close reading four

This post, brought into existence by the recent tragedy at the elementary school in Newtown, interested me. It's not the first time this idea has been put forth (it happens after each of our disturbingly common mass shootings) but it's the most recent and this post's author can be identified with.

After every mass shooting in America, a discussion inevitably sparks up about gun control. The issue of mental health has been completely ignored for years, and the author of "Thinking the Unthinkable" is sick of it. Her post uses a personal anecdote supported by statistics and events nationwide to question why we as a nation are ignoring mental health, and she heavily uses syntax and control over the presentation of details to garner emotional investment from the reader.

The post starts off by juxtaposing Adam Lanza's crime with her problem: her son missed the bus. A reader would be inclined to read on, either wondering why that is relevant or wondering how dare she compare her trivial problem to the mass murder of children. The effect is continued when she describes the conversation at length: "his tone increasingly belligerent, the black-hole pupils of his eyes swallowing the blue irises." The reader gets impatient. She then tells the reader how her son called her a "stupid bitch" and how weakly she responded. The reader at this point is thinking not only is she a bad person for comparing her issue to the mass murder of children, but she's a bad parent for letting her kid behave like this. Eventually, she gets to the point: her son is mentally ill. This detail converts a reader's anger into deep sympathy and understanding. She then finishes her anecdote of how she took her screaming violent child to the hospital, and supplies statistics on mental health to the now-solemn reader. She also tells us more about Michael, how he loves learning and his snuggle animal collection, to generate more sympathy, pushing to make the reader understand that mentally ill people are people too.

Her syntax is crafted to give the above effects maximum potency. For example, followed immediately after her comparison of her son missing the bus to Adam Lanza is a pause, in which the reader has time to think how ridiculous she is. The long, thorough description before getting to the point of the story serves to exasperate the reader, fueling their distaste for the author. When she tells the reader her son is mentally ill, she does so with three concise sentences. These blunt sentences slam the reader with that information in a short time, dispelling their anger and causing their heart to sink immediately. The last sentence, "But he terrifies me," makes the reader want to continue reading. The same techniques are repeated throughout the piece, with the three last sentences serving as a harrowing conclusion so the reader will internalize the piece.

prompt four

1982. In great literature, no scene of violence exists for its own sake. Choose a work of literary merit that confronts the reader or audience with a scene or scenes of violence. In a well-organized essay, explain how the scene or scenes contribute to the meaning of the complete work. Avoid plot summary.

author's note: two critiques off the top of my head: use "torture" less and do less plot summary.

Violence is abundant in Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange, but a few particular scenes have a more prominent influence on the overall meaning than the others: the violence Alex experiences after being released from prison. His beating at the hands of his old victims as well as by the duo of his now-deputized friend and enemy serve to show how savage and vindictive humankind is.

After being turned away from home by his parents and discovering he can no longer listen to his beloved classical music, Alex takes an intoxicated trip to the library to read about suicide. The vulnerable Alex is accosted by an old man, Jack, that he and his droogs beat before Alex went to prison. Jack and his elderly cohorts mercilessly beat Alex despite his passivity. Alex had been punished already by the system and had apparently learned his lesson, but the vengeful Jack continues the beating until the police step in.

Alex's release was no surprise; his situation was widely publicized as a triumph of modern psychology and a sign of a bright crime-free future thanks to the torturous aversion therapy to which Alex was subjected to eliminate his criminal urges. So when an old enemy and an old friend, now police officers, apprehend Alex for attacking the library patrons, they know full well that he was really the victim. Bearing old grudges, they take him to a secluded area and continue the beating that they were sent to stop.

Alex had already been punished for his transgressions, but still continued to suffer outside of prison. The people he had wronged insist on exacting their own revenge, despite the torture Alex had already endured. And even the system that was meant to protect him, the very same one that tortured him under the pretense of saving him, brutalized him secretly. Burgess used this violence to show how spiteful and revenge-crazed humankind can be.

death of a salesman

setting: An old house in Brooklyn surrounded by dead grass and apartment buildings. The ground isn't fertile and nothing grows, like a dystopian Garden of Eden. The importance of the Big Apple as the setting is summed up in the saying, "if I can make it there, I'll make it anywhere" from the theme of Scorsese's New York, New York (I prefer Sinatra to Liza Minnelli, shoot me). It's the city of dreams and opportunity and represents all of America and all that jazz.

