Open Prompt #4

1.      1971. The significance of a title such as The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is so easy to discover. However, in other works (for example, Measure for Measure) the full significance of the title becomes apparent to the reader only gradually. Choose a work and show how the significance of their respective titles is developed through the authors' use of devices such as contrast, repetition, allusion, and point of view.

The title of a novel is always one of the most significant factors that attracts the reader to begin reading its story. Unlike pieces with straightforward titles, books with meaningful names such as The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky allows the reader to continue towards an extra step in their reading process and interpret the connection between the title of the novel to the story itself. After finishing Chbosky's piece, the significance of the indication behind the title gradually becomes clearer to the reader and an ultimate metaphorical reference or connection can be determined through the title.  Through completing the story, it can be determined that The Perks of Being a Wallflower is not a novel about a flower that grows out of a wall, but is a metaphorical name of the main character, Charlie, and the role he plays as the “listener” for the people around him.             

Chbosky's epistolary novel opens with Charlie's first letter to a mysterious person he refers to as "friend." Through these letters, Charlie shares his point of view of the events that occurred during the past while also including updates on his present life as a freshman in high school.  His innocent sense towards these occurrences reveals his nature as an extremely lucid young teenager and also uncovers his personality as a quiet and thoughtful person who tends to blend in with the background.Instead of being the center of attention, Charlie portrays himself as the one who prefers to watch from an outside point of view which ultimately associates him to being a wallflower. 

The contrast between Charlie's personality traits and the other characters within the novel also reinforce the idea that Charlie is the wallflower referred to in the title. Wallflowers are seen to be uniquely beautiful and delicate, which is an exact match to Charlie's characteristics. Charlie's intelligence enables himself to see the good in all the people around him and he also speaks words from the heart. Unlike the other characters that he encounters, Charlie is unique through the fact that he is extremely sensitive and straightforward about his feelings which many of the characters are unable to relate to. Chbosky's way of portraying the contrasting characteristics places extreme emphasis on Charlie's embodiment of the wallflower.   
Although the novel never clearly states so, it can be seen that through his personality and unique way of associating with the people  that Charlie definitely holds the qualities of what someone calls a wallflower. Chbosky's novel may not have included an obvious title to decipher from the beginning of the read like The Adventures of Hucklberry Finn, but instead it contains elements that require a gradual understanding which eventually leads the reader to make a connection between Charlie and the title itself.

Close Reading #3

Read Article Here!

Alright, yes. My close reading for this week was over an article written about Lady Gaga. As cliche as that may seem, it was a good article and it had many literary elements that made the article good. Judging by the fact that the piece was taken from Vogue magazine, the writer Jonathan Van Meter successfully included the type of details, imagery, and diction that enabled his article to grab the reader's attention. I'll start with the details. First of all, I would just like to remind you that this is a Lady Gaga article, which I'd assume most of the American population is more than familiar with. So it's easy enough for Van Meter to incorporate details such as the way Gaga first entered the room for the interview and exactly what she is wearing from head to toe to already have the reader's full attention and understanding. Although Van Meter did include such details, him including descriptions that went even more in depth made the article more interesting and easier to relate to. By using details such as distinguishing Gaga's "day look: a slinky black-and-white striped dress,four-foot train and shoes that...make her feet look as if they are screwed on backward, [and] ... Bride of Frankenstein updo, with a brooch perched on top" Van Meter adds great emphasis to this piece and helps the reader not only realize how eccentric Gaga is, but also ties them into easy access to the imagery of the scene. Van Meter does a wonderful job in including certain details that accentuate the way the reader interprets the writing and their ability to picture the situation that he has created. Certain words that Van Meter incorporated into his writing also help grab the reader's attention. By using words such as "mincing" to describe Gaga's entrance into the room and her "messianic zeal", Van Meter is able to portray a feeling of praise and respect towards Gaga while also reflecting a sense of sophistication towards his writing abilities. Van Meter really takes advantage of the power of word choice to further the excitement of the topic of the article and by doing this, has enabled his readers to have a better experience of reading his piece. Through reading this piece, it can easily be seen through the usage of detail, imagery, and diction that Van Meter not only genuinely admires the pop star, but also is an experienced writer himself.

