Evwybody’s Pwoblem

Jim Hall’s poem, Maybe Dats Your Pwoblem Too, is a very humorous poem, but at the same time it holds a much deeper meaning than the initial wittiness suggests. His poem talks a lot about people coming to terms with their lives and their personality and attempting to move from simple and normal to special and extraordinary.
No person is capable of being anyone but themselves. The only person you spend your entire life with is yourself, so you better learn how to make yourself smile. Yes, you can try and change things about yourself such as habits or working on certain character traits, but in the end you will always be you and you will not waver too far from your true self. One can go off and dare to be different, but they know deep down that they are who they are and in the end that’s all that matters. It doesn’t matter if you are simple or weird, as long as you yourself are satisfied with your style of living, then there is nothing to stress about. If you are unhappy with your current lifestyle the only person capable of changing it is you. You may want to
Jim Hall points out in his poem the many problems the average person has with accepting their boring and ordinary lives. In Jim Hall’s poem I would say that the Spiderman suit is a metaphor for a person and their personality. He says, “But den you just can't quit being sometin like SPIDERMAN. You SPIDERMAN for life.” He is basically saying that one can go off and do something special but they will never stop being themselves. Whether you do something unique for a living that you truly enjoy or whether you are stuck with a job that hasn’t changed one bit over the several decades that you have done it, you still will never be able to shed your Spiderman suit. You can’t get rid of yourself; you’re stuck with yourself forever. So even if you try changing yourself by getting an exciting new career or life path, you will still be you, your Spiderman suit is “fwame wesistent.” You can’t start life over anew -or burn your suit- no matter how bad your current situation is. One is stuck with their decisions and they alone are responsible for them. If they don’t like their current situation they cant just hit a giant reset button on life and burn their suit, they have to suffer the consequences of their actions and get through with their Spiderman suit still in tact.
I really liked Jim Hall’s poem because it really stimulated the reader to think about himself or herself. There may be things about yourself that you don’t like, like a physical quality or characteristic, but you can do nothing to change that. One must just move forward with life accepting the fact that they are never burning their suit and that they are staying in the same suit forever. You are never changing, you will always be you, so instead of trying to change suits you should learn to enjoy the suit that you were given. (529)

Antigone and Rosa Parks: Standing for Their Beliefs

Antigone showed that an individual has the power to stand up to unfair rule and make a difference. Upon reading Antigone I connected Antigone’s efforts to another individual, Rosa Parks. Both women held fast to their beliefs and stood in against what they believed to be a corrupt authority. Rosa Parks, much like Antigone, went up against the odds of coming out ahead in order to achieve what she believed to be right.
Although they faced much different adversaries and stood for different causes, both Rosa Parks and Antigone show that it is very possible for an individual to make a difference. Rosa Parks was a member of the civil rights movement and she stood up to a bus driver and in a sense the white community as she fought for her rights. Antigone stood up to Creon and the law of their land as she fought for what she believed. Rosa Parks was a member of a very brave group of people who all stood together and made a difference. Antigone had her sister as support but for the most part was alone with her actions. Antigone did not have a whole group of people behind her that shared her struggles and strived for the same goals the way that Parks did. Antigone’s sister did not even entirely agree with what she was doing. I found it interesting that both of these individuals were women. In a time that women were not thought of as equals Antigone stood up to a “superior” male in her efforts. Rosa Parks stood up to a white male bus driver in a time that both women and minorities were fighting for their rights. Both of these brave women stood up for what they believed in even if it went against the rules that society set for them. Antigone was not allowed to bury her brother, but she felt that it was her right as a sister to give him a proper burial and that nothing would stand in her way. Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white person knowing full well that she as a minority was supposed to give up her seat in such a situation. In the end, both women faced serious consequences for their rebellious actions. Antigone was punished with death by her placement in a cave-like tomb. Rosa Parks was put into jail for her actions that day. Although they came from different times and stood for different causes, both Antigone and Rosa Parks were women who, despite the rules of society, stood for their beliefs and did not back down in resisting those who opposed their efforts. (444)