Finding Inner Grandel

This week my blog topic is all about Grendel, throughout the entire novel I have been curious to see how Grendel balances out the drgaon’s theories and his own desires. At the beginning of the novel Grendel was intrigued by becoming a part of man’s society. He was obsessed with the Shaper’s philosophies on how man was created and how humans interpret God. The human’s interpretation on God is also a major aspect on how Grendel fits but doesn’t fit in with humans. This book I think is written to completely show the negative side of Humans which is really similar to the way Beowulf is written to scrutinize monsters, and I was wondering is there a medium where monsters and humans can be equal? Is there also a way that the Dragon’s theories can be applied to the philosophies of humans?

So one of the main criticisms within the novel is that man lacks the ability to understand morals and is over all cruel, Grandel comments on how “not even wolves are that cruel to each other,” I find this a little ironic because Grandel kills humans for fun and is an offspring to God’s true creation of evil (Cain is evil because he killed his brother). Aren’t humans exhibiting evil qualities by going and raiding and pillaging each other’s clans and towns? I’m also interested in the fact that Grandel is the first creature in the story to establish an official belief system and man comes in and says he is wrong and that he is evil for being different. Before Grandel has his encounter with the dragon, he is superior to human, he has  an established language, he can think for himself, he knows the hierarchy of life, but once he talks with the dragon he loses all of those things and submits to being second to humans and the dragon. Grendel’s evolution cycle is backwards compared to men. Grendel starts out intellectual and moral but then progressively loses those morals as humans evolve into more moralistic creatures. I also found it interesting how humans establish the word of God and they are supposed to be divine creatures when they were created also out of evil.

What makes man fear Grendel the first time they see him? Where does the fear stem from in the beginning? I don’t like how Grendel is so willing to join their society and they fear him automatically because he is different. Is it because he is different and new that he is accepted? I was more attracted to agreeing with the dragons theories because they are completely true even when looking at society today, because of the corruption and the lack of morals today. I feel like we haven’t evolved that much in theory we still are scared of the uncertain but we have updated our beliefs on what is evil and what is not. I think today’s society is a great example of the balance between monsters and man because we all have a little bit of Grendel in us and we all stay close to our roots.

Beowulf is awesome and today's heroes are....

For these last few weeks in AP Lit we have been analyzing the journey of a hero and close reading Beowulf. Beowulf is one of my favorite tales of a hero, Beowulf isn’t the normal super heroes that are in books today, and he has heroic qualities but has the ego of an evil villain. Leading up to this unit we looked at James Campbell’s theories and idea of the hero’s journey. 1)The call to adventure 2)The crossing of the first threshold 3)The belly of the whale 4)Emerging from the water (rebirth) 5) slaying of the dragon; these all parallel Beowulf’s journey but that is what make him different from today’s super heroes. Today super heroes have super natural powers and seem to be completely indestructible;  Beowulf as we see in the end of the novel is nowhere near indestructible and rather than fighting for strictly for the safety of mankind, Beowulf fights for more selfish reasons such as pride and glory for himself as well as safety for his followers. I think that’s awesome that Beowulf cares about himself and his people, it makes him more relatable to people because they can find similarities to Beowulf within themselves.

 Beowulf’s story also struck me as being different; it is completely determined by fate. Fate is one of the most reoccurring themes within the epic, and Beowulf is one out of a small list of heroes who officially accepts his fate. How many tales of heroes, do the heroes end up dying in the end written or told in this century, yeah not that many? Today many hero stories are lame and are very vague on the journey of the hero and they don’t really address all the key elements that make a hero. Let’s use Batman as an example; the Batman movies continue to get more and more complex but the journey is always the same, it seems like film makers can continue make Batman go through the same journey and add different details. All the movies also lack Batman’s rebirth he never experiences a change in personality of a sudden realization . Beowulf is the ultimate hero because he has all the qualities; he has strength, knowledge, courage, pride, and dignity.

The structure of Beowulf chronologically leads to Beowulf’s true sense of heroism. Beowulf goes through three battles, one against Grendel, one against Grendel’s mother, and the last one against a dragon. The battle against Grendel is suppose to represent the fight against chaos; the battle against Grendel’s mother represents the flaws within the Anglo-Saxton culture, and the battle against the dragon represents Beowulf’s fight against himself. Beowulf’s fight against the dragon is the key battle that constitutes Beowulf as a hero, this is the transition that leads to Beowulf’s acceptance of fate. Beowulf fights against his fate throughout the epic, but while fighting the dragon he accepts that he won’t make it through this last fight. That quality is what is missing in today’s heroic structure and journey. 