plot: It's springtime and Biff returns home once again, taking a break from the riveting life of a drifter. We learn that he and his father, Willy, do not get along well when Willy is yelling about how Biff isn't making anything of his life. Biff and his brother Happy are in their old room reminiscing about their childhoods and their sexcapades, which shows us that their family used to be much happier. Willy's only friend Charley is introduced when he comes over to check on Willy during one of his freakouts. He guises his concern very well so as not to hurt Willy's pride, and they play cards. This is where Willy's brother and sort-of confidant Ben is introduced when Willy hallucinates that Ben is in the room and begins talking with him. Happy and Biff learn some of the causes and the severity of Willy's instability: he is not succeeding at his firm and he plans to kill himself. Biff vows to stay home to work in business to make his father happy, and departs the next morning trying to secure a business deal. Biff, Happy and Willy all meet at a restaurant that evening. Biff's business endeavors failed and Willy was fired from his job. Willy starts hallucinating, and here we see that Biff and Willy are at ends because Biff found Willy with another woman, giving her Linda's stockings. Biff and Happy leave the hallucinating Willy at the restaurant. Later that night, Biff confronts Willy about his suicide plans and begs him to forget his dreams for Biff's success before anything happens. He cries on Willy. Willy is ecstatic that Biff doesn't hate him but totally missed the point of the conversation and he kills himself to get insurance money for Biff and Happy to go into business. Ramble ramble ramble.

characters:
Willy Loman: 63yo salesman with nothing to show for it. His denial of his shortcomings and wrongdoings drive him insane (and ultimately to suicide) and destroy his relationship with his son. He values external validation and encourages his kids to steal and flunk math, as long as they're well-liked. He cheated on his wife, though I can't decide if it was a power play in the business world or if it was due to his obsession with being liked. This affair is what causes Biff to destroy his life.

Linda Loman: Willy's wife. She loves Willy more than she loves her sons, despite his lack of respect for her, and would do anything she can to keep him stable. She acts as his codependent, sheltering him from the truth and allowing him to live a lie, furthering his descent into insanity.

Charley: Willy's only friend. He helps Willy out in times of need by lending him money and checking on his sanity. He offers Willy a well-paid job, which Willy refuses. He also picks up on Willy's hints of suicidal thoughts, and tells him "Nobody's worth nothing dead." His actions do not enable Willy's self-destruction, however. He confronts Willy when he's being irrational, telling him to grow up and calling him out for his pride.

Biff Loman: Drifter and criminal. He hates his father intensely for disrespecting and cheating on Linda, but seems to forgive him more-or-less when he learns of Willy's suicide attempts. Biff's time in the West allowed him to unlearn all the bad things Willy taught him. He sees that Willy had the wrong dream: chasing success, instead of doing what he loved.

Hap Loman: Womanizer. Everybody in the family ignores him, but everybody outside of the family seems to pay attention to him; he sleeps with executives' wives and girlfriends and whatnot. Conversely, Willy is the center of attention in his own household but ignored in the business world. He wants to succeed in New York to validate Willy's dream and to stick it to the snobby executives that he works under that he can outbox and outrun and outperform.

Bernard: Charley's son. He's a sort of foil for the Lomans: he shows that hard work leads to success and external validation isn't necessary. He always tried to get Biff to behave and work hard in school. Biff didn't and failed at life, while Bernard went on to become a successful lawyer. He doesn't need external validation: he doesn't even mention that he's seeing a case at the Supreme Court when talking to Willy. As Charley says, "He don't have to, he's gonna do it."

style:
It's a play, so that takes care of point of view and imagery. It's got a bunch of symbols so I'll just name a few. The stockings represent success, because of that stuff about silk being really expensive. They also represent infidelity; Willy gave his ladyfriend some socks, and Willy always gets ornery when Linda is mending socks. He's trying to hide his shame and repress his infidelity. Biff's age, 34, is symbolic, because Jesus died at 33. Too late to be reborn or whatever. The seeds and the failed garden serve to show that reality sucks. The Garden of Eden isn't real, and Willy is unable to nurture anything in it. His inability to raise a garden is like his inability to properly raise his sons, etc etc. Miller's tone throughout the piece is both angry and piteous. There's a lot of yelling and fury and anger and a harbor grudge and all that sort of thing. At the same time, everyone feels bad for Willy because his life has been a total failure (or at least, he doesn't see how he succeeded).

theme: uhh there are a bunch of these. One theme is honesty. Throughout the work, the Loman family tells lie after lie. Biff says, "We never told the truth for ten minutes in this house," to which Happy appropriately responds, "We always told the truth!" Biff steals a lot, Happy sleeps with wives and girlfriends, Willy had his affair, and more abstractly, Willy lies to himself. He's in denial about his lack of business success and about his affair. He convinces himself that Biff gave up his life to spite him and refuses to acknowledge that he messed up.

and another quote, for good measure:
"When I was seventeen I walked into the jungle. When I was twenty one I walked out, and by God, I was rich!" This quote from Ben shows that the American Dream, as interpreted by Willy, does not include working hard in its formula for success. Ben simply walked into the jungle, and simply walked out rich. Having to work for your wealth devalues it, in a sense.

course material four

these are always tricky for me because I don't really remember things with respect to time. Everything is just kind of stored as an event cloud in my brain. oh well.

