Core Concept #5: 2/7/11-2/17/11

Allusions in Heart of Darkness

• Eden references (wild forest, river looks like a serpent)
• But Dante references also (three levels of hell)
• Connection: The Dante handout from class should come in especially handy
• Lots of description of maps also because there is a metaphysical map in Africa
• The people represent something; the landscape represents something too

Characters in Heart of Darkness

• The three stages of an archetypal woman shows up in Heart of Darkness
• Marlow's aunt is the smothering mother
• Connection: Juxtaposition to Linda as an absentee mother
• Kurtz's fiancee is the damsel in distress
• The secretary women are the Fates, they represent the crones
• Irony: they are not knitting a golden thread, instead, they are knitting black wool (the hair of Africans were described as black wool)
• This means that the Company holds the fate of the world in their hands because they are extracting resources from Africa (at the expense of the Africans) to power the world
• The Jungle is the sexualized mother figure
• The Russian wears motley, which means that he is the fool, the one who can speak the truth because he's so dumb/innocent
• The Russian also wears clothes of many colors, which reminds us of Joseph, who had worked for the pharoh (the Company)
• Kurtz's mistress is warrior-like, regal, and is the anima (the spirit of the land)
• Thus Kurtz's real mistress is the Congo: he was never going to go home to his Intended because his heart is with the anima
• Connection: she reminds me of Neytiri of the recent movie Avatar

Discussion Items

• Why is the Heart of Darkness written in frame narrative?
• Agree/disagree with Achebe in his article, "An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness"?
• Reactions to Dintenfass (his central claim, minor points of interpretation)
• Heart of Darkness as a "quest": Romance or Irony?
• Marlowe is portrayed as an idol (bad connotation)
• Connection: in parts of the Bible that we read over the summer, people were punished for worshipping idols
• He doesn't understand the meaning of his journey
• Maybe he's trying to understand by telling his story?
• An irony "quest" undermines the point of a romantic quest (reinforce values) because it's trying to tell us that something's lacking in society because society is meaningless

Final Exam

• Situational irony is when the same situation is turned around (i.e. misery into happiness caused by the same action)
• Dramatic irony is when we know something the characters should know, but don't
• Verbal irony is when someone says something and means the opposite
• Comic characters are blind to their own misperceptions
• Conceit is a long, extended metaphor

"Exit Mubarak" by Roger Cohen | Published 2/11/11 | An Editorial Analysis

            The author of "Exit Mubarak" uses rhetorical devices to help the reader understand the argument and to help the argument flow. For example, he uses imagery when he writes, "ashen-faced Omar", and "The revolution was...seeping out of a packed Tahrir Square like a dam breaking." This helps paint a vivid picture in the reader's mind of what exactly the author is trying to say. The author also uses syntax for better flow so the reader can be more receptive to his message, such as when he uses interrogatives to question assumptions when he writes, "How far could Mubarak be from the scene as long as Sleiman was guiding the process?" Cohen also uses anaphora and asyndeton when he writes, "long trampled-upon, long subjected to the humiliation," creating a poetic "sound." Finally, the author uses details to build up his voice and help us understand the situation in Egypt from his point of view. Examples of such usage include "The Arab world has awoken from a long conspiracy-filled slumber induced by aging despots determined to keep their peoples from modernity," and "the building blocks we were trying to use were rotten to the core and we had been complicity in that rot."

           There were no weaknesses in the essay that I could perceive.

            In this essay, the narrative persona is very informal and passionate. The author makes a lot of cultural references, such as when he writes, "which wizened specimen from the Arab Jurassic Park is next?" But he is also very passionate about his subject, emphasizing that "there is nothing anti-democratic in the Arab genome." Such imagery, syntax, and details help the author build up his narrative persona. This tone makes me like the essay more because the informal tone makes the essay more interesting to read, and the passionate tone makes the essay more attractive because I know the author cares for the issue, thus I feel like I should care too.