We are all heros?

Today in ap Literature class, we discussed and watched a video about what makes a hero. Generally it is some who leaves their ordinary life to do something extraordinary to save the lives of people, ideas, and beliefs. Commonly we tend to think of them as the good guys, but in order for one to gain the status of a hero one must engage in a transition from normality into an amazing individual. The video also discussed about how culture changes the qualifications of a hero, and I was wondering does each society have their own distinct hero type or are they all generalized to the standard saving humanity type of people?

According to Joseph Campbell in order for a hero to become a hero, they must first embark on adventure, either willingly to accept fate, thrown into it by chance, or embarking on it in order to find something. Journey this journey the hero usually experiences a rebirth where he/she realizes comes out of a depression with a realization of what their purpose for the journey is.  This is the point where the person actually crosses into the field of adventure, leaving the known limits of his or her world and venturing into an unknown and dangerous realm where the rules and limits are not known. When analyzing Harry Potter Harry doesn’t officially become heroic until he sacrifices himself for the good of others, he must first be killed by Voldimort in order to gain the realization needed to defeat him. Another important step for becoming a hero is experiencing the belly of the whale which represents the final separation from the hero's known world and self. It is sometimes described as the person's lowest point, but it is actually the point when the person is between or transitioning between worlds and selves. The separation has been made, or is being made, or being fully recognized between the old world and old self and the potential for a new world/self. This is where we stopped the video!

One comment brought up by Joseph Campbell is that as culture changes so do the expectations for the hero, I was wondering is that really true or do we assimilate the previous morals into the ones we have today when we define the hero. I believe the true definition of a hero never changes, but the way we classify a hero differs from each type of hero. Let’s look the generic super hero such as Captin America: he has superior strength, cunning bravery, and immense knowledge about how to defeat villains. This differs from how we view real life heroes such as Steve Jobs: he created Apple to help the public and make life easier, he has immense knowledge that can help society, and he did it out of his love for technology. When looking back on real life heroes they all have similar qualities but as time progresses we make up the standard super hero, and I want to know can the super hero count as a true hero from the Campbell definition of a hero?

Response to All The King's Men

      

For the past few weeks we have been reading and analyzing Robert Penn Warren’s novel, All the Kings Men. One of major themes throughout the novel is knowledge versus ignorance, which is a very controversial idea in this book. Jack the main character struggles with concept of truth and fact, throughout the novel he chooses to stay focused on facts rather than truth. While reading this I was intrigued to figure out what was the difference between the two and does knowledge affect how we define the truth and how we define fact. Jack’s main occupation in the novel is professional dirt searcher for the Governor of Louisiana. The whole novel is told through Jack’s flashbacks of the time he worked with Willie and the whole time it seemed he was searching for the truth. Power is also assimilated to how much knowledge someone has.

As seen in the last three chapters of the novel, truth is one of the leading causes for the down fall of Willie, Adam, and Judge Irwin. The entire novel highlights the downfall of man and how truths build up and when released all at once can lead to destruction. Many of the outside characters were attracted to Willie because of the knowledge he has, but he never accepts responsibility for the problems that his knowledge causes. I think when Jack refers to knowledge it’s almost like it’s a tangible object that one has to win, in reference to the title Knowledge is the crown owned by the king (the crown goes on your head and knowledge is inside of it: HA!) Is knowledge the truth that lead to Willie’s down fall? Well in my opinion I belief it isn’t the direct truth that caused his downfall, it’s his ability to reveal that truth is what caused his demise. Ultimately his true demise was caused by him hiding his and Anne’s affair from Adam, but throughout the novel Willie is also forced to conceal the truth from his voters. (ex: hiding his divorce from Lucy, concealing the truth about Tom and his baby mama)  Many of the minor characters were attracted to the false fisad, which gave Willie more power and likeable. The same goes for the Judge, he had been keeping his secret reimbursement with Mac Murphy, but he was seen as attractive to many of the minor characters.

Does power really relate to knowledge or is ignorance bliss when it comes to politics? Willie’s power was merely based off of the ignorance of society and the linage he had to make mistakes and not have society realize that he had made a mistake. But within the center of politics knowledge holds the power to control the entire dynamics within policies and constituencies. So can power be dictate by ignorance. This novel presents the idea the ignorance is needed for knowledge to flourish. Knowledge is definitely a type of power because it can definitely be used to influence and attract people towards one’s beliefs.