I liked reading Death of a Salesman, and I was surprised at how closely the movie adaptation followed the script of the play. Unless there were huge differences that were just way too subtle or "out there" for us to get, of course. I liked the play for its criticism of things and systems and the powers that be, I guess, and because I seem to be a little too interested in the idea of sanity. It's fun to try to prove that the events of a story don't actually happen. For Brit Lit I wrote a proposal for a production of Macbeth in which he is tripping the whole time because of Banquo's line "Were such things here as we do speak about? \ Or have we eaten on the insane root \ That takes the reason prisoner?" in Act 1 Scene III. We read those 4 long things in response to DOS, but they weren't quite as mind-blowing as what we read on The American Dream, which was a bummer.
We're reading Hamlet now, and I like some of the quotes ("Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice") but I stumble with current-day English so the Elizabethan stuff really puts a bullet in my kneecaps sometimes (all the time, who am I kidding?). I like the explanations of the tricky passages that we get from Ms. Holmes, as well as the historical context. It makes the play easier to digest.
Uhhh I hate the prompt essays we write here. They always turn out abysmally. Go check, it's funny. I like the close readings since I usually just write about an article I read a few days prior that I liked, and even if the essay turns out only marginally better than the open prompts,  I still have a chance to reprocess and internalize the article. I already mentioned what I think of these course responses up at the tippy top there. I'm eating Christmas-colored candy corn (QUADRUPLE ALLITERATION) that tastes like wax.

third close reading

Lies My History Teacher Told Me About the War on Terror

a little bit of context: this article is a sort of addendum to this article, focusing on one particular excerpt of the textbook quoted in the latter (actually about the patriot act and less the war on terror).


Julian Sanchez, in his article "Lies My History Teacher Told Me About the War on Terror", mocks the textbook examined, but also the legislation it's writing about. The details he includes to contradict the book show a distaste for the Patriot Act as well. His colloquial diction creates a laid-back, indifferent tone that belittles the book, and the Patriot Act, to little more than jokes in the reader's mind; things to be mocked. Syntax elements also emphasize the problems Sanchez sees in the Patriot Act.

Sanchez begins the article describing the textbook as a "disturbing catalog of hilarious propaganda," suggesting to the reader that the topic is almost not worth serious consideration. Serving the same purpose is the obvious sarcasm used when he says that the section on the Patriot Act "manages to get a truly impressive number of things wrong in a short space."

 

Sanchez, while writing this article

Instead of simply saying that the book is poorly worded or incorrect, Sanchez turns his criticisms into vehicles for comical jabs. A prime example of this is the first sentence after the first quote: "I suppose in some strict sense all events “take time,” but this is a very strange way to describe a 342-page piece of legislation amending more than 15 complex federal statutes, the first version of which was introduced on October 2, and which had been signed into law by October 26." This is a very strange way to point out fault in a textbook. Unfortunately it's one of those things where I know I don't like it but can't explain why. This is not the only example; the mockery throughout the piece is almost tangible. Sanchez also says that instead of asking for approval, the administration "decided to simply ignore the law and order the National Security Agency to launch its now-infamous program of warrantless wiretaps." The word "simply" is included sarcastically; it's comparable to saying "Duh!" when somebody makes an obviously stupid suggestion.

Sanchez's details not only show flaws in the textbook but also in the American government. He says that legislators probably didn't even read the bill before it was passed, that most prosecutions through the provisions granted in the Patriot Act weren't even for terrorism, and also that the government "simply ignored the law" with its warrentless wiretapping program.

Finally, some syntax elements are used to convey Sanchez's distaste for the Patriot Act. Well, they probably are. I can name one particularly strong example: In the penultimate paragraph, Sanchez lists controversial points the textbook overlooks in separate sentence fragmens, each beginning with the word "nothing." These sentence fragments are emphasized in that they are short and they share their beginnings. Beginning each sentence fragment with "Nothing about..." groups them together in the readers' minds and increases the idea cluster's sticking power.

third prompt essay

1970. Choose a character from a novel or play of recognized literary merit and write an essay in which you (a) briefly describe the standards of the fictional society in which the character exists and (b) show how the character is affected by and responds to those standards. In your essay do not merely summarize the plot.

author's note: I hope it's not bad practice to include these every time I write a paper. I feel like I could explicitly connect my evidence more with my claims and also elaborate on the idea a bit more, I just don't know how right now.

The America in which Willy Loman lives in Death of a Salesman is one that prizes respect and success over all else. It is a society that believes a man is nothing if he is not well liked, a belief Willy holds strongly, and one that has caused Willy and those close to him a great deal of dispair. Having seen the great successes of his brother and Charley, Willy is in denial, avoiding the fact that he is not particularly successful, and he overexerts himself in an attempt to achieve all-star status. His internalization of society's measure of a man's worth takes a toll on his mental stability, and drives him to lash out at his son for not striving to conquer the business world.