            I think the speaker would still be appropriate if this were an AP essay because the speaker really tries to reach out to the reader, but he does it in a way so as to still sound formal. The only problem is, the author makes a claim and does not support it very well with evidence, thus although the speaker would work for an AP essay, I don't think the essay itself would.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/12/opinion/12iht-edcohen12.html?ref=rogercohen

“We Are All Egyptians” by Nicholas D. Kristof | Published 2/3/11 | A Reflective Essay Analysis

          In “We Are All Egyptians," Kristof uses a pensive, awed, and inspirational tone in order to tell us of his recent experience in Tahrir Square. He creates his tone with his diction, detail, syntax, and imagery. For example, Kristof is awed when he describes, "that seemed to be an example of determination that could never be surpassed," he is inspirational when he writes"Today, we are all egyptians", and he is pensive when he writes, "I will keep fighting."

           I like Kristof's tone in “We Are All Egyptians” because it makes me believe once again in the human spirit, in the ability of bad times to bring out the best in people. The tone is perfect for such an essay about a person's descriptions of people during a critical period. The essay is beautifully written and really makes one think.

           I think the tone in "We Are All Egyptians" would work perfectly for an AP essay because Kristof uses ample details to support his claims, he uses good diction and syntax, he wrote in the plain style, and the spelling and structure was good. Moreover, Kristof manages to reach out to the reader and really resonate with the reader, which is pretty essential in any essay, especially an AP essay.

          Through Kristof's use of imagery, details, and synatx in “We Are All Egyptians,", he not only allows the reader to understand his essay better, but also helps it flow better.

           Kristof took great advantage of syntax to better his essay. He used short sentences to convey ideas more forcefully, such as when he says, "I was awestruck." Even though Kristof is writing about events that happened in the past, he incorporates a lot of present tense into his essay, such as when he writes, "...they are willing to sacrifice their lives..." to also convey ideas forcefully. Kristof uses fragments, such as "So did many, many others" to create a choppy and distressed sound and also to emphasize ideas. Moreover, he he uses interrupters between the subject and the predicate, such as when he writes, "Maged, a 64-year-old doctor who relies upon a cane to walk, told me..." to create suspense and a kind of forward motion.

           Kristof used details to help make his point hit home. He told the stories of a carpenter named Mahmood, Amr the cripple, Maged the doctor, Dr. Nawal El Saadawi the feminist, and Leila the young woman to make the movement in Egypt personalized. After reading the article, the revolution became less about a large group of rebels, but more about a collection of individuals each putting their own precious lives on the line for an idea.

            Kristof uses imagery throughout his essay to add a certain spice to it that would not have existed otherwise. For example, when he writes, "...Mahmood whose left arm was in a sling, whose leg was in a cast and whose head was being bandaged in a small field hospital," and "...pitched battle involving Molotov cocktails, clubs, machetes, bricks, and straight razors." These words create an image of the battlefield in Egypt, of rebels who have made countless sacrifices for the cause, and yet still continues to do so; of rebels who are fighting for their ideals with whatever household items that they have lying around.

         All in all, "We Are All Egyptians" is a enchanting and emotionally appealing essay that is neatly executed. There were no weaknesses whatsoever that I could discern in the essay.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/04/opinion/04kristof.html?_r=1

Core Concept #4: 1/24/11-2/4/11

Changes in Literature

• Dante (13th century) is a part of the Italian Renaissance but it was the Middle Ages in the rest of Europe
• Until the 1700s/1800s, creativity was an insult so authors recycled stories
• Authors were seen as a conservative force: they were meant to continue the social order/culture
• Allegories don't have to make a lot of sense because they're already externally validaded by society
• During the Middle Ages: Roman Catholicism was prominent, thus allegory was also prominent in the Middle Ages
• Connection: Animal Farm is an allegory
• If you think about it, Animal Farm makes absolutely no sense without its external context
• In the play, Everyman learns valuable lessons about faith
• Everyman represents the average person
• Connection: in AP U.S. Government, we were discussing how the president sort of needs to be an "everyman" figure
• If Everyman refers an era, it's capitalized, if it refers to qualities, it's not capitalized
• i.e. In a sense, Golding's boys are more "everyman" figures than they are real boys-they lack the development one expects of fully realized characters
• Romantic v. romantic qualities, Existential v. existential qualities
• i.e. The Wizard of Oz, a Postmodern allegory, has romantic features, laid over grittily realistic themes
• At the beginning, in literature, things happen because of natural law, the audience is passive, the literature is serious, and there are many rules
• The literature focused on Gods and societal values
• The medium of communication was poetry, plays, essays, and myths
• The narrative voice was elevated, 3rd person omniscient
• The characters focus on Gods, nobility, everyman, and the upper class
• At the end, in literature, individuals caused plot, more people have a voice in literature, literature became less serious, and there were fewer rules
• The literature focused on the individual vs. nature/self/technology/society, there was general dispair & rage over inherited society, there was a lost of trust in society, and literature began to focus on unnecessary pain that is not fixed
• The medium of communication was poetry, plays, essays, myths, and graphic novels
• The narrative voice was limited, omniscient, unreliable narrator, multiple narrator, or stream of conscious
• The characters focused on everyone