Nora's social delimas... and do they carry on today

This past week in AP lit we have be analyzing Ibsen’s play, Doll’s House, we have focused on how society defines the individual. The society appears affluent and agreeable enough for those who can operate in it successfully. The Helmers have a very nice home and are looking forward to even more commodious living once Torvald gets his appointment. There is room here to celebrate Christmas with presents, to employ servants, to play music, to enjoy all sorts of creature comforts, and to celebrate with one's friends. Many of the most cherished ideals of middle-class life, then and now, are clearly on display. Nora, the main character in the story, is faced with dilemma of tarnishing her family’s pure societal reputation by leaving her family to find what it means to be an individual or stay with her husband to keep up this facade of this perfect marriage to conform to social morals. Outside the warmth of the house, the world is bitterly cold, full of snow. There is here no consoling sense that nature offers any alternative to society: nature here is brutal, a symbolic extension of the wintry life outside the respectable social group. Throughout the novel there is a clear separation between the inside of the Helmer home and the outside world. The conflict is that Nora lives in this doll’s house facade but wants to find a way to get out and defy society’s standards. Back in the day It wasn’t okay for women to live their life without a man, it wasn’t okay for them to abandon their children, but what I want to discuss is, have those moral changed or are women today obliged to stick to those same morals.

In the play Nora’s internal issue is that she doesn’t know herself as an individual and when she is faced with the harsh reality of society she doesn’t know how to handle it because she has been hidden away from society by her husband. Are women still hidden by society’s expectations? At the time this play was released to be performed people were so appalled and angry at the play because it ended with Nora sacrificing her family to go off and find herself. Today it usually reverse we go and find our self before jumping into finding family, but eventually we are pressured into creating a family. Society today I think still set social obligations for each gender and it’s hard to become an individual when there are so many pressures to find perfection, but how do we determine what society portrays as perfect. I also don’t understand why people stick those standards when society has so many moral flaws.

Nora’s story presents a controversy about self versus society, and which one we should follow when it comes to determining our lives. Nora’s dilemma also reveals a huge flaw within the perfect image of family that society imposes on people to follow. The perfection that people strive for is fake it’s a facade that people strive for because society has such a huge influence on some individual views.

Short Story Essay Reflection

This week for our blog we were assigned to go over our Short Story essays and reflect back on the positives, negatives, and feedback given on them. For my short story I chose to analyze Fiesta, 1980, written by Junto Diaz. My goal was to examine how food as a symbol reflects the positive and negative dynamics between the main character, Junior, and the rest of his family. For each body paragraph I closely evaluated how junior acts and responds to food around four of the major characters in the story; Papi, Mami, Rafa, and Tia. Each paragraph focused on one of those characters and how each of them individual interacted with Junior when it came to food, and how Junior responded to each of them.

While writing this essay I had difficulty finding a strong “so what” to the major themes in the novel, and when I found one to analyze I had a hard time keeping to the true “so what” meaning throughout my paper. Looking back on it I see part of the essay where I should have connected my claim back to the whole thesis. In some of the situations taken strait from the stories I could have drawn it back to why this it connects with Junior’s relationship or how it show a certain dynamic within the family. I also now think I should have used clearer quotes and example to support my thesis and claims. There was also a comment saying that in some parts there needed to be stronger analysis, which that can be fixed with more practicing through rewrites and blogging. Looking back on my finished paper, it doesn’t seemed finished at all it still feels like I should add more detail and content. While I was writing this I never felt done with it whenever I looked away from writing it and came back to it, there was always something in my previous writing that needed to be changed? I also should have definitely taken more time reviewing and checking my work for grammatical errors. Next time I’ll do that.

Overall, this entire essay wasn’t too bad. For my first AP lit paper it was pretty nonchalant, but it did cause a lot of stress that last week we had to work on it. I had my prewriting done and rough draft done before then but it still felt like there was still too much to do. I think for my next essay I will take a little more time creating a full analysis before creating my full body paragraphs. I will also pay a little bit more attention to creating more fluid paragraphs and embedding my quotes more fluently. There is still a lot of improvement I would like to see in myself for writing these essays but it wasn’t a bad grade so I am on the verge of almost being pleased, but there is still a lot that I feel that I can improve on with practice.

