Spring Lit Analysis: The Color Purple

GENERAL 

1. Briefly summarize the plot of the novel you read, and explain how the narrative fulfills the author's purpose (based on your well-informed interpretation of same).

In the novel, a black woman named Celie tells her life story consisting of: rape, abuse, submissiveness, weakness/strength, etc. Since she was a young girl Celie had been sexually abused by her step-father , Pa, whom she believed was her biological father and had two kids. Later she is forced to marry a man who they called Mr.______ (Albert) by the stepfather because he didn't want Nettie, his youngest daughter, to marry him. He was an abusive man who while with her cheated on her and did everything he could to make her life miserable. He would even hide letters from Nettie after she disappeared from home and Celie ended up thinking she was dead. One day, Mr.______'s lover Shug was very ill and ended up staying at Celie's and Mr.______'s house until she got better. While being there, Celie and Shug got very close to each other and ended up being great friends. She found out how Mr.______ would constantly beat her so Shug eventually decided to help Celie out. Because of Shug, Celie is able to finally obtain all of Nettie's letters which after reading, she finds out Nettie is alive and safe. Nettie had left with some missionary people, Samuel and Corrine, to Africa. While being there, Nettie finds out that Samuel's and Corrine's kids Adam and Olivia, are really Celie's kids who Alphonso, the stepfather had said he had gotten rid of. Corrine ends up dying and the kids are given back to Cellie. Alphonso dies as well. At first Celie does not want to forgive Mr.______ but later she decides to and they begin to enjoy each other’s company.

2. Succinctly describe the theme of the novel. Avoid cliches.

The theme of this novel is that strength can be hidden in the weak. Cecil had been taken advantage of throughout her life but she became independent towards the end of it. She dealt with the abuse of her father and husband, but Shug was the person that Cecil needed to push her towards liberation.

3. Describe the author's tone. Include a minimum of three excerpts that illustrate your point(s).
The tone is very serious and honest. The narrator takes a thoughtful look at her life through letters to God. She’s not joking around, but expressing the sadness of her life in the strongest way she can.

• When Sophia stands up for herself from the mayor and his wife she demonstrates her own self -power that she feels. After being asked by the mayor's wife if she will work as their maid, Sophia answers with a s defiant "Hell No," encouraging her overpowering ways against commands.
• In the first letter that Celie writes she sets a serious tone, explaining about how she was raped by her step-father. She describes everything that occurred to her, giving the reader a more serious mood/tone. 
• When Squeak tries to free Sophia from prison and is contrarily raped by one of the warden's the tone is both serious and overpowering. The warden overpowers defenseless Squeak and rapes her setting seriousness to the words from Celie.
  
  

4. Describe a minimum of ten literary elements/techniques you observed that strengthened your understanding of the author's purpose, the text's theme and/or your sense of the tone. For each, please include textual support to help illustrate the point for your readers. (Please include edition and page numbers for easy reference.)

Imagery:

"First he put his thing up against my hip and sort of wiggle it around. Then he grab hold my titties. Then he push his thing inside my pussy."

Diction:

"Soon he stop. He say one night in bed, Well, us done help Nettie all we can. Now she got to go."

Allegory:

Symbols:

Irony:

Metaphor:

Figurative Language:

Syntax:

Theme:

Point Of View:

CHARACTERIZATION 

1. Describe two examples of direct characterization and two examples of indirect characterization.  Why does the author use both approaches, and to what end (i.e., what is your lasting impression of the character as a result)?

Indirect Characterization:

Sophia's action were a great example of what a strong, determined woman she was.

2. Does the author's syntax and/or diction change when s/he focuses on character?  How?  Example(s)?

The author uses the same syntax and diction throughout the letters. Since she is writing through letters, all that changes is how she explains her life. The text matures with her and we get a better view of her story this way.

3. Is the protagonist static or dynamic?  Flat or round?  Explain.

Celie is a dynamic character. She changes from a scared victim to an independent strong woman. She also switched from being a flat character to a round character.

4. After reading the book did you come away feeling like you'd met a person or read a character?  Analyze one textual example that illustrates your reaction.

I feel like I met a person because I was moved with how she told her story. A lot of events took place throughout her life and she experienced plenty of hardships. She had unhealthy relationships but in the end she overcame them. She gained independence and broke free.

