Symbols,

I have so many different things that affect how i view a text.
My cell phone. It has all of my friends and family on there, and if I need/want to talk to them, it takes less than a minute. The people around me have definitely shaped who I am and how I act. Also, this coincides with the idea of technology. I've grown up in the era when technology is rapidly advancing so I know nothing too different from what I have now, which makes it harder for me to relate to a text from a time when there was no such thing as even electricity, it seems weird to comprehend and put myself in that situation since I've never have been in real life.
My calendar. I have my life organized and everything I do is put onto my calendar. When a text isn't neat or precise, it bothers me because I like organization. But I have to remember to not hate a text just because it is not my style of writing.
My black flats. Even though I'm decently short, I'm not a big fan of heels so instead I just stick to my flats. My flats symbolize not only the fact that I am a girl and do bring a feminist perspective to a text, but also that I am simple. Anything too out of the ordinary or crazy, I probably won't like because I like to have things simple and somewhat predictable, just like my ordinary black flats.
The CPM sitting on my floor. This is a machine that is used to bend and straighten my knee slowly as it heals, increasing the degrees each day. As I go through my life I encounter things that aren't expected that may hurt me somehow, yet this machine symbolizes how I heal and learn from everything that I have been through in my life.
I know that where I have come from affects how I view literature, so I always have to keep in mind my own lenses of criticism in order to look at a text objectively.

Death of a Salesman

Each character brings forth a different version of their American Dream. During the 1940's and 1950's the business world was becoming more and more popular so most people thought that is the key to success. The more wealthy and the more popular you were, the happier you would be; that's what America showed to be the ideal dream. Willy fell into the category and was overcome by this idea of the American Dream. He enveloped every part of his life with this goal, and in effect it ruined him.

Willy's business life was a complete mess because of his lack of humility and inability to admit he needed assistance. He thought that "the man who makes an appearance in the business world...is the man who gets ahead" (33). That was his only goal in life, so when his job doesn't provide for his family he keeps the persona that he is successful and won't admit his failure. Charley even has to give Willy fifty dollars each week in order for him to pay for his family expenses. He refuses to ask his boss for a job in town so he wouldn't always be traveling, when he finally does ask, he is fired. This is the ultimate low for Willy, so in his sadness he continues lying to himself about his job and even refuses a job from Charley. In the end, he killed himself for the money from the life insurance policy. Willy's idea of the American Dream was not to spectacular as he thought it would be.

Furthermore, since Willy never achieved his American Dream, he forced it onto his sons. Willy was so desperate to succeed according to his dream, that he would stop at nothing until the dream was accomplished. His failure resulted in him losing his insanity. He began hallucinating that his sons were successful and going to achieve the dream he never did. 

The societal pressures to be successful resulted in Willy ultimately taking his own life. The American Dream was supposed to be a dream instead of an expectation, yet Willy took it the opposite way. Due to the idolization of the dream, Willy desired to achieve it to an extreme that it ended in destruction.

My Walkkkkk.

I can't really walk too well, so it was more so a "sit on a bench and think" as opposed to a walk. As I gazed out at the ocean, it made me think of all of the experiences I have yet to have. I've only gone through 17 years of my life, but I have so many more left. I often tend to forget that inconveniences to me now, aren't the end of the world. I tore my ACL and meniscus at the beginning of break, and I spent most of my time just sitting on the couch being depressed in my own misery that I will never be a part of a basketball team and that just when I finally get the opportunity to start and be the player I can be, it's over. I felt like it just wasn't fair. Now I get to sit on the bench and watch my team struggle. Then I remember that there is so much more to life than that.
When I was little I used to think that the world consisted of the US, like I literally thought that's all there was. But as I grew up I learned that there's way more to the world than the US and that there's so many places I haven't been. Thinking back to this reminded me of now. I have so much more left in my life that these things I see as detrimental now, will be nothing in the future. I have so much to be thankful for in my life, that I should focus on that rather than on what has gone wrong.
Starting a new stage in my life of college and being responsible for myself seems scary. I'm afraid of all of the mistakes I'll make or the problems I'll have to face. I focus too much on the negative that I forget the positive. These next few years will be the time that I remember and I'm ready to make new friends and start a new adventure in my life, yet I don't want to give up the part of my life I'm in now, I guess the new year just made me realize that it's almost time for this chapter in my life to be over. But I'm ready. I'm ready to face antyhing God puts in front of me as long as I have the people I love near me.
P.S. There aren't any pictures because I couldn't find my camera :(