Jack and Willie

After completing the first three chapters of All the Kings Men I have been intrigued to go deeper into Jack and Willie’s relationship. A lot of details are unclear about Jack and Willie’s defined relationship, but with the events that have happened in the novel so far they have a pretty tight bond. Jack also relies on Willie to call the shots when it comes to his political stand points and social reasoning’s. I want to look deeper into the events that have occurred that factor and define the relationship between Willie and Jack.

                In chapter one jack recalls his first encounter with Willie Stark at Slade’s pool hall. In this situation Willie has a meek personality, but has a strong sense of self when he is bullied by Duffy and Slade when it comes to drinking a beer. He refuses alcohol and sticks to his wife’s wishes about not drinking alcohol. In this situation Willie is naïve and has weaker qualities than when described in the present, but he also experiences a transition in personality after being set up by Harrison. Jack comes in to play because he covered the school house story before Willie ran for governor and he also covered the story of Willie’s campaign. Jack and Willie have close bond that lasts through Willie’s transition into becoming a stern and greedy man. Jack can also be seen as a catalyst to Jack’s corruption. Before the barbeque Jack, to help Willie overcome his hangover, Jack had to fill him full of whiskey. Alcohol throughout the novel definitely highlights Willie’s corruption because whenever alcohol is present in Willie is involved with some unappealing and immature act. All these factors contribute to Willie and Jack’s relationship.

                In the third chapter Jack is tested on his true commitment to Willie and what he his true political views are in terms of believing in Willie’s policies. When Jack makes a trip back home to Burden’s landing he has dinner with some colleagues he is asked to express and defended his views about Willie. He defends Willie and keeps to true views about Willie. I was kind of confused about whay Jack does for Willie occupation wise because I think that totally affects the way that Jack views Willie. I also wanted to look at the relationships the Jack has outside of politics, such as the way he interacts with his mother he kind of shrugs her off and doesn’t seem to be totally invested in what she states and it is the same with other outside characters he interacts with. At the dinner, Jack is forced to entertain the pretty young Miss Dumonde, who irritates him. When he drives back to Willie's hotel, he kisses Sadie Burke on the forehead, simply because she isn't named Dumonde. I really want to know is it Willie that Jack has the true relationship with politics rather than with Willie. If that is so what attracts him to politics is it the same power that Willie is seeking or is something else.

AP Lit All the Kings Men Megan Beers

This past week in Ap lit we have been reading the first two chapters of All the Kings Men, throughout my reading I was assigned to look at the themes: Individual versus Society and Good versus Evil. So far in the novel one of the central motifs is that all actions have consequences, and that it is impossible for an individual to stand aloof and be a mere observer of life, as Jack tries to do. Another major occurrence that I also saw was that society defines the individual: in Willies case society has built him up to be their leader when in reality he is merely a puppet that his groupies’ control and his groupies are making him to be defined as desirable to social appeals. For Good versus Evil Warren highlights that no human can live without being tainted by evil.

For society versus the individual Warren makes the individual out to be shallow and brainless. When Willie was in the town not “making his speech” his supporters seemed brainless because they didn’t really care for Willie’s policies but they just wanted to be around “him”.  Warren also defines man as being deceiving and manipulative, which I founded connected the two themes together. Warren shows how society defines what is considered “evil”. Which also bring up that all of man is tainted by evil. Society decides what it means to be evil, generally it is something/someone the cause great harm or deceives people into following them to destruction. So far in the novel Willie hasn’t really caused any harm but he is lead to lead people by manipulating them an example being when he makes his speech, he tells people that he isn’t going to promote himself when in actuality he does.

In these first Willie is introduced in a dramatic fashion; he seems utterly in charge of the situation from start to finish of the trip to Mason City, he has complete control over the crowd he is preaching too and he has a group of underlings whom he directs as he pleases. Willie is presented as a dynamic, forceful personality capable of captivating and overwhelming those around him. As the story progresses it goes back in time to show that Willie wasn’t originally the controlling personality. When Jack first meets Willie he isn’t the dominant personality. He is completely over powered by his friends which they ultimately net out at equaling his “temptations”. Temptations in literary terms usually lead to down falls or demises. In the first chapter. We are also introduced to the wry, descriptive intelligence of Jack Burden, the novel's narrator and the only person in the chapter whom Willie seems to respect. As the novel progresses, we learn a bit about both Jack and Willie's origins: Willie comes from a hardscrabble farm in Mason County where he visits his father; Jack comes from a mansion in aristocratic Burden's Landing, where his mother continues to live. Jack's flashback to his first meeting with Willie at Slade's shows how Willie's effect on people worked even before Willie had power, as he overcomes Tiny Duffy's attempts to make him drink a beer, and instead has an orange soda. It also shows how far Willie has come: in the scene at Slade's, Tiny attempted to bully Willie; now, he is his flattering underlying.

