Blog Post #5 100% Gooseberry Juice
“Gooseberries” was written to illustrate the passiveness by which the majority of society treats societal problems. The title, which later is revealed to be a passion of a character, has the most juvenille and silly connotations to it. Children can often be heard using the term “silly goose”, and no one ever went to war over a berry, there are so many that they are insignificant. The connotations of the title coupled with the intrest of the character in them (gooseberries) results a message conveyed that most people’s priorities are inappropriately organized with unimportant things like gooseberries at the top and helping the poor at the bottom. Ivan remarks several times upon how these priorities keep people happy and keep them from confronting societal issues, especially poverty.
“We see the people going out to market for provisions, eating by day, sleeping by night, talking their silly nonsense, getting married, growing old, serenely escorting their dead to the cemetary; but we do not see and we do not hear those who suffer, and what is terrible in life goes on somewhere behind the scenes…”
Blog Post #4 Good Country Ppl….. ARE CONS!!! ^_^
“Good Country People”, in terms of illustrating Christian redemption, does not hold enough significance on the topic to be cast in that light. The piece is more about how many claim to be Christians and are not or how those who abuse the title by using it loosely create hypocritical stereotypes in society. This is not a story of “redemption” but of a tale of con. Joy’s atheist beliefs are never redeemed into acceptance of God, but are instead confirmed. This “good country” man who has dazzled her with his innocence had planned from the start to steal her most valuable possession.
If anything, this illustrates that Christians are only Christian to receive the benefits of being Christian, i.e., the additional trust strangers give to people who claim to know/love God. This con also carves out the bible in order to hide his flask. The symbol of Christianity, the word of God, is revealed not as a tool of conversion and truth but rather as a false front and a tool to do an evil deed. Redemption is not the case in this story. “Good Country People” does not illustrate redemption. It more so supports Hulga’s atheist view that “We are all damned…but some of us have taken off our blindfolds and see that there’s nothing to see.” That is her “salvation” and the only redemption found in this story.
Blog #3 Walker Research ^_^
Walker first began writing as a vent. Since her eye had been wounded at a young age by a BB gun, she had to withdraw from regular school activities due to her partial blindness. This withdrawal from her peers was accompanied by a wave of loneliness. The loneliness is what made her first start writing poetry to express herself.
Alice Walker had her first brush with the Civil Rights Movement at the first college she attended, Spelman College in Atlanta. It is by the Civil Rights Movement that Walker met her first husband who was a civil-rights lawyer. The marriage ended in divorce after producing one child, Rebecca.
Blog 2 Plot Arc Wha????
The term “plot arc” is not one with which I am familiar. Arc must mean shape of the story seemingly, in terms of action so therefore, forgive me if I assume incorrectly.
The exposition is smooth. Nothing much happens as the prime character is introduced. The Turning point occurs when the main character falls overboard providing the first real action in the piece and a problem to be born. The arc begins to twist. The action continues to rise as our protagonist discovers more about his predicament. The discovery of boot marks, the unveiling of the mansion, the truth behind the hunter who lives there, and when the hunter, our protagonist, becomes the hunted are all visible bends in our arc toward the climax. It is in the general’s final attempt to find Rainsford that the climax is found. This is the highest point on the arc. The falling action is essentially the remainder of the story that clears up where and how exactly our protagonist avoided the hunter. Our arc begins to curve back toward smoothness. The story cannot end this way though. Justice must be served and the action must return back to smooth sailing so in the resolution, the protagonist slays the hunter.
N!ko devours Ethnicity
Slater, Peter Gregg. “Ethnicity in The Great Gatsby.” Twentieth Century Literature 19.1 (1973): 53-62. JSTOR. Web. 25 Aug. 2009.
1) Clear, Pointed, Eye opening, New Angle
2) “The purpose of this essay is to demonstrate that in Fitzgerald’s masterpiece of the 1920’s, The Great Gatsby, a heightened awareness of ethnic differences does constitute a significant element in the book.” (53)
3) The racial differences found in The Great Gatsby are part of what makes the book a historically representative masterpiece.
4) Slater chooses the perfect example to illustrate to the skeptical reader such as myself that Fitzgerald intended to focus in part on racial differences in The Great Gatsby. By pointing out the deeply detailed description Nick miraculously pieces together in the dark of Meyer Wolfsheim’s appearance (56), Slater makes it clear that Nick had to be created (at least in part) to show that ethnic stereotyping was a theme Fitzgerald wrote in intentionally. Truly, it wasn’t until I read this page that I thought racial differences were present enough in Fitzgerald’s work to be noteworthy seeing as Tom could easily be written off as a snob for the awful ethnic comments he makes.
