My Last Duchess

The poem describes a saddeded Duke, whose wife has died. He loved her so much that he had a painting of her on his wall. Although he loved the woman, she apparently was very unfaithful and slept around with and flirted with many other guys. Throughout the poem he is complaining about how she messed around with so many other men.

Digging

In "Digging" the author is sitting at his desk writing while his father plants potatos outside his window. The author describes how his father and his grandfather both worked the earth and were incredible farmers, while he himself didn't seem to inherit that greenthumb. The author states that since he "has no spade" or ability in farming, he would instead earn a living and work by writing.

Deathly

This poem was really interesting, but also really emo. The poem seems to be written by a guy whose girlfriend treats him like crap. He states that the girl will seem kind and sweet, but she is insulting him and making him feel worthless. In the poem, the author states "do me a favor" and shoot him. Basically, he feels that death itself would be better than dealing with this girl. The name of the poem, deathly, is how he feels about the relationship.

The ones who walk away from Omelas

I found this story to be rather depressing. Omelas is a utopian society without a care in the world, a society that is free in every sense of the word. No government or king, no soldiers or war, no slaves or violence, everyone is happy and filled with joy. No cares in the world. The perfect city of Omelas is upon a hill overlooking the sea, reminicent of Olympas or Zion. The citizens are celebrating a summer festival with singing, dancing, and playing the flute. But in exchange for this perfect society, one child must suffer being tortured, abused, and neglected. This child that is so neglected that its refered to as "it". The neglect has cause the child to become retarted, though it still has a mind enough to know it wants to be free. And if this child is released, the perfectness of Omelas will be destroyed.
All the citizens of Omela visit the child at least once, and strangely enough, many walk away from the perfect city because of it.
In the end it shows that the people of Omelas are not truely free. They are still subject to compassion, and their own feelings. Moreover, in all actuality, they are subject to the child itself. Without the child, their society will fall. So they depend on the child.
I think the story is almost reminicent on Jesus' singular sacifice for the world. Without the neglect and abuse, there would be no perfect city.
I think this story also states that there is no truely perfect or free place. There is always some sacrifice, some pain, some order.
Those that walk away from Omelas and leave behind the hypocrasy and illusion of freedom are perhaps the most free. Somewhere where not everything is morally perfect, but perhaps people have more freedom to do as they wish with their mind, whether it be good or evil.

Clean well-lighted place

The story was short but interesting. The use of spanish was entertaining as well. The story starts out with a man that feels so small the shadow of leaves can hide him from the world. The old man is deaf and his wife has died. He feels all alone. Yet there is this cafe that stays open throughout the night and acts like a becon of light to those in desperate need of it. Those that have nothing. The barman keeps the cafe open all night because, even though their are other cafes open, he feels people need a clean, pure place (such as his cafe) to stay during the night. Those that have something need not be at the cafe (such as the barman with a wife, who left), but those that have nothing seem to be drawn to the cafe (just like the two customers, the latter of which had the name "Nada" which in spanish means "nothing"). The cafe seems like a place of salvation.

Sabetour

The story was reminicent of "1984" only from the chinese perspective. Mr. Chiu evolves though the story from being a confident, well-educated, new husband filled with love and happiness, to a vengeful and spiteful man, willing to poision hundreds just to get back at a few men. He even stated that he would "eliminate the families" of those men that had hurt him. This was an overall interesting story and enjoyed how Chiu got back at his enemies through a means that would not have existed if they had let him out of the cell. In a way this shows how their communist system causes disease (in a figurive sense) and is killing their society.