Class Notes Week 2 (11/8-11/12)

Oedipus Rex:

A majority of our week has been spent discussing different aspects of Oedipus Rex. Here, I will just point out some of the highlights.

• When discussing the validity of Psychoanalytic Criticism, our class unanimously decided that Green's outlook on Oediupus was highly improbable, and that Freud is absolutely crazy. My class highly doubted that Sophocles was trying to make such intense subconcious sexual references that Green refers to in his writing.
• My class also discussed the power of blindness. We noted that Teiresias is blind for a reason; that because he is blind, he is able to see the truth in people and situations easier than most. We also discussed what effects Oediupus's loss-of-sight has to do with his ability to see the truth. My class determined that although he claimed outwardly that he wanted to avoid all of the atrocities he had created, blinding himself allowed him to finally see the world clearly.
• One of the biggest arguments in my class was in regards to Free Will vs. Predestination. We debated the effects of the prophecy: whether it determined Oedipus's actions from the beginning (predestination) or whether Oedipus's strong desire and his decisions to go against the prophecy ultimately created the events he was trying to avoid (free-will).

The Secrets to AP Thesis Writing*:
1) Thoroughly read the prompt. Twice.
2) Identify goals in the question by circling or underlining.
3) Write a thesis that addresses all of these goals.
4) Review prompt and thesis. Make sure you have addressed all of the goals.
5)When addressing a theme, make sure it is a theme and not a subject that you are addressing.
6) Thesis
    Answer
    Prompt
7) Analyse effect AND meaning.
*Ideally, spend about five minutes for this entire process.

Example: (#3 from The Packet)
3. A critic has said that one important measure of a superior work of literature is its ability to produce in the reader a healthy confusion of pleasure and disquietude. Select a literary work that prouduces this "healthy confusion." Write an essay in which you explain the sources of the "pleasure and disquietude" experienced by the readers of the work.

1) Have you read through this twice? What goals have you noticed?
One thing I noticed is that the writers of the prompt roughly defined for us what this "healthy confusion" really is (A healthy confusion of pleasure and disquietude/uneasiness).
2) Let's identify the goals. I will italize them in this case.

3. A critic has said that one important measure of a superior work of literature is its ability to produce in the reader a healthy confusion of pleasure and disquietude. Select a literary work that prouduces this "healthy confusion." Write an essay in which you explain the sources of the "pleasure and disquietude" experienced by the readers of the work.

So we know that we must first find a literary work in which the reader feels both content and uneasy. In other words, this theory of "healthy confusion"  is when a work is disturbing, yet we as readers are better off after reading the work. Our goal in this prompt is to think of a work in which this theory is displayed.

3) This is what my group came up with for our thesis:

In The Great Gatsby, the reader feels wiser and emotionally fulfilled through the excellent, yet disturbing quality of the writing and feels uneasy with the moral depths of the characters.