It is where Slater starts to discuss the American Dream theme in The Great Gatsby (58) that his points begin to dull and stretch. He ties his point to distant from its origin and the connection that racial differences has to do with the American dream is either unclear or unreasonable.
N!ko’s Experience and Anticipation
The teacher of AP Lit is very passionate and enthusiastic about Literature and this student is excited to see just how sophisticated he can become with the assistance of such a teacher ^_^
Wuthering Heights
1. Style
Emily Bronte uses a clear and empathetic style in Wuthering Heights. She does not rely upon esoteric words or abstract figurative language to enliven the story, the narrative is rich enough to satisfy on its own and the plot too complex to embellish. She lets Wuthering Heights tell itself without trying to tie it to some strange concept or alluding so much that the reader can’t see the beauty of her work around all of the other works it draws upon.
Told in a rather peculiar fashion, Bronte has the story spoken to a man rather than having a character live the story or explain the story in a first person stance. It is strange to encounter an end quote after having read several chapters and remembering that this is not something the narrator is narrating but something the narrator is having narrated to him.
Luckily, it is not as hard to understand the method of how the story is told as it is to relate to the characters and their experiences. Bronte does a nice job of drawing on the readers emotions. The atrocities she has some characters perpetrate on others can bring out the tenderest empathy and the bitterest hatred all at once. Choosing between two lovers, using a lover, the death of a loved one, negligence, resentment, and the incompatibility of two from different social standings are all areas she touches.
Though from an outside look or even in hindsight, it may appear a soap opera, inside, the story has a very true focus on realism. Through the way she describes the dogs act, the way she portrays the barn house and the moors, she makes the setting real enough for the actions of the characters to feel reasonable and quite possible.
2. Plot Structure
Reading Wuthering Heights is like entering a movie when it’s about to end. You see all of the concluding characters, and how they react to one another doesn’t make sense to you. You see that everyone is bitter toward each other but you are baffled as to why. The story is told in such a way that the narrator and his role are insignificant. He is only used to bring the true focus of the book, the story of Heathcliff, full circle. In order to accomplish this, the narrator has the history of this new land’s inhabitants narrated to him.
Now that you’ve seen a chunk of the conclusion of the movie, it is rewound back to the start. It goes so far back that some of the concluding characters don’t even exist where it begins and you don’t know how any of these new yet old characters can ever be linked to the ones you saw initially. Then, entirely new, different stories of these characters, each with their own climaxes and their own troubles begin to be woven together. The small innocent orphaned gypsy child that is so pitiful and helpless starts to grow rebellious, then hateful, then manipulative, and so on until he becomes a monster who should have never been pitied. The loveable strong willed little girl is shaped into a snobby heart-breaker who chooses luxury over love.
Slowly but surely, as the characters love, procreate, fight, and die, the bit of the end you saw before the beginning starts to draw nearer and become clearer. This time however, when the part you recognize returns, you have a whole new bias toward characters and desires to shake some into their senses and throw others off of a building. You don’t get the satisfaction of seeing the vicious monster, who has taken his revenge too far, pay for what he has done however. Bronte has the plot resolved peacefully and the antagonist who was the protagonist simply dies.
3. Lit. Devices
Wuthering Heights is riddled with parallelism. Catherine and Edgar don’t like Heathcliff’s ignorance, and later, Linton and Catherine don’t like Hareton’s ignorance. Hindley is a powerful force over Heathcliff and Catherine’s future, and similarly, Heathcliff is a powerful influence over Linton and Catherine’s future. What is done to Heathcliff is monstrous and so it created a monster. Just like Edgar, Isabella is married for what she can do for her spouse, not out of real love. Every Linton dies of a sickness after their hearts are broken. All the while, Heathcliff manipulates almost every situation into taking a turn for the worse.
Realism is another literary focus of Bronte. She has the first narrator, Lockwood go into great depth to describe the setting. The architecture of the buildings, the sounds of the dogs, even inferences as to what kind of weather might form the areas climate are included in the descriptions. She contrasts this realism with an unreliable narrator that makes unexplainable or unreasonable decisions such as going to visit his land lord when he has not been invite, does not know the way, and the weather is terrible. The contrast serves to make the story feel a little less fanciful. Without the proper set up, most people would think the story of an orphaned gypsy child a little too fantastic.