WHAT'S THE STORY?

"What is it that makes you want to write songs? In a way you want to stretch yourself into other people's hearts. You want to plant yourself there, or at least get a resonance, where other people become a bigger instrument than the one you're playing. It becomes almost an obsession to touch other people. To write a song that is remembered and taken to heart is a connection, a touching of bases. A thread that runs through all of us. A stab to the heart. Sometimes I think songwriting is about tightening the heartstrings as much as possible without bringing on a heart attack." -Keith Richards

Why did Charles Dickens write the novel you're reading/reviewing? What in your analysis of literary techniques led you to this conclusion? (Make sure to include textual support illustrating Dickens' use of at least three techniques we've studied/discussed this year.)

Charles Dickens wrote The Great Expectations to share his views on social status with society. He had the rich be unhappy while the poor were happy. He flipped the script to show that one could live a perfectly happy life poor. By doing so, he showed the struggles each party faced and how they reacted. Each person that struggled molded their own path and dealt with their consequences. 

Title: A Tale of Two Cities Lecture Notes

-Third city: Manchester
-Background on Dicken's inspiration
-Summary: history of Rev, Paris, London and his reaction.
-Self sacrifice of the play transferred to Tale of Two Cities
-He explains how Dicken's was inspired by real people to make characters in Tale of Two Cities
-doubleness of character DC, CD and Charles Dickens.
-London: where he found his creativity / extremes of wealth and poverty.
-Paris: Charming and immense impression, perfectly distinct and unique character. He was overwhelmed by its secret character and how well the city expressed it. Very impressed by Paris although half the size of London, lacked the craziness of London.
-Fascinated by the dark side of Paris, attracted to visit the morgue
-Describes Paris' character with detail of the people and the places.
-Tale of Two Cities moves between French history of 1789 but Dickens uses the years 1757-1793
-Dickens wasn't a Rebel, he had a horror of mob rule but Tale of Two Cities was about it.
-Came out in weekly parts as a series.
-Dickens thought everything out when selling
-Crazy how people would treat his series like TV series.
-Demands of weekly series, Cliffhanger endings, contrasting installment, wrote as he went along, and he was pleased with the novel.
-thought it was the best story he had ever written.

DICKENS MAP

1) I have been reading before I go to sleep and when I have time during the day. I'm trying to read as much as I can so I could finish by the weekend. 

2) AP questions 
What was Pip hoping to get from Miss Havisham and what does he really get?

Why does Pip lie about his experience at Miss Havisham’s? 

What person reappears in London?

Who is the real source of his fortune and who did he think it was from?

3) Testing Method: Essays
Essay Question 1:In the original ending of Great Expectations, Pip sees Estella in London in the company of her husband and her children. Dickens was advised by a close friend that this was not how readers would want the story to end, so the ending was changed to the now published ending. Evaluate the purpose behind Charles Dickens' original ending. Which ending completes the story more fully? Which ending makes the most sense to you as the reader, and which ending most efficiently potrays the key themes of the novel? Use the text to support your response.

Essay Question 2:Miss Havisham is heart broken and left in a disarry on her wedding day when her fiance leaves her at the alter.  Coincidently this "fience" is none other than Compeyson.  In her rage at this situation Miss Havisham adopts Estella to use her to get back at men.  Do you think that this justifies how Estella acts or is her manner just naturally how she is? Do you believe that Miss Havisham has the right to corrupt someone elses life and use them for her own selfish purposes?