Analyzing gender roles- Megan Beers

Today in AP lit we discussed gender roles within society and in literature. This coincides with the chapters that we are learning in AP psych: if it is nature or nurture that determines what happens to us during our life. In literature when we analyze gender roles the reader looks through the Gender Theory lens. The approach to this theory is to examine the role of gender in the text; it focuses on the place of the female in the text, as well as critiquing a patriarchal, misogynistic society. Feminist may argue that gender determines everything in a text, or that gender roles are determined and imposed by society and hence that gender, in reality, means nothing in a text. Theorists will examine the construction of both masculinity and femininity within the text. In AP Psych we analyzed how gender is developed and what influences our expectations for a certain gender.

Society assigns each of us a gender, the social category of male and female. The inevitable result is our strong gender identity, our sense of being male and female. To varying extents, we also become gender-typed; that is some boys more than others exhibit traditionally masculine traits and interests, and some girl more than others become distinctly feminine. Social learning theory assumes that children learn gender-liked behaviors by observing and imitating and by being rewarded and punished. The gender schema theory combines social learning theory with cognition: in your own childhood, as you struggle to comprehend the world, you formed schemas or concepts of your gender, then gender became a lens that through which you viewed your experiences.

In AP literature we took a tally on certain words that we considered male or female. Many of the responses from my classmate came from personal experiences and what they were taught to associate the word with. In literature when analyzing a piece through the gender theory lens the reader has to take into account the time period and the social norms for the time periods that the works were written in. What makes many pieces of work controversial in this theory is that gender roles become more and more similar with men and women than in earlier times. There are also social roles that distinguish themselves between male and females. In most societies, men are socially dominant examples being they tend to occupy more leadership roles and their leadership style is more directive than women’s. Males also tend to have more aggressive than females.

I found these theories really interesting because, they can clearly define the purpose of a novel, and it is interesting to look at the theories from a psychological point of view. I was a little disappointed to see that socially that males are dominant after all the progress throughout history that women have made through the women suffrage movements. These movements also have inspired many books that have challenged these gender roles such as The World According to Garp. These novels have brought the new ideas about feminism and new theories on gender roles.

Winesburg. Is it a Novel or not? Megan Beers period 3

           

Last week in AP literature we broke up into groups and separately analyzed certain "stories" out of  Winesburg Ohio. At the end of the week we had a Socratic seminar, which we discussed the controversy of whether or not Winesburg can be considered a novel rather than a collection of short stories. During our seminar we had a pretty split opinions on whether or not this can be called a novel. When discussing this sort of topic I think we need to look at the elements the make a novel a novel and what makes a collection of short stories a collection of short stories.

In my opinion I totally think that Winesburg is a novel, because the strongest and most prominent literary elements of the book support the definition of a novel (a fictitious prose narrative of considerable length and complexity, portraying characters and usually presenting a sequential organization of action and scenes. ~Dictionary.com). One of the strongest points the make Winesburg a novel would be that the stories happen in chronological order and show growth among some of the character. Each of the chapters has a distinct place and lead to the growth of one of the main characters. The book can also be organized into one literary plot structure. The exposition being The Book of the Grotesque because it introduces the main points about how each character will somehow connect with the story. The rising action being introduction chapters to all the main characters such as Hands, Paper Pills, Mother, Nobody Knows, and Adventure. All these chapters set up and support how the main characters grow. Tandy is the climax of the book because it confirms what the main characters are seeking and openly presents one of the main themes of the novel. From then on the characters throughout the book begin to change and begin to find what they are truly seeking, which leads to the conclusion of George Willard leaving Winesburg.

            Another way I chose to view this controversy is to look at the book and find the reasons this book couldn’t’ be considered a collection of short stories. A short story is a work of fiction, usually written in narrative prose, often depicting few characters and concentrating a 'single effect' or mood. Winesburg doesn’t really support the characterization of a collection of short stories because, the book has many changes in mood and mood and has numerous effects rather than having effect on the characters actions. Winesburg doesn’t characterize as a collection of short stories because each of the stories/chapters have some sort of connection with each other making the books dynamics more complex then when intended to in a short story. There are also more than a few characters and each of the characters are important to the novel even the minor ones. The complex plot, the cronological events and the importance to the many character all support Winesburg, Ohio as novel. Its elements also contradict the true meaning of a collection of short stories.