Bronte also makes use of opposites in characters and sometimes strange splices. Catherine Earnshaw and Joseph are prime examples of splicing. She is wild and untamed and yet she enjoys lavish things and luxury so much so that she rejects her fellow wild soul, Heathcliff. Joseph on the other hand, is extremely religious and yet acts in some of the most un-Christ-like ways. He does not hold his tongue in instances he knows will cause great misery for others and is very uninviting and rude. Heathcliff and Hindley are both tyrants but one is composed and the other a drunk. Cathy is a cheerful energetic young lady but yet she marries a miserable dying young man. Opposites and the love or hatred that accompanies them are Bronte’s way of fueling the plots mobility.
4. Central Theme
Wuthering Heights is focused on a connection between love and cruelty. This connection assumes many forms but is evident in the dysfunctional relationships the characters have with one another. For example, Catherine’s love of luxury supersedes her care for Heathcliff and causes her to marry Edgar out of love for the social status he can ensure her rather than marry Heathcliff out of love for him alone. The importance she holds for her social standing outweighs her friend’s happiness and even her love for him which leads her to practically spit at the idea of marrying Heathcliff when she considers the lower-middle class future it would bring her. Love of something is more important than love for someone and so the improperly ordered priorities lead to cruel treatment.
With Heathcliff, the connection is a love of cruelty. Due to the terribly unjust ways Hindley treated him, he began to find joy in other’s misery, initially in only Hindley’s but that joy later spreads to almost every character except Catherine. This can be seen most clearly in his reaction to catching young Hareton. Knowing that it was because of Hindley’s carelessness that Hareton was catapulted over the ledge and any misfortune that befell the child would have therefore been entirely his own fault, if it had happened, it would have made Heathcliff tickle all over with ecstasy. However, since this was not the case and the child was not injured only because Heathcliff saved it, a wave of raging resentment overcame him. He saw a terrible catastrophe that could have happened to the person he hated most, and seeing it taken away on top of the fact that he was the taker made him viciously angry. There is no other way to classify that besides a love of cruelty. Bronte is trying to explain that there is no love without cruelty. In all of her characters relationships, as different as they are, both qualities can be found.
The Great Gatsby
1. Style
F. Scott Fitzgerald shrouds his writing in mystery and reveals bit by bit. For example, the book is named after Gatsby so a first time reader might assume that this Gatsby would be revealed near the beginning. This is not the case however, and Gatsby is not even mentioned until quite a ways in and only pieces are revealed sporadically. At times the narration mirrors the drunkenness of the characters or narrates in such a way that it mimics the sensation of walking through a dense fog. It is unclear what is said or what is happening and thus the reader must assume. There are points at which it appears Fitzgerald snipped off part of the story like when Tom breaks Myrtle’s nose. There is no explanation afterword and no declared reaction of the characters and no reflection of the narrator. It just moves on.
Fitzgerald uses color as his primary method of symbolism which can be seen through his uses of green, gold, and white. He also uses allusions but none as prominent to those made toward God. The all-seeing eyes and the enormous glasses are what commonly point to God in his writing. Fitzgerald employs imagery at every turn and develops the images he creates in great depth. The images he makes are usually hauntingly vivid like Gatsby in the green light, the valley of ashes, or the eyes on the doctor billboard. His images tie directly into the points he aims to make through his work like the insignificance of mediocrity or the omnipresent and piercing vision of the creator. He also uses the images as a replacement for explanation of certain character’s actions. The reader is shown why a character would act a certain way rather than told why the character is doing what he or she is doing.
2. Plot Structure
The Great Gatsby is told through a narrator who conveys a plot of his own as well as a story he watches unfold. Nick, the narrator, is in just the right position to have all of the characters confide in him. With Gatsby and Tom as his friends, Daisy as his cousin, and Jordan as his love interest, all major events happen around him and most secrets are divulged to him which optimizes incite. You never know what a character is thinking except for Nick but the situations are so vivid you can infer what a character will do next and why they do it.
One might think that the book would almost immediately reference Gatsby for it is after all named after him. Fitzgerald however, unexpectedly keeps him shrouded in mystery. His name isn’t even mentioned until quite a ways into the exposition. Even after the existence of his character is pronounced, Gatsby remains an almost complete mystery that is revealed bit by bit. The rest of the characters are the reverse. Their flaws are immediately placed in the open for all to see and as they reveal more of themselves, none become likeable and flaws never feel forgivable. Gatsby is reserved to give the reader some sort of hope that a hero will be revealed, but in the end, he is the biggest let down of all. As the book draws to a close, no character attempts to fix their flaws and those with dreams die as they fight with everything they’ve got trying to achieve them. The resolution is so disheartening and hopeless that it is the perfect match for the unlikable plot line and characters.