Though mostly proud and boisterous, Willy shows his feelings of inadequacy a few times throughout the play. In Act One, for example, he confides in Linda: "I'm very well liked in Hartford. You know, the trouble is, Linda, people don't seem to take to me... I know it when I walk in. They seem to laugh at me." (23). Earlier, when announcing his sales, he stated a very exaggerated result and meekly decremented it down to his real numbers: "I did five hundred gross in Providence and seven hundred gross in Boston... Well, I - I did - about a hundred and eighty gross in Providence. Well, no - it came to - roughly two hundred gross on the whole trip... The trouble was that three of the stores were half closed for inventory in Boston. Otherwise I woulda broke records." (22). Willy is afraid of being judged for his less-than-stellar performance, so he exaggerates his abilities and makes excuses for his shortcomings, and often says he's more respected than he is. As the play progresses, Willy's mental stability deteriorates, perhaps because of his repressed feelings of inadequacy. After losing his job in Act Two, Willy's mental stability is almost entirely gone; he is forced to confront the fact that he is not as successful as he would like to believe.

Willy internalized this belief so firmly that he raised his sons by it as well. In Act One, he tells Biff and Happy "be liked and you will never want." (21). Biff says "I'm thirty-four years old, I oughta be makin' my future," which shows that the idea was at least partly instilled in him and his brother (21). So when Biff leaves for the West and becomes a drifter, Willy is unsurprisingly critical. He and Biff argue incessantly every time Biff comes home because Willy feels he is choosing to be worthless.

third response to course material

I enjoyed watching Death of a Salesman in class very much. I like movies much more than books. Not gonna lie. They're just so much easier to take in. In a movie, it's clear when you're supposed to be confused. It bums me out that movie producers often cut out parts of books, because I'd gladly watch the movie with everything included. That said, they aren't ideal for analysis, since the interpretation of the director or whoever else adds at least one level of obfuscation from the text's original meaning(s). Salesman had a sort of pessimistic mood, similar to that of The American Dream. Both were lamenting the futility of pursuing the American Dream, in a way, I guess. I hope we continue to branch out from this area, since I'm fond of derision and negativity and it just so happens that American institutions like capitalism and the government are very fitting targets. The readings from ch4 were all similarly themed, too, illustrating either a positive or negative outlook on the American Dream. I liked reading the Langston Hughes poem. He's pretty cool. I read a compilation of his stories about Jesse B. Semple, aka Simple, a few years ago for some school thing. I'd since forgotten about him. Uhh we also did that stuff with the questions. I really liked the "Marriage" poem we read by Gregory Corso. As for learning about the questions, though, it wasn't new to me. I'd never covered it in school, but I guess I've picked up on that stuff in my 12 years of multiple choice testing experience.

What did I miss?

america is number one

Author: The American Dream was written by Edward Albee and first performed in 1961, when the Absurdism movement was well underway. Having written other Absurdist pieces, including The Zoo Story and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolfe?, Albee was prominent in the movement.

Setting: The play takes place in an apartment, presumably in some city. The time period is never specified, though one can assume it takes place in the 1950s. The apartment itself has many problems (the john, icebox, and doorbell are broken) but Daddy is supposedly rich, so it isn't clear how nice the apartment is. The vague details about setting allow the play's themes to be applied more widely.

Plot: Mommy and Daddy are sitting, complaining about their late visitor. Mommy begins to recall her conflict at the hat store, despite Daddy's apparent lack of interest. She commands him to listen to her rant about the store passing a wheat hat off as beige, and he does. Grandma enters the room, carrying a lot of nicely wrapped mystery boxes. She rants about being old. Mommy tells Daddy the story of the phrase "day-old cake" in which she deceives her schoolmates to get free food. Grandma calls Mommy a gold-digger. The bickering subsides, and Mommy and Daddy's guest arrives. For some reason, sexual tension mounts as Daddy prepares to open the door, until it's broken by Grandma. Mrs. Barker then enters. They all make pleasant conversation, and a subtle power struggle begins between Mommy and Mrs. Barker, and to a lesser extent, Grandma. Mommy suggests that Mrs. Barker take off her dress, which she does, creating some more sexual tension. By now, everybody has forgotten why Mommy and Daddy called Mrs. Barker in the first place. It comes to light that Daddy had an operation, and then more bickering. Eventually, Grandma is left alone with Mrs. Barker. Grandma tells Mrs. Barker about the child Mommy and Daddy adopted and mutilated. They want to adopt another child. A Young Man comes to the door, and Grandma invites him in. She refers to him as The American Dream, and after some fawning, she asks him to help her move her boxes outside. Grandma leaves, leaving the Young Man in her place. Grandma watches from the audience as Mommy, Daddy, Mrs. Barker, and the Young Man celebrate their satisfaction.

Characters:

1. Mommy is an immature, superficial control freak. She will do anything to get what she wants, including throwing fits, using sex, and killing babies. She butts heads with Mrs. Barker and occasionally Grandma when she feels she isn't in control of the situation. She values money and power. She clearly wears the pants in her marriage, regularly asserting dominance over the effeminate Daddy.
2. Daddy is spineless. He is easily manipulated by Mommy when she essentially holds his masculinity in front of him like a carrot in front of a horse, if that's a valid simile. He sticks up for Grandma at times, but still bows to Mommy in the end. He had an operation and may or may not be literally emasculated.
3. Grandma is the only character with any depth. She rants about how badly old people have it, and is constantly berated by Mommy. She has a moral base, and is capable of logical thought. She is the only character that knows what is really happening over the course of the play. Going into the audience, she seems to transcend reality at the play's close. She represents the original American Dream.
4. The Young Man is a physically attractive character who says he would do anything for money. The murder of his twin brother by Mommy and Daddy stripped him of his ability to feel. He represents the new American Dream, focused on money, and the fall of the old American Dream.
5. Mrs. Barker is a condescending character much like Mommy. She is materialistic, like Mommy, and controlling, like Mommy. For one reason or another, she is always referred to in the third-person. She is described as a professional woman.

