entry 1_Vu Thi Giang

                             Entry 1

                                                     Item 1: Poem [1]

The road not taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

v Rhetorical devices:

·       Rhyme: wood- stood- could; lay- day- way

·       Metaphor: Road (the important opportunity in life); Wood (the life);

                 

v Message:

Each person has courage (“I took the one less traveled by”) and freedom to decide their own path (=chance and destiny). Once he takes a certain road (decision) “that has made all the difference”, he can change the path later but he cannot change the past because it’s too late.

                                       Item 2: the man who went to the Heaven [2]

A man died and because he had been a good person, he went to Heaven, where Saint Peter greeted him at the door.
Welcome! he said. You can enter Heaven right away, but, because you lived such a good life, you can also go and check out Hell first, if you like.
The man was rather curious and said - well, why not - and he went down all the stairs to reach the door of Hell, which opened before him.
Behind the door, he saw many people sitting around tables with delicious food! But they were all very sad, and suffering, because instead of hands they had long knives and forks as arm extensions and they did not manage to put any of this great food in their mouths. 
The man went back up to Heaven and said to Saint Peter: Wow, am I glad that I can go to Heaven. That is really some punishment.
Welcome to Heaven, Saint Peter said, as he let the man in.
What did he see there? He saw many people sitting around tables with delicious food, just like in Hell!
And just like in Hell, they also had these long fork and knives extensions on their arms!
But in Heaven, the people weren't crying or cursing, because they were sticking the food in each other's mouths! "Try this", they laughed. "And this!", and they had lots of fun in the process.

Rhetorical devices:

·       A symbol: the Hell (unpleasant situation)

                  The Heaven (place or state of great happiness)

·       Simile and antithesis: the people in Heaven are very optimistic and happy meanwhile ones in Hell are very pessimistic and sad.

Message:

The secret of happiness is making other people happy and you will be taken care as well.

                                                                 Item 3: [3]

Rhetorical devices:

Irony

Simile: job market is like the fragile wall.

Message:

Hundreds of thousands of students are about to graduate from university and college into unstable job market. (Therefore it causes unemployment)

[1] http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-road-not-taken/

[2] http://go.webassistant.com/wa/upload/users/u1000057/workspaces/30stories/#heaven

[3] http://marketingskeptic.hubpages.com/hub/The-College-Students-Guide-to-a-Financial-Death-Sentence-Top-10-Ways-To-Financially-Ruin-Your-Life