Tiger Mending

After I was finished with reading the story Tiger Mending, I felt a lot like the narrator did. The narrator said that they were left with an unsettled feeling. That is sort of how I felt at the end of the story. I tend to feel unsettled after readings where there are numerous questions in my mind that were left unanswered. I suppose I could speculate, and try and answer my own questions, but I’m just the sort of person that likes hard facts. So I don’t feel entirely fulfilled by answering my questions through a mere speculation. The two sisters seemed to have very different personalities, and different qualities and strengths, but they seemed to work well with each other, especially in coping with life after their parents’ death. Throughout the story, I also was wondering what had put the tigers in that condition, and what was it that made their work so secretive. Then when I saw they were helping those poor tigers, it made me wonder all the more why their work had to be so secretive, if they were doing a good work. I guess I’m just curious in that way. So I then continued reading in anticipation, wanting to find out the cause of this strange problem. The outcome was interesting, because once one of the sisters did find out the cause of the problem, it made one sister feel better about it, and the other left for home. I think that the narrator felt it be a waste of time, to continue on that way, trying to fix a problem that would never seem to end, but why she left her sister, whom she seemed to care about so much, puzzled me. And I wondered what made the other sister stay, because she was the first to voice that she wanted to know the cause of the condition of the tigers. Maybe she was just content in having her curiosity filled, not really caring whether it was right or wrong.
I didn’t have to think for too long to figure out what tiger stripes meant to me. I’m a big fan of nature and zoology, and I really can’t get enough of National Geographic and The Discovery Channel. My mind was taken to tigers living in their natural habitat. In the wild, tiger’s use their stripes for camaflouge , to keep them hidden from their prey, which helps them be the powerful hunters that they are. The stripes also keep them hidden from hunters and the like. Another interesting thing to note about tiger’s stripes is that it is one of the things which keeps them different from each other. No two tiger’s have the exact same pattern of stripes. So to put in plainly, individuality. When looking at it in an allegorical sense, I can’t help but to parallel this meaning of tiger stripes to life and society. To be completely honest, I’m not exactly sure what the message was that Bender was giving in the tiger stripes themselves. I think that one meaning could be that in many cases people can’t really blame others for the way things are, for there are many instances when we are the causes, or play a big role in the problems that we have in our own lives.
In the beginning I was enjoying the story, but I really wasn’t satisfied with the ending. I wish it had gone more into the personal feelings of both of the girls once the cause was discovered.

My response to literature

For this blog, I will be telling you the various ways we respond to literature and how it might change our lives from critically analyzing it. There are so many varieties in literature, and each piece of work delivers a message in some form or fashion. I believe that the writers wrote these things because they wanted a response from the reader. The response may differ from person to person, but a response they will receive. It is very difficult if not impossible to give a proper response on a literary work without first understanding it. A complete understanding of the work may not come from reading it the first time. I often have to read something a few times in order to get a better understanding of what the author is trying to tell me. Yes this does take more time than I like to spend on these sorts of things, but I think it is better to take the extra time so that I can have complete understanding.
So, one of the first responses that I have towards literature is trying to answer the questions that arose in my mind from reading the text. When I read something thoroughly, I really cannot help but to have questions from it. If it were my own work I wouldn’t have to question my meaning. But being that it is someone else's thoughts, I wonder what they mean. Some meanings do not simply lie at the surface. Once I gain a better understanding, then I can formulate my own ideas and opinions on it. As I stated before, I cannot just breeze through the reading and expect to gain much by doing so. When it comes to longer pieces of work, I find that a summary is helpful for me to get the main ideas. It is impossible for me to remember all the little details, and some may be irrelevant to the main idea anyway. Some are put there just for elaboration and to keep the attention of the reader. So I don’t really mind all of the little details. I think that one of the nice things about literature is that we can formulate our own ideas and opinions on what the author was saying. You can go around a classroom full of students to see what their responses are from what they have just read. There can, of course, be a common thread in what each of the students are saying, but each student can glean something different.
Our lives can be changed in a number of different ways from critically analyzing literature. Learning how to critically analyze literature can help us learn how to take closer looks at other things in our own lives. It can help us to go further and dig deeper into many areas of our lives. Also, just the information that we can glean from reading different authors can help give us a broader spectrum on things in general. We may or may not agree with the message, but we can look at that positively in two ways. If we agree, we can add that information to the tools that we will find handy in life. If we disagree, then hopefully, that can strengthen our own opinions and/or beliefs.

Literature and why it matters

I am writing this blog to answer some questions in regards to literature. The first question was asking how does literature matter to me. To be perfectly honest, for years I had found it difficult to understand the importance or need of literature. But when I began to look more closely, and think hard and deep about it, I can see why it matters in our world today. People write for a variety of reasons, some for pleasure, and others to convey a very important message. I believe that literature matters because it helps to give us different outlooks on life as a whole. I also think that certain works of literature can help us give up a very narrow-minded way of thinking. So in conclusion to answering this first question, I would have to say that literature matters to me because a great deal of it helps to broaden my perspective on life itself. Many times, in the work or school setting we are given projects to do. Some may be done solo, or in a group effort. Both methods can get the job done efficiently. There are many cons to group projects, but I’d like to focus on one of the pros. I find that one of the pros to group projects, is that you get to hear the ideas of suggestions of others, some of which you may not have thought about on your own. This is how I view literature. Solo, we formulate our own views and ideas on things, but the ideas and concepts that some authors present in their literary works, may present to us a different way on how to view things. I may or may not agree or find useful many different pieces of literature, but being that there is such a large variety out there, old and new, I am bound to find something enlightening, useful, pleasurable, or preferably a mixture of all three.

The second question that I was to answer was in what ways does literature speak, inform, or change me. Although this is one question, I will break it up into sections. First I will go into how literature speaks to me. Literature speaks to me in a number of different ways. My favorite type of literature is non-fiction. Literature has a way of evoking many different kinds of emotions on me. At times I find myself sympathizing with the plight of the character in the story. If it’s sad enough, it may even bring a sad expression on my face. That is just one of many ways that literature speaks to me. And so how does literature change me? I believe that I answered this question in the first part of this blog. It changes me because it helps to give me a different outlook on things in life.

I think that this class will help me to better understand what the authors are trying to say. I know we will have to do many discussions on what we read, and I know I won’t enjoy or want to do most of them, but at the same time I feel that it will help me to dig deeper. I really hope this class helps me with life in general, and mainly my study habits. I also hope that this class will help me to search harder and pay more close attention to what I read in and out of this class.