Lit Terms 3

exposition: the beginning
expressionism: movement, unrealistic representation
fable: story with animals that teaches a moral truth
fallacy: false notion
falling action: part of the story after the climax
farce: boisterous comedy with dialogue
figurative language; language characterized by figurative speech
flashback: a flashback
foil: opposing characters or things
folk tale: Oral tradition story
foreshadowing: hinting at what is to happen
free verse: verse without a pattern
genre: a category of a book
gothic tale: tale characterized by gothic elements
hyperbole: overexaggeration
imagery: vivid description
implication: something that the reader has to arrive at
incongruity: joining of opposite elements to balance each other
inference: judgement based on evidence
irony: incongruity between what is said and what is meant

Thanks Laura!

http://www.lauraritchie.com/2015/01/25/piece-story/


Laura has helped me and Erica I with our masterpiece. I hope that you all will be able to share your stories with us!

What's The Story?

(I wrote this while listening to the Brain Food playlist on Spotify. I really like it.)
     Reading Great Expectations is like reading society itself. Fiction is reflective on society and human nature. In dreams when you see people, they have all been seen before at one time or another. You may not recognize a face but subconsciously you remember them. In fiction there are many themes that seem new, but they have all been seen before. The author may intend to write for the sake of writing yet meaning is conveyed subconsciously just as faces in dreams are seen subconsciously. The themes that we read about have been seen in society and copied down in a book. Dickens wrote Great Expectations because he wanted to reflect on how when the human instinct is to want and be greedy, it will lead to a state of decay and corruption by the fortune one craved dearly in the beginning until simplicity is craved instead.
     "So imperfect was this realization of the first of my great expectations, that I looked in dismay at Mr. Wemmick. "Ah!" said he, mistaking me; "the retirement reminds you of the country. So it does me."" Through the use of foreshadowing Charles Dickens exploits a child's dreams/expectations of becoming something great and better. Foreshadowing is present in the title, this quote, and the broken phases of Pip's expectations. When a child is asked what they want to be, most will respond with something that would be nearly impossible to attain. Pip wants to be a gentleman. He craves something more than the simple life that he has had no choice to live with. Pip's desire is the first stage of his false expectations that wealth is perceived to bring.
     The two men that develop Pip's expectations are foils. Most of these expectations are derived from shallow and materialistic perceptions of the lifestyle and personality these people represent. Joe has a colloquial diction and tone. It is very clear that he is uneducated, yet he is satisfied with his lifestyle. If he wasn't, he wouldn't have sacrificed his position in society to save Pip. Unfortunately, all Pip sees is a man who is kind, yet ignorant of the life he could have. Jaggers is an educated, wealthy man. He could buy just about anything that he wants, except for the happiness he had lost from the power he got from his wealth.  He abandoned his daughter Estella and feels no remorse. His diction and syntax is formal and has a business-like connotation because his business is what gets him power. From the drastic foil comparison Dickens created, wealth comes to represent a poison of decay.
     Wealth symbolizing corruption is a cliché that may seem unusual for a great author to use. Dickens used this cliché because it is a thought that can be seen in society through various rulers throughout history. By using something that is incredibly mundane, Dickens allows the audience to focus on the decay of Pip and his returning want for simplicity. In doing so, the audience is able to connect to Pip on a more emotional level.

Funny Commencement Speeches

I know it's a little early for commencement speeches, but these ones are really great :)


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmDYXaaT9sA






https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2Y0F0cNLDM

Schooling

So today in French I really felt like blogging about the class but couldn't so I'm doing it now. I love French(the language, not the class) and I love the culture. Someday I would love to be bilingual in a language. As much as I love the language I have this hate for the class. Today, I couldn't help but notice how many times I stared at the clock wondering when I was getting out. This class is the epitome of traditional schooling. A group of kids forced to sit in a room and be told to learn, while everything in our bodies is telling us to count the minutes left. I'm not purposefully bragging about myself, but I am one of the smartest students in there. Not because I get an "A", but because I pay attention. The students in this class literally refuse to learn. Even if you just sat in the class you could soak up a little French. But no, it's as if the students are brick walls instead of sponges. How much learning can be accomplished by talking to a brick wall? It's not entirely the student's fault though. Teaching French from a 1980's textbook is about as exciting as watching grass grow. Why I decided to blog about this is because I think how sad it is that we are expected to be bricks, so therefore we become bricks. And our refusal to learn is going to make us ignorant and deviate from our dreams so that we're brick walls in a cubicle counting the minutes 'til we get to go home.