Informal Response to Departure from Winesburg, Ohio-- Megan Beers

        

Essentially Departure is about the end of of George Willard's life in Winesburg, and it touches on the important lessons that he took from each character within the book. He been awake since two pondering about his journey to the city, George Willard arose at four and prepared for his departure from Winesburg. George took his bags and walked the streets of Winesburg under the sunrise (sunrise=hope). He walked to Trunion Pike, where he had walked numerous time when he was young, the land was now flat and green (green=growth) As he headed back into town many of the street clerks asks him how he feels to be leaving. The train to Cleveland, where it connects to either Chicago or New York departed at seven forty-five so George leaves the New Willard House at seven for the station. Tom Willard, now shorter than his son, carries George's bag. On the platform numerous townsfolk, even his boss Will Henderson and Gertrude Wilmot who had never paid attention to George, wished him good luck, awoke early enough to shake his hand and to express their hope for George before he leaves.  When the train arrives George hops on quickly feeling relieved. 

 Departure begins in the midst of spring with the field green and showing growth. Anderson’s seasonal symbolism of this story is used to show a renewal and rebirth. George’s departure for the big city is a time of rebirth as he will start fresh, in his role as a man. George becomes in this short tale the archetypal young man setting out to make it in the city; appropriately, the city is not named. As George leaves his home town behind, he dreams a little about what his future life will be, then awakens to realize that "the town of Winesburg had disappeared and his life there had become but a background on which to paint the dreams of his manhood."(252)

           Before his departure, many townspeople come to shake George’s hand. Throughout the novel “hands” being a major symbol that denotes a pledge of faith, sincerity and justice and it is symbolic of support and strength. “On the station platform everyone shook the young man’s hand.” (251) Many of the characters that showed up at the platform, have touched George somehow and helped to create his dream(Wing Biddlebaum) of leaving and creating a new life for himself. Although this seems kind of ironic because after he boards the train he chooses to forget his life in Winesburg and move on with his new life. 

 

             This is a rather hopeful ending for a text that has not been very optimistic. George is off to make his fortune in the world, but he can only do so alone and by saying goodbye to all his human connections. He is impatient with the people there to see him off, because this is his adventure, not theirs. In this story George is a metaphor for everyone's lives; we are all alone on the train of life, and any connection we make with others is destined to be short-lived.

Analyzing Adventure from Winesburg, Ohio

        The story Adventure in Winesburg, Ohio is an evaluation on how people cope with reality. The story is about Alice Hindman, a 27 year old drug store clerk who still lives her mother. When she was 16 she was the lover of a young man named Ned Currie, who leaves for a job in Cleveland and never returns to Winesburg. The night before he leaves Ned makes Alice his "lover" in a field, and from that night on, for ten years Alice stays faithful to him. Now ten years older Alice still can't imagine marrying anyone else. Still she feels a desperate urge to feel loved, so one when she comes home from work on a rainy night and while getting undressed a strange urge comes over her and she runs out into the rain, naked, and accosts an old man who is passing on the sidewalk. Suddenly she is ashamed and runs back inside and and accepts "bravely the fact that many people must live and die alone." In the chapter Adventure in Winesburg, Ohio, Sherwood Anderson characterizes Alice as an isolated woman to portray the lonely, frustrated people not just in Winesburg but throughout the world.

            Throughout the book Winesburg, Ohio Anderson the unhappiness of women, married and unmarried, is a reoccurring theme within the novel, but unlike the other women Alice’s unhappiness stems from her solitude. Many of the elements contribute to the readers idea of her isolation: her widowed mother remarried, her employer being a reserved old man, the drugstore clerk who walks her home never stays and sits on her porch as she wishes, and the old man who she confronts naked it half deaf. The old man in the street being half deaf represents her frustration and lack of support, she cries for help but he can’t hear it and doesn’t respond. Alice is limited by life denying truths and guilty of allowing them to run her life.  Alice's blindness to the changing social customs limits her capacity to progress forward in life. She becomes consumed by the idea of herself and her memories. Alice is also a contributor to her own isolation because she is consumed by her image and never pulls away and creates something new for herself.

