Katherine Anne Porter’s “The Necessary Evil”

Question three states that this essay was written at a time when divorce was becoming more common but not nearly so prevalent as it is today, when many experts are decrying its effects. It also asks my thoughts on marriage and divorce and if they had been influenced by Porter in anyway. I believe in the “Romantic Love” that Porter speaks of, the changeless, unconditional, everlasting. But, whereas Porter married and divorced in her teens, I do not believe that divorce is the answer in most cases. I personally believe that a marriage can be perfect. I have witnessed it. My grandparents met when they were just sixteen, married at seventeen, and had given birth to twin daughters at the age of nineteen. In my existance, I never heard them argue. Even my mother has stated that she only remembers one or two fights, each of which were quite short, during her lifetime. Their love was deep, changeless, unconditional, everlasting . . . everything that could describe this perfection. After seeing this, I believe that divorce is just an easy way out, that almost every marriage that contained some type of romantic love at one point in time, could be worked at and saved instead. Porter’s writing did not influence my opinion, it just better stated it than I ever could have. Porter just acknowledges the fact that sometimes we “hate” the people we love, without meaning to. It is nothing we are taught or can help, like love, but something natural and even more affecting. It is necessary in some aspects.

Anna Quindlen’s “Between The Sexes: A Great Divide”

In question two, it is asked that if women are indeed the “other” to men, and vise versa, then how does this otherness of each gender affect their ability to work together and what do women’s and men’s sexual differences mean for women being, as Quindlen argues, “not only permitted but welcomed into a variety of positions and roles that only men have occupied?” This otherness affects the genders’ ability to work together more difficult. As with the amaryllis bulb in the essay, men have a hard time understanding what women believe as necessary and vise versa. Our minds work differently, giving us different ideas and answers to the same situation creating a need for understanding of how an idea came to be. this would also account for women being welcomed into positions and roles that only men have occupied. Women bring with them a different perspective, having had different life experiences and a different frame of mind than men.

Aaron Copland’s “How We Listen”

Question one asks to explain Copland’s three planes of listening to music in terms of a musical work that is familiar to me. The first plane is the sensuous plane, one is listening to music for the sheer pleasure of it. It is like turning on the radio while driving. You know that it’s on even though you are focusing on something else. It calms you while in a traffic jam by changing the atmosphere to something a little more upbeat. The second plane is the expressive plane in which the focus is on the meaning of a certain piece. For example, it could be said that in “Canon in D,” Pachelbel is expressing a feeling of happiness due to a joyous occasion. This may be why this particular piece is played at so many weddings. And the third and final plane of listening to music is the sheerly musical plane. This is the individual notes and sound made that form a recognizable melody. This is the plane used if perhaps someone is in a restaurant where the music is just instrumental, and they are able to identify the song as one of their favorites.