Monday, February 21, 2011

Outside Reading: Reflective Essay 4

February 21, 2011
From The Partly Cloudy Patriot by Sarah Vowell; published 2002
Essay: “Tom Landry, Existentialist, Dead at 75”
Pg 177-180

As per her usual, Sarah Vowell exhibits an almost uniformly sarcastic tone throughout her essay “Tom Landry, Existentialist, Dead at 75.” However, unlike her other essays, Vowell shows the audience her, often unrevealed, emotional side. Vowell discusses in this brief essay that Tom Landry, the former Dallas Cowboys head coach, was more than just a coach and a family man. To Vowell, he was one of the few people who truly understood life.

Vowell’s complex use of diction never fails to completely amuse and reach out to the reader. Vowell uses repetition near the end of her essay to push her point that Landry was a great person who knew what life was really about. She writes, “In the comic, Landry… looked back on his youth. He said that as a player he won games. He said that he fell in love, got married, had children, became a coach. And then, he said the thing that shocked me. He said that despite the wins, the love, the success, the family, he said that something was missing.

From the above quotation, one can also note the syntax used by Vowell. When she writes, “He said that he fell in love, got married, had children, became a coach,” Vowell uses syntax that makes the reader push through the sentence with anticipation for what is to come. In the three closing lines of her essay, Vowell also uses short sentences for emphasis: “And to die. Rest in peace, Tom Landry. Something is missing and it’s you.”

Though Vowell’s tone often frightens me a bit as a reader, her quirky details add a layer of wittiness that should not be left out. We as the reader are allowed a brief glimpse into her life, and with sentences like, “My Pentecostal youth was awash in salvation testimonials that consistently backfired,” the reader cannot resist the charming nature of her essays.

Class Notes: (2/7-2/18)

During this period we have mostly been watching the film Apocalypse Now. This film is based on the novella Heart of Darkness and is set in Vietnam during the war.
In-class Discussion on 2/8/11

Types of Women in HOD:
  • Maiden: An innocent, younger woman who needs to be protected (The "Intended")
  • Mother: Caring figure who yields some power (Marlow's Aunt)
  • Crone: Old ladies with strange and other-worldly wisdom (The knitters)
The Knitters And The Woman Who Discusses The Journey:
  • symbolize the three fates who spin black wool
  • The other woman tells Marlow of events to come
  • In literal terms, the company controls Marlow's fate?
African "Mistress":
  • Overwhelming presence
  • no solid textual evidence that she is Kurtz's mistress
  • So why is she so familiar with Kurtz? Either she defends her people and the ivory OR she is accustomed to going in and out of Kurtz's house.
  • Her ornaments make her seem like a god, worshipped
  • Personified Spirit of the Land
  • ANIMA
Russian:
  • Wears motley
  • Holy fool
  • Like Joseph (Coat of many colors) who works for the pharoh (Kurtz?)
Other HOD info:
  • Kurtz's relationship with the African Woman tells the dynamic with his relationship with the Congo

Outside Reading: Editorial 4

February 21, 2011
No named author
“GPA isn’t the mark of a well-spent education”
Editorial from The State News


Though the author of this forward editorial from The State News is unnamed, it is easy to understand the frustration in this piece entitled, “GPA isn’t the mark of a well-spent education.” In the length of this article, the author guides the reader into understanding the supposedly unfair GPA system.

The author uses syntax to his or her advantage numerous times in this editorial. Although the author generally uses medium length sentences in the piece, there are a few times in which s/he employs short sentences to achieve greater effect. The author utilizes this idea in the very first sentence of this editorial: “Labels are an unavoidable part of life.” The author also uses the phrase “It isn’t” to emphasize that the sentence before it is incorrect. In this editorial, the author also puts high-emphasis words at the ends of sentences, such as when s/he writes, “Students should keep in mind that when they see statistics that show MSU on average has posted increases in GPA and ACT scores with each incoming class, it isn’t all that earth-shattering.”

The plethora of details that the author uses helps any reader understand the concept of the GPA, no matter there educational upbringing. Almost immediately the author begins to summarize the MSU GPA system, stating, “In college classes, students are graded at .5 intervals, ranging from 0.0 to 4.0, with no scores in between. Many students complain they miss the next benchmark by only a few points.” By adding these brief details, the reader can eventually form their own opinion on GPAs without much initial persuasion.

In a matter-of-fact voice, the author’s diction is commanding, but is too informal in some areas to be overwhelming. For example, the author writes, “When it all comes down to it, there is a basic formula for education. In a perfect world, professors should work to make a course challenging, and students should enter class with the mindset to do the best job they possibly can.” Here, s/he sounds like they know what they are talking about; however, the initial phrase, “When it all comes down to it,” gives the sentence a bit of informality. Because of this voice, I feel like I cannot fully trust what the author is saying.This would not be an appropriate AP piece because most of what is said has little to no facts to support it.

