Blog entry 1 (The after effect)

  After the presentation and discussion of the poem "Original Sin: a Short Story" I can finally make some sense of the symbolism. I have come to the conclusion that the poem is mainly about the speakers past life experiences and how he or she cannot escape the painful memories from his/her childhood. The speaker is expressing how shameful his childhood has been.He uses many symbols in this poem that made me feel mixed emotions. The tone of the poem was kind of frightwning, but also sad.

       The presentation and discussion made the symbols very clear for me to understand. The speaker use visual symbols to replace his feelings. For example the first stanza says "Nodding, its great head rattling like a gourd, And locks like seaweed strung on the stinking stone,

The nightmare stumbles past, and you have heard It fumble your door before it whimpers and is gone: It acts like the old hound that used to snuffle your door and moan " . To me this explains how horrifying his pass has been, he uses this monster like creature to show the reader how scary his pass was. The last line of this stanza is really significant to me because the symbolism stands out dramatically. He is clarifying how much of  an annoyance these memory's are to him buy comparing to a hound dog that snuffle and moans.

    I also understand that the speaker was trying to escape the horrible memory's of his childhood ,but the experiences was just to unforgettable to get rid of. The speaker says "You thought you had lost it when you left Omaha,"But you met it in Harvard Yard as the historic steeple Was confirming the midnight with its hideous racket,And you wondered how it had come, ".After analyzing these few lines it was clear for me to understand that the speaker was trying to run from these memories but it had such a big impact on him that they would follow him his whole life no matter where he went.

     In conclusion I understand this poem much more after the presentation and discussion. I can finally understand the authors purpose for writing this poem. The symbols has now become very clear to me and makes sense to me on many levels. Overall discussing the poem as a group has been extremely helpful to me. Listening to my classmates opinions has helped me come up with my own understanding to this poem.