The Novel

• Definition: a fictional prose narrative of considerable length and complexity that deals imaginatively with human experience
• It is conveyed by the author through a specific point of view and connected by a sequence of events involving a group of persons in a specific setting
• The novel is any extended fictional narrative almost always in prose writte before the 18th century
• Connection: The novel arose as an result of changes in literature and has caused many more changes in literature as seen above

Everyman

• Everyman is an example of a type of Medieval drama: the morality play
• The play is about a complacent Everyman who loses everything upon finding out that he is going to die soon
• When he dies, the only thing remaining that he owns is his Good Deeds
• Point of the play: we can take with us from this world nothing that we have received, only what we have given

Medieval Literature

• The Divine Comedy by Dante is an allegorical vision of the Christian afterlife
• The speaker is lead through the three realms of the dead by Virgil, and leader Beatrice
• The poem is emblematic of the medieval worldview
• The Divine Comedy's Circles of Hell, Terraces of Purgatory, and Spheres of Heaven, have been called the most perfect and longest lasting map in the history of Western culture

Archetypal and Mythological Criticism

• Every story ever told is a part of one story, but it is always dressed up in new clothes, because even though it's always the same story, the old stories have already been told
• Romance: "the quest"
• The quester starts as an embodiment of society's values, he is separated from high social standing, he enters the "belly of the whale" (the low point), and he comes home and reestablishes himself at the pinnacle of society
• Tragedy
• Guy falls and can't get back up
• Misstep can end in disaster
• The story ends at the low point
• Connection: Compare Frye-tragedy with the tragedy of earlier notes
• Irony
• The story starts at the low point, things get better? (maybe), but no, everything's useless
• Comedy
• Start at low point, main character follows the rules, so he reaches the top
• Usually ends in windfall and marraige
• When using these terms, make sure that the reader knows that these terms are used in the Frye-sense, not the normal sense

What Makes Good Writing?

• Good content, good style & usuage (diction, syntax, plain style, concise-ness, and tone), and good spelling & structure
• Connection: diction, syntax, plain style, and tone have all been discussed in previous notes
• Don't say stuff like "really" and "very"
• Don't use evaluative language (i.e. Shakespeare is the best...)
• Remember your audience
• Don't use informal language (colloquialisms)
• Be specific
• Use quotes

"Young Writer Searches for Harlem" by Dwight Garner | Published 1/25/11 | A Book Review Analysis

           In “Young Writer Searches for Harlem,” Garner weaves together a skillful essay using many rhetorical devices to analyze Harlem is Nowhere by Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts.

           These rhetorical devices include diction, such as alliteration and specific diction choices. For example, Garner uses alliteration when he writes, "Watch the walking". Furthermore, Garner skillfully uses specific diction choices to better his writing. A specific diction choice that really struck me is when he says, "some of the sentences wheeze." That is not only an example of personification created through a single diction choice, but it also creates great imagery of sentences not being able to live up to readers' standards.

             In addition, Garner uses a lot of imagery in this essay, such as when he says, "sound, one you cock your head at an angle to hear," and "you climb inside her skull." This all helps the reader better understand the book because it allows us to understand that the book is not only intriguing and intimate, but it also gives us this information by creating a mental image in the reader's head, allowing such information to stick.

              Furthermore, Garner uses great syntax in his essay, such as when he says, "But that vanaishes as the book moves forward, and charting the sensorium of Harlem's ghosts becomes her primary occupation." The consistent use of passive voice, "the book moves forward," "...becomes her primary occupation", suggests that the book progressed almost without the author's will. Overall, Garner's use of rhetorical devices in his essay makes it flow easily and helps him convey his point in an easy-to-understand manner.

