"The Plum Plum Pickers" Essay

Kevin Joyce
Ryan Gallagher
Senior CP
19 Oct. 2010

                                                    "The Plum Plum Pickers"

In the story "The Plum Plum Pickers" the author Raymond Barrio suggests that even though you are surrounded by people, you can still feel alone on the inside. An example of this would be when Manuel is feeling alone and trapped in the beginning of the story, when he describes the trees as jail bars, or the gates of Hell. He also keeps referring to himself as brute or an animal.

Barrio uses repetition to describe Manuel through the beginning of the story. One way that he uses it, is when he uses one word sentences like “Animal”, “Brute”, “Beast”, and “Predator”, the main reason why Barrio chose these words is because Manuel works and is treated like an animal. Since there are trees surrounding him, Manuel can compare himself as a caged animal. Also  Barrio uses repetition again, because he uses the word “brute” a least five times through out the story.

Barrio also uses comparison when describing Manuel, and his surroundings. He describes the apricot trees as “the blackest bars on the jails of Hell”. Barrio is comparing Manuel as an animal, and being trapped and alone, but yet he was surrounded by other pickers. He then describes Manuel at the end of the first paragraph using a one word sentence, as “Predator”.

The main idea of the story is that even though you are surrounded by people, you can still feel alone on the inside. This goes with the story because Manuel feels alone because, he feels like he is in Hell. He feels this way because his surroundings resemble Hell and it is really hot, and there are bad working conditions, so in general it is a bad working environment.

College Essay

Kevin Joyce

Ryan Gallagher

Senior CP

19 Oct, 2010

                                                               College Essay
 My name is Kevin Joyce and my number one passion in life is music. It all started when I was five years old, now being the middle child of three boys, Joe my older brother and Chris my younger brother, I didn’t receive much attention as I usually did because my parents mostly paid attention to Joe because of his sports activities and Chris because he was the youngest, not to mention that my parents fought almost every night, not to mention that me and my mom share the same birthday. The only person who really paid attention was my grandfather who bought me my first CD player  and gave me some of his CDs  such as THE ROLLING STONES and Bruce Springsteen .  Ever since that day I was always listening to music, until a few years later when my grandparents split up and I never saw my grandfather again. Soon after that it was Christmas and  along with all my toys that I got my parents bought me a few more CDs, I was nine this Christmas. Months later my parents started fighting a lot more then they used to, along with my brothers I was getting tired of all of the yelling and I turned to my CD player to block it all out, and I entered my own little reality and by the time I was 10 I had a growing CD collection. Then I noticed why my parents were fighting, my mom was a alcoholic. Now instead of my mom taking care of me, I was taking care of her, because my father worked until 7:00. Then he would come home and that was my time to get out of the room while they fought for the rest of the night.  Soon after that it was my first communion and at the party my mom was drunk and the life of the party, and in all jealousy that she took my special day from me I looked over to the stage and saw a karaoke machine and so I picked up the microphone and started singing a song, I grabbed everyone’s  attention even my drunk mother, the only person who didn’t really care was my dad. Since that day I loved performing and finally noticed my love for singing. Then my godmother wanted me, a 11 year old, to sing at her wedding and I left everyone in tears. Then my dad noticed that I really loved singing and I guess he didn’t appreciate it and so he made me try out for sports to keep me busy. I did baseball, football, and soccer, until one day when I told him I didn’t want to play sports anymore. But the reason that he did this is so I didn’t have to see my mom wasting her life away. I was 12 when my mom was put in her first half way home because she tried overdosing herself, and having DSS become part of my life. Then  a few weeks would go by and mom would come home, just to know that in a week she would be put in to another halfway home. In total my mom must have been put into 5 half way homes until I was 14 and my dad divorced her. But its not like me and my brother noticed anyways because she wasn’t home when they where together in the first place, and if she was, she was drunk and none of us wanted any part of that anymore. Then I turned 15 and it was my freshmen year of high school, where I didn’t know that my love for singing and music would grow so quickly. I was enrolled into the Mixed Chorus, which is made up of mostly freshmen. Since I was starting a new life, my dad brought it to himself that he should do the same, and so my dad started seeing someone and he hid it from us until one day he told us as we ate dinner and brought us to her house one day later, her  name was Kim and when I met her I felt like I already knew her, as if she was the mother I never had. The year went on all of us as a family including Kim and her kids, Erin who was about  Joes age and Cj who was a little younger the Chris. Then it was time for the MHS winter concert and I was so happy to see my dad there supporting me finally. As the year was coming to an end, Mr. Cole my choral director, and a huge role model for me, wanted to promote me to Malden High School’s Concert Choir, which is made of sophomores, juniors, and seniors, for my sophomore year. I was so happy to be promoted because only the people who disserved to be in concert choir where in it. Now that I was a sophomore and 16 years old, I loved chorus even more because I was in concert choir. That year went on and I got to say goodbye to all my graduating concert choir friends. Just like the year before Mr. Cole confronted me and wanted to promote me again, this time to Madrigals, also known as chamber singers, and I said yes, but in order to be in madrigals you need to be in concert choir. Along with being the Madrigals I was also MHS’s Choral Art Society’s treasure. Then it was senior year and I am now 18. While taking four music classes, Concert Choir, Madrigals, Music Theory, and I schooled to career for Mixed Chorus, where all of this started. Not only that but I also became MHS’s Choral Art Society’s president. After looking back at my life, I finally noticed my self as a performer and knew that performing is what I wanted to spend the rest of my life doing .

