Well, before I tried drugs I thought and agreed with what I was taught. That is, drugs are bad and they only cause problems. That you only get in trouble and hurt your friends and family. That drugs will ruin your life. And not only did I think this because I was taught it, but because my brothers all did drugs and they never got anywhere in life except in trouble. But after I graduated high school and moved away from home I got the opportunity to try drugs (weed, pills, psychedelics, etc.), my opinion completely changed. They’re not as bad as they’re made out to be. Granted, some aren’t that good for you, and some are highly addictive, but as long as you have self-control and don’t abuse and get out of hand with them, they’re very life changing. For the better. Well, I guess for the better for myself. But overall, I really don’t think drugs are as bad as they’re made out to be.

Alcohol is always a love hate relationship, I think. In moderation it’s fine, but when people drink too much, it’s just too much.

Granted, the world may not be here, or so it’s said, but by age 29 I would like be married and settled down. Possibly have a family started. And hopefully have school done with or at least almost done with.

I can’t really say much for this one… I don’t make a lot of goals for my future since it’s so uncertain. I don’t really want to get my hopes up, but I think what I do want by then is pretty standard.

Week 1 – Something you hate about yourself?

Physically: I hate my hips; in my opinion, I don’t need “birthing hips” because I want one child, at most. There are other women out there that would benefit more from having big hips than me. And I know they’re not gigantic or anything, but when compared to the rest of me, they’re not proportionate. My measurements are 36, 28-30, 40. If my breasts were bigger, I’d be okay with my hips, because then they would be balanced. And it really pisses me off I can’t get past a size 7 pants.

Personality: I hate that when I try to be helpful, it doesn’t always seem that way. People think I’m being a bitch and correcting them and putting them down. No, I’m trying to help you because there are worse people out there that would put you down for the shit that comes out of your mouth. I’m a factual person, if you’re gonna talk about something that requires facts, don’t use your opinion. I will correct you. Not because I want to make you look bad or hurt you in some way, but because you’re not speaking correctly.

I’ve tried to stop correcting people, but it still slips sometimes. In fact, most of the time now, I just keep my mouth shut most of the time when I’m around people. In a way, I’ve just lost faith that people will actually know what they’re talking about. It’s probably just the German in me…

• 4 Tbsp. olive oil
• 6 Tbsp. coffee grounds
• Mix the coffee grounds and olive oil. (If you’d like to make more or less, the ratio is 3 tablespoons of coffee for every 2 tablespoons of olive oil.) The scrub should look like a coarse mud when finished.

My recipe was a little different…

• 2 Tbsp. vegetable oil (I didn’t have olive oil, and I’ve learned that veggie oil works just as well. And I used less because I’ve also learned that a little goes a long way.)
• 6 Tbsp. coffee grounds

My ratio was more 1 Tbsp. oil to 3 Tbsp. coffee grounds.

I put up with more than I should have; I accepted less than I know I deserve; I allowed myself to be used and put down. I got hurt a lot living with him, but those experiences helped me to be more patient with not just him, but with everyone. And because of him, I tried new things, I opened myself to new experiences and allowed myself to be a rebel. The things I tried helped to show me that the world isn’t exactly how they teach you it is (I already knew this, but I mean concerning drugs, people, certain lifestyles, etc.). I made new friends, practically learned a new language even a new lifestyle. I became a new person; a mixture of who I was raised to be and who I was taught never to be.

All the drugs I tried, people I met, music I listened to, places I went, and lessons I learned were really life changing for me. I’m away from him and that lifestyle now, and I know I’m in a better place. And I’m really happy where I’m at in my life now, and I don’t want those things anymore, but it really does make me sad that I’ll probably never see those people again. I hate reminiscing about those times. I met so many good people who really helped me a lot and I became really close with a few. Our lives have taken different paths now, but I’m so thankful for that time I got to share with all of them.

As much as my ex had hurt me, I’m glad I met him and was with him.

So, anyone reading this, any suggestions? I’d greatly appreciate it.

My group and myself were looking online for some sort of analysis or summary from someone else to help us get a better understanding of what Plath was trying to say. We found nothing. We had to analysis every line of the poem and look up the two characters, Suso and Cyrus, and their lives to better understand their place in the piece.