Style: The American Dream is not considered Absurdist because the story has a resolution: Grandma leaves and the Young Man stays. Despite this, it still features many Absurdist elements. The story is full of repetition, from certain phrases to topics. It's frequently said in the play that "you just can't get satisfaction these days," for example (76). Everything also always returns to Grandma's boxes. The play doesn't exactly have a point of view. It's just dialogue and stage directions. The tone of the piece is lighthearted and jolly; awkward or morbid topics are talked about in a way that doesn't dampen anybody's spirit. Symbols include Mommy's hat, Grandma, the Young Man, and the mutilated bumble of joy, representing consumerism, the pure American Dream, the corrupt American Dream, and the death of moral values, respectively. Not much imagery is present in the play.

Theme: Materialism and self-centeredness have corrupted the moral American Dream.
Many of the themes of the piece are common in the Theatre of the Absurd as well: the "sterility and lack of values in the modern world, breakdown of communication, [and] civilized people acting in uncivilized and barbaric ways" (that one existentialism/TOTA handout). Grandma's replacement by the Young Man illustrates the theme of lost values, and sterility is a doubly fitting word, given Daddy's emasculation. The breakdown of communication is evident in the fact that nobody other than Grandma knows what's happening, and most of the dialogue is insincere. Infanticide is also apparently totally normal in the world of The American Dream because nobody bats an eyelash at the grotesque way in which Mommy and Daddy killed their baby. All of these tie together into the statement above. As said earlier, the vagueness of the setting doesn't restrict the application of the themes. The lighthearted tone and cryptic nature of the play make it hard to vehemently attack it. The title's relation is a no-brainer.

Two more quotes that I didn't work into the thing above:
"Boy, you know what you are, don't you? You're the American Dream, that's what you are." (108)
There's some repetition in this quote, like the rest of the piece. It also establishes the symbols of the Old and New American Dreams.
"bumble of joy" (wherever)
The bumble of joy could represent how this alternate world is still different from ours, but oh so similar as well.

second close reading

http://www.freakonomics.com/2012/10/16/when-a-daughter-dies/

In "When a Daughter Dies," the narrator tells the story of his daughter's brief battle with insurmountably aggressive cancer in two ways: as a father, and as a doctor. The style of the piece is very concrete and precise, much like a medical report. The sentences are short and free of fluff, the diction is emotionless, and the details provided are almost exclusively on the illness and procedure. His description of the chronicle is emotionless; he himself puts it best: "Although painful, I am capable of describing the events of my daughter’s illness.  When I try to describe my despair and grief, words fail." However, while emotion may not be overtly expressed in the piece, its presence is implied by the narrator's use of syntax, imagery, and specific details.

Levitt's use of the passive voice shows how impersonal the hospital care system is: "A relationship is formed with a local oncologist, the neck mass is biopsied, and my daughter is discharged to await biopsy results.  Four days later, the biopsy is read as non-small cell carcinoma of the lung.  We are told that in young women who have never smoked this tumor occasionally may have a favorable genotype that renders it susceptible to chemotherapy." The lack of agents for these actions shows that they are dealing with some distant, faceless entity instead of friendly doctors.

Some of the diction in the piece also conveys Levitt's frustration. In a particularly strong example, he says that "... the MRI result has converted my daughter into an ambulance case and me into a very nervous, distressed father. " The system converts his daughter into something other than a human with a family; she's another patient, or a number. Levitt and his daugther are dealing with an impersonal system that doesn't care about them.

The information Levitt presents, and often the way he presents it, also hints at his emotions. The closest Levitt comes to expressing his fears overtly is when he creates the image of the illness being "a genetically altered monster [that] is running rampant in my daughter’s body." Additionally, Levitt expresses his thoughts in a very short sentenced, specifically placed at the end of a long paragraph for emphasis in the following excerpt: "The response to my son-in-law’s query if some treatment can be started immediately is that no treatment is better than mis-directed treatment.  She is scheduled to return to the referral center in four days to begin chemotherapy.  I fear there will be no return visit. " The final sentence is a chilling conclusion to the preceding paragraph, and begins to show how chilling the situation was for Levitt. Essentially in the same vein of thought is Levitt's attempts to get ice chips for his daughter: "Immediately upon arrival, my daughter  asks for something which, with difficulty, I determine to be ice chips.  I ask the nurse for ice chips.  Her response is that nothing can be “administered” until ordered by the doctor.   I tell her I am the doctor, and I want the patient to have ice chips.  I am told I am not the admitting physician and cannot give orders.   She ignores my request to show me the location of the ice machine. "

second prompt essay

2004. Critic Roland Barthes has said, "Literature is the question minus the answer." Choose a novel, or play, and, considering Barthes' observation, write an essay in which you analyze a central question the work raises and the extent to which it offers answers. Explain how the author's treatment of this question affects your understanding of the work as a whole. Avoid mere plot summary.

author's note: oh my god this essay is a rambling, nonsensical disgrace to A Clockwork Orange and the English language. I can't concentrate on anything right now, I'll see if I can fix it later.