Lit Terms 31-55

1. Contrast: a rhetorical device by which one element (idea or object) is thrown into opposite to another for the sake of emphasis or clarity
2. Denoument: loose ends tied up in a story after the climax, closure, conclusion
3. Dialect: the language of a particular dictrict, class or group of persons; the sounds, grammar, and diction employed by people distinguished from others.
4. Dialectics: formal debates usually over the nature of truth
5. Dichotomy: split or break between two opposing things
6. Diction: the style of speaking or writing as reflected in the choice and use of words
7. Didactic: having to do with the transmission of information; education
8. Dogmatic: rigid in beliefs and principals
9. Epic: a long narrative poem unified by a hero who reflects the customs, mores, and aspirations of his nation of race as he makes his way through legendary and historic exploits, usually over a long period of time (definition bordering on circumlocution)
10. Epigram: witty aphorism
11. Epitaph: any brief inscription in prose or verse on a tombstone; a short formal poem of commemoration often a credo written by the person who wishes it to be on his tombstone
12. Epithet: a short, descriptive name or phrase that may insult someone’s character, characteristics
13. Euphemism: the use of an indirect, mild or vague word or expression for one thought to be coarse, offensive, or blunt
14. Evocative (evocation): a calling forth of memories and sensations; the suggestion or production through artistry and imagination of a sense of reality
15. Exposition: beginning of a story that sets forth facts, ideas, and/or characters, in a detailed explanation
16. Expressionism: movement in art, literature, and music consisting of unrealistic representation of an inner idea or feeling(s).
17. Fable: a short, simple story, usually with animals as characters, designed to teach a moral truth
18. Falling Action: part of the narrative or drama after the climax
19. Farce: a boisterous comedy involving ludicrous action and dialogue
20. Figurative Language: apt and imaginative language characterized by figures of speech (such as metaphor and simile)
21. Flashback: a narrative device that flashes back to prior events
22. Foil: a person or thing that, by contrast, makes another seem better or more prominent
23. Folk Tale: story passed on by word of mouth
24. Foreshadowing: in fiction and drama, a device to prepare the reader for the outcome of the action; “planning” to make the outcome convincing, though not to give it away
25. Free Verse: verse without conventional metrical pattern, with irregular pattern or no rhyme

Study Method

If you want to have some fun with the literary elements, I suggest playing the game I made. It's fun and helpful. Enjoy!

http://www.classtools.net/mob/quiz_45/My_25_Lit_Terms_xhn2C.htm

Lit Terms 6-30

1. Alliteration: the repetition of similar initial sounds, usually consonants, in a group of words

2. Allusion: a reference to a person, a place, an event, or a literary work that a writer expects a reader to recognize

“Chocolate was her Achilles’ heel.” This means that her weakness was her love of chocolate. Achilles is a character in Greek mythology who was invincible. His mother dipped him in magical water when he was a baby, and she held him by the heel. The magic protected him all over, except for his heel.

3. Ambiguity: something uncertain as to interpretation
 The chin of the young woman becomes the nose of the old lady.

4. Anachronism: something that shows up in the wrong place or the wrong time

5. Analogy: a comparison between two things to show the similarities between them

6. Analysis: a method in which a work or idea is separated into its parts, and those parts given rigorous and detailed scrutiny

7. Anaphora: a device or repetition in which a word or words are repeated at the beginning of two or more lines, phrases, clauses, or sentences
"It rained on his lousy tombstone, and it rained on the grass on his stomach. It rained all over the place." (Holden Caulfield in J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye, 1951)

8. Anecdote: a very short story used to illustrate a point

9. Antagonist: a person or force opposing the protagonist in a drama or narrative

10. Antithesis: a balancing of one term against another for emphasis or stylistic effectiveness

11. Aphorism: a terse, pointed statement expressing some wise or clever observation about life

12. Apologia: a defense or justification for some doctrine, piece of writing, cause or action; also apology

13. Apostrophe: a figure of speech in which an absent or dead person, an abstract quality, or something inanimate or nonhuman is addressed directly

14. Argument (ation): the process of convincing a reader by providing either the truth or the falsity of an idea or proposition; also, the thesis or proposition itself

15. Assumption: the act of supposing, or taking for granted that a thing is true

16. Audience: the intended listener or listeners

17. Characterization: the means by which a writer reveals a character's personality

18. Circumlocution: a roundabout or evasive speech or writing, in which many words are used but a few would have served

19. Classicism: art, literature, and music reflecting the principles of ancient Greece and Rome-- tradition, reason, clarity, order, and balance

20. Cliche: a phrase or situation overused within society

21. Climax: the decisive point in a narrative or drama; the pint of greatest intensity or interest at which plot question is answered or resolved

22. Colloquialism: folksy speech, slang words or phrases usually used in informal conversation

23. Comedy: originally a nondramatic literary piece of work that was marked by a happy ending; now a term to describe a ludicrous, farcical, or amusing event designed provide enjoyment or produce smiles and laughter

24. Conflict: struggle or problem in a story causing tension

25. Connotation: implicit meaning, going beyond dictionary definition

How To Put a Followers Button On Your Blog

Poetry Analysis

A Prisoner in a Dungeon Deep 
by Anne Bronte
A prisoner in a dungeon deep
Sat musing silently;
His head was rested on his hand,
His elbow on his knee. 
Turned he his thoughts to future times
Or are they backward cast?
For freedom is he pining now
Or mourning for the past?