          The only weakness I see in Garner's essay is that its language is kind of bland. The sentence structures are not very varied and it doesn't include a lot of interesting vocab or intresting introduction/conclusion to capture and intrigue the reader.

            In analyzing Young Writer Searches for Harlem, Garner mostly uses psychoanalytic criticism. In his book review, Garner analyzed Harlem is Nowhere mostly from the author, Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts' perspective. He emphasizes the effect of the author being from Texas and having attended Harvard's effect on her life, and thus her book. It also explains how her other experiences, being the only black student in her high school English class, and the other literary works that she has researched has affected her take on Harlem, and thus her novel. The book review is mostly about how the book is simply a manifestation of Rhodes-Pitts' subconcious take on Harlem. Garner also uses formalist criticism when he criticizes Rhodes-Pitts' writing style.

            Timberg's description of Harlem is Nowhere really reminds me of A Raisin in the Sun. In both books, the author took the title from another Harlem author's work. Moreover, both books are about reaching for the American dream amist the culture and neighborhood and oppressions of Harlem.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/26/books/26book.html?ref=books

Core Concept #3: 12/13/10-1/7/11

Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead

The Play

• We all become a part of the performance because we willingly suspend belief
• Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead" "breaks the 4th wall" between actors and the audience
• The play breaks into our comfort zone
• It is meant to be a part of Hamlet (layered over Hamlet)
• Rosencrantz and Guildenstern have vastly different personalities, yet Stoppard insists on confusing them
• Famous quote: "Life in a box is better than no life at all"
• Although Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead is supposed to be the missing layer of Hamlet, the universe is vastly different, and many tricks are played

Delving Deeper

• The play is one of the Theater of the Absurd and asks existential questions
• The play is an allegory: Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are us; the box, boat, play are the container/vehicle of life: it has the illusion of boundlessness, but it is in fact written for us: it's all an illusion; the playwrite is fate/god
• Hamlet is a paradoxical character, he is the most important/powerful person in Denmark, but he is stuck in a web not of his design and in the end, he resigns himself to the providencial God
• Is a life in a box (life) really better than no life at all?
• Stoppard turns Hamlet's messages inside out

Being Born

• A character is born when the playwright commands it, people are born when God/fate commands it
• In the beginning Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are in a dark bar, and then they are summoned into the light (they are born)
• Rosencrantz & Guildenstern can't remember anything after that: when they're on the horse, they mention that they can't remember how they got there
• "There must've been a time in the beginning when we could've said no". This quote is ironic because it is a life. In the beginning, we had no choice but to be born.

Lecture on Stoppard

• Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead is a highly derivative play
• The play belongs to the Theater of the Absurd, thus the play does not have the "horizon of significance" of other plays, the protagonists' attempts to deal with their world is often absurd, its heroes lacks what it takes to act confidently in the world, the protagonists are often waiting for something to happen, there is bleak humor, and the language is unpredictable, unreliable and deceiving
• This reminds me of British Literature, when we read The Tempest by William Shakespare. In the play, Caliban, Trinculo, and Stephano decide to take over the island, but the world is absurd to them because they don't understand the traditions of the upper class that surrounds them, nor do they understand that their every move is being guided by Prospero through magic (much like a playwright guides his characters), and they often get distracted from their goal (much like how Rosencrantz and Guildenstern get distracted from their goal of getting information out of Hamlet)
• Stoppard builds a lot of the absurdness of the play with rhetorical devices (using many of the devices that we've learned of before: such as repetition, irony, diction, syntax, parallelism...)
• There is a unique element of friendship in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, giving each of the main characters more of a specific identity
• Art is at odds with the world of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern because art confers order

