Robyn’s Secret Hideout!

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Paul’s Case” by Willa Cather is a short story about a young man who is not suited with the life style he lives. He feels like he was born to do something more- and be some one else. He ignores reality as it really is and only see’s the things he wants. His uncaring father and teachers hammer him down with his illusions, but they only push him to want them more. When he finally accomplishes the reality that he wanted for so long, he realizes that it’s momentary- like all good things in life, and he never wants it to end. He never wanted to awaken from his dream, so he killed himself.

P.S. My brother Justin says hi…

The Lesson” by Toni Bambara, is a story involving a well educated teacher revealing the inequities of life to children that don’t understand. Although this story is very short, it is also exceedingly complex. The main character, Sylvia, is the story’s narrator and she is stubborn and hard-headed but also bright and determined. At the beginning of the story, she seems uninterested in receiving an education in any way, and she thinks learning is a waste of a “perfectly good swim day” (199). However, her negative attitude towards life shifts when her teacher takes her and her classmates to an overly-priced toy store. All of the students are awe-struck by the prices of such simple toys, and Sylvia even compares a $1195 sailboat to a sailboat set she bought “for a quarter at Pop’s” (199). With the unbelievable price of the toys on her mind, Sylvia begins to think about what kind of people would spend that much for “performing clowns and $1000 for a toy sailboat” (200), addressing how that kind of money would be a precious treasure for her family. Sylvia understands the purpose of the trip to the toy store, but she is too humble to speak her mind. However, one of the other less modest students, Sugar, has an epiphany and states how she thinks it’s foolish for people to spend a ridiculous amount of money on toys when that money should be equally given to the people of society who want to pursue happiness, despite any aspects that might get in the way. At the end of the story, Sylvia changes by becoming determined to get her part of the pleasure of life. She understands the unfairness of society and she won’t let anything stop her; completely opposite of the stubborn, uncaring girl at the beginning of the story.

“Gooseberries” by Anton Chekov is a short story about a main character telling a story. However, there is no purpose to the story bring told by the character, and it seems that it is brought up out of a whim. The main themes of the article are obsession and loneliness. Ivan’s brother, Nicholay, was never content with the life that he lead in the government. He always wanted more, and when he fulfilled his dream he feels like he is more superior than everyone else. Even though Nicholay carried out his dream, his brother sees him as a failure.

Another theme to the story is loneliness. Ivan flucatates between the feelings of happiness and sorrow, but he can never settle on just one single emotion. He views his brother as a failure because he is jealous of his success. The opening setting of the two men wandering through open fields adds to the theme of isolation, also. The character Pelagea makes Ivan seem even more lonely, too.

In the short story, “Good Country People” by Flanney O’Connor, the idea that Christian redemption can be a part of daily life, even in the most unlikely people, is illustrated. The character Hulga is a hard-headed individual in the novel. She pities herself because she has a wooden leg, wears glasses, and isn’t the prettiest of people, but she also thinks she is better than everyone else because she has a high education. She hides behind her leg because it’s her pride and faith. She needs it to survive, and she completely relies on it even though she didn’t realize it until the end. From the beginning of the story, she made it clear that she was a strong believer of nothing. She needs no one and no one is good enough for her to need, but when she decides to step outside her box and take a chance with a “good country” boy who’s “Christian”, she realizes that she does need to rely on someone or something when he deceives her and takes the thing she depends on most: her leg. Without her leg she loses her control on the world, her mind, security, and she was left with her pity. That night she was left with nothing, and she finally realized what it meant to be truly vulnerable and alone.

Based on my findings, I am able to conquer that Alice Walker is quite an extraordinary woman. She writes novels, short stories, poems, and essays. Most of her work is centered around race a gender. In 1983, she was honoured with the Pulitzer Prize for her most known novel, The Color Purple.
She was the last born in a rather large family of eight, in Eatonton, Georgia. She put in a tremendous effort in school where she graduated her class as valedictorian, and she went on to attend an all-girl college on scholarship. She also traveled to Africa to study abroad. At Spelman College, she met Martin Luther King Jr.
All through her life she was a very dedicated activist, and she still is. She does what she can for community. Her and her (ex)husband were the first inter-racial couple in Mississippi, but her strong will-power was never affected by the harassment she received on a daily basis. She had one daughter with him, named Rebbecca.
Overall, Alice Walker is a strong woman and mother who fights for what she believes in and tries to do what she can for the society through her outstanding writing style.

And she is also a vegan, which earns her extra brownie points because ANIMALS ARE FRIENDS, NOT FOOD.

I tried looking up the meaning of “plot arc” on the Internet, but I can’t find any matches, though I assume it means the plot and how it’s shaped.