In his 1962 novella A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess questions the merits of moral righteousness in a situation where there are no alternatives.

The protagonist, Alex, is a teenage delinquent with a posse and a love of classical music. After a burglary is botched by the actions of a mutinous minion, Alex is sentenced to undergo a particular sort of aversion therapy for his severe, repeated transgressions. Rendering him incapable of reverting back to his violent habits, the treatment makes Alex less than human. He is victimized by society and subjected to a few beatings, but he's been conditioned to feel intensely sick when exposed to negativity (and classical music). Ultimately, the spell is broken, so to speak, and Alex returns to his criminal life, only to find that he has outgrown his taste for violence and decides he wants to settle down with a family, and then he reflects on life and stuff.

After the treatment is finished, the newly-reformed Alex is essentially thrown out onto the streets. He goes home to his parents' house, and his mother assumes he has broken out of prison illegally. She and her husband inform Alex that all of his belongings are gone, and they have rented out his room and can't accommodate him anymore. The new boarder berates Alex, causing him to break down and leave. He then goes to a library, where a bunch of old people beat him, and then some former gangmates-turned-policemen break up the violence and take Alex out of town where they beat him more themselves as revenge for their treatment under Alex's leadership. Burgess means to show that "evil" must always be a viable option, or "good" won't mean anything. Alex is nice and reformed, but society still abuses him because of his passivity to it.

After being brutally beaten, Alex wanders until he finds a familiar-looking house. The resident is very hospitable, and sympathetic to what Alex has been through, and opts to allow Alex to stay. They both come to realize that this is the house in which Alex murdered an old woman and got sent to prison. The man realizes Alex killed his wife, and acts to both exact revenge and show the faults in Alex's treatment. He traps Alex and forces him to listen to Beethoven's Ninth, prompting Alex to attempt suicide. Once fully recovered, he discovers the treatment has worn off and he can now choose to be violent again, though he also discovers he's lost his taste for it.

While the treatment is in effect, Alex becomes a hollow shell. His superficial goodness (or rather, his lack of badness) means nothing because acting badly is an impossibility. When the treatment is broken, he is free to act as he pleases, but at this point he is truly reformed. He entertains the idea of settling down with a family, and imagines that his son will act out in the same ways he did, and he'll tell his son to behave, but he won't, and he shouldn't, because the ability to choose "evil" is what makes us human.

Second response to course material

I'll probably address things here with no respect to sequence. Sorry if that's confusing.

I like the "board captain" activities that we do. They take a skill that I thought I had down pat, and show me that I actually need to think about it a little more. Learning the difference between facetiousness and sarcasm in the one about proper gift-giving was useful, and I hope I learn to differentiate between more of those similar-but-still-different words that I like to use interchangeably this year.
The textbook reading was mostly a summary of what we'd done with the packets. It helped to see an analysis of a text laid out in steps in the book for comparison, but it didn't present any new information. Other than the names of different types of sonnets and a strict procedure for writing a paper. All-in-all, the textbook may not have added much, but it was readable and not too much of a chore.
I hated that long handout on comedy theory. Nothing will ever be funny again. It took the joke too far, so to speak.
I think Absurdism and Existentialism are neat. That's all I have to say about that.
The American Dream was very strange. That type of disorienting, what-the-heck-is-happening-right-now kind of story can turn me off sometimes, and I can't figure out precisely why, but I liked it in The American Dream. Grandma's character was really what kept it interesting, and I loved the surprising profoundness of the play. I figured the only meaning to it was gently mocking American materialism, shown in the part with the beige hat, but as it turns out, the whole old/new American Dream thing makes a lot of sense.
I'm looking forward to focusing on applying what we're learning about DIDLS and the critical lenses to literature more, rather than still learning them, but you have to walk before you run and all that jazz.

First Close Reading

The End of the Future

http://www.nationalreview.com/blogs/print/278758

“The End of the Future” is a very pessimistic article that uses choice diction, details, and syntax to effectively debunk the idea that Western society is making any progress. Peter Thiel makes use of speculative language to both instill a sense of uncertainty and fear and to shrug off opposing points. He also includes and refutes a lot of counterpoints to discredit optimists, in addition to his hard facts juxtaposing past policies with current ones. Finally, certain syntax elements such as parallelism serve to poke fun at naïve optimism.

