Response to Course Material

Prior to this last week, we focused on our group discussion and individual annotations of Death of A Salesmen.  I thought that using the film as a first read was a very good choice.  This allowed me to have a solid understanding of the plot, character traits, and interactions/dynamics of the play.  When going back for the close read, I was pleasantly surprised to see how much was similar.  The move is a very near direct copy of the play, only leaving out some very minor discussions or events.  When I went into the close read I had some ideas in mind, and was able to quickly and easily identify these parts of the play and find plenty of evidence and examples.  Overall I feel that the movie is a very accurate version of the novel, and portray's the same feelings and emotions as Arthur Miller's actual play.  This week we spent most of our time working on projects for literary eras.  Though this was something I did in American Literature, I didn't really pay attention to that class or do anything so this is definitely something worth learning the second time around.  I learned a lot from other projects and a lot from my own group's research so overall it was definitely time well spent.  I can see this being of utmost importance on the AP exam.  Being able to identify a piece and what literary movement it fits in will allow for accurate pre-reading generalizations to be formulated which will help to understand the writing in a timely manner.

Close reading nov 20th

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2009/03/16/090316crat_atlarge_acocella

Diction: Since this piece of writing is about the frightening nature of vampires, and how they still are able to cause us great discomfort and worry, the diction involved in describing the vampires is suited well to this purpose.  The author uses the general terms of the past to describe vampires, "bloated", "purple-faced", "talons", "terrible".  Together these create a creature that no one would want to run into, very indicative of the fact that vampires still cause us a lot of fear in modern day culture, the whole point of her piece.  Her excerpts from other works about vampires describe the blood with diction such as "trickling, smeared".  These are truly discomforting and describe well the bestial nature of vampires with their lust for blood.

Imagery:  The description of vampires created through the strong and disturbing diction creates a very vivid and real image of vampires in a reader's mind.  This is coupled with past texts that do an even better job of describing vampires in their terrible deed's of sucking the blood of helpless maidens.  These images are especially vivid to a reader because they are something that truly reaches people on the deepest level.  Nothing would be worse than being unconscious and unable to help someone as they were attacked by a vampire.  The terrible nature of vampires, and the associated historical reaction by people is described with great imagery as well, as the author describes the various means by which vampires were killed :staked, burned, and beheaded.  This also creates a pretty brutal image.

Details:  The details involved in the work are especially suited to further the author's goal : to describe the significance of the fear that vampires still invoke in people to this day.  In order to do this she needed a mix of chilling fictional work and historical fact.  This is seen in her use of excerpts from Dracula and descriptions of eastern European folk lore and tradition.  Together the mix of historical fact and frightening fiction are especially well received by the audience.  This is a winning combination that undeniably proves the author's point by instilling a slight discomfort in the reader about vampires.

nov 13th open prompt

1984. Select a moment or scene in a novel, epic poem, or play that you find especially memorable. Write an essay in which you identify the line or the passage, explain its relationship to the work in which it is found, and analyze the reasons for its effectiveness.

            Quirky and odd pieces of literature tend to be very memorable for the reader.  Few pieces of literature are able to match the level of oddity and randomness of Cat’s Cradle by Curt Vonnegut.  The passage in which Ice-9 is dropped into the ocean and results in the end of all life is a particularly memorable passage from that novel.  This passage results in the culmination of the destructive behavior of humans, a theme constantly described throughout the novel, and is especially powerful in demonstrating this due to poignant use of imagery and details by Vonnegut.  

            The passage in which Ice-9 is accidentally dropped into the ocean is the logical conclusion to the series of events that lead up to this point, and demonstrates the true nature of people to cause undue harm upon themselves.  Earlier in the novel, the protagonist mentions the possible creation of Ice-9, but is skeptical about its existence.  Ice-9 is crystal that is able to freeze any water it comes into contact with, and therefore has potential to freeze over the entire world.  He demonstrates a lot of concern about this mysterious compound created by a world renowned nuclear physicist because it has the potential to quite literally end all life on the planet. The protagonist grapples throughout the novel with this man’s ability to create such powerful weapons and allow them to be unleashed upon the world.  He is a staunch critic of such inhumane action, and really much of Cat’s Cradle is a criticism of such action.  There is a startling connection between the local strongman dictator of a Caribbean island and this man who creates such powerful weapons.  When Ice-9 is finally released into the water and causes the entire world to freeze over, the inevitable future finally occurs.  It seems almost impossible that by creating such a weapon and leaving it out in the world that a positive result could come out of it.  This represents the ignorance of the creator to the true nature of the human race.  People are not careful enough or logical enough to possess such immense power to destroy their world.  This criticism of Ice-9 is can be carried over very easily to the idea of nuclear weapons; they too possess potential to absolutely annihilate all life on this planet.  Overall this passage in which the world is literally destroyed before the protagonist’s eyes is the culmination of the dangerous and foolish work of a genius who was unaware of the true nature of human beings.  However this event clearly exposes the true nature of humans and the potential they have for destruction. 

            This passage is so effective in demonstrating the destructive potential of humans by creating a truly terrible scenario, almost worse than anything nuclear weapons could cause.  The entire world literally freezes over due to Ice-9, all bodies of water are instantly frozen.  Anyone to come into contact with Ice-9 is also instantly frozen solid.  The actual event unfolds in a predictable and almost slow motion event.  The reader is aware the entire time what is going to happen, and when the Ice-9 crystal plummets toward the water below, the reader with out a doubt feels a sense of “I told you so”.  This technique to set up the signs well before the event is a powerful technique for the criticism of human nature, because just with the weapons people currently possess, the signs of possible destruction are imminent and obvious.  The imagery of the post apocalyptic world is truly memorable.  A frozen over world, everything that contained water is completely frozen solid.  Only cement is untouched and allows the protagonist to attempt to navigate the barren world.  This is especially memorable to the reader and the idea that the protagonist must spend the rest of his days avoiding dying by being frozen and trapped in a whole with a rag tag group of survivors that he knew from before the incident seems beyond terrible.  This is truly a memorable passage that is extremely effective in culminating the criticisms of Vonnegut into one powerful event that makes readers remember and feel similarly to Vonnegut in terms of his ideas of the danger of the human race.