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.