            The extremity of Alice’s emotions leads to her downfall, her tendency to limit her own abilities by her fixed habits and unmovable convictions also isolates Alice from her community. Symbolic of her self consumption, as she ages her head grows too big for her body. She denies herself the reality of life by thinning her experience to a dream world. She refuses to meld the dream world with the real world which takes the value away from experiencing life beyond her time with Ned. Alice has one vision of love and refuses to let it go. Anderson is trying to exemplify Alice’s extremity to show that all humans want to love and be in love. The challenge though, shown in Adventure, is differentiating the difference between lust and love.

Analyzing Hairball eww Megan Beers period 3

       
This week in class we continued our short story boot camp assignments and gave presentations on them, I was very interested in reading Margaret Atwood's short story, Hairball. The main character of this story is, Kat, a contemporary woman in her thirties who undergoes a loss of identity. Kat has the qualities to become an independent person but focuses more altering her image to suit wants and trends of society. The story begins when Kat has an unusual ovarian tumor (containing teeth, hair, and bones) surgically removed; she names it "hairball" and places is on her mantelpiece to show it off. Throughout the story Atwood gives hairball humanistic traits to reflect Kat true identity. Atwood also uses a feministic point of view to describe Kat's past and the life outside of the "hairball."

One of the major themes in this story is search for identity, and I believe that Kat’s “hairball” is supposed contain the identity that Kat wants to show to the world. Once the hairball is removed the doctor notices that it has hair, bones, and teeth; which leads the reader to believe it could have been some sort of human formation. Later in the story it is revealed that Kat has had many abortions, which lead me to believe that the cyst was a malformed baby, which is the stressor for Kat’s obsession with hairball. The way the narrator describes hairball, resembles the way the she explains Kat’s background. Unique is the common term between the two of them, but when Kat explains to people her surgery she exaggerates about the qualities of “hairball.” It’s almost like Kat is starting to live her life through how people view her and her cyst. One of her main struggles is finding a voice for herself instead of trying to impress society. An interesting piece of information that I found was that Atwood originally named this story Kat but then changed it to Hairball. This is important because it shows the versatility of the references, meaning that they are interchangeable because of the traits each one has.

This story also has a very feminist vibe to it. The feminist critique highlights the relationships between men and woman in a working situation, and how the writer conveys the female experience instead of focusing on the male perception. Atwood uses this style critique throughout the whole story. The relationship between Ger and Kat is definitely a great example of how this critique is used. Ger only wants Kat to prove to society that is has edge. Their relationship throughout the story doesn’t really have any complexity to it, obviously its only an “business” affair but the way that Kat describes it, it almost seems that she wants more; she wants to conform to society almost in way. Atwood also emphasizes feminism by having the story told from Kat’s point of view. She expresses the female want and drive and shows there is complexity to females than the male literary world allows to be seen.

Megan Beers Blog #3 Period 3 Clinch

            On Friday in AP literature our class started our short story bootcamp unit. We were put into groups and assigned a story and become experts on. Right now my group is working on the short story Fiesta, by Junot Diaz. This story revolves around a latino family who immagrated to the United States from the Dominacn Republic. This story is told from the point of veiw of the youngest son, Junior, who yearns for his abusive father's affection and is conflicted with his unclear idendentity. Junior is also faced with burden of keeping his father's secret about his mistress. Throughout the novel Diaz uses element of the Latino culture to show the true identity of Junoir and his family.
            One of the major parts of the Latino culture used in the story is the spanish dailect. During the "fiesta" many of Junior's relatives call him "Yunior" which emphasizes the soft "j" sound in certain Spanish dialects; and Junior regularly inserts Spanish words and phrases within his dialect. By iserting these words, Diaz is trying emphasize the family's love toward their heirtage and the pride that they have towards using these words in their everyday speech. I believe the lannguage is also used to convey the sheer size of the father's affair. In the story they refer to his mistress as "sucia" which translates to "dirty female." This term definately reveals Juniors feelings toward his father's unfaithful actions. The woman has no other identity, and by associtation Junior's father is also tainted. Overall throughout the story the conotation of the words said about the father is negative and dirty, and Diaz uses the Spanish words to emphasize the how the father's actions affects the family.
             Throughout the story Diaz uses gestures to emphasize the emotional significance within certain events. one of the main gestures displayed is, Juniors vomiting spells in his father's van. In the story the reader is told that Junior only throws up in his father's van, which alerts the reader that there is a deeper meaning into the vomiting. Later we are also told that Junior first met his father's mistress after a trip in the van. This explains his how his illness is linked to an emotional factor. Everytime he enters the van he associates the van with his father infidelity. He attempts to hide and keep in the truth which cause him to reject whatever he can. This can be a form of catharsis, which means "The process of releasing, and thereby providing relief from, strong or repressed emotions." Instead of releasing his emotions about his father's affair, junior chooses to hold it in and releases his meals instead of the truth.
            One of the major themes throughout this short story is search for identity. A key element to the story is Junior's want for affection from his father. Junior is named after is father which shows a clear connection between the two of them. Junior recieves the most punishment out of all the kids, from the father, which also leads to his yearning for affection from him.
          

