Quotation:

“‘But in my experience poetry speaks to you either at first sight or not at all. A flash of revelation and a flash of response. Like lightning. Like falling in love…’ Do the young still fall in love, or is that mechanism obsolete by now, unnecessary, quaint, like steam locomotion? He is out of touch, out of date. Falling in love could have fallen out of fashion and come back again half a dozen times, for all he knows.” pg 12

Comment: Context: He had just met Melanie and they were together in his apartment for the first time. They were discussing the types of material that he teaches in the class, she is explaining what she likes/doesn’t. She expresses that she thinks Wordsworth will grow on her by the end of the semester and he replies with that. I picked this quote because I liked the way that it was written, it grasped my attention. But, it also got me thinking about how dating and falling in love works in today’s society and how it has changed throughout history. “Dating” today is nothing like it used to be. Dating used to be exclusive and people who actually go out on dates to get to know each other and if you liked each other, you would go out again and eventually “go steady.” Today, usually people only go out on dates if they are already in a relationship. People get to know each other through social media platforms such as snapchat, instagram, and dating platforms like tinder. Falling in love today seems a lot harder than it used to be because not everybody is serious about being in a relationship, so it’s harder to decipher who is dating for love and who is dating just for sexual pleasure. I think that David could find love again, but not if he keeps practicing and doing things like prostitution and searching after young girls and students.

Question: Can counseling actually help David change his ways so that he can fall in love again and be happy?

Post Class Reflection:


My spoken contributions today (bullets, fragments, keywords)		Helping Hands Today (up to 3) – Name & Briefly Describe Contribution to Class (bullets, fragments, keywords)
~Melanie’s perspective
~David’s perspective is creepy
~David second guesses himself, but doesn’t stop
~Melanie could be confused, conflicted, scared














~Cripps: you don’t have to say no to say no
~Haley: perpetrator’s perspective is new

Today’s class discussion altered my thoughts about today’s text(s) in the following ways (link to your QCQ and/or to other ideas):

Today’s class discussion helped my thoughts grow. While reading, I felt disgusted and distrubed and it was nice to know that my fellow classmates felt the same way and it was nice to be able to hear their thoughts and reflect off their thinking. I brought up the point about Melanie’s perspective because I was interested in it, even while I was reading. I was wondering what she was thinking and how she felt. Haley brought up the point about how seeing things from the perpetrator’s perspective is new, but it is pretty creepy. It is also complicated because Melanie seems to come off as conflicted or unsure if she wants to do all this stuff with David or not. Melanie comes off as confused, conflicted, and maybe even scared to say no to him. Professor Cripps brought up the point between saying yes or no in these types of situations and how you don’t have to actually say no to be saying no. I feel like not saying yes or no, should be a no regardless. If I say yes, that is consent, but I still have the right to change my mind. If I said no, it’s no. Period. If I’m conflicted and I’m not saying yes or no, it’s a no until you hear a yes. I brought up the point about how David second guesses himself and his actions as he is doing them, but he doesn’t stop. Yes, he has that doubt in the back of his mind, but it not strong enough to get him to realize that what he is doing is wrong and he should stop, which makes him even creepier.