Synthesize of Course Material #4

The two novels we read, Ceremony and Pride and Prejudice are suppose to be very good novels, with many morals in them. But to be honest I didn't like either of them. I think Ceremony is too full of violence, alcohol, and not enough events are actually going on, while Pride and Prejudice is the complete opposite, there are no action happening at all, and its all about relationships between girls and guys, and trying to get married. If these two novels could some how combine and the story plot be mixed up a little bit, it would make a very interesting novel.

Synthesize of Course Material #3

Plays
Both Death of a Salesman and American Dream are classic, and I just love both of the story. I might not have liked them two month ago, but now thinking back, I have applied them to a lot of my work without even realizing that I am doing so. I wrote three essays on Death of a Salesman and two on American Dream. These two plays have great examples to the  moral of life. And even though through out the entire Death of a Salesman I don't like Willy, even now, I still don't, but he's spirit and hes care for his family has lead me to think about myself. And that I have actually slowly been pulling away from my family. Although I am not even close to what how Willy treats his family (not even close, and that's hope I never will.) But it did make me think about bonding more with the family since I will be leaving for college very soon. And American Dream is just a classic comic that whenever I think about the story I still laugh about how naive the characters are.

Synthesize of Course Material #2

AP test multiple questions, they are the biggest struggle I had since the beginning of AP Lit. I have no idea how I am suppose to answer those question, even though the very first time I took the practice, I got over half of the questions right, but that doesn't mean I know the material. I out of ten questions I did, I guessed on six of them. And these guesses aren't even close to being an "educational guess".

I feel like we need to work on the questions more, even though they are quite boring, but they do involve using your brain a lot, and I am not even close to being ready for them. So as of now, if I take the AP test I would be very surprised to even get a three...

Synthesize of Course Material #1

DIDLS

Diction-
   the accent, inflection, intonation, and speech-sound quality manifested by an individual speaker, usually judged in terms of prevailing standards of acceptability; enunciation.
Imagery-
      the formation of mental images, figures, or likenesses of things, or of such images
Detail-
      an individual or minute part; an item or particular.
Language-
      a body of words and the systems for their use common to a people who are of the same community or nation, the same geographical area, or the same cultural tradition.
Syntax-
      the study of the rules for the formation of grammatical sentences in a language.
DIDLS is very what we use to analyze a passage, either a short story, news paper, or an essay. Readers can use these techniques to break down the passage, and deeper understand what the author is talking about, and DIDLS iis used for AP testing too.

Revision of Open Prompt #4- 10/30/11

1990. Choose a novel or play that depicts a conflict between a parent (or a parental figure) and a son or daughter. Write an essay in which you analyze the sources of the conflict and explain how the conflict contributes to the meaning of the work. Avoid plot summary. 

     Deceitfulness and betrayal are the central conflict in Death of a Salesman. In the story, before we know the ending to the story, we see that Biff constantly scorn at Willy, most people will think Biff’s action are very disrespectful, and that he is very ill-mannered in almost every way possible. But as we read on, we begins to see that the reason behind Biff’s action was the deceitful life he had to live under, and the feeling of being betrayed by his own father, caused Biff to seem like the villain of the story.

     The Lomans are almost all extremely self-deceptive, and in their respective delusions and blindness to reality, they fuel and feed off of one another. Willy, the main focus of the story, convinced himself that he is successful, well-liked by all, famous everywhere, and that both of his sons are destined for greatness. Unable to cope with reality, he entirely abandons it through his vivid fantasies and ultimately through suicide. Linda and Happy similarly believe that the Lomans are about to make it big. Not connected with the reality, and believe that Willy truly is famous. But the other members of the family, Biff, grows to recognize that he and his family members consistently deceive themselves, and he fights to escape the cycle of lying.