The story opens with the protagonist, Rainsford, discussing a mysterious island with a sea-mate.The island “has an evil name among seafaring men” (68), in the words of the ships captain, who is explained as fearless. The story is very subtle and basic until Rainsford falls over and swims to the curious island. This is a major shift in the arc, as Rainsford begins to realize what kind of situation he is in. He finds a mansion, and in it he is introduced to a hunter who hunts after the sacred lives of humans. The climax of the story begins when Rainsford finds himself in the middle of an atrocious hunt, and he must use all the skills he has to defeat his menacing opponent. He is able to withstand the guile hunter, and the arc begins to become subtle again. However, the arc shifts once more at the end of the story when the prey ends up killing its hunter.

1.) well-written, data, racist, opinionated, sources

2.) The purpose of this essay is to demonstrate that in Fitzgerald’s masterpiece of the 1920’s, The Great Gatsby, a heightened awareness of ethnic differences does constitute a significant element in the book.

3.) The presence of ethnic differences in Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby, significantly represent the time period it was written in and make it a masterpiece.

4.)  Peter Gregg Slater illustrated the awareness of racial differences in The Great Gatsby very well and opened my eyes to aspects that I didn’t even notice until I read his essay. When he discusses how Fitzgerald created Nick Carraway to represent his own opinions (56) was one of his strong points. By creating Nick, he was able to “correctly” stereotype each different race, such as: “gray, scrawny Italian” (55) or “sinister” Meyer Wolfsheim (56). I also liked how Slater used his word choice to emphasize of the subject of his article.
However, I began to feel like Slater was dragging on about the different views of the American Dream (58), and he was just stretching his points to a point where it didn’t really tie in with his essay.

Robyn Fernando

Ms. Robison

AP Literature Composition

September 4, 2009

The Great Gatsby

Style

                In the novel The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald has a very unique style that he takes to his writing. In this case, style signifies the diction, syntax, figurative language, and descriptions that he uses in his writing. While reading the novel, I realized that Fitzgerald uses a large abundance of color references which in turn, are actually symbols. The first time Gatsby was introduced in the novel, he was seen reaching out to a green light, like he was reaching out for something that was tangible and he needed. The green light was mentioned many times throughout the novel, and at the very end it was described as new life, and “Gatsby believed in the green light”.

The novel is also seen through the main character, Nick Carraway’s eyes. Everything is reflected off of what Nick sees, so of course not every action that occurs is going to be noted. For example, at any of Gatsby’s many parties, the only events that are heard of are the ones that Nick witnesses, so not everything that is going on is noted. As a result of the narrow view of occurrences, events that last for a summer length or a few weeks are described in a short paragraph. Also, Fitzgerald uses phrases like “a few weeks later” or “the next few days”, so it is even easier to get the time setting confused. Fitzgerald’s writing style is also filled with a lot of descriptive imagery. For instance, the description of water or Dr. Eckleburg’s eyes which resemble the eyes of god. Through Fitzgerald’s use of description and symbolism, he was able to show how America was based during the period the novel was written.

Plot Structure and Organization

                The Great Gatsby has a simple, but excellent plot. The entire novel is described through the narrator, Nick Carraway, so it’s all from his point of view. In my opinion, the beginning of the book was kind of confusing because Nick kept jumping around between flashbacks and memories, but by the beginning of the second chapter I was pretty confident about what was going on. The first few chapters of the novel are described almost completely in the present. In this section of the book, the main three settings are shown: East & West Egg, and New York. Fitzgerald did this in order to lay down the foundation of the whole novel and to make things clearer. In the first few chapters, all the main characters are also introduced, and a pretty decent description of each is also given so their personalities can be better understood. In the next few chapters the past is explained, and in the ending of the book, the past and the present come together and the connection of the events are revealed.  The plot of the novel is very well described through Fitzgerald’s incredible writing style; however the organization of timing isn’t done very accurately. The way Fitzgerald phrases things could make one think that the time period is stretched between a few years, but in all actuality is only over the span of a few short weeks.

                The novel has everything that it needs to be the perfect story; a desire to start over, a love story, a character with a suspicious past, and a few dreams ended by murder. The plot is centrally organized around the theme of the deformation of the American Dream and how desire ended in tragedy.