The whole point of this post is to state what we came up with as a group. So, if someone else looks online for some sort of analysis of Plath’s A Lesson in Vengeance, this will come up and they can have a look.

A Lesson in Vengeance

In the dour ages
Of drafty cells and draftier castles,
Of dragons breathing without the frame of fables,
Saint and king unfisted obstruction’s knuckles
By no miracle or majestic means,

But by such abuses
As smack of spite and the overscrupulous
Twisting of thumbscrews: one soul tied in sinews,
One white horse drowned, and all the unconquered pinnacles
Of God’s city and Babylon’s

Must wait, while here Suso’s
Hand hones his tack and needles,
Scouraging to sores his own red sluices
For the relish of heaven, relentless, dousing with prickles
Of horsehair and lice his horny loins;
While there irate Cyrus
Squanders a summer and the brawn of his heroes
To rebuke the horse-swallowing River Gyndes:
He split it into three hundred and sixty trickles
A girl could wade without wetting her shins.

Still, latter-day sages,
Smiling at this behavior, subjugating their enemies
Neatly, nicely, by disbelief or bridges,
Never grip, as the grandsires did, that devil who chuckles
From grain of the marrow and the river-bed grains.

Our Summary:

• Vengeance – (noun) 5. Obsolete. curse; imprecation.
• The poem relates to Plath’s struggle with her mental illness.
• The “lesson” Plath is trying to give us is of what she has to deal with.
• The connection between Suso and Cyrus and how they relate to Plath is that the two men are like the two sides of Plath; they’re her lows and highs.
  • Suso tormented himself so he wouldn’t sin; Cyrus was a great king and was kind to his people and was an excellent military leader and decision maker.
• The fourth stanza in the poem is very difficult to understand. Possible meanings that we have thought of include:

1. She sarcastically describes the “latter-day sages”, or doctors, as having neat and nice diagnoses of her mental illness and clear-cut plans to help her overcome it. However, none of their “precise” plans help her overcome her illness.
2. Plath’s life was obviously plauged with mental instability and since the rest of the poem compares her highs and her lows we can deduce that the last stanza in the poem is made to reflect the confusion in her life.

We looked up information on Henry Suso and Cyrus the Great:

Henry Suso:

• German mystic and priest/saint
• He subjected himself to extreme forms of mortifications.
  • He devised for himself several painful devices; some of these were an undergarment studded with a hundred and fifty brass nails, sharpened and so fixed as to pierce his skin, gloves with sharp tacks in order to discourage him from disturbing noxious insects with which his body teemed; a very uncomfortable door to sleep on and a cross with thirty protruding needles and nails just under his body. In addition, in winters he slept on the bare floor of his cell and froze, his body covered with scars and his throat parched with thirst. Over a period of twenty-five years, he never took a bath.

Cyrus the Great:

• King of Persia
• Died in Battle – Foretold that he would never be conquered and he never was
• Respected those who served him and lived in his empire; allowed them to practice whatever religion they so desired
• Spent the summer and his men dividing up the River Gyndes rather than attacking Babylon because of a horse

Tone/Mood:

• Depressing; Tormented; Sarcastic – “In the dour ages/Of drafty cells and draftier castles…”; “…Twisting of thumbscrews: one soul tied in sinews…”; “…Hand hones his tack and needles,/Scouraging to sores his own red sluices…”; “…Smiling at this behavior, subjugating their enemies/Neatly, nicely, by disbelief or bridges…”

Diction:

• Smack, spite, twisting, unconquered, scouraging, squanders
  By using words with harsh sounds, such as these, including an onomatopoeia with “smack”, Plath creates the intense tone of the poem. Through these and other words she is able to suggest the menacing feelings within herself.

Personification:

• “…unfisted obstruction’s knuckles…”
• “…Twisting of thumbscrews: one soul tied in sinews…”
• “…the horse-swallowing River Gyndes…”

Lit. Techniques:

• Alliterations:
  • “…As smack of spite…”; “…soul tied in sinews…”; “…Hand hones his tack and needles…”; “…Scouraging to sores his own red sluices…”
• —Allusions:
  • —Henry Suso and Cyrus the Great; also references to the Bible: “God’s city and Babylon’s” as well as King Cyrus being in the Bible
• —Symbolism:
  • —The whole poem symbolises Plath’s struggle with her mental illness with the allusions she made throughout