3. Lit. Devices
Symbolism is highly prominent in The Great Gatsby. Color is a medium through which the symbolism takes form. The colors green and gold are employed to classify certain characters. While Gatsby is as wealthy as Jordan, Tom, and Daisy, he came to and uses his wealth in a different way. To better illustrate this difference, Fitzgerald placed Gatsby in and around the color green. Green is fresh and new like his fortune is, and it represents the modern monetary system which uses dollar bills. Daisy, Jordan, and Tom are usually cast in the color gold. Gold signifies a history of wealth and the ancient monetary system which used pieces of gold.
Imagery is another repeated literary device and holds symbolic importance as well. In most cases the images are haunting and upon further reading serve as explanation for or are explained by a character’s actions. Like the image of Gatsby reaching out across the bay toward a green light, a light which is later told to originate from the dock of the woman he loves, Daisy. The Valley of Ashes where everything is bleak and there appears to be little hope comes to symbolize the lower-middle class of the time period’s mindset and to explain why the character Myrtle is willing to sacrifice everything she has to reach a higher social standing. Fitzgerald utilizes the massive piercing eyes of the doctor plastered across a billboard overlooking the city to symbolize that God is watching the characters, and just as there are consequences that will be served at the end of this life for those who believe, there will be consequences for those characters who choose to live for they want rather than what they have.
4. Central Theme
The Great Gatsby is primarily focused on the American Dream or the idea that if you can dream it and work hard enough at it, you can land in any social standing you choose, acquire anything you desire, and be anything you want to be. The dream is the primary focus but undermining it or discovering the truth about it appears to be the goal of the book. The character Myrtle and her sub-story best illustrate the lie the American Dream is made to look like through this text. She does everything she can to achieve her dream of becoming wealthy. She cheats on her husband to acquire things from the rich Tom, she pretends like the fabulous outfits that she works hard to acquire mean nothing to her, she puts on a show for her friends like she already is rich and happy, and altogether tries to fake it ‘til she makes it. Sacrificing everything she has, devoting all of her effort, and fighting with everything she’s got in the end, lands her not happy with a rich man but dead in the middle of the road. This portrays the idea that even if you go all in, your dreams and aspirations will never come true.Gatsby holds true to this idea too. All he wants is the woman of his dreams, and thinking he is not good enough for her, he gets into shady business in order to acquire an income she would respect. In the end however, the woman he does everything for leaves him alone with the responsibility of a murder she committed on his hands. This piece practically screams that even if you manage to gain the wealthy everyone seeks, you will never truly be happy with it. All your life you can desire to be with a certain group, but once you get to them or achieve their status, you realize that none of them want you to be one of them. What F. Scott Fitzgerald wants the reader to do is to be content with the life they have. Yes, strive for better, but don’t throw it all away or you might just get thrown into the dumpster along with the past you so passionately rejected.
This I Believe
Ever since I can remember, my parents have been separated. Although I was born here, most of my childhood memories come from Arizona where my mother moved with me and my brother after the divorce. I learned to ride a bike, collected Pokémon cards, and perpetrated that innocent kind of child mischief that grandparents talk about years afterword. Every morning, I was woken up with a whisper and a kiss on the forehead, and every night my mother read to me until I fell asleep. She loved us with all of her heart and nothing was more important than we were.
She had a theory that if she loved us enough, we would try our best and make all of the right decisions to return our affection. This worked perfectly for me. I tried my best every day to make her smile and hear her say she was proud of me. My brother however, was a different story. He saw that no matter what he did, my mother loved him just the same, so he decided not to try at all. He grew worse and worse until one day my mother saw that if he didn’t turn things around soon, he was looking at a dark future. The only solution she could think of was to send him back to live with my dad for a year. After all, she had left him because he was too hard on us, and what my brother needed was discipline.
Then came the dilemma. Should I go with him? She knew that I didn’t need discipline, but she thought that living apart for a year would lead to us growing apart, and she couldn’t have that. My mom didn’t want either of us to go really, but she saw that leaving together, however dearly she would miss us, would make it easier for both of us to adapt to the new atmosphere. I had no objections to going, all of my friends had moved away at the end of the school year, and I was too young to see the effect it would have on my mom.
