Class Notes 4-2

Class Notes

Feb 7^th – Feb 17^th

HOD discussions + Apocalypse Now

• The jungle is the Garden of Eden that is corrupted

• The river is Stix, which flows through the hell

• As Marlow was going into the jungle, he was going through the different levels of hell; that was a reference to Dante’s Inferno

• Crone(?) Figure is the knitting old women; wool was called African hair, and the old women knitting wool in the office of the company symbolized that the company was trying to rule over the fate of the world by controlling the African people

• The multi-colored coat of the Russian guy was an allusion of Joseph in Bible, who received a colorful coat from his father

• Kurtz could be an allusion to Pharaoh

• Anima figure, which is a personified spirit, is the African woman; she is the Congo itself.

Outside Reading 4-3

Date: Feb 19^th

Title: Egypt Cuts Off Most Internet and Cell Service

Author: Matt Richtel

Type of reading: Newspaper piece

You can find the actual article I read from the web site below:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/29/technology/internet/29cutoff.html

I believe that a very important point of the newspaper articles is to inform the readers about the recent happenings around the nation and the world in the most clear, most concise and the most unbiased writings. And some of the dictions in this article, I believe, have increased the clarity of the information. For example, the words “only,” “handful” and “a few” from the line “Egypt has only a handful of major Internet access providers, so it would take just a few phone calls to get them to stop the flow of traffic.” None of those three dictions is a big vocabulary. Rather, all three of them are the most basic terms ever. However, by using those terms in the sentence, the sentence most clearly carried out its meaning that the autocratic government in Egypt did not have any difficulty violating people’s rights to access the Internet. The Internet, however, is more than just an Internet; it is the global network in this society, and it is the only window for free speech of people who are oppressed and trampled.

The overall organization of information and the transitions between different interviews, which should be categorized as a detail of this article, are very clear. As a newspaper article, I believe that is a very nice thing, because not only the information would be more easily understood by the readers but also the readers would be more easily persuaded by the article for the article would appear more formal. For example, proper use of transitions such as “As a result” and “By contrast” made the idea to flow more smoothly and especially “by contrast” well clarified which side the following point lies upon.

The author creates a strong voice by listing out facts, such as interviews and numerical data. Those details not only strengthen the voice, but also increase the reality of the article and therefore make the article far more persuasive to the readers. In AP essays, it would not be a bad idea to have a stronger voice for a point of AP essays is to analyze the literature from individuals’ points of view, however, it would not be very useful to list out numbers and facts in AP essays. Also, few test-takers would have enough knowledge to do that.

Outside Reading 4-2

Date: Feb 17^th

Title: Doctor Speaks
Author: Robert Isenberg
Type of reading: Reflective Essay
You can find the actual article I read from the website below:
http://www.mcsweeneys.net/links/doctor/1doctor.html

The essay was written by an actor who acts at Medical Interview classes as a patient. The author has acted many different patients with different diseases and backgrounds, but this time he had to act a patient who had warts around his rectum. He was so unwilling to act such a person, because it is simply so embarrassing. There are many evidences showing how unhappy he was acting such a patient: when he was asked where the warts were, he hesitated like "They're... around my..." and then he answered in “a gravelly mumble.” By the way, I liked the diction of “gravelly.” By saying “gravelly,” it made me to think that the author’s voice at the moment would have been very “dry,” which I think is very appropriate for he is not at all interested. He said to himself “Let this end. Please let this end. I hate this fucking case,” not only the repetition but also the colloquialism shows how much he did not want to do that. Following was his list of diseases and pains that he had acted before, and he says: “But anal warts are by far the most annoying.” The syntax of those sentences, which can be characterized by its lengthy continuity, also shows his hostility towards the job.

             The tone of the author was an ordinary narrative for the most part. However, the conversations between med students and the author added some comic effects to it. Also one thing about the tone that stood out for me was that the author had a little bit of sarcasm in it. The author did not directly mention how much he thinks the Medical Interview classes or the med students are stupid, but rather he used some quoted terms and italicized words to create the effect. For example like "showing empathy" and "maintaining eye-contact" and “What kind of question is that?” obviously reflects the author’s sarcasm. Therefore, the tone would not be the most appropriate for AP essays, because it is sarcastic, and also the tone is a little too informal for an academic essay.

Outside Reading 4-1

Date: February 15th
Title: Once on This Island
Author: Barbara Kingsolver
Type of Reading: Book Review
Found from New York Times


           The extraordinary title of the book “When the Killing’s Done” has indicated that the story is going to be a unique one. And even this review of the book does not seem quite ordinary. This book review starts with two very weird questions: “Who could love a rat?” and “What could possess a man to sail to an uninhabited island, in defiance of law, and throw out vitamin K pellets as an antidote to a government-sponsored rat-poisoning program?” The questions do not only catch readers’ attentions, but also reveal that the story is going to be somehow related to a guy, an island and rates. An island? The title of the article is called “Once on This Island,” and the readers may think here, “What island?” The writer quickly answers the question in the following paragraph. The author tells us that the island in this novel is an “impassioned portrait of a real place, the Channel Islands of California.” Through the organization of the information, which can be seen as a detail of the article, the reviewer relates the novel to the reality for the readers, the author may have amplified the curiosity of the readers of the review, and may have reached closer to one of the review’s purposes: advertisement.