Literary Devices

                Literary devices are used to express ideas through language and to set the framework for the foundation. In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald mainly focuses on symbolism and imagery. One of the greatest symbols in the novel is the eyes of T.J. Eckleburg. The eyes are on a billboard overlooking the valley of ashes. The valley is home to most of the novel’s sins, including Tom’s affair with Myrtle and Myrtle’s murder. The eyes are even there to witness the breakdown of George Wilson and his decision to seek revenge after who he thought was the murderer. They resemble the eyes of God. They’ve seen “many paint less days, under sun and rain,” watching over the grounds, and seeing the atrocities that the American nation commits, and ultimately seeing that they are just as foul as the land that the eyes overlook. Fitzgerald also uses color quite frequently throughout the book. The main colors noted are green, gold, and grey. Green was referred to most discreetly by the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock. Gatsby would often look to it because it resembled a new life or fresh start, a life with Daisy that he never got. In chapter 6, the story of James Gatz is told, and the day he finds Dan Cody he is wearing a green jersey. The significance of Gatsby wearing a green jersey is he’s about to have a fresh beginning. It was James Gatz that was wearing the green jersey, and he started fresh by becoming Jay Gatsby. Gold resembles “old money”. Gatsby, Daisy, and Jordan were all described in the novel by the color gold. In chapter 3, “Jordan’s slender golden arm” rested in Nick’s. Her arm was described as gold because gold (old money) itself is very valuable, and the passage was showing that Jordan was very valuable, too. In chapter 7, Nick finally figured out why Daisy seemed so precious or the “golden girl”. It was because money made her charming. Since gold is referred to as old money it’s easy to see how golden girl Daisy revolves around money. Like money, she can make situations better or worse. And lastly, grey was used to describe those who were lifeless, such as George Wilson. Wilson never really got what he wanted out of life, and he lived in a dull, ashy area. At the end of the book, Wilson was described as “ashen” when walking toward Gatsby to murder him. The fact that he would kill somebody and then take his own life shows that life is not important to him- which is why he is described as grey. Image is built in the novel by Jordan’s need to powder her hands so she looks white and not overworked, or Gatsby’s need to have unopened books in his library to make him look rich and smart. The books resemble Gatsby himself– nobody truly knows who he is- he’s secretive and unknown, like an unopened book.

Central Theme

                The main theme of The Great Gatsby is the distortion of the American Dream. The American Dream is an idea which suggests that all people can succeed through hard work, and that all people have the potential to live happy, successful lives. However, after the victory of the United States in World War 1, the aspects of the American Dream altered greatly, and people became hazed as to what the true meaning was. The American Dream became the pursuit of wealth without having to do the hard work or the want of pleasure without feeling pain. Fitzgerald set The Great Gatsby in the 1920s, during the Jazz Age. During this period, the stock market was greatly increasing, so people had unearned money to spend on whatever they wanted- as Fitzgerald showed through Gatsby’s weekly parties that everybody went to even if they were not invited, which most of the time they weren’t. Characters like Tom and Daisy never had to work for their money because they were born into wealth. And although Gatsby had the life and house that everyone wanted, he did not feel satisfied. Every character in the novel that attempted to capture the American Dream without putting in the work it takes had something very unfortunate happen to them. Gatsby got murdered, Myrtle died while running after her dream, Daisy killed Myrtle and went on the run, and Tom almost lost Daisy to Gatsby. The main character Nick was just there to observe it all and serve as the outsiders who look down at American and see how corrupted it has become.

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Reference

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-the-american-dream.htm – American Dream def.

Robyn Fernando

Ms. Robison

AP Literature Composition

September 4, 2009

The Picture of Dorian Gray

Plot Structure and Organization

            The plot of The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde, is one that is complicated and at the time wasn’t considered moral. It’s the story about a young, very good looking boy who trades his soul for never-ending youth, but didn’t realize what a terrible thing he was doing at the time. The story opens with a famous painter, Basil Hallward, showing his “best work” to his dear friend, Lord Henry Wotten. The portrait was of Dorian Gray, and it magnificently portrayed his beauty and boyhood. On their introduction, Lord Henry scared Dorian by bewildering him with a lecture of philosophy and telling him that when his youth left, he would have nothing. So when Basil finished the portrait and Dorian saw it, he wished, “If only it were I who was to be always young, and the picture that was to grow old! For that- for that- I would give everything!” And everything is exactly what he gave. Every sin he committed reflected upon the portrait until it grew too ugly that Dorian himself, tried to destroy it, but by destroying the painting and his soul, he destroyed himself and ended his own life while the portrait remained beautiful.

            The novel is told through an anonymous narrator and it has a dark tone. The entire context is written in the present, regardless of the moments when any of the characters look back at a memory. It’s very well organized and does not jump around from different time periods. The chronological organization helps to make the book easier to understand, although Wilde’s writing style is complex. Wilde also organized the novel by using cause and effect. He explained in depth what caused Dorian Gray to exchange his soul for good looks, and then he slowly started to reveal the effects of his poor decision to the readers.

