Parker Verhoeff
English 9
Mr. Salsich
4.22.09

The Traveling Nobody Party:
An Essay Relating Two Poems and a Short Story, to a Word

Sentimental is word that can be defined as: "marked or governed by feeling, sensibility, or emotional idealism." Essentially, this means to base your actions on pure feeling. This word can relate to two poems by Naomi Shihab Nye and Emily Dickinson, and a short story by Katherine Mansfield.

TS:The poem, "The Traveling Onion," by Naomi Shihab Nye, can be seen as sentimental, but in a good way. SD:Nye is very passionate about the onion as she writes, "when I think how far the onion has traveled/ just to enter my stew today, I could kneel and praise." CM: She is putting excess amounts of feeling into that sentence, but it's a positive effect. CM: It just shows how much she appreciates the onion. SD: She goes on to notice, "how at meal, we sit to eat,/ commenting on texture of meat or herbal aroma/ but never on the translucence of onion," which she doesn't understand. CM: Onions, small but honorable-Appositive, almost are invisible after they are boiled and deprived of its color; however, that doesn't mean you should forget about this under rated food. CM: It's actually full of prosperity-FAST, so much so that it gives some of it up "for the sake of others," and "disappears." CS: Nye is a very sentimental person, and she truly is in awe of everything about the onion, from it being worshiped in Egypt, to simply "the way knife enters onion and onion falls apart on the chopping block, a history revealed."

TS: Comparable to Naomi Shhab Nye, the main character Laura in "The Garden Party," by Katherine Mansfield, is very sentimental about death. SD: After she hears about the death of a man next door, she quickly realizes that it would be in their best interest to cancel their garden party. CM: Laura explains to her sister Jose how horrible his family would feel, "and just think of what the band would sound like to that poor woman." CM: Jose completely disagrees, explaining "if you're going to stop a band playing every time some one has an accident, you'll lead a very strenuous life"-Participle Phrase. SD: Jose keeps her argument going by saying, "you won't bring a drunken workman back to life by being sentimental." CM: Jose calls her "sentimental" in the negative sense, but really Laura is being sentimental in the positive sense. CM: She is taking the feelings of others into account, treating them the way she would want to be treated- Participle Phrase. CM: Laura knows she doesn't have to call off the garden party, but she also knows it is the right thing to do, and thus she lets her feelings take over her actions. CS: Laura is a good-natured person at heart, and she won't let her sister, or anybody for that matter, guide her in the wrong direction.

TS: On the contrary, Emily Dickinson appears to have an entirely different approach to addressing this subject. SD: In her poem, "I'm Nobody", she describes herself as "nobody." CM: She then meets another "nobody," and puts down the idea of being "somebody." CM: She compares being "somebody," to being a frog by saying, "how public like a frog/ to tell one's name the livelong day/ to an admiring bog!" SD: Dickinson would rather have no label at all, than to have to be "somebody". CM: She does not want feelings to get in the way of her actions. CM: Dickinson dreads the "spotlight," it seems, and wants to go about her own business not worrying about anybody else. SD: However, there is some irony in this poem. CM: It's ironic that she actually found another "nobody", saying "there's a pair of us." CM: Thus, she actually did find "somebody"; she found somebody like her, and they bond and share their feelings. CS: "I'm Nobody", despite it's shortness,-Appositive is an interesting poem that has deep meaning and can be taken many different ways.

All three of these works of literature relate to the word, sentimental, in their own ways. Naomi Shihab Nye can even be passionate about an onion. Laura, from "The Garden Party", is very true to her feelings, even though her sister Jose prefers to keep them separate from her actions. Emily Dickinson, on the other hand, has an abstract way of saying that she prefers to be herself, without any labels attached. So, thank you Naomi Shhab Nye, Katherine Mansfield, and Emily Dickinson for opening my eyes to true sentimentality.