     Biff went away from home for a few years. He wants to get away from Willy, and get away from these lies. He knows he is not good enough of a person or worker. And he knows he cannot be successful in the world of business. He wants to be himself and not the person in his father’s dream. Biff knows the lies his family is living under, he tries to convince everyone in the story, but he was accused for being lazy and not trying. While Biff is the only one that sees the reality, he was cast away from the rest of the family, causing conflicts to happen within the Lomans.

     Death of a Salesman is full of betrayal. Willy betrays Linda’s love and Biff’s trust with his affair. As the chief betrayer himself, Willy is preoccupied by the fear of betrayal. His frequent accusations that Biff is spiteful reflect his understanding that Biff’s failure in business is a rejection of Willy’s own dreams of success, and that Biff’s inability to keep a job is related to Willy’s love affair. Even outside of his family, Willy feels that his boss is betraying him by firing him, but Howard says that there’s no room for feelings of betrayal in the business world.

     No one else but Biff knows the story behind Willy’s betrayal. Biff was the only one at Boston when he caught Willy having an affair with a young woman. He immediately loses all of his respect toward his father. Unable to accept the truth, Biff left the family without saying a word to the rest of the family. After he came back, Biff said Willy was a fake but refuse to tell why, causing conflicts between Linda and himself. Willy feels everything that went wrong is a betrayal toward him. And Biff is the only one that knows the wholes story, he is also the only one that understand the Lomans are living under a lie, so Willy feels Biff is betraying him in everyway.

Revision of Open Prompt #3- 10/14/11

1991. Many plays and novels use contrasting places (for example, two countries, two cities or towns, two houses, or the land and the sea) to represent opposed forces or ideas that are central to the meaning of the work. Choose a novel or play that contrasts two such places. Write an essay explaining how the places differ, what each place represents, and how their contrast contributes to the meaning of the work.

     When it comes to writing about contrasting places, Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities shows the stunning history of the French Revolution. The “tale” of the two cities is quite different, in that London is portrayed as heaven where crimes are supposed to be justified yet Paris is hell where the French Revolution booms and a lot of un-justifying cost many innocent people to die. Even though two completely different events go on in the two cities, the sense of injustice was shown by Dickens throughout the novel.
     In A Tale of Two Cities the two cities, London and Paris, are contrast in the incidents that occurred. Britain just experienced the loss of America in the American Revolution. The war caused Britain to rest and fall back on extreme military use. When there is no war, there is no huge loss of money and troops. Citizens follow orders, and everyone is happy, but the court is not taking cases seriously, they judge by how ever people want things to be. There was no real law either, because everyone is so free of will. Meanwhile in France, aristocrats are getting nastier and demanding more from citizens. The class differences are getting so big and ridiculous, and the aristocrat are abusing their power to a point where they need four people to make breakfast for them. Soon the French Revolution begins, killing numerous aristocrats and anyone that has power or money, France immediately turned into a blood shedding land. The blood shedding of aristocrats soon turned to the blood shedding of anyone who does not like the guillotine. The injustice that occurred in both cities creates either fear or carefree mood.
     Dickens portrayed London as a heavenly place where everyone is nice to each other, no war, no battle, no real crime, no real law, no precise court, and no justice. Yet in Paris people are chopping off each other’s head. Paris started out as a revolutionary, an act to make the country better and bearable for everyone. The act then soon turned into random blood shedding, killing about forty thousand people. Dickens’ extreme contrast of the neighboring lands showed how London and Paris affect each other, either in violent way or justice.
     In the end Dickens points out that the two countries are so different yet they are both injustice. In Paris thousands of people died without a real reason, and none of those that died had a chance of defending themselves before they were sent to the guillotine, and this happened every Saturday morning. While in London, those who committed crimes are not being punished enough, but those that didn’t do anything are being punished. The judge of the court are lacking on their job, judges listen to public desire and allows the desire to become reality. While the two cities might seem very different in that one is killing thousands of people and the other is so peaceful nothing happens. They are actually really similar in that there is no justice.

