Synthesis of Course Materials, Part 4

Literary Genres

We learned a lot about different literary genres and reviewed eras of writing; because understanding the influence on pieces of literature helps us better understand the meaning of the piece.

-Comedy

            There are many types of comedy, including, but not limited to, High and Low Comedy, Lampoon, Slapstick and Burlesque.  Each different type of comedy relies on different things to make it funny.  Some use hyperbole, others use ridicule, and some rely on crude jokes or buffoonery.  What makes a comedy, well, a comedy is not actually the humor, but the way the plot moves.  The protagonist must start in a low place, and gradually move to a high place by being true to his or her self.

-Tragedy

            Tragedy isn’t actually defined by its sad characteristics, but, much like comedy, by the way the plot moves.  In a tragedy a character must start in a high place and gradually fall into a low place.  The characters typically begin their fall by breaking a societal rule.

-Absurdism

            Absurdist Theatre is rather different from the other genres. It cannot be defined by the motion of its plot, because there tends to be little to no plot motion.  Some characteristics of Absurdist Theatre are use of small talk and understatements, futility, and the instability of characters. At a first read an Absurdist play may seem like pure nonsense, due to the character instability and the way the characters tend to talk.

-Eras of Writing

·         Classical period – Greek and Roman dramas about the gods.

·         Medieval period – Appealed to the Church, had very idealistic love.

·         Renaissance period – Think Shakespeare

·         Enlightenment period – Rise of Deism, America's revolution against England.

·         Romantic period – Wrote about nature and individualism

·         Victorian period – Sentimentality, think Brontë Sisters

·         Modernism – Based in realism

·         Post-Modernism – Surrealistic writing with tie ins of realism

Synthesis of Course Materials, Part 3

Techniques for Analysis

-What are some techniques that you could use to analyze literature?

The one thing that I rely on more than anything is DIDLS.  You could however also use SSTIFS.

-What is DIDLS?

DIDLS is an acronym for Diction, Imagery, Details, Language and Syntax.  Diction is the author’s word choice (pejorative, connotations, etc.).  Imagery is the language that appeals to our five sense, word choice that evokes a sensory response.  Details are the details, names, dates, any other small important things that the author chooses to throw at us.  Language is basically the way the piece is written.  It involves the authors overall word choice and their tone, leading to an effect such as scholarly or childish.  Syntax is the sentence construction, where words are placed, how clauses are working and the like.

-And SSTIFS?

SSTIFS is the acronym for Situation, Speaker, Tone, Imagery, Figurative language, and Structure.

-What’s the difference and how are they used?

The difference is mostly in how they’re used.  DIDLS is used more for close reading of prose fiction, whereas SSTIFS is used more often for poetry.  Both of these systems help us sort out the techniques the author uses to create effects which in the end create meaning.  When you have to analyze under time constraints, these systems are what make it manageable.

Synthesis of Course Materials, Part 2

Essay Techniques

The first thing we learned about writing essays was TAP, or Thesis Answers Prompt.  If for some reason unknown to mankind your essay gets lost in the abyss and only your thesis remains, it should be able to stand by itself as an answer to the question.  The reason for this is, at least partly, because during the timed essays we’ll have to write on the exam the essay will practically write itself if the thesis answers the prompt.

Another thing we learned to help us with writing essays is how to write a proper introduction.   The first sentence of your essay is very important, it’s what will draw the reader in, or leave them behind.  And you want to draw them in.  The first sentence should be something catchy and general about the topic you’re going to cover.  It should be something that makes sense in the essay, but doesn’t throw literary analysis at the reader too soon.  You should also make sure that your introduction has some of the background necessary for the rest of the essay.

The newest thing we’ve learned about writing essays, and the concept is still very new to us, is plain style.  Plain style is, much like it sounds, a simple form of writing.  It is clear and direct, and free from unnecessary adjectives and adverbs.  Plain style is good to write in because you can keep your scholarly tone without seeming pretentious.  It also helps with timed essays because you get to the point faster without all of that flowery language.

