose the poem to read? What is the significance of the poem to him and Maggie? Do you notice any transformation or change of the relationship between Frankie and Maggie? What is it? And what might contribute to the change?

Answer: I think the theme of this poem is a person who has many stresses in his life and he/ she recounts an ideal place he/ she wants to move in. And the reason why Frankie chose the poem to read, I thought that’s because Maggie injured very serious. And at that time, both Frankie and Maggie were under a bad mood, the world in their eyes was gray. Because Frankie wanted Maggie to be happy and get better soon, he read " The Lake Isle of Innisfree" to her.
To talk about the transformation of the relationship between Frankie and Maggie, it really a big change for sure. At first, Frankie was discriminatory to Maggie because she was kind of old for the wrestling and didn’t have good skills. But after he training Maggie, he treated her like his daughter. And the reason contributed to the change might be that Frankie saw the heart of firm from Maggie. And it touched him. And that’s why the relationship between change.

After reading the “Musee des Beaux Arts", I felt that W.H. Auden didn’t agree the behavior of Icarus, or maybe I should said that the Breughel thought it, too. Beacause W.H. Auden wrote this poem after he had seen the “Fall of Icarus", maybe he just wanted to convey the mood of the moment that he saw the picture or maybe he had the same feeling as Breughel’s. According to the poem, he said “In Breughel’s Icarus, for the disaster; the ploughman may have heard the splash, the forsaken cry, but for him it was not legs disappearing into the green water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky, had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on,". I thought that he wanted to tell us that humans should not be greedy of the things they could not have, such as Icarus wanted to fly to the sky. Because that would only make themselves be punished. We could see that the ploughman were not even care about the strang sound he heard. And though Icarus fell into the sea near the expensive delicate ship, it still had its own way to go and didn’t care about “the accident" that happened near by it. According the above symbols, I could say that in W.H. Auden’s mind disagreed with Icarus and so am I.

Q3.What is the family background of the author? How does she look at it? Does she feel proud of it or embarrassed about it?

A3.The background of the author was a family from Shanghai and immigrated to the United States. At first, Tan felt shameful about her mother’s poor and too simple tongue. But after a few year, Tan thought that the way her mother used English was very vivid, direct and was full of her own observation and imagination. And we can see that Tan felt proud of it in the last three paragraph.

Q5.Any insporations you get from reading the story?

A5.After reading this article, I feel proud to the Chinese. Although the American despises the Asian, there are still many Asian having great accomplishments. The inspirations I get in this story are: don’t feel embarrassed when your family has a difference as Amy Tan and don’t limit your talent and ability. I think just do you have to do and to reach the goal that you gave yourself, if you work really hard then I believe that you will reach the goal someday.