The writer calls the island “an isolated cradle” and “the doorsill of extinction.” Using these two dictions, the writer has smoothly introduced the two main characters who despise each other unconditionally: Alma Takesue, the “habitat-restorer” and Dave LaJoy, the “animal-lover.” The introduction of these two characters and the contradiction of those two are very interestingly written in the review. The author calls Takesue “the saner half of this moral face-off” and described LaJoy as “a fanatic decked out in dreadlocks and vegetarian zeal.” The dictions that the author used are not formal but very lively and humorous. Moreover, the author also called the island “pre-human Eden” —which is obviously an allusion from the Bible—that is shown the “dramatic mercy” of human beings. By saying Eden, it should be meaning that the island was beautiful like a paradise when it was left untouched, but the author sarcastically wrote that it was touched by human with “dramatic mercy” that has destroyed the paradise completely.

The argument between Takesue and LaJoy is caused by the declaration of government that made the Channel Islands a national park. There were not so many rats on the island before, but somehow the rats got on to the island, and they started to reproduce uncontrollably. Takesue wants to protect the ecosystem by killing the rats, but LaJoy opposes it and tries to save it. That seems to be the basic plot of the book. No one can really determine which of them is right and which of them is wrong. The article starts with two confusing questions and ends without any answer for anything. However, the article closes with one line like this: “When will the killing be finished? Never.” Here the author gives out the only clear answer in the entire piece of writing, and this may be indicating that the author has the same perspective with LaJoy, who is the animal lover.

Class Notes 4-1

Class Notes

Jan 24^th - Feb 4^th

Topic 1 Medievalism and Allegory

1.      Trends in The History of Western Literature

(Classical Literature -> Medieval Literature -> Renaissance Literature -> Romantic/ Victorian/ Realist Era -> Modernist Era -> Postmodernist Era )

• Who is worthy of being a literary protagonist?

God, Nobility -> Nobility, Pilgrims -> Nobles, Lords, Everyman -> Lower class, Nobles, Lovers, Everyman -> Poor, Minority, Everyman -> Every”thing”, Everyman

• What themes and motifs does literature primarily focus on?

Fate, Mortality -> Morality, Religion -> Love, Loyalty, Family, Tragedy -> Nature v. City, Corruption of Society -> Rejection of society, Individualism -> Everything

• Who or what motivates the events in the plot?

Gods, Fate -> Religion, Chivalry -> Lover, Supernatural -> Love, Supernatural, Social status -> Self-discovery, Meaning of life -> Self-discovery, Meaning of life, No dividing force

• What are the acceptable forms of literature?

Oral, Drama, Poem -> Play, Essay -> Play, Poem -> Poem, Essays -> Novel -> Novel

• What narrative techniques are most in favor?

3^rd person omniscient narrative (epic tone, elevated) -> Indirect characterization, narrator is no longer so “God-like” or judgmental -> ? -> Object voice, like news report, 1^st person narrative -> 1^st person narrative (sometimes the narrator is not even the main character) -> 1^st person narrative (sometimes the narrator is not even the main character), Non-linear narrator, Multiple narrators, Stream of conciousness

2.      Allegory and Medieval allegory

• Allegory: a technique used to externally validate a text

• Medieval allegory: allegories are the hallmark of medieval literature

              Ex) TSTL(Too Stupid To Live) heroines

Topic 2 Everyman

• Everyman figure: the character is unnamed or given vague and general personal characteristics, especially when the setting seems somehow “mythic” or has a fairytale quality or is otherwise somehow “outside” of time

• Example of the type of Medieval drama known as the morality play

• Morality play v. Mystery play = composed individually v. in cycles

• Employed allegory to dramatize the moral struggle Christianity envisions universal in every individual

• The play shows the hero’s progression from despair and fear of death to a “Christian resignation that is the prelude to redemption”

• The play makes its grim point that we can take with us from this world nothing that we have received, only what we have given

Topic 3 Divine Comedy

• Written by Dante Alghieri

• Three-part epic: Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso

• Written in Terza rima, and interlocked series of rhymed lines in sets of three

• Allegorical vision of Christian afterlife

• Beatrice, Dante’s “ideal woman,” whom Dante admired from afar in the then-fashionable tradition of courtly love

• Considered to be both emblematic of the medieval worldview and one of the greatest works of Western literature