Love God. Love People.

I Make Sense In Using My Senses!

Journal Journey #3

'Imagery' is powerful. It adds scenery on a plain text. People tend to overlook panels that are merely painted in white. But what catches a man's eye is a wall that's splashed by a kaleidoscopic colors of painting. In such way this literary imagery works. I like the pieces Prof. Montallana gave us - the short story, the 3 varied poems and a 10-minute comic play. This activity tested my critiquing skills :D Another dimension in creative writing has been disclosed. Unlike the previous tasks we had, expressing and imagining, this one is kinda conventional. However, it didn't build walls against the freedom in expressing my reviews. In fact, it's an integration! 

Further, more realizations approached. In order for a writer to effectively penetrate a reader's heart, he or she has to add more senses to that literary work. Regardless of the customary way of writing, the message and the intention of the reader would be grasped by the reader. Well, going back to the activity, I tried reading the entries, but there's one literary piece that seemed to seize my attention. Don Nigro's work is actually inspired by Alfred Tennyson's poetry, having the same title. Nigro made a twist on it. It'd be a pleasure for me to include my critique on this blog. (P.S. Thanks to my Prof for the inspiration)

My Critique on:

‘COME INTO THE GARDEN, MAUD’

by: Don Nigro

         Don Nigro seemed to intentionally make this play a funny one. It’s comic in nature. It develops out of a phone call from a woman named ‘Phoebe’ who called John repeatedly saying that there was a cat in her garden which she emphasized to be his. Obviously, the arguments of the two made the play entertaining. But more than that, there’s an imagery a reader could find within the dialogues. The three main characters – John, Phoebe and Jill – have the spotlight. At first glance, literally, one could think that there was a cat in the garden of Phoebe. But as the conversation went on, another angle of the drama is being revealed – the “cat” to be signified as a ‘treachery’.

      Phoebe told John, “Cats are like people, don’t you think? You really might want to consider getting her fixed.” Her statement will give us an idea that there’s a profound imagery with the cat that she was arguing about. It’s a woman John slept with without Jill’s apperception. During Phoebe’s and Jill’s agreement about John’s treachery, they concluded that he must have thrown the cat out when Jill arrived and that’s how the cat went into Phoebe’s garden. A dispute led Jill to go home while leaving John behind.

       Things got even more figurative when Phoebe called John again that maybe she was mistaken about the ‘cat’ and that a very large object was moving and approaching her house. John said he couldn’t go to her ‘cause he didn’t know her address. Phoebe replied that the “thing” was banging her window, and there was a sound of a shattering glass. What could Don Nigro want to imply? Was that really a big bear from the woods? Or was it a big man who’s related with the woman pertained by Phoebe as the cat? Does the comic play deliver it literally or mean figuratively? Indeed, imagination plays an important role in making imagery. It adds imaginative visual scenery on our minds. The readers have the creative minds on making own suppositions. The dialogues give us the idea of the whole scenario. “Everything you can imagine is real,” Pablo Picasso, a renowned artist once said. The characters may denote our society too nowadays. Well, the imagery of this play is vivid and descriptive. It reveals the true intention of the author. The language is not abstract. Realist text is more often disclosed.  In other words, it portrays life as it is. Beyond its nature of being a comic, it leaves readers an image needed to be revealed through imagination.

To God be all the glory!