Synthesis of Course Materials, Part 1

Literary Terms

-What are literary terms?

        Well, they’re terms that deal with literature.  In the beginning of the year we started learning and reviewing said literary terms.  We learned words from multiple categories of literature such as Drama, Poetry, Analysis of Rhetoric, and other miscellaneous terms.

-Why do these terms matter?

        If we’re honest, they don’t really.  If we can define them, which we can, then we could describe them, or use synonyms to get our point across.  But we’ve entered the world of literature now, and it has its own language.  Now that we’re in the world of literature, using the lingo is so much easier than attempting to make an argument without the lingo.  For example, instead of repeating “fatal flaw” over and over again in an essay we can say “hamartia” now, and be done with it.  Another reason to use the literary terms is that on the essays for the AP Exam the terms will look impressive; thereby making our arguments look more valid, whether or not they actually are.

Open Prompt Revision 4

2009. A symbol is an object, action, or event that represents something or that creates a range of associations beyond itself. In literary works a symbol can express an idea, clarify meaning, or enlarge literal meaning. Select a novel or play and, focusing on one symbol, write an essay analyzing how that symbol functions in the work and what it reveals about the characters or themes of the work as a whole. Do not merely summarize the plot.

         There are a lot of clumsy people in this world, so a character dropping something in a story shouldn’t mean anything, it’s just something that happens in life. But when analyzing a literary work you have to realize that most everything means something.  In Nella Larson’s Passing, we see how simply dropping a teacup is a symbol, and thereby how it affects the work and discusses characters or themes.

         One of the main characters in Passing, Irene, is hosting a small party when she notices her world is crumbling in around her.  Her best friend, Clare, is talking to Irene’s husband Brian, when it clicks in her mind that they must be having an affair. We as the reader don’t know what it is that makes her think that, and we don’t know whether or not she’s right, but as she realizes it, she drops the teacup she’s holding.  The teacup breaks instantly as it hits the floor, and we realize instantly it must be a symbol.  The question is, what does it mean?

         The broken teacup has a few different meanings, the first one reveals things about Irene’s mental stability.  Basically her grip on reality broke with the teacup.  She had always trusted Brian and Clare but all of a sudden she thinks they’re having an affair.  For the rest of the novel, Irene is changing. She is more jealous and suspicious, more malicious, and her thoughts become rather scrambled. For example, at the end of the novel Irene helps expose Clare’s race to her husband (he thought she was white when she was really a fair skinned black), which she knew was the most dangerous thing that could happen to Clare.  And at the very end Clare falls, jumps or was pushed out of a window.  We don’t know which it is, because Irene is our narrator and her thoughts have become amazingly jumbled.

         The teacup reveals things about Clare as well as Irene.  The teacup is porcelain, and the color of porcelain is off-white, which matches Clare perfectly.  This is because Clare is “passing”.  In the time that novel takes place, blacks and whites were still fairly segregated and extremely racist.  The blacks had significantly worse lives than the whites so some of the really fair skinned backs would try to pass as whites.  Clare Kendry was one of those blacks, she took her “passing” so far as to even marry a white man.  The blacks who “passed” were likely to be killed if the truth was ever discovered.  When the teacup falls from Irene’s hand and breaks we see foreshadowing of the end.  The teacup is Clare, falling out of a window, breaking or dying. 

         When we look back at this we see that Larson didn’t leave an ambiguous ending as most people believe.  She spells out the answer to everyone’s question.  How did Clare fall?  Did Irene push her out of jealousy and spite? Did she jump, trying to finally free herself from her self-constructed prison? Or did she fall, just slip, was it all a horrible accident?  Larson tells the answer with the teacup.  It is dropped by Irene, which shows us that Clare was pushed by Irene. 

         These things show us just how important symbols are to stories. They give us the answers we are desperately seeking, and are used to show us things about characters in the novel.  So really, it’s never just a teacup.

