Letters

Professor Marlen Harrison
English Lit. 121 — Midterm reflective letter
21 October 2009

Dear Marlen,

I feel that I have learned a great deal already this semester.  If I was to decide on the name for the theme of the class this semester it would be “The hero’s journey.”  When deciding what to do for my midterm paper I decided what would be better than to break down my own life and reflect it directly to archetypes, the journey, and many other ideas we’re learning about in class.

I’d like to use my midterm paper, or in my case midterm diary, to show my understanding of the class theme.  I got the diary idea from our course assistant but I tweaked my version a bit.  When it came time to start writing I really didn’t know what to do.  I started writing short stories from my life that really stand out to me and I can remember well.  Or if they were really old memories I may have embellished a small amount.  But all of the stories in my diary are based on true memories and stories my family as reminded me of growing up.  I originally wrote about twenty different stories but had to narrow it down to these to fit the assignment criteria.  I chose these stories because I felt they best reflect the stages of a hero through his journey.  What I want my reader to realize at the end of my diary though is that my journey doesn’t end there.  It’s just the end of one journey, now it’s time to move onto another.

If you look at my first journal entry it’s entitled “The beginning of a new journey” and that’s exactly what it was.  When I thought about samsara and Siddhartha this memory came to me.  Every person goes through cycles of journeys in their life.  This journal entry marked the start of a new journey for me just like Odysseus as he leaves for the start of his new journey in the story.  Into the woods sparked the idea for my second journal entry which was entitled “The innocent.”  The scene when all of the characters were arguing over whose fault the bean stock was reminded me of this short story I told.  Even though they are really not similar they both portray the innocent archetype perfectly.

I wrote journal entries that expressed the ideas apotheosis, different archetypes such as the protector, and temptress, and the belly of the whale.

Learning about the journey of a hero has really given me a lot of insight into my own life up to this point.  Every stage we talk about or archetype we discuss I’m now able to relate to personally.  I see these ideas and concepts actually playing out in my life right now and honestly that sort of scared me thinking about it.  In my diary, each entry is really a whole journey in itself.  Each journey adds up to create the whole.  I think this idea can apply to real life.  Life consists of many different stories and adventures that add up to be a persons life in the end, but death is viewed in two different ways.  Death marks the end of one journey, but the beginning of another.

Now the class is changing directions slightly with the Feminist twist but this excites me too.  In all of the classes I’ve taken throughout high school and college so far no teacher or professor has done something like this with my classes.  I think by the end of the class I will have a whole different outlook on the literature I take in including novels, movies, and real life as its playing out.  I also like the fact that you touch on religions a little and how they relate to the other ideas we’re talking about.  I grew up in a deeply religious Catholic household but never really ran with it myself.  I sort of believe in the idea that you can never really know if that makes sense, but ideas we talk about often help me to better understand some of my feelings about religion.

By the end of the semester I am hoping to receive a grade of an A or a B.  The only reason I say B is because I know poetry writing is not my forte but I am enjoying doing them.  I also know that I am not the most vocal person in class and I need to work on that, but I am the sort of student who does a lot of deep quiet thinking during discussion.  One thing I would like to do is be able to repeat poetry types even if just twice.  Some of the ideas for our poems really intrigue me and I feel like I could be much more creative if I could reuse some styles of poetry.  Sometimes and idea hits me and instantly I start rambling off lines and expressions but cannot use them the way I want to.

All in all I’m really enjoying your class and look forward to the next half of the semester.  If I had to grade the first half of your class I would give it an A.  I’m sure the second half won’t disappoint.

Sincerely,

Anthony R. Prailey