Thursday, September 25, 2008

Flaws
Shakespeare’s poem “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun”, John Milton’s poem “When I consider how my light is spent” and Stacy Schiff’s article “Know it All” connect in the sense that they are all written about flaws. Shakespeare writes about the many flaws of his mistress, Milton writes about the flaws of putting a talent to waste and Schiff writes about the flaws and falsehoods of information on Wikipedia. Though all these pieces are written about different people they do all agree that humans in general are flawed yet take no initiative to fix these flaws and just continue to live life with them.
Shakespeare’s poem “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun” is about a women who Shakespeare would like to lie and say is more beautiful than nature and life but he cannot. He says “ Coral is far more red than her lips’ red; If snow be white, why then her breasts be dun.” He is examining her and seeing that her beauty is flawed, that her lips cannot compare to the color coral and her breasts are nothing like the flawless white color of snow. Shakespeare criticism of this woman is interesting because he usually uses the beauty of nature to describe the beauty of a woman. When he writes “I love to hear her speak, yet well I know, that music hath far more pleasing sound.” He is saying he loves to hear her voice but he knows that music is a far better sound. It is as if he is saying he loves her but he loves nature and life more than her and she cannot compare in beauty to it.
John Milton’s poem “When I consider how my light is spent.” Is about a servant who has a talent yet chooses not to use it. The line “ Ere half my days in this dark world wide, and that one talent with is death to hide.” is interesting because John Milton was blind. It is as if he is telling the reader that the talent of sight is important and to not use it is to be nothing far from dead. The man he writes about who does not use this talent he views as stupid and flawed, and because this man is flawed he has him punished by his master at the end of the poem. It seems as though Milton sees his blindness as the ultimate flaw in his life. His poem depicts a certain depressed and angry mood to it. As if he is taking his anger about his blindness out on a fictional character through poetry.
Stacy Schiff’s article “Know it all” talks about the flaws of the website Wikipedia. Wikipedia’s original goal was to become a worldwide Internet encyclopedia, a free encyclopedia for all. Instead now people can sign on and edit any article that is posted. I remember reading an article on Albert Einstein once for a Physic’s project I was doing and read that his favorite song was “Holla back girl” by Gwen Stefani. Ridiculous I know! The article said that the website hits rack up as high as “Fourteen thousand hits per second” When the people who work for the website asked users why they try to flaw the information they said, “Look how often the mainstream media, and the traditional Encyclopedia, are wrong!” This just proves how human flaws when confronted are always blamed on other flawed people or things. It was shocking to read that Wikipedia is the seventeenth most used server on the Internet. How could something so unreliable and flawed be used so much?

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