Open Prompt Revision 3

1983. From a novel or play of literary merit, select an important character who is a villain. Then, in a well-organized essay, analyze the nature of the character's villainy and show how it enhances meaning in the work. Do not merely summarize the plot.

            What is the root of evil?  It seems like the answer should be simple.  If the question went up on Spruz, people would probably answer with Chris Walter.  But we’d also get a lot of other random responses.  The reason behind the question’s ability to be answered in so many ways is its generality, evil is different in everyone.  The nature of Mr. Hyde’s villainy is pure humanity, and it enforces the meaning of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by starting to illustrate Stevenson’s idea of humanity and evil.

            In Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Stevenson really investigates humanity, evil and how they intertwine.  The premise of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is that Dr. Jekyll, a scientist, makes a drink that turns him into another part of himself.  This other part of himself is evil and goes by the name Mr. Hyde.  Mr. Hyde looks different than Dr. Jekyll, because he is basically a different person.  He is described as very ugly, as though he has an obvious deformity, but it’s all internal.  He really is evil, he murdered people in cold blood, and tried to take Dr. Jekyll over.  As Dr. Jekyll makes sure we understand, he himself isn’t pure good while Mr. Hyde is pure evil, it’s about a 90 to 10% ratio, which shows us how no man is purely evil, but it also shows us that no human is flawlessly good.

            Mr. Hyde is not your typical villain; he doesn’t have some sob story about his childhood that made him the way he is, unlike most super villains. Part of the reason that he doesn’t have said sob story is because Mr. Hyde came into being suddenly, he didn’t have a childhood to attach a sob story to.  Without having a traumatic past to draw from, the reason that Mr. Hyde can be so horrible is, quite simply, that he’s human.  More people than there should be in the world are murderers, and those people have the same ratio as you and I of good and evil (assuming that Jekyll is right about his good vs. evil ratio), they just succumb to the 10% of badness. Now multiply that human dispassion by 9 and just try to imagine the result.  Imagining that someone could be like that all of the time is frightening, but Stevenson imagines it anyway.  He uses it to show us how horrible humans could be, to warn us away from being evil.

            Jekyll in the end starts getting taken over by Hyde even without the draught; Hyde just inherits his body and wreaks havoc on London.  Jekyll fights Hyde, but to no avail, he simply can’t overpower the evil inside him.  And that’s the point that Stevenson uses to get his meaning across, that if we allow evil to thrive, even if only for a very short period of time it will overtake us.  The evil will continue to thrive unbidden and cause us the people we love harm.  Why?  Because we are merely human, and humans aren’t strong enough to stop what we start.  So the nature of Mr. Hyde’s evil, that being his humanity, is how Stevenson gives us the meaning of the novel.

Open Prompt Revision 2

2002. Morally ambiguous characters -- characters whose behavior discourages readers from identifying them as purely evil or purely good -- are at the heart of many works of literature. Choose a novel or play in which a morally ambiguous character plays a pivotal role. Then write an essay in which you explain how the character can be viewed as morally ambiguous and why his or her moral ambiguity is significant to the work as a whole. Avoid mere plot summary.

            Love is the center of so many human conflicts, but maybe it isn’t just humans who desire love enough to kill for it.  We see this in Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein. Frankenstein’s monster is very morally ambiguous because he does good and bad things, and often times his bad deeds are justifiable.  The monster’s moral ambiguity is significant to the work as a whole because it helps show us the meaning of the novel.

            Frankenstein’s monster is actually sensitive and caring, despite how he is so often portrayed.  All he wants is love and acceptance.  If he was human we would call him a good guy, not morally ambiguous, but straight up good.  He’d also be a pitiful character, and we tend to side with those we sympathize for.  However, he isn’t a human, he is a “monster” and because of that he is never accepted by society.  After being rejected time and again by society the monster gives up on trying to get what he wants the “good” way.  Instead he decides to fight to get love, and kill people close to Dr. Frankenstein to try to get back at him. After that point he becomes viewed as the bad guy, he really becomes a monster in the readers’ mind.