Death of a Salesman

• Death of a Salesman is a play. Form follows function and Miller must've chosen to write Death of a Salesman as a play for all that a play can offer, and despite all the limits of plays
• We learned about the good parts about plays previous: it's powerful, and it gives the audience the sense of a communal experience that heightens meaning
• Limits of plays are that it has to be able to hold the attention of the audience and it requires artificiality,
• Linda is like a mother to Willy because Willy is a man who never grew up
• Evidence: his name is Willy (not William, not Bill, but Willy), he says "gee", a lot of people call him "kid", Biff calls him a "prince", not a "king"
• Linda keeps on trying to feed Willy dairy products, like breastfeeding
• Linda does not respect Willy, if she did, she would treat him like an equal and call him out on his lies
• Thus, Biff and Happy have to compete with Willy to win the affection of their mother
• Did Ben really make his fortune in African diamonds, or is he a shadier character?
• In Death of a Salesman, the women are either "mothers" or "whores". This is actually a motif in Western literature
• Well-liked v. Loved
• Willy wanted to be well-liked, but he didn't realized that he was loved and that was what mattered
• This idea of well-liked v. loved is very relevant even today because people want to be liked, and sometimes, in that quest to impress people and to get others to like them, people often lose sight of their loved ones who have stayed by them and loved them all along
• It turns out that Willy had the wrong dream all along
• Death of a Salesman is about the corruption of the American Dream
• Willy, like Biff, was born to work with his hands, but he choose a career as a salesman because he thought it will bring him success and happiness, when in fact if Willy had been a farmer or carpenter instead, he would've most likely have found success and happiness
• Willy seems to be afraid to take risks
• He did not go to Alaska with Ben
• He was scared by the new technology of the tape recorder
• He didn't ask for a promotion until Linda talked him into it
• The Lomans (Lo-Man) are not "leaders of men", as Willy would like to believe
• Biff might be right in that he is "a dime a dozen"
• Thus it is ironic when Willy says that he is not "a piece of fruit" because he is. All of his resources have been extracted by his company, so in the end, they have no more use of him and he is fired
• Happy seems doomed to follow Willy's footsteps, while Biff is not

Homework

• Read "Lecture on Stoppard"
• Death of a Salesman Annotations
• Tragedy Forum
• "Fathers" Forum
• Core Concept Notes and Outside Readings Journals

“Haiti Without Walls” by Kettly Mars | Published 1/1/11 | A Reflective Essay Analysis

           In “Haiti Without Walls”, Mars uses a pensive, hopeful, and inspirational tone in order to tell us of her experience in the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake. She creates her tone with her diction, detail, syntax, and imagery. For example, Mars is pensive when she writes, "How eerie the huge cloud of dust rising...over Port-au-Prince", and she is inspirational when she writes, "we were a people lost in a tremor but united by a common fate."

           I like Mars's tone in “Haiti Without Walls” because it makes me believe once again in the human spirit, in the ability of bad times to bring out the best in people. The tone is perfect for such an essay about a person's experiences in a disaster. The essay is beautifully written and really makes one think.

           I think the tone in "Haiti Without Walls" would work perfectly for an AP essay because it is formal, written in standard English, and the author manages to reach out to the reader and really resonate with the reader, which is pretty essential in any essay, especially an AP essay.

          Through Mars’s use of rhetorical devices in “Haiti Without Walls”, she not only allows the reader to understand her essay better, but also helps it flow better. For example, Mars uses parallelism and tricolon, such as when she says, “...we have known the wrath of storms, the terrors of the cholera epidemic, the frustration of being locked in an incredible political stalemate..." to facilitate the flow of the passage and to add power to her recollection of the effects of the Haitian earthquake.

            Florey made a good diction choice with the phrase "concrete and iron" when she wrote, "...survivors pulled the wounded from concrete and iron." Although what the Mars means to say here is that the wounded were pulled out of fallen buildings, her use of "concrete and iron" (synecdoche) carry the connotation of something that is machine-made and of the industrial age, something that she wants to contrast with the completely human experience that she is describing in her essay. This clever utilization of words' connotations and synecdoche add power to the sentence. Moreover Mars uses alliteration, such as when she writes, "without walls", "telluric wave twisted", "dying day", and "dream from destruction." She also uses repetition, such as when she writes, "our country was on her knees; we were on our knees." Such use of rhetorical devices throughout her essay adds a certain spice, imagery, and flow to her essay that would not have existed otherwise.

         All in all, "Haiti Without Walls" is a enchanting and emotionally appealing essay that is neatly executed. There were no weaknesses whatsoever that I could discern in the essay.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/01/02/opinion/20110102_Op_Postcards.html?ref=opinion