            For a variety of reasons, from a foreboding effect to trivializing opposition, speculative diction is abundant in Thiel’s article. The former is seen clearly in the following quote: “In the case of agriculture, at least, technological famine may lead to real old-fashioned famine.” The word may gives this statement a degree of uncertainty which somehow makes the danger seem far more real than a more concrete statement would have. Thiel also uses this suspenseful speculative language when he says, “Without dramatic breakthroughs, the alternative to more-expensive oil may turn out to be not cleaner and much-more-expensive wind, algae, or solar, but rather less-expensive and dirtier coal.” Similarly, he refers to the Green Revolution of the past with the word true, implying that the modern movement is not only less effective but less pure, or even fake. He also uses weak language to address a positive effort, but promptly smacks it down with firm, definite negativity in the following quote: “We may embellish the 2011 Arab Spring as the hopeful by-product of the information age, but we should not downplay the primary role of runaway food prices and of the many desperate people who became more hungry than scared.”

            Thiel also specifically details a number of fronts in which we have recently stopped progressing. Among them are the halting increases in transportation speeds, America’s failure to break its energy dependence, and the slowing gains of the Green Revolution. In addition to these specific details, he also includes a number of counterpoints and immediately refutes them, to not only make his case but also to discredit the other side.

            Specially-crafted syntax is used to mock whatever idea Thiel is addressing. In the quote: “Nixon’s 1974 call for full energy independence by 1980 has given way to Obama’s 2011 call for one-third oil independence by 2020,” Thiel uses parallel structures to show that not only has progress not been made since 1974, but society has actually regressed. Also, by putting quotes around the term Keynesianism, Thiel implies that it isn’t a real philosophy and isn’t to be taken seriously. The essay also contains some snide remarks embedded in sentences, such as the following quote: “The New Deal deficits, however misguided, were easily repaid by the growth of subsequent decades.”

            Thiel set out to essentially stomp on everybody’s hopes and dreams by using specific diction, details and syntax to paint a vivid picture of how society is going to the dogs.

First Prompt essay

Choose a work of recognized literary merit in which a specific inanimate object (e.g., a seashell, a handkerchief, a painting) is important, and write an essay in which you show how two or three of the purposes the object serves are related to one another.

Basil's portrait of Dorian has two main plot functions in Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray. It serves as the catalyst for Dorian's descent into hedonism when he wishes that the painting would age in his stead. Ultimately, Dorian's problems are resolved with the destruction of the painting.

When Dorian is first introduced to Lord Henry Wotton, Henry warns him that his youth and handsomeness will not last long. Lamenting this realization, Dorian wishes that Basil's portrait of him will age in his stead, leaving him free to enjoy his youth indefinitely, and initiating a downward spiral into a hedonistic lifestyle. His eternal youth drives him to cause Sibyl's suicide, murder Basil, and ruin a number of other lives.

The story concludes with a paranoid and regretful Dorian wishing to repent. Guilt and fear of karma catching up to him overwhelm Dorian, so he destroys the painting, the manifestation of all of his guilt. The painting returns to its original appearance, and Dorian and promptly dies.

The two plot functions of the portrait are directly related. The painting allows Dorian to enjoy his youth indefinitely, which he takes full advantage of. As time passes, however, he becomes paranoid, thinking somebody will find the painting, or karma will catch up with him. He also becomes guilty, so destroys the cause of his problems, which restores his proper age and kills him.

Response to Course Material

            I think the least helpful of the Summer assignments, in my opinion, was reading The Nuts and Bolts of College Writing. It was just a very wordy explanation of things I’ve already learned. And Harvey used an enourmous amount of parentheses. I enjoyed reading the Sedaris essay, but it was very hard to critique without nitpicking, especially because it was a narrative and the criteria we were critiquing it with were meant for academic papers.

The Foster book, on the other hand, made me look a lot deeper for symbols, common themes, and references to other texts. Many of the chapters were things I already knew about, like the Biblical and Shakespeare references, but I had no idea how common they were. And others were new, like the chapter on references to kids’ stories. And I’ll admit I had some fun with the presentation we had to make.

The first two blog posts gave me an idea of what to expect in the course, and the forum posts were useful for getting my mind back into literature-reading mode. Not much effect beyond that.

The terms test was just irritating. I thought I’d done poorly with my 60% but after talking with classmates, that actually wasn't too bad. The same quote from V for Vendetta appeared in the test three times. So I guess that means literary devices are unbelievably common. And there are so many fancy words for things that can be readily described in layman’s terms. I guess concision is important so it’s handy to have a word for every single possible combination of words in the English language but keeping track of them will be godawful. I’m curious as to what we’ll be hearing in class about it, haha. A curve would be pretty nice, but I hear a few people did rather well so I don’t see that happening.

sedaris is the prettiest girl at the harvest moon ball

Despite being a narrative, David Sedaris’ “Me Talk Pretty One Day” exhibits the ideal qualities of academic papers specified in Harvey’s The Nuts and Bolts of College Writing very well. Harvey’s ideas of gracefulness and clarity, among other characteristics, are perfectly embodied in Sedaris’ essay. However, Sedaris occasionally neglects Harvey’s idea of concision, adopting the dreaded “Pompous Style” or including unnecessary expressions.