Response to Course Material #3

     For the past week, our class has been diving into our second read of The American Dream. I can't say that this process was easy...since my class in particular LOVES to nit pick at the smallest of details. I'm not saying that this is a bad thing, since it definitely helps me along with noticing things that I never would've deciphered myself, but I'm just noticing that it takes about three class periods just for my class to get through about seven pages of reading.
     Anyway, I guess I could say that so far, I've been pretty intrigued with the different ideas and theories that have been formed of the passages. For example, somebody in my class pointed out the repetitive letters within a section of the reading to be taken as a sexual reference. Speaking of details...kudos to him for noticing this because never in a million years would I have gotten that message just from a few letters. But back to what I was saying...the message behind the play is vague enough so that anybody who reads it can form a different perspective as to what Albee is really trying to get at and...that really is one of the reasons why I love literature. I actually enjoy sitting there during class and writing down the interesting ideas that everybody comes up with in my book. It's not just for the satisfaction of having scribbles all over my book that make me feel all cool, but also just the fact that I can read what I've written down and actually understand the section better. Annotating is a pretty nifty thing I must say. 
      So other than dedicating an entire week of in depth discussion and annotating, our class really hasn't done anything else. It's alright though, because I got to learn how to become a better annotator AND started noticing the littlest of details that I wouldn't have given a crap about a week ago. So yay.

Open Prompt #3

1.      1980. A recurring theme in literature is the classic war between a passion and responsibility. For instance, a personal cause, a love, a desire for revenge, a determination to redress a wrong, or some other emotion or drive may conflict with moral duty. Choose a literary work in which a character confronts the demands of a private passion that conflicts with his or her responsibilities. In a well-written essay show clearly the nature of the conflict, its effects upon the character, and its significance to the work.

The feeling of being torn in the decision between passion and responsibility is a situation familiar to almost everyone. Newland Archer from Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence is no exception. After the arrival of Newland's fiance's cousin, Ellen Olenska, Newland finds himself caught trying to decide between settling with his fiancee May, who is considered as the "perfect" woman, and following his passionate love for Ellen, who is anything but the idealistic woman.  Newland’s choice of remaining with May in the end despite his love for Ellen ultimately reflects his commitment to his moral duties and responsibilities.

After announcing his engagement to May, Newland knew that he was more than blessed to have such a flawless and proper woman agree to take his hand in marriage. Although delighted with May's innocence and beauty, Newland's true passion  was not evoked until his acquaintance with the mysterious Ellen, who brought along with her stories of adultery and divorce that disgraced the image of her family. Ellen's imperfections however became the sole quality that sparked Newland's strong attraction for her. Through Newland's eyes, Ellen's flaws were seen as elements that made her real and her lack of shame towards all of the judgement that she had to face just made her more admirable. Newland's passion for Ellen grew while his love for May began to simmer as he realized the dullness in May's so-called perfect characteristics. 

Soon following Newland's first few interactions with Ellen, the relationship between the two began to grow and bloom in secrecy. Ellen's careless nature urged Newland to long for her more while the rumors that circulated around them of her disfigured past opened Newland's eyes to the flaws of the idealistic society that he lived in. Through Ellen, Newland begins to realize the superficial qualities of not only his community, but also his fiancee. As a result, Newland begins to despise the blandness of both May and the people around him while his desire for Ellen becomes more powerful. 

Although Newland struggles with the decision of taking a leap of faith with Ellen or settling with May, Newland ultimately chooses to go against his wishes and remain with May. Ellen may have opened Newland's eyes, but his dedication towards his moral duties of living a proper life outweighed his passion for the woman he loved and the realistic life that he desired. Through this story, Edith Wharton cleverly portrays the significant message that the result of taking responsibility over passion does not always result in happiness by closing the story with Newland never living the life that he longed to live.

Close Reading #2: Things I Wish Someone Had Told Me When I Was Eighteen

Read This Article!

        "Things I Wish Someone Had Told Me When I Was Eighteen" by Marc and Angel may seem like just another self improvement article, but it is much more than that. Not only does this piece apply to my specific age group, but the author also uses certain advices that the reader can actually understand and apply to their daily lives. It's hard to draw the literary elements from this article because much of it is not just one solid piece, instead the format contains an introduction which then becomes a list. So I'm going to try to evaluate this piece as much as possible and see where I can go from there.
          Marc and Angel's usage of a realistic scenario in the beginning of the piece was a great way to set a strong base for the reader and help them connect to the idea of the article. This certain scenario enabled the reader to have a clear imagery of the conversation between the author and the teenager, mostly because this kind of situation occurs quite often in the society we live in. Other than enhancing the imagery, the diction of the article plays another role in setting the mood and tone. Marc and Angel uses words pertaining to positive tones including "accept, embrace, commit, love" that emphasizes the encouraging and optimistic mood that they use to try to inspire the reader. The authors also avoid the usage of large and complicated words in order to reach out to a larger range of an audience, especially teenagers.
           I'm not exactly sure if this falls under syntax, but I just wanted to recognize the impact that the formatting had on the article. Marc and Angel's way of portraying their ideas through composing a list-type article not only emphasizes each point in an organized arrangement, but it also makes it easier and more interesting for the reader. The ideas and advices made are further elaborated through a paragraph that follows each bolded topic sentence. This catches the reader's attention and encourages them to read further on and to reflect on their own personal connections with the article.
           