By that time next year, my father’s strict rules had turned my brother from disrespect to rebellion and from laziness to destruction. The plan had failed, and I hated the difference in parenting. My dad didn’t care about me or how I did excellent in field day or that I had been moved up to a higher math class or what happened at school that day or that a girl held my hand for the first time or that my shin was bleeding or why I fought with my brother . He only cared that the chores were done and that I wasn’t louder than his televised sporting event. I didn’t care though, I had new friends, a new school, and a new life.
When my mom called at the end of the school year she asked me what I wanted to do. Come back to her or stay with my dad? I said, “I want to stay with my friends,” and with these seven little words, I broke my mother’s heart. Although she has never and probably will never confess this, as I grew, it became apparent to me. At least once a week I get a call from her and I’ll spend hours catching her up on my life. Did you win the ASB election? Are you nervous for the play? Did you get that award? What about that girl you like? I love you so much. I miss you. I can’t wait for you to come and visit. It has been so long since I’ve seen you. Then when she goes to say goodbye, her tone switches from genuine curiosity to hopeless mourning. It is like she is saying, “goodbye, I can’t believe I never got to see you in that play or the smile you had on your face when you heard you won that election or that shiny award you brought home or any of the other things a mother is supposed to see her son do as she watches him grow up because you decided that your friends and your school are more important than I am.”
Making that connection and finally realizing what I had done was one of the most awful experiences I have ever had. Who was I to rob my mother of the thing she valued most? Who was I to take every event that made her proud to be my mom and in its place, give her summaries that can never replace what she missed? Sure, none of this was important to me, I was just living life, but to her, it meant the world. I took everything from her. By the time I saw this though, it was too late to run back to my mom.
My reputation was set in stone. I had more friends than any boy could ask for. I had risen to the top ranks of the “smart crowd.” I was the brother of the guy who beat up that kid and sold drugs to that guy and got with that girl. I was untouchable. There was no way I could rebuild that same reputation if I started all over again. I chose my world over my mother’s… again.
But, I look at the life I took from my mother and I compare it to the life she wants for me. She wants what any mother wants for her child. She wants me to succeed, to learn, to love, to laugh, to try my best, and get the best. Since I can never make up for what I’ve done to her, the least I can do is try my best to give her the satisfaction of knowing that her son lived the fullest life he could. I can do everything in my power to lead the life she wants me to lead. I can learn everything I get my hands on, love everyone around me, and live everyday just like I did back when I lived with her – doing everything I can to make her proud. This I believe.
Book Log 9
Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—to-morrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . . And one fine morning——
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
American Dream: In the concluding paragraph, Fitzgerald summarizes his view of the American Dream. This confirms that the idea of the American Dream has played a key role in the shape the story took. Looking back, it appears that dreams were not implemented to develop characters but rather, characters were used to develop and explain dreams. Fitzgerald worked all through Gatsby’s story in order to explain how dreaming is beneficial up until the point where the dream begins to consume the dreamer. Trying so hard to achieve something just out of reach and chasing after it with the hope that one fine day you will attain it is a flawed process. As the dream pulls further and further away, you follow it out of reality; out of what is truly important in life and toward your demise.
On the last night, with my trunk packed and my car sold to the grocer, I went over and looked at that huge incoherent failure of a house once more. On the white steps an obscene word, scrawled by some boy with a piece of brick, stood out clearly in the moonlight, and I erased it, drawing my shoe raspingly along the stone. Then I wandered down to the beach and sprawled out on the sand.
Character: Even after fighting so passionately to get anyone who knew Gatsby to attend his funeral, Nick still is a good enough friend to go over and clear the obscene word written on Gatsby’s property. All he wants is the best out of Gatsby’s situation – an honorable funeral and respectable remaining assets. His care is measured by the extent to which he works to achieve this. Dealing with shady characters, phoning everyone and their mother, and other things that go beyond the duty of formal friendship makes Nick a caring and kind man.
In the foreground four solemn men in dress suits are walking along the sidewalk with a stretcher on which lies a drunken woman in a white evening dress. Her hand, which dangles over the side, sparkles cold with jewels. Gravely the men turn in at a house—the wrong house. But no one knows the woman’s name, and no one cares.
Color: Fitzgerald has associated Jordan and Daisy so closely with the color white that it has come to symbolize them. It makes the woman in the white dress appear just as careless and irresponsible as they are. Perhaps it was her first time getting drunk, but the reader cannot help but assume that the woman just let go forcing the duty of her care onto those around her simply because she is clad in the color white.
