Jacqui Vetrano- Literary Analysis

“Slam, Dunk, & Hook”, by Yusef Komunyakaa, “Common Ground”, by Judith Ortiz Cofer, and “The Service of Faith and Promotion of Justice in Jesuit Higher Education”, by Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, although very different, express and share a similar theme, unity.   “Mending Wall”, by Robert Frost on the other hand, lead me to think he was conveying a theme of division.  Although each one of these readings differ in countless ways they also connect to one another as well.

“Slam, Dunk & Hook”, “Common Ground”, and “The Service of Faith and Promotion of Justice in Jesuit Higher Education”, all relay a message of unity to their reader, whether it is in the form of unifying as a basketball team and working hard together to achieve, unifying with your family members and seeing parts and characteristics of them inside of yourself, or unifying as a large group of people to benefit the less fortunate or even the world.  Each one of these readings has a powerful sense of coming together, and being one together.  The readings speak of completely different subjects, and in many ways having nothing in common, but if one looks deep enough these poems all come together and connect. 

Then there is “Mending Wall”, by Robert Frost, a poem that seemed to convey a message different than the rest.  This poem gave a feeling of division.  In “Mending Wall” the narrator speaks of a wall between him and his neighbor, “We keep the wall between us as we go”.  My initial thought was that this poem was isolated from the other readings, and shared no connection.  However as I looked deeper I realized that a reason unity is so unique, is that it can often derive from a division.  Division can play into unity,  it can be the coming together of people or things that at one point in time were all divided, like the division between the boys playing on a basketball team, the division between family members, or the division between the people that can come together to better the world. 

The four readings “Slam Dunk & Hook”, “Common Ground”, “The Service of Faith Promotion of Justice in Jesuit Higher Education”, and “Mending Wall”, all talk of different things, different people, and different places.  Although these readings all differ in their own ways, whether it is unification or division, they also connect to one another as well.