Please don't see this movie

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ci7eKlNRiuw


You have got to be fucking kidding me right now. This movie is praising one othe shittiest time-old messages out there: To fit in, you have to change the way you look.

January 21 in class conversations

• Lower class tends to be more humble and fairly satisfied 
• Higher class tends to be evil and unsatisfied
• Dickens sees materialism as a poison 
• Materialism is used to replace feeling which can only be made from emotion not an inanimate object
• Yet class does not stop the craving of wealth
• Joe was humble, caring, etc
• Jaggers (Daggers??) Is evil and wants power as a life source
• Havisham has decayed possibly because of her wealth

AP LIT TERMS 2 REMIX

http://www.funnelbrain.com/c-508-disease-thus-become-inhabitant-lowood-death-its-frequent-vis.html

This is an interactive flashcard and you try to get your best time.

ALL THAT DAVID COPPERFIELD KIND OF CRAP

From what I've read about online, David Copperfield is a drawn account of David's life. It is extremely detailed from his birth to him running away. So the first line of Catcher in the Rye is a point to stray away from the typical setting of a novel. Instead of detailing every moment on how he got to this point of his life, he is going to start with him leaving boarding school and finish from there. Dickens's style of writing uses details of life from start to finish are the driving force for the theme and audience's attention. By detailing a life, not many can connect to that character. Instead, Salinger develops his character through the present and short time lapses. In this way, the audience understands Holden's beaten spirit more rather than just a recount of how and why he got to this point in his life.

AP PREP POST 1: SIDDHARTHA

A bildungsroman, or coming-of-age novel, recounts the psychological or moral development of its protagonist from youth to maturity, when this character recognizes his or her place in this world. Select a single pivotal moment in the psychological or moral development of the protagonist of a bildungsroman. Then write a well-organized essay on how that moment shapes the work as a whole.
http://www.tesd.k12.pa.us/cms/lib/PA01001259/Centricity/Domain/321/2013%20Question%203.pdf

In the passage, Siddhartha's primary attitude toward normal human life was that it appeared...?
http://www.learnerator.com/ap-english-literature/q/1041/siddharthas-attitude
Siddhartha's primary attitude is illusory. in the excerpt this is from, he is very questionable on what everything means in life.

In the context of the passage, the singular form of the word "ascetic" (line 1) most likely means..."
http://www.learnerator.com/ap-english-literature/q/1041/meaning-of-ascetic
Ascetic in this excerpt means self-abnegation.

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.
1980 AP exam http://mseffie.com/AP/APOpenQuestions.html
I would have to read all of Siddhartha to fully see if this question can be answered. In the passage we did read, Siddhartha has a life of shambles, an identity crisis, and two new paths to choose from.

Choose a specific archetype and demonstrate its function in the novel. How does it contribute to theme or character development? Determine whether the archetype is being used traditionally or is being manipulated by Hesse. http://www.lz95.org/assets/1/17/Siddhartha_JQ.doc
To answer this question I would need to read the full novel to discover all the characters.


The questions focus a lot on literature terms in text and definitions of words I don't know with words I don't know the answer to the question. I feel like the multiple choice is rather simple but I'm worried about the FRQ. Honestly, I hope I will recognize a book on the list an I hope I remember something about it. When I read I'm into the novel, but a few months go by and I forget 80% of what happened.

Siddartha notes

• snake lays in his path (something that stops his forward path)
• we feel that we're born on a set path derived from our parents and others expectations of ourselves but there are times when we need to stray from the path set out for us to discovery our own.
• tone: he feels alone because he's created his own path that nobody has trekked; he feels despair and a loss at leaving his old life behind but in a way discovers a new clarity in his path
• this excerpt reminds me of the Invisible Man

Conversation 3

Yesenia 

• She is interested in language
• I was thinking she could help us with translations for stories in our video to get as many varied experiences as we can

Convesation 2

Jisu Yoon

• she wants to create a musical masterpiece :)
• she and Naiomi are going to write a song about literature and human nature and then perform it in class
• I was thinking she might be able to help with a song for a video I want to create for my masterpiece

Conversations 1

Erica Paculan

Erica and I have been discussing doing our masterpiece together. So, our masterpiece is centered on embracing everyone despite gender, race, sexual orientation, etc.. We have two parts: a video and an event. With the video we would like to ask people their story. Something that brought them to where they are today that can help our understanding of each other. It doesn't have to be tragic but tragedy seems to be a commonplace of understanding. The event part involves the students from our class making hearts (it can be a heart-shaped rock, a painting, etc.) that we're made with love. For the event we will have people bring food that represents them and everyone will bring their heart and set them out. Everyone will choose a heart that strikes them and this heart will represent our empathy and understanding for each other.