Thesis development activities from this week> Megan Beers

             This week in class we worked in groups to create an outline for our opened ended question that we had to write on Friday. My group came up with good themes to connect with the book and the question, those themes helped us create a thesis. I feel that this process helped me quite a bit to understand more themes within the book and view different perspectives of how people saw the book. A problem that I found while writing my timed writing was that it was hard to connect with the question. The question being how does the first paragraph and chapter tell the reader what the story is going to be about? Overall this process did help me think more analytically and look into more themes of the novel The Picture of Dorian Gray.
              Throughout the process of creating this outline we were force to find themes within the novel and connect them to the open ended question given to us. To support these themes we were to find examples and quotes within the book and analyze how they also connected to the question. For this week our focus was connecting the themes to the how the beginning of the book tells the story. Our group came up with great themes, but the best one that we found was how the character used art work to hide their true-selves. Now that I look back using this theme for my open ended question, I realized that this theme appeals more to the whole entire book rather than the beginning. Throughout our process of finding quotes we only found one that was in the first the chapter. The activities that our class did throughout this week helped me find new themes and helped me think more analytically, but it didn't really help me understand how to keep focused on the prompt for this week rather than the whole book.
               This process I believe did help me because it set up the boundaries of an open ended question. This was my first open ended question that I have had to tackle, these activities that we did this week definitely prepared me more than I would have been without preparation. This was definitely worth the work and collaboration. If I could go back and add more information I would find more examples that supported the question. Next I will think a little more about how to structure my essay as well. This week time was nit on our side because we never hide time to collaborate with other groups on their ideas which could have been really helpful when coming up with a topic to write about. it would have given me more of variety of themes to think about. It would have also helped if we could have had more time to review our entire outline with the teacher, so we could have gotten advise on what to fix and about connecting it back to the question. Overall I think this experience has taught me how to find themes and look for reoccurring symbols that support those themes.
               

Megan Beers Period 3 Blog #1

Over the summer I chose to read Three Little Words, by Ashley Rhodes-Courter. It is a memoir about a young Ashley Rhodes-Courter, who was taken away from her drug addicted mother and was bounced around fourteen different foster homes within nine years. Throughout her journey, Rhodes-Courter, is forced to endure manipulative and humiliating treatment from abusive foster care families the, being juggled between caseworkers, moved from school to school, and living with the horrific memories of being taken away from her home. This memoir I believe has literary merit, because of complex plot and the capability of changing perspectives to makes its readers reflect deeply on the morals of humanity.



One of the key elements that give a book literary merit is the complexity of the plot. Complex meaning that it makes the reader think about the story and what the story is saying in a deeper meaning; what's underneath the surface? The plot of this book has very complex ideas about the norm within society. Throughout the novel the plot twists and turns; through each change that Courter faced, within the book, she presents a new perspective that challenges her reader to think about how society perceives foster care children. Each section of the plot is designed to question different part of society, one of the most important themes being acceptance. What also makes the plot complex is the use of imagery, motifs, and symbolism. Throughout the plot Courter uses a lot of imagery to bring the reader closer into her situation. By using these elements of literature she make more of an impression on the reader and emphasizes the key elements of her plot that are meant to move the reader.



Another major element that give a book literary merit is the ability to challenge and change perspectives about a certain idea. This book challenges the way that society views foster children. It brings aware the troubles that each one goes through when within in the system.  For a book to have strong literary values it must make its readers question the way society works. One of the main challenges that Courter faces in the book is the morals of society and how foster children are viewed within the social norm. Another major element that gives a book literary merit is the ability to make its reader question the structure and morals of humanity. The main purpose for her writing this book was to bring aware the flaws within the morality of foster care society. Throughout her book Courter questions the difference between norms of society and foster care. Throughout the novel the major question I found myself asking was how could humanity let children be treated poorly and never make a change to fix it? Like many books that I have read for literature classes this one presses and important message about how society works. The struggle with society I believe is seen within many books that are considered to be literary geniuses. Courter portrays these struggles in a very unique way that makes her original and literary.