Sunday, February 20, 2011

Outside Reading: Book Review 4

2/20/11
Book Review
Book Author: Allison Pearson
Review Author: Veronique de Turenne


     When Veronique de Turenne begins her review on the book I Think I Love You, by Allison Pearson, one is immediately caught off guard by Turenne’s use of diction. She does a nice job summarizing the book for the reader: a 13 year old girl named Petra Williams is in love with a certain pop celebrity. Turenne, with such phrases as “Darwinian nightmare” and “Bambi-eyed pop god,” allows the reader to revel in the choice of words of both herself and the numerous quotations from Pearson that are witty as well. For example, Turenne cites Pearson’s description of the most voluptuous girl of the teen group, quoting that her breasts were, “developed overnight as though she'd got fed up of waiting and used a bike pump.”
     The charming details that Turenne presents are, of course, the result of an already charming novel by Pearson. These details are best appreciated in Pearson’s description of characters. As another addition to Pearson’s lovely description of Petra’s womanly friend, Pearson also writes that she handles her breasts, “like they were hamsters, even getting them out occasionally and petting them.” Such overflowing details add to the overall whimsical nature of this review.
     The imagery created by Pearson is not only believable for an audience, it is also quite humorous. For example, Turenne quotes Pearson when Pearson is describing what Petra Williams does in her day: “She devours fan mags, memorizes David Cassidy facts, and sleeps on her back ‘so my face was ready to receive a kiss in case he came in the night.’" With this irresistible humor, the reader is ready to receive this book, and its review, with open arms.
     Although I do not argue that this review is written with a specific critical perspective, I could see it potentially being called a New Historicism piece because Turenne does mention and comment on the author’s “wit and skill.” One connection I can make with this review is during a brief discussion that we had during class in which we discussed the difference between true literature and mass fiction. Turenne does lovingly note that this novel is a bit of “chick lit,” which is understandable because of its lighthearted plot developments.

Monday, February 7, 2011

Class Notes (1/24-2/4)

Literary Terms to Know (Worksheet):

Anaphora: emphasizing words by repeating them at the beginningsof neighboring clauses
Ex: "We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in france..."
Antistrophe: the repetition of the same word or words at the end of successive phrases, clauses or sentences with an emphasis placed on the last word in a phrase or sentence.
Ex: "When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child."
Anadiplosis: repetition of a word or phrase from the end of one clause or phrase at the begining of the next clause or phrase
Ex: "Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering."
Polysyndeton: the repetition of conjunctions in a series of coordinate words, phrases, or clauses
Ex: "I said, "Who killed him?" and he said, "I don't know who killed him but he's dead all right," and it was dark and there was water standing in the street and no lights..."
Alliteration: the repetition of initial sounds, usually consonants
Ex: Silly Stacy sat slouched.
Assonance: use of similar vowel sounds repeated in successive or proximate words containing different consonants
Ex: " A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid."
Consonance: the repetition of consonants, especially at the ends of words
Ex: "We ought to head straight, right?"
Chiasmus: figure of speech in which two or more clauses or related to each other through a reversal of structures in order to make a larger point; the clauses display inverted parallelism. In its classical application, chiasmus would have been used for structures that do not repeat the same words and phrases, but invert a sentence's grammatical structure or ideas; note, when a piece of text involves grammatical structure, it is also antithesis
Ex: "He knowingly lied and we blindly followed."
    -Antithesis: subcategory of Chiasmus; establishing a clear, contrasting relationship b/w two ideas by joining them together or juxtaposing them, often in parallel structure
    Ex: "To err is human; to forgive, divine"

Lecture Summary: Archetypal and Mythological Criticism (Packet):
  • AMC defintion: how an individual text is faithful to and how it deviates from common patterns
  • a myth is a complete story often believed to be true by cultural insiders but believed false by cultural outsiders
  • an archetype is any element of fiction taht we see repeated over and over w/its core meaning unchanged
  • archetypes are literary reflections of experiences widely shared by humanity
  • James Frazer noticed that myths tend to have striking similarities from culture to culture
  • Carl Jung, an early 20th Century Swiss psychiatrist, thout the reason for reoccuring patterns in myth might be an underlying structure of the human mind
  • "Collective unconsiousness" with a repository of emotions, ideas, instincts, and even memories shared by all humans and that archetypes were symbolic representations of this hidden part of ourselves
  • Northrop Frye was the first theorist to try to organize schemes of literature; he postulated that there is one story being told over and over; some works tell whole story, others just parts of it
*See worksheet for other lovely definitions :)

What makes it a novel? (handout):
  • any extended fictional narrative almost always in prsoe
  • character ocurs either in a static condition or in the process of development as the result of events or actions
  • "novel" doesn't imply a certain structure; they can take other forms aside from the standard five-part plot
  • novels always conntain narrative, though it may be non-traditional (ex: stream of consciousness)
  • in contemporary popular usage, the nerm is generally only applied to works with enduring literary merit
  •  before 18th century -> ROMANCE
  •  after 18th century -> NOVEL
  •  less than 50,000 words -> NOVELLA
The Novel (A Handout):
  • "little new thing"; the term novel is roman-derived from the medieval term romance
  • novella: b/w 12,000 and 30,000 words
  • in a novel, the fictional prose narrative is conveyed by the author through a specific point of view and connected by a serquence of events involving a group of persons in a specific setting
  • the first European novel is usually considered to be Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes (1605)
  • novel took to England in first half of the 18th century: Daniel Defoe (Robinson Crusoe), Samuel Richardson (Pamela) and Henry Fielding (Tom Jones)
  • By the second half of the 19th century, the novel had displaced all other forms of literature because of the growing middle class (increased literacy rate and disposable income), cheaper production and distribution of materials, publication of novels in serial form, and the introduction of a system of circulating libraries
  • Early 20th century novel was influenced by new social attitudes ans psych insights; authors paid close attention to character though and motivation, and this is still the dominant form of literary expression today
  • the novel can cover a wide range of tastes and interests
See Worksheet for more depth, but here's the lists of some common types of novels:

Prose Romance
Novel of Incident
Novel of Character
Novel of Manners
Epistolary Novel
Picaresque Novel
Historical Novel
Regional Novel (*connection* Huck Finn!)
Bildungsroman
Roman a clef
Roman-fleuve
Sociological/Roman a these (*Connection* Children of Men)
Stream of Consciousness
Gothic
Gothic Romance (*connection* The Handmaid's Tale)
Satirical: (*connection* Twelfth night, if it were not a play, would qualify)