*Note: This is not one of my best interpretations of an article. I'm not exactly sure why, but I actually found this article really challenging to try to pull apart. I'LL DO BETTER NEXT TIME I SWEAR.

Response to Course Material #2

          It's been less than a month since my last response to the course material and we have already learned so much more in the class...
          I'll just start with our study in syntax.The article by Virginia Tufte that was given to us during class was not only all about syntax, but it also really helped me have a better grasp on the concept of this literary device. I'm going to admit that before coming into this class, I didn't even know what syntax was. This article actually opened my eyes to the importance of sentence structure. After examining the story segments in the back of the packet, I became more and more familiar with the fact that writing is not only about what words were used or if the punctuation was correctly applied, but it also is greatly impacted by how the sentences are formed and the different affects that the location and size of each sentence or word has on the piece as a whole.
            Moving on to The American Dream. Despite the fact that it was probably the weirdest play I have ever read in my life, I was still able to gather some useful information from it by applying what we've learned in class to the piece. I thought one of the most important details to know before even reading the play is that the style of the piece is called "Theatre of the Absurd". After reading the "Theatre of the Absurd" article (given to us by Holmes), it really cleared things up for me and became an explanation as to why the play was so strange itself. For example, one of the first things I noticed about the play was the strange usage of language. The dialogue between the characters was exactly like how the article had explained: the words traded between each person did just "become nothing but a vehicle for conventionalized, stereotyped, meaningless exchanges." This along with the other information provided in the article really served as a guiding light for me while reading the actual play.
             Beside those two things, we were also handed two other articles that explained the types of comedy and the theories drawn from humor and comedy. These articles were extremely helpful in my interpretation of the American Dream  while also refreshing my memory on the techniques and terms used through comedy. I was also surprised to learn about how many different theories that could be interpreted from comedic works and all the elements that were required to for a piece to actually become humorous (I won't re-list these elements because I'm assuming that you've read these articles.)
             Anyway, those are the things I've learned thus far in AP Lit. Now I'm going to move on and write about my Close Reading (awkward concluding paragraph ends here).

Open Prompt #2

1.      1997. Novels and plays often include scenes of weddings, funerals, parties, and other social occasions. Such scenes may reveal the values of the characters and the society in which they live. Select a novel or play that includes such a scene and, in a focused essay, discuss the contribution the scene makes to the meaning of the work as a whole. You may choose a work from the list below or another novel or play of literary merit.

Social occasions are oftentimes used within a novel to reflect a character's way of portraying him or herself. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic novel, The Great Gatsby, the name Jay Gatsby was far from unfamiliar to those who resided in the wealthy side of Long Island area during the 1920s. Gatsby's name reflected his legendary lavish parties which always consisted of an unlimited supply of alcohol, food, and partying. This, along with his mysteriously large sum of money, was what made The Gatsby so great. The parties of which Jay Gatsby threw not only succeeded in accomplishing a well-known name and status for him, but it also contributed towards creating the false image of his high class value.

Beginning with the first few chapters of the novel, Gatsby's presence is introduced into the story through periodic sightings of him during the night. By not immediately introducing Gatsby, Fitzgerald is able to create the sense of mystery behind this particular character, which further raises the sense of uncertainty behind Gatsby's background story. As the novel progresses, Fitzgerald begins to shed more light on Gatsby by making his formal introduction to both Nick and the reader occur during one of the many extravagant parties he is known to throw. The emphasis applied to how and where Gatsby is formally introduced contributes towards making him appear to be extremely wealthy, therefore allowing him to fit into the high class society.

The effort that Gatsby puts into his parties also hints towards the fact that he is after something more than just making a name for himself. The descriptions within the novel of the amounts of food and  time spent just to prepare for a single event contributes to the overall idea that Gatsby is trying to create the image of wealth and hierarchy for himself in order to attract the attention of the person he loves. By becoming the life of the party, Gatsby utilizes his events as a distraction to mask his true identity and value, which is not nearly as impressive as everyone believes he is.

Through associating himself with the wealthy society and hosting luxurious events, Jay Gatsby is able to present himself of having equal fortune and prosperity as the society around him. Although the parties of which he hosts successfully portrays him as a high class citizen, Gatsby is unable to achieve his true goal of winning the heart of his love through these events.