No, he has lived so long enthralled
Alone in dungeon gloom
That he has lost regret and hope,
Has ceased to mourn his doom.

He pines not for the light of day
Nor sighs for freedom now;
Such weary thoughts have ceased at length
To rack his burning brow.

Lost in a maze of wandering thoughts
He sits unmoving there;
That posture and that look proclaim
The stupor of despair.

Yet not for ever did that mood
Of sullen calm prevail;
There was a something in his eye
That told another tale.

It did not speak of reason gone,
It was not madness quite;
It was a fitful flickering fire,
A strange uncertain light.

And sooth to say, these latter years
Strange fancies now and then
Had filled his cell with scenes of life
And forms of living men.

A mind that cannot cease to think
Why needs he cherish there?
Torpor may bring relief to pain
And madness to despair.

Such wildering scenes, such flitting shapes
As feverish dreams display:
What if those fancies still increase
And reason quite decay?

But hark, what sounds have struck his ear;
Voices of men they seem;
And two have entered now his cell;
Can this too be a dream?

'Orlando, hear our joyful news:
Revenge and liberty!
Your foes are dead, and we are come
At last to set you free.' 

So spoke the elder of the two,
And in the captive's eyes
He looked for gleaming ecstasy
But only found surprise. 

'My foes are dead! It must be then
That all mankind are gone.
For they were all my deadly foes
And friends I had not one.'
http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/anne_bronte/poems/3796

The Second Coming by William Butler Yeats
Three Horse Operas by Robert Polito
Turning and turning in the widening gyre   
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere   
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst   
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.   
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out   
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert   
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,   
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,   
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it   
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.   
The darkness drops again; but now I know   
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,   
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,   
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/172062#poem

Meeting at Night 
by Robert Browning
The grey sea and the long black land;
And the yellow half-moon large and low;
And the startled little waves that leap
In fiery ringlets from their sleep,
As I gain the cove with pushing prow,
And quench its speed i' the slushy sand.

Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach;
Three fields to cross till a farm appears;
A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch
And blue spurt of a lighted match,
And a voice less loud, thro' its joys and fears,
Than the two hearts beating each to each!
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173022

Three Horse Operas 
by Robert Polito
At the end of Bing Crosby’s Riding High his horse
Will be buried in the clay of the racetrack where he fell,
As a lesson for all of us. Sad, waggish Bing,
The Mob didn’t want Broadway Bill to win, so the jockey
Pulled on the reins until the thoroughbred, straining
Over the finish line first, collapsed, heart attack.
I loved you like a guitar string breaking
Under the conviction of a clumsy hand—
Something like that . . . I suppose I must have
Been thinking of you and your complex and beautiful band,
Except the image demands I hold the guitar,
If not you, and the broken string, as
Over and over loudspeakers call riders to the starting gate.
The track bartender and a teller, a sharpshooter and the chess master
Wrestler, the petty con man and a cop, reprise their parts.
The heist gang dons clown masks, and
Sherry will betray George, and Johnny can’t love Fay,
And the fortune in the suitcase just blows away.
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/245284


A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning
by John Donne
As virtuous men pass mildly away,
   And whisper to their souls to go,
Whilst some of their sad friends do say
   The breath goes now, and some say, No:

So let us melt, and make no noise,
   No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move;
'Twere profanation of our joys
   To tell the laity our love.

Moving of th' earth brings harms and fears,
   Men reckon what it did, and meant;
But trepidation of the spheres,
   Though greater far, is innocent.

Dull sublunary lovers' love
   (Whose soul is sense) cannot admit
Absence, because it doth remove
   Those things which elemented it.

But we by a love so much refined,
   That our selves know not what it is,
Inter-assured of the mind,
   Care less, eyes, lips, and hands to miss.

Our two souls therefore, which are one,
   Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
   Like gold to airy thinness beat.

If they be two, they are two so
   As stiff twin compasses are two;
Thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show
   To move, but doth, if the other do.

And though it in the center sit,
   Yet when the other far doth roam,
It leans and hearkens after it,
   And grows erect, as that comes home.