Revision of Open Prompt #2- 10/03/11

     1972. In retrospect, the reader often discovers that the first chapter of a novel or the opening scene of a drama introduces some of the major themes of the work. Write an essay about the opening scene of a drama or the first chapter of a novel in which you explain how it functions in this way. 

A lot of stories start out with a character doing something very drastic, or very extreme, and it usually sets the tone of the story. Like Curtains, the Broadway musical written by Rupert Holmes. All the audience set their attention on Jessica Cranshaw at the beginning of the musical, then a sudden death happened at the very beginning, a mysterious murderous case beginnings. Althouh when Holmes wrote the story he was careful not to show too much details as to what will happen, but he gave the audience enough information that the audience can know this will be a comedy-tragedy musical.

Although Jessica wasn’t the main character, and her death really meant nothing to the audience, but her death is the setting of the musical, it is because of her death, that all the crew are stuck inside the little theater, and it is because of her death that a lot of problems are solved in the musical, and also the beginning of a love story between the main characters. The first scene of Curtains set out the plot for the rest of the musical.

In the second half of the first scene, viewers learn that no one likes Jessica, and everyone hoped she either leave or die. So at that point everyone was considered suspect. Lieutenant Frank Cioffi, local Boston detective, showed up and locked up everyone from the show in the theater. Immediately viewers would see that Cioffi is now in charge of the scene. Everyone is under his control. Viewers might not know what would happen next, but comprehend that the rest of the musical would occur inside the theater. At this point viewers would understand that there is a killer on the loose, a detective trying to catch the killer, and everyone inside the theater is a suspect. 

A lot of writers would show a dim detail of the plot which provides the basic background of the story at the first scene. This writing style prevents readers/ viewers from knowing too much about the detail of the story, yet understand what is going on and would guess around for answers. It creates a mood for the audience causing them to predict what would happen later on in the story. Holmes’ Curtains is one of the stories that provides enough information for audience to predict but not enough for audience to know the detail.

Revision of Open Prompt #1- 09/16/11

2002. Morally ambiguous characters -- characters whose behavior discourages readers from identifying them as purely evil or purely good — are at the heart of many works of literature. Choose a novel or play in which a morally ambiguous character plays a pivotal role. Then write an essay in which you explain how the character can be viewed as morally ambiguous and why his or her moral ambiguity is significant to the work as a whole. Avoid mere plot summary.

Ambiguous characters such as Severus Snape from J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter are often viewed as less of a main character and more of a side character that is put in a novel to make the story more interesting. It is often hard to understand their motif in the story. But in most cases the ambiguous character will lead the protagonist to success. Severus Snape is such of a character, throughout the entire series of Harry Potter, readers have thought of Snape as a villain, no one would have thought that he was the person leading Harry Potter to defeating Voldemort.

            In the first book of Harry Potter, during the Quidditch game with Slytherin, everyone thought it was Snape’s doing, that Harry’s nimbus 2000 was acting suspicious, Rowling used great details to write her characters, no one would have expected Snape to actually be trying to save Harry Potter, other than trying to have him killed. And of course no one would have “suspect p-p-poor, st-stuttering P-Professor Quirrell” to be the person that was attempting to kill Harry Potter.

            In the seventh book, we found the secret behind Snape and Dumbledore. We found out that Snape was actually the whole reason why Harry Potter hasn’t died yet, and that they plotted to defeat Voldemort using Harry Potter from the very beginning, it is almost to drastic of a change between the personality of Snape. Rowling used many dictions and details to create an evil ambiguous character, and in the six book, audience, were certain that Snape is an actual villain. But in the seventh book, the evil villain suddenly changed to a hero, the ambiguity of the character cost audience to view the character in a complete different emotion.

      Ambiguous characters are very important. They make the story more interesting by confusing the readers. Making readers to think one way at the beginning but conclude in another way. In J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series Snape always seem like he is the evil character. But in the very last book we found out that Snape has been helping Harry Potter all along.