Hello,
As we discussed today in class, you are all (if you've made some good headway in your primary source) are in an excellent position to begin translating some of your thoughts, observations, and reactions into some preliminary questions (or statements, if you're more comfortable). Please add 3-5 questions or statements that could guide the rest of your reading and your research. Due by class on Friday (2/27).
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Jane Hirshfield...
-Uses good use of language and vocabulary to reflect on her thoughts.
-She uses the writing method of personification in many of her poems.
- She writes a lot about love and her feelings toward this emotion.
-Her poems are all fairly short but they are rich in language and meaning.
Cannery Row by John Steinbeck:
(1) Cannery Row doesn't appear to have any real plot. The novel follows one group of people but almost half of the chapters are side stories.
(2) The scenarios depicted in this book are very unique, with all the characters interdependent on each other. Everyone has a very specific personality.
(3) Steinbeck uses very specific character traits and personalities and relates them to broad social themes, i.e. the American Dream. Everyone in Cannery Row has their own version of this dream.
Preliminary Question:
How does Steinbeck use the interdependency and uniqueness of his characters to communicate social themes?
The Things They Carried - Tim O'Brien
-O'Brien writes about the weight of soldiers gear, but it refers to the mental weight of things in the soldiers life.
-He likes to use flashbacks to tell his stories
-Uses themes of Solitude to show how soldiers worries and thoughts could be more dangerous then the Vietnamese enemy.
Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant by Anne Tyler
- Through the main character Pearl's memories revelations are made about the family's past.
- There is irony in several situations in the novel. Specifically the fact that Pearl is losing touch with reality in many ways due to her old age, but has a firm grip on the stories of her past.
- Tyler taps into the emotional side of the reader and tries to build up a more personal connection by speaking of a subject that is easy to relate to.
- On the surface the novel seems like an easy beach read but as you analyze the passages there seems to be a much deeper meaning.
a Farewell to Arms by Earnest Hemingway
-Hemingway's style is very unique. He uses almost no adjectives. His sentences are matter of fact and straight to the point. He does not mince words in description or dialogue. This makes any irony or satire biting and blunt.
-There is a lot of humor that is similar to the humor in Joseph Keller's Catch 22. There are biting, sad-because-they're-true jokes that seem to highlight the insanity of war.
-Hemingway seems to have a fairly chauvinistic view towards women that comes through in the relationship between the narrator and Mrs. Barkley.
Moby Dick- Herman Melville.
Themes include revenge, obsession, nature, and human nature.
Narrator rambles constantly, barely managing to stay on a relevant topic. His thoughts are meaningful, often humorous, and occasionally outdated or intentionally ridiculous.
Question- How does Melville use Ahab's quest and situation to analyze human nature, and what does Moby Dick symbolize?
Native Son by Richard Wright
(1) Wright seems to consistently highlight the struggles of inner city African-Americans in the 1930's. He begins his novel by painting the initial picture of a dirt poor black family living in the slums of the Chicago and shows how this poverty cannot be escaped any where the main character goes.
(2) Wright consistently shows the affects of racism building into blind hatred. He shows the affects of racism on the oppressed by filling the main character with rage.
(3) Wright uses a constant inner city slang during dialect to set a realistic tone and to possibly bolden words of anger.
Preliminary Question:
How does Richard Wright use hatred and racism to connect opposing social classes?
On "All The King's Men:"
(1) Robert Penn Warren frequently uses very unique yet accurate metaphors that help paint the pictures of people's emotions
(2) He builds the story in a strange order that is not chronological, but questions that arise in the plot are answered jumping to the point in time where they occur and then building from there - not limited to telling the story from start to finish.
(3) He uses an active narrator who is not only a part of the main plot, but has his own side plot and from that side plot develops further side plots.
(4)To summarize, Warren seems to have created his own unique style of writing that goes outside the box of tradition.
- O'Neill starts the play with a little light humor and warmth by beginning with a flirty conversation between Tyrone and Mary, however, he quickly dives right into the drama of the family.
- O'Neill takes the time to explain the characteristics, mannerisms, and emotions of every character the moment they show up in the play.
- Each character has its original and significant role in the family: Tyrone, the stern father, Mary, the innocent and worried mother, Jamie, the rebel trouble-making older brother, and Edmund, the younger brother living with a disease who idolizes his older brother.
All of you are doing a great job with these ideas and thoughts. They are very interesting and fun for me to read. Well done!
Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
•Vonnegut writes very straight forward and plainly. He tells it as it is without much elaboration.
•Dialogue is extremely important to the story as this is where a lot of character development is shown.
•Vonnegut's irony and satire are prevalent throughout the story often criticizing modern America and society.
•Through a false religion, Bokononism, Vonnegut is able to answer riddles throughout the story, but the reader knows that these are one man's lies.
•Frustrated with these lies, most Americans (as represented by the Ambassador + wife) find the religion ridiculous and prefer the "truthful" Christianity.
•Science is repeated numerous times as the most important thing in the world as it can provide real concrete answers to everything.
Preliminary Question:
How does Kurt Vonnegut criticize society's quest for ultimate knowledge and truth?
Michael Chabon
-Chabon writes with lots and detail and background to new characters and scenarios
-Chabon has every conflict have two very divided sides, e.g. (Nazi's, Jews, Comic book heroes, villans)
-He writes with big influences from Jewish culture, possible Jewish backgrounds
E.E. Cummings
-Uses rhyme on every two lines in a stanza
- writes in free form and traditonal
- writes about the seasons, love,nature
- Poems never have titles so first line is used
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
1) Introduces many characters that each have their own storyline that connects into the major plot.
2) All the characters have various personalities that seem contrast and interact in interesting ways.
3) He connects many problems back to catch-22 in which has parts that contradict each other and make anything except for fighting in the war impossible.
4) Heller often uses the theme of appearance versus reality.
Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey
1. Abbey constantly finds the simple beauty in nature as well as the problems with humans and their actions.
2. Machines seem to only hinder Abbey and his quest for the wilderness of the desert.
3. Abbey uses many situations to point out the flaws of human-life.
4. By demonstrating his opinion through intense yet realistic descriptions, one can make many speculations about Abbey's character.
The writings of David Foster Wallace:
Non-fiction:
-creates a story and puts reader in the situation
-Observations described as one would observe. writes what he sees in explicit, fictionesque detail
-Footnotes, background information for "stories" of the essays. add detail
Fiction:
-Personal experiences described perfectly.
-Hideous interviews, jumps into "interview" with no background and first person narration of different men.
-DFW becomes "hideous man" completely, enters their mind and enters the reader's
Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote
Are the adventures that Holly Golightly experiences subconsciously something that Capote wanted to live?
He uses his experience with living in high society to write most novels of his.
Capotes novel seems to be a reflection of his own life.
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
- Themes of exploitation and poverty highlight the flaws of the industry of the time
- There is little dialogue, allowing the situation to unfold through anecdotal writing and documentation of important events
- Sinclair creates strong characters who consistently struggle through the story despite their resolve
Preliminary Question: How does character development in The Jungle help to expose the flaws of American industry in the early 1900s?
Ethan Frome - Edith Wharton
-She puts herself in the story experiencing it with the characters.
-Her sentences are short and too the point but focus much more on the scenery.
-She leaves chapters pretty openended. Cliff-hangers.
-Story starts off unhappy and sort of depressive from the beginning.
Does Wharton put herself in her stories in order to sort of journal her feelings and events in her life? Or is the narrator in Ethan Frome just some fantasy person she makes emotions and thoughts for like any other character?
Does Wharton have a darker side she can only share in the stories she makes?
Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser
-Uses different characters to show the effects of money on human nature
-Deeply elaborates the weather's effect on the character's mood (esp. concerning money)
-Details the different uses of money during different seasons.
Preliminary Question-
How does Dreiser criticize society's longing for money/fame?
The Natural by Bernard Malamud
-Uses foreshadowing a lot to point to future events
-Uses birds to symbolize that something bad will happen
-The time between when Roy Hobbs' was shot and 15 years later when he makes his return to baseball is a mystery. I wonder what he did or what happened during his time off from baseball
All the Pretty Horses: By Cormac McCarthy
-McCarthy is a very simple writer, yet somehow he seems to use words that bring out the mood and setting of his book.
-He also seems to use dialogue to convey the majority of the story. For instance instead of a character explaining things in his thoughts he speaks about what is on his mind, and conveys the themes and ideas through the dialogue the characters have with one another.
- Another peculiarity in McCarthy's writing is his use of violence. He uses violence as a way to portray the true character of one, for instance one man always says how he wants another to die, yet when the man does die the other character is the most affected by it.
Questions:
-How does Cormac McCarthy explain, and portray themes, and emotions with the use of character dialogue, and violence/death?
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