Such wilt thou be to me, who must,
   Like th' other foot, obliquely run;
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
   And makes me end where I begun.
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173387

Followers

How do I follow people if they don't have a followers button? I went through a few blogs and was only able to follow a handful. Are people aware that they don't have a followers section on their blog?

Lit Terms #1-5

1. Allegory: a tale in prose or verse in which characters, actions, or setting represents abstract ideas or moral qualities; a story that uses symbols to make a point.
Animal Farm

Allegory of the Four Elements

2. Chiasmus: a reversal in the order of words so that the second half of a statement balances the first half in inverted word order

Chiasmus - Literary Terms Project

3. Denotation: plain dictionary definition

4. Elegy: a mournful, melancholy poem, especially a funeral song or lament for the dead, sometimes contains general reflections on death, often with a rural or pastoral setting. 

Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard

Elegy for String Orchestra - Elliott Carter

5. Fallacy: from the Latin word "to deceive", a false or misleading notion, belief, or argument; any kind of erroneous reasoning that makes arguments unsound.

SPRING SEMESTER PLAN 1

My goal is to teach people the importance of education and to open up doors before I graduate high school. Some people don't think an education is important because they feel they can't get one. I want people to understand its importance and I plan to show my audience the good that comes with an education. Through my blog and Facebook I plan to share positive quotes and articles I find. Through the feedback I get on my blog I will see if I am reaching out to people. Also the "Likes" I get on my Facebook statuses will determine if it was a positive quote or not. I hope to mainly reach the girls I work with at my daycare. Many don't believe in higher education and I want to show them that an education is open to anyone who wants it.

Going to College for Free?

I read online that there are a few colleges that offer free tuition, but there is a catch. Read what they have to offer and see if these colleges are a good fit for you. There are plenty of opportunities out there, you just have to know where to look. Enjoy. 

Source: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/5-colleges-you-can-go-to-for-free-185652815.html

Picture of the Day

AP PREP POST 1: SIDDHARTHA

Five Questions I Choose
URL: http://www.prestwickhouse.com/PDF/SAMPLE/302272.pdf

1. It is mentioned that Siddhartha had never loved a person as much as the Buddha. This is the first mention of Siddhartha loving anyone or anything. Why is it significant that Siddhartha feels more love for this person than either of his parents or Govinda? (Chapter 3)
2. What realization does Siddhartha experience regarding the world of thought and the world of the senses? (Chapter 5)
3. This chapter is entitled, The Ferryman. How is the title of the chapter and Vasudeva’s occupation symbolic to Siddhartha at this point in his journey? (Chapter 9)
4. Explain the theme of the passage below: “No, there were no teachings that a person who truly sought and wanted to find could accept. But the one who had already found could approve of any teachings, every path and goal.” (Chapter 9)
5. Siddhartha loved his son so much that he wanted to “keep him from suffering, pain, and disappointment.” In the process Siddhartha makes himself and his son miserable. Why wasn't this working? (Chapter 11)

Answers:
In order to answer these detailed questions I'd need a copy of the book or an online version of it. I was able to find a few online versions of the book and tried to look for the answers. I know the chapter the answer could be found in, but the only problem is I don't know where in the chapter it would be located.

Online Versions of Siddhartha:
http://www.online-literature.com/hesse/siddhartha/
http://www.readcentral.com/book/Herman-Hesse/Read-Siddhartha-Online
http://manybooks.net/titles/hesseheretext01siddh10.html
http://www.readprint.com/work-841/Siddhartha-Hermann-Hesse

• The first online version I found was used on Mr. Power's SBHS Class Blog for his class to read online.  http://mrpower451.blogspot.com/2009/02/online-text-of-siddhartha.html

Explanation:
This tells me that the AP Exam will require thinking beyond what we read. We will have to analyze books in deft and understand what we come across. Literary elements need to be conquered before the AP Exam because they will be used to analyze texts.

"What's In This For Me?"

I am in this to widen my connections. I met new people while in this AP course and I want to see how I can help them so they could help me. I know that communication is big when building a learning community and I  want to do my part by speaking up. I know a lot about many different things and I feel that if I contribute my knowledge someone might be on the same boat as me and work with my ideas. Within these six months I want to work on communication skills and contribute ideas so I could meet new people.

Picture of the Day