            Frankenstein’s monster manages to stay morally ambiguous because when he starts killing people he gains more pity from the reader.  His killings are an act of desperation, and humans tend to have more compassion for the underdogs, and the people acting out of desperation.  The monster had asked Dr. Frankenstein to make him a wife, and when he was denied his one dream he resorted to the only other thing he knew.  Violence.  The only reason he is familiar with violence is because it’s what he’s gotten from society.  He’s been mistreated and hurt, denied companionship, and denied understanding.  So because it isn’t his fault he is the way he is, the reader doesn’t see him as evil, but they also can’t overlook the fact that he is killing people, and as such the monster is still viewed as morally ambiguous.

            The monster’s moral ambiguity is very significant to the work because it makes the reader ask questions. What is ok in real life?  Do circumstances justify crimes?  Is it ok to kill for love?  Shelley uses the monster to show the world how ambiguous crimes can be.  She asks the reader to ask the world why.  Why do we discriminate against those who appear different from us?  Shelley is questioning not only crimes and the moral compass, but the world as a whole. She questions value systems of her culture, racism, and the line between good and evil.

            All in all Frankenstein teaches us that we should question morals, see the gray areas, and decide for ourselves the truth of the matter.  It also tells us to keep an open mind and to give everyone a chance, they might not be as different from you as they seem.

Open Prompt Revision 1

2003. According to critic Northrop Frye, "Tragic heroes are so much the highest points in their human landscape that they seem the inevitable conductors of the power about them, great trees more likely to be struck by lightning than a clump of grass. Conductors may of course be instruments as well as victims of the divisive lightning." Select a novel or play in which a tragic figure functions as an instrument of the suffering of others. Then write an essay in which you explain how the suffering brought upon others by that figure contributes to the tragic vision of the work as a whole.

            To bring suffering accidentally upon others is a sad thing, but to do it while trying to ease their suffering is a tragic thing.  This is what happens to Oedipus in Sophocles' "Oedipus Rex", the more he tries to ease the pain of the people of Thebes, the more he harms them, which makes the work significantly more tragic.

            Oedipus is told by the Oracle of Apollo that he must rid Thebes of the killer of the previous king to lift the current plague that's about.  After hearing this, Oedipus begins his desperate attempt to help the people by finding the king's killer.  This is when Oedipus's hamartia is first revealed.  His hamartia is his disbelief, and here it is demonstrated by his disbelieving in the power of the gods by thinking he can change something set by the gods.  When this play was written the Greeks believed that you couldn't defy the fate that the gods created for you, and here's Oedipus attempting just that.

            Oedipus keeps seeing things skewed by his disbelief, and thus he makes his people suffer more.  This is pointed out when Oedipus is told that he is the one who killed the king, but Oedipus refuses to believe that any of the men he killed could have been the king.  Here Sophocles is showing the idiocy and immorality of killing a stranger.  Oedipus's hamartia affects the Theban people until he finally sees the truth.

            A Greek tragic figure could not overcome their hamartia, but they could eventually recognize it and attempt to minimize its influence on their lives.  Once Oedipus recognizes his fatal flaw he leaves Thebes to spare the citizens. The rest of his life he tries to fix the wrong he's done, and avoid future problems. 

            Sophocles uses Oedipus's hamartia as a means of creating tragedy.  Back in the time when this was written, the more tragic a drama was, the more people paid attention to it.  That was why Sophocles made his plays so tragic.  He also made his meaning very clear.  The meaning was largely not to defy the gods.  This was a common theme in dramas of the time and it was something that most of the original audience would pick up on right away.  A slightly deeper  meaning that Sophocles instilled was to keep their flaws to a minimum.  He used Oedipus's large disbelief to show that.

            Overall, Sophocles uses Oedipus's hamartia to show us not to defy the gods, and also not to disbelieve in the power of the gods, or we will bring suffering on those whom we most desire to keep from suffering.