Misery

 Latin American Literature Realism and Magical Realism 

 

The theme that I feel emphasized in all the interpretations is Misery. Misery was something that all the characters felt at some point and time in each of the readings. Misery is a state or feeling of great distress or discomfort of mind or body. In the poem ‘’Walking Around’’ by Pablo Neruda, the main character is not happy at all and seems to be in some sort of misery. Pablo Neruda discusses how humans have lost their individuality because all that people want is to have is what other people have. It reads, ‘’I want to see no more establishments, no more gardens, nor merchandise, nor glasses, nor elevators (Greenblatt 2012, line 5). In this passage he is so upset about how the world has turned he appears to be in a state of misery. Nothing can make him happy unless the people change their ways of how they live. Then I believe he will be able to set his mind free from the misery that he holds.  

In the next story ‘’ Death Constant Beyond Love’’ by Gabriel Garcia-Marquez I believe there is a hidden misery because the Senator is living his life as if there is no pain there, but he is unhappy which causes him to have an affair with a young woman. He only had three months to live and that is why I believe he was in a state of distress and discomfort in his mind and body.  He has not truly accepted the fact that he will see the inevitable of death and he does not know how to accept that so , he acts out his misery. The next story was a story that I believe most student can connect to and can really understand the different ways of life. The story “And of Clay Are We Created,” by Isabel Allende describes the type of misery that stays with someone. It is pushed down to the point where someone might not be aware that they are miserable. It takes something or someone to bring that side out for the person to be able to heal. The main character Rolf Carlé tries to save this young girl from dying alone. While is on a journey with her he begins to look at his own life and the different situations that he has been through starts to surface. It reads ‘’The girl had touched a part of him that he himself had no access to, a part he had never shared with me. Rolf had wanted to console her, but it was Azucena who had given him consolation’’ (Greenblatt 2012, p.1231). This part shows the misery because it shows that Rolf Carlé was in some state of distress and discomfort in his mind. At this point Rolf Carlé had no choice but to dig deep and heal the pain and the sadness that he was not aware that he had, because of something that has happened to him so long ago.

 For the teachers to be able to teach this theme to High school students. I would suggest having a book that the children can relate to like ‘’The Hunger Games’’. I would suggest this book because the main character Katniss Everdeen is the same age as the high school students. I believe that is an easy way for the children to connect to a reading, bring a character into the reading that is also an adolescent and thinks like the students. The class would read the story ‘’The Hunger Games’’ and I would take certain parts out of the book where the characters was experiencing misery and ask the students if they were to go through this situation would they be in some form of misery?  There might be students that will not agree depending on the situation so we would have a class debate and have the students go back and forth in a discussion about what situation in the book is considered misery.  This can help the students understand where the characters in the reading might be coming from when they deal with their misery. Having the students relate helps them to dig deeper into the reading and think outside of the box when asked questions pertaining to the reading.

The element of pop culture that I think will have a huge impact on the students is to have the students Write an original song inspired by The Hunger Games.  The students should reference themes, events, characters, or symbols.  The students must include an analysis of their work and how it demonstrates the theme in the novel. The students may incorporate textual evidence right into the sentence of their analysis with the use of quotation marks, but their quotes from the text must make sense in the context of the sentence. Citing textual evidence requires students to look back into the text for evidence to support an idea, answer a question or make a claim. Citing evidence requires students to think more deeply about the text, analyze the author and source. Students also need to practice finding strong evidence to support their ideas.

                  

                                                                       Works Cited

Greenblatt, S. (2012). The Norton anthology of English literature. New York: W.W. Norton.