“Me Talk Pretty One Day” is a remarkably graceful excerpt that doesn’t stumble over what it’s trying to say. The events and ideas are phrased in ways that are easy to process. For example, Sedaris lists off some things he likes and dislikes to his teacher: “When called upon, I delivered an effortless list of things that I detest: blood sausage, intestinal pates, brain pudding. I’d learned these words the hard way. Having given it some thought, I then declared my love for IBM typewriters, the French word for bruise, and my electric floor waxer.” (Sedaris, 13). Notice how both lists contain three items; this is called tricolon, and Harvey dedicates a section of his book to it (Harvey, 5.4). Tricolon is a kind of parallelism, based on the idea that 3 is a magic number that is balanced and simple to process. Sedaris also uses this literary structure when telling us about what his drunken mother loves as well (Sedaris, 12).

            Sedaris’ diction also gives this excerpt a high degree of clarity. Harvey instructs us to “Choose the Active Voice over the Passive Voice” (Harvey, 2.3). The reasons he gives against the passive voice are about intentionally obfuscating information in politics and thus not really applicable, but the principle still applies. The passive voice leaves the agent of the sentence unclear, and abuse of it could lead the reader into a lot of confusion. Sedaris avoids this problem by using the active voice almost exclusively in his writing. The few times at which he does use the passive voice could be excused, considering this piece is intended to be a descriptive narrative rather than pure exposition.

             The essay is not without flaws, however. Pompous writing, condemned by Harvey in the first chapter, is found in several isolated places where Sedaris’ usual, more concise language would be appropriate. One such example is found on the third page of the excerpt: “While I can honestly say that I love leafing through medical textbooks devoted to severe dermatological conditions, the hobby is beyond the reach of my French vocabulary, and acting it out would only have invited controversy.” (Sedaris, 13).  The vocabulary choices and sentence structure are needlessly formal, unlike most of the passage. Another such example is also on the third page: “I absorbed as much of her abuse as I could understand, thinking – but not saying – that I find it ridiculous to assign a gender to an inanimate object which is incapable of disrobing and making an occasional fool of itself.” (Sedaris, 13). The humor is charming, but again, the phrasing has a particularly high concentration of fancy words and doesn’t get straight to the point. Like his use of the passive voice, however, this could be attributed to the nature of the essay.

            Generally speaking, Sedaris wrote a fantastic piece that adheres to the guidelines set forth by Harvey. For the most part, he sticks with the ideas of gracefulness and clarity very well. And drifting away from concision from time to time may be forgivable, because “Me Talk Pretty One Day” is a narrative.

poetry section goals thing

the poetry tip bullet points in the book are pretty bad. they're painfully obvious or self-nullifying a lot of the time. my favorite says "there are six types of questions, and then there are two other types, and then probably more after that." and then there's "when you read the poem a second time, take more time to highlight complicated words, but don't actually do that" and "read it aloud in your head." the entire section sounds more like a post on a middle school student's poetry blog than it does a textbook. but unfortunately that's not what this post is about. goals:

• compare how a theme is employed with how the same theme is presented in another poem. the keats poem with its "experience destroys innocence" theme thing reminded me of the stuff from brit lit about William Blake's Songs of Innocence and of Experience and it'll probably be handy to be able to do that kind of intertextual relation later.
• note the setting. unless it's hammered into my brain I usually just ignore it and often miss some pretty big hints at what the themes and mood of the poem are.
• look for figurative things in new places like a change in speaker or setting or something like that. in the frame and not the picture, if that makes sense.
• familiarize myself with different writing styles and vocabulary so ye olde (or Shakesperian) English won't throw me off and the sometimes awkward phrasing in more contemporary poems doesn't make me cringe.
• learn more about the literary movements so I can know what all the themes are in a poem just from knowing when it was written.

I chose these goals mostly because I already knew I wanted to work on them. didn't get much out of the practice problems other than "comprehension" which is kind of a no-brainer. Relating different texts is very handy for writing essays on anything so I think that will be very helpful to practice. The setting point is pretty simply explained up there. An example that comes to mind for the third point is a Matthew Arnold poem we read in Brit Lit called Dover Beach. Ms. Huntley told us that the irregular shape of the lines of the poem itself could symbolize the motion of the tides and stuff. I mean to basically look for symbolism and such everywhere except the scene, objects and events described in the poem. The fourth and fifth bullets are pretty straightforward and only kind of joking.

33/50

the test was pretty much exactly what I expected it to be. I think it's awfully silly to try to grade one's interpretations of figurative language objectively, and with a multiple choice test no less. that said, not all of the test was flawed, and I did better than I was expecting to do; I'm usually not good with languages. I should probably brush up on vocabulary a bit, so I don't forget what elegies are or anything like that. uhh I liked the humor in the Pride and Prejudice passage a lot, and I liked the John Donne poem, if only because it was lyrical (though I do think it's stupid when people try rhymes like "love" and "remove").