 

Winter Lit Analysis: The Invisible Man

1. In this book a nameless African American man recounts how he became invisible to society. His story starts off with him being a model black citizen, one who was subjugated by white men. His subjugation brought him to college where his own people screwed him over and he was expelled from the school never to return. He goes to New York to find a job and his bitter and rage sets in as he is told he can't work. He is taken in by a woman only to leave after making some good money. He joins the Brotherhood and gains respect from the Harlem community, causing him to move out of Harlem due to the Brotherhood. When he returns, he finds Harlem in shambles with everything he created gone. When he sees a man shot dead, he runs into a man named Ras the Exhorter and learns that he can have many identities when he pretends to be a man named Rhinehart. Eventually Harlem erupts into a race riot. As he tries to escape, he falls down a manhole and decides to recount his story and attack the Brotherhood. By recounting this story, he is ready to become visible and hopes that his story has inspired our visibility as well.
2.  The novel portrays a man who is told and defined by society around him. He has many names or identities: a nigger, a fink, etc. He even goes along with these names despite the stinging connotation they bring. He was the model black citizen and let himself be defined by white men and his own race. He wore the nametag that was placed on him. By recounting his journey, the invisible man come to understand that he was defined by what society told him to be and he seeks to change that. He is going to emerge from his invisibility with his identity, not anybody else's.
3. The author has a rhythmic tone that is characterized by a sarcastic depression. The invisible man is reflecting on his previous life and while he is recalling it, he comes off as bitter about how he used to be but accepts it now.
"One night I accidentally bumped into a man, and perhaps because of the near darkness he saw me and called me an insulting name. I sprang at him, seized his coat lapels and demanded that he apologize. He was a tall blond man, and as my face came close to his he looked insolently out of his blue eyes and cursed me, his breath hot in my face as he struggled. I pulled his chin down sharp upon the crown of my head, butting him as I had seen the West Indians do, and I felt his flesh tear and the blood gush out, and I yelled, "Apologize! Apologize!" But he continued to curse and struggle, and I butted him again and again until he went down heavily, on his knees,
profusely bleeding. I kicked him repeatedly, in a frenzy because he still uttered insults though his lips were frothy with blood. Oh yes, I kicked him! And in my outrage I got out my knife and prepared to slit his throat, right there beneath the lamplight in the deserted street, holding him by the collar with one hand, and opening the knife with my teeth -- when it occurred to me that the man had not seen me, actually; that he, as far as he knew, was in the midst of a walking nightmare! And I stopped the blade, slicing the air as I pushed him away, letting him fall back to the street. I stared at him hard as the lights of a car stabbed through the darkness. He lay there,
moaning on the asphalt; a man almost killed by a phantom. It unnerved me. I was both disgusted and ashamed. I was like a drunken man myself, wavering about on weakened legs. Then I was amused. Something in this man's thick head had sprung out and beaten him within an inch of his life. I began to laugh at this crazy discovery. Would he have awakened at the point of death? Would Death himself have freed him for wakeful living? But I didn't linger. I ran away into the dark, laughing so hard I feared I might rupture myself. The next day I saw his picture in the Daily News, beneath a caption stating that he had been "mugged." Poor fool, poor blind fool, I thought with sincere compassion, mugged by an invisible man!" Here the narrator is bitter because he wanted to kill the man. He expected an apology and got none because of his invisible nature.
"For instance, I have been carrying on a fight with Monopolated Light & Power for
some time now. I use their service and pay them nothing at all, and they
don't know it. Oh, they suspect that power is being drained off, but they
don't know where. All they know is that according to the master meter back
there in their power station a hell of a lot of free current is disappearing
somewhere into the jungle of Harlem. The joke, of course, is that I don't live
in Harlem but in a border area. Several years ago (before I discovered the
advantage of being invisible) I went through the routine process of buying
service and paying their outrageous rates. But no more. I gave up all that,
along with my apartment, and my old way of life: That way based upon the
fallacious assumption that I, like other men, was visible. Now, aware of my
invisibility, I live rent-free.." Again he shows his hatred towards people's abuse of African Americans. He uses his invisibility to his advantage to get what he wants and it makes him laugh.
""Ah," I can hear you say, "so it was all a build-up to bore us with
his buggy jiving. He only wanted us to listen to him rave!" But only partially
true: Being invisible and without substance, a disembodied voice, as it were,
what else could I do? What else but try to tell you what was really
happening when your eyes were looking through? And it is this which
frightens me:
Who knows but that, on the lower frequencies, I speak for you?" The invisible man knows that we will read his story with conviction causing him