Dario's Writing

Love in Detail …here the drug dealers (would they kill you if it came to that?) and the lunatics, the stunned and baffled, the people whose luck, if they ever had any, has run out. Still, she loves the world for being rude and indestructible, and she knows that other people must love it too, poor as well as rich, though no one speaks specifically of these reasons. Why else do we struggle to go on living, no matter how compromised, no matter how harmed? Even when we’re further gone than Richard; even if we’re fleshless, blazing with lesions, shitting in the sheets; still, we want desperately to live. It has to do with all this she thinks. Wheels buzzing on concrete, the roil and shock of it; sheets of bright spray blowing from the fountain as young shirtless men toss a Frisbee and vendors (from Peru, from Guatemala) send pungent, meaty smoke up from their quilted carts; old men and women straining after the sun from their benches, speaking softly to each other… (The Hours, 14-15) I...

“Damn” Etymology and Current Meaning From the Oxford English Dictionary: Damn (Daem), v. [a. OF. dampue-r, damnue-r, ad. L. damnare, dampuare, orig. to inflict damage or loss upon, to condemn, doom to punishment…] 1. To pronounce adverse judgment on, affirm to be guilty, to give judicial sentence against; = CONDEMN I damp be not quar so bou far, But go nu forth and sin na mar. Cursor M. 1300 It is no maystereye for a lord To dampen a man with oute answere. Chaucer L.G.W 1385 2. To condemn to a particular penalty or fate; to doom; = CONDEMN Pylate, do after us, And dam to death Jesus. Torvncley Myst 1460 3. To adjudge and pronounce (a thing, practice, etc.) to be bad; to adjudge or declare forfeited, unfit for use, or illegal; to denounce or annul authoritatively; to CONDEMN. For haddle God comaundid maydenhede, Then had he dampynd weddyng with the dede. Chaucer 1386 Synonyms: curse, beshrew, bedamn, anathemize, anathemise, imprecate, maledict Antonyms: bless, approve, sanctify In mode...

First Third 4 We had talked about it during the long gray winters and the damp green summers, looked with an addict’s longing at photographs of village markets and vineyards, dreaming of being woken up by the sun slanting through the bedroom window. The author begins by describing his primary incentive for moving from England to Provence. He begins by contrasting the weather in the two countries. The author describes England as depressing and “gray” in the winter and “damp green” while he describes Provence as sunny. The author writes he “dreamed” about the sun in Provence, something he did not see much of in England. 12 But what did everyone else do? The earth was frozen, the vines were clipped and dormant, it was too cold to hunt… There is a season for everything in Provence, and the first two months of the year must be devoted to procreation. We have never dared ask. Ironically, the narrator was expecting to be warm and sunny year-long in Provence. He also expected to be seeing the...

Mrs. Dalloway Mental Submission (This Explication Refers to Page 100 of Mrs. Dalloway.) In this passage from Mrs. Dalloway, author Virginia Woolf uses a strong sexual undertone to characterize Sir William and other such individuals in society. Woolf mainly relies on words that mold Sir William into a predator and those that make his patients appear as the prey. Woolf uses words with negative sexual connotation in order to reveal the methods behind Sir William’s treatments of others. Much like an animal on the hunt for his kill, Woolf characterizes Sir William as a doctor who “feasts on the wills of the weakly.” Sir William’s method of treatment of the people that see him is labeled “Conversion” by the narration and described as forcing ones ways on another. The fact that the word “conversion” is used reveals that Sir William destroys the free thought of others and turns their beliefs into ones that match his own. The diction Woolf uses in this passage also helps portray Sir William’s...

First Layer: “Faitful to themselves alone heaven cast them out for imperfection but hells deeps would not receive them” | “no hope of death” First Circle: No screaming but instead sighing, not sinners but not baptized. Lived before Christianity and did not believe in God; not sinners but have no hope, but always with desire. [Homer, Horace, Ovid, Lucan] Dante becomes sixth in company of great poets, Electra, Cesar, Aristotle, Plato, Socratese, Democratis, Euclid, etc. The fact that the five great poets accept Dante into their group suggests both that Dante believes himself as a great poet and that he might not fully believe in the correct God. Second Circle: less space, but more pain and grief, sinners of the flesh (lust). The word “pity” is repeated several times, to show Dante’s sorrow. The sinners here are blown around by a tornado like storm. Third Circle: rain, hail, filthy sleet, and murky atmosphere “soak stinking earth on which they fall”, Cerberus: blood red eyes, talons on pa...

Notes: Page Text Response Epigraph That much he knew. He had fallen into darkness. And at the instant he knew, he ceased to know. -Jack London This interesting quotation begins the novel, I’m Not Scared. Ammaniti choses this quotation because it matches the book both literally and figuratively. Literally, there is a boy that “has fallen into darkness” literally as he is in a hole. However, the “fallen” boy can matches the subtle religious undertones of the novel. The fallen boy can represent the fallen people of Michele’s town and Michele, being the “guardian angel” of the boy is thus the guardian angel and savior of the people. 3 Maybe because once he had stuck a skull on his arm, one of those transfers you bought at the tobacconist’s and fixed on with water. This passage is interesting because it shows that the novel was not translated into “American English” but into “British English.” This is apparent through the use of the word “transfer” which, without context clues, to most Amer...

Shattered glass, bullet holes and uprising: words associated with some of the music a teenager listens to. Baseball cards, Pokémon handhelds and Beanie Babies: childhood playthings forever linked with the memories sitting idly by in the back of most teenagers' minds. The kids I saw growing up on the English-speaking TV stations had baseball cards to play with, ones of their favorite players, rookie cards and first-editions, and listened to angst filled and rebellious music when they reached their teenage years. By my fifth birthday, my older brother and I had accumulated two sizable bags full of bullet casings. There existed no rookie bullets, but Rebel bullets instead. No first-editions, but the last additions to a pedestrian's chest. Just like the American kids on TV collected baseball cards and Beanie Babies, Albanian ones at that time collected bullets, shrapnel, grenade pins, parts of landmines, and other pieces of used up ammunition. It is these lasting images that I hav...