Style

            The Picture of Dorian Gray was the only novel that Oscar Wilde ever published, so it was the first glimpse the public had into his writing style. When it was first published there was an uproar in the people because some of the events in the novel were considered immoral. During the 1800s when it was first published, the public was startled at how profoundly Wilde bashed art, saying that it is only surface material and something beautiful to look at that holds no deeper meaning, and that “all art is quite useless”. The 1800s was the period where emotional art was first introduced, and many people admired the beauty and “saw” the depth to the meaning. Oscar Wilde used his characters in the novel to reveal how he truly felt about certain things. He even addressed his own “homosexuality” through his homoerotic bonds between the male characters. If not for Basil’s adoration toward Dorian, the portrait would never have been painted. And if Lord Henry wasn’t fixed on changing Dorian into what he wanted him to be, then Dorian would never have made the wish to give up his soul. Wilde, like the character Basil, put a great deal of himself into his work saying that, “Basil is what I think I am: Lord Henry what the world thinks of me: Dorian what I would like to be- in other ages, perhaps.” After reading the novel, I cannot agree more with him.

            In his writing, Wilde uses a very descriptive style. Things that would take others perhaps a few words to say are drawn out onto pages when he describes them. For example, in the part of the novel where Dorian becomes fascinated with treasure because of its undying beauty, Wilde describes the treasure that Dorian likes in six pages. Not only does he tell what the treasure is, but he also sites who it belonged to and where. Although his eloquent style can be burdensome to read, Wilde’s ability to make something so plain into something exquisite is breathtaking. His description of birds in the park make the animals seem like the most stunning creatures in the world. Throughout the entire novel, he turns the ordinary into extraordinary.

            At points, the novel is easy to follow because there are long dialogue passages, but the introduction of new character that are too alike is hard to follow. Also Wilde’s sections on philosophy can drag on for a long time and it gets really hard to stay focused on the main subject.

Literary Devices

            Oscar Wilde uses an abundance of literary devices in the novel, including allusion, irony, and symbolism. In the first chapter, Dorian is compared to the Greek mythological characters Adonis and Narcissus. Adonis was a very handsome man who captured the love of the goddess of beauty, and Narcissus was a young man gifted with looks as well, but fell in love with his own reflection due to gazing at himself for too long. The literary allusions to Greek mythology are very suitable for the novel because they correctly portray the character Dorian Gray.

            There are a few symbols in the novel, but the main one is the yellow book that Lord Henry gives Dorian. Unfortunately, the title of the book was never revealed. The book is about a man who seeks pleasure and the beauties in the world, and as Dorian can greatly relate to him, he becomes quite obsessed with the book. He gets it printed several times and binds them in different colors. Dorian lives by the book and it becomes like a blueprint for his own life, and he bases his actions off of it. This book is what made Dorian seek after beautiful things and pleasure, so it ultimately lead to damage to his soul. The books appeals to the whole art theme to the novel, showing how dangerous art can be to some people.

            At the beginning of the novel, both Basil and Lord Henry visualize Dorian Gray as a young man whose soul and body are in harmony. They see him as a pure, innocent young boy who could do no wrong. The main irony in the novel is that both of their visualizations of Dorian cause his soul and body to separate. His body remains untouched by age, and his soul grows older and uglier by each sin he commits, as shown by the painting.

Central Theme

The central theme of The Picture of Dorian Gray is first established in the prefix of the novel. The prefix goes into depth about art; its creator, purpose, and ultimately how it’s useless. The entire novel focuses around two pieces of art: the portrait of Dorian that Basil Hallward painted and the yellow book Lord Henry gave to Dorian as a gift. The painting is brought into account in almost every chapter and it’s used as a mirror that shows Dorian the physical state of his soul, although his body has is spared. The yellow book lays the foundation for Dorian’s later actions. He turns to the book for everything and it leads him down the path of self pleasure and superficial items. It also leads him into admiring items that hold beauty, which is another main theme to the novel.

In the prefix, Wilde exposed how art was only something that held beauty and no other value. Throughout the novel, beauty is an aspect that is at utmost importance. The second Basil reveals his painting of Dorian to Lord Henry, Lord Henry becomes is filled with yearning to meet Dorian and seduce him. Upon meeting Dorian, he tells him the philosophy of life and, how someday Dorian’s most prized characteristics will fade away. Dorian lived in a society where youth and good looks were precious features. He gave everything he had to be beautiful and young, and in the end, he paid a very high price for his beauty: his soul, while the portrait remained beautiful.

The main theme that led to harmful results was the aspect of influence. The desire that fueled Basil’s painting was the influence that Dorian held over him. Basil completely idolized him and his adoration of Dorian ultimately led to Basil’s murder. Lord Henry also influenced Dorian. From the first time he met him, Lord Henry began influencing him with stories about life and its true meaning. He gave Dorian the yellow book that influenced Dorian to look at beauty as a most prized possession, and it caused Dorian to give up something very important in order to maintain his attractive, young state. In the novel, the influence that one character held over another led to that person’s devastation.

So far this class has been everything I’ve expected it to be. The summer assignment and homework so far have been normal, but I know the difficulty of the work is going to increase. I’m excited to read literary books and decipher their true meaning. I’m not looking forward to timed writes though :/.  Overall, I think this is going to be a very fun, hard, but rewarding class.