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.