"Red Shift" essay

In the poem "Red Shift" the author Ted Berrigan suggests that life itself can trigger different emotions. Thoughout the poem the speaker's emotion/tone changes in multiple places. It usually changes after he talks about another topice, person, ect.

In the begining of the poem, the speaker talks about what time it is and the month and settings. "The air is biting, Febuary, fierce arabesques on the way to tree in winter streetscape" ,in this quote the speaker is trying to say that the wind is bitter cold, and so his tone/ attitude might be bitter. "I drink some American poisen liquid air which bubbles and smoke to have charracter and to leanin", he is referring to the polluted air in the U.S.

In the begining of the poem the speaker's tone is bitter then it forms into sadness, which eventually forms into anger. "To breathe and who will never leave me, not for sex, nor politics, nor even for stupid permanent estrangement which is only our human lot and means nothing'. this quote sounds sad becasue it might reffer to him losing a relitive or spouse. "When will I die? I will never die, I will live to be 110", this quote represents the speakers anger because he might be afraid of death.

"Landscape with the Fall of Icarus" essay

In "Landscape with that Fall of Icarus", Willaim Carlos Williams suggests that everything has its place or purpose in life. This is true because if your a farmer, then in life you will plough, grow, crop, ect. If your a shephard then in life you will watch sheep. If your purpose was to die young, then that was your destiny.

The "The story of Daedales and Icarus" Ovid, suggests that the higher you get in life can easily be shot down in one instint. For example when Icarus flew too high the wax that was keeping his feathers on melted and he fell and died. Another example is Daedales finally getting off the island and which doing this he lost his son. The reason why both of these events occured is because Daedales went passed the laws of nature.

In the painting  "Landscape with the Fall of Icarus", Bruegel showed the viewers the scene of Icarus's death. The the painting the viewer can see that there are four people. One which is the farmer ploughing his land. Another being the shephard looking up at the sky. Another being a fisherman catching fish. Also another being Icarus drowning. The farmer represents what he should be doing instead of looking at Icarus dieing because being a farmer is his job. The shephard is looking up in the sky thinking, most likely about breaking the laws of nature. The fisherman shows that he also is doing his purpose in life, just like the farmer. This shows that most humans are selfish.

In the poem "Landscape with that Fall of Icarus", Willaim Carlos Williams, describes the scene of which Icarus dies. Along with Ovid and Bruegel, he mentions that the farmer is ploughing his field. H does this because that is the farmer's purpose in life. The reason why no one noticed Icarus dieing is because they are too selfish and only worried about themselves. Also they most likely believed that Icarus's death was his purpose in life, in other words his life purpose was to end his own life.

Williams, Bruegel, and Ovid all have something in common, all there pieces of work revolve around the theme that in life everything has its place or purpose. By noticing this the reader can find the selfishness of the characters in all three pieces of work.

500 words on Painting by Bruegel

In this painting "Landscape with the fall of Icarus" by Pieter Bruegel, my observation is I see different shades of colors such as yellow, blue, green, white, red, orange, brown, and grey. Also I the painting I see a few animals such as a horse, some sheep, a dog, a bird, and a partridge (which is supposed to be Daedalus’s nephew that he kicked off the edge of a cliff and was turned into a bird). Also in the sky I see clouds and the sun . I also see an ocean and on the water I see about five ships, huge rocks, a small island with a stone house, another island and the sun’s reflection. But the ships look like they are leaving a city which is located on the left of the painting. The city looks like it is surrounded by water on one side and on the other it looks like it is surrounded by mountains. Near the sun it looks like a volcano is located there because of its outline. On the opposite side of the city there are a lot more mountains. When I first looked at the painting I first noticed the man in red who is plowing his land, he is dressed in a red shirt and some sort of dress and some sort of hat or helmet and he is also pushing around a ancient plower. Around him I see very dry dirt and grass and some of the small plants look like they are dieing. Also I see beautiful trees that look like they are just blooming and bushes and shrubs. Then at the edge of the cliff he is on I can see dead dried up plants that look like they where ounce very beautiful. Then I noticed the man in a blue/grey shirt who is a shepherd with approximately sixteen sheep and he has a brown sheep dog. The way he is positioned is that he must be looking in the air at Daedalus and Icarus falling or he might be thinks strongly about things such as breaking the laws of nature. Then I noticed Icarus drowning in the water which is located in the bottom right of the painting. You cant really see him because he is drowning but I know its him because of the feathers in the water surrounding the body and his legs are hanging out of the water. Then I noticed the fisherman at the coast fishing, he is dressed in a light brown shirt. I also see the cliff that might have been the cliff that Daedalus pushed his nephew off of. All of the men look like they don’t care about Icarus drowning in the water, that shows that humans only care for themselves, but they could be mad at him because he had them thinking that him and his father are gods when they clearly not if he just fell out of the sky and died. That is all I see in the painting "Landscape with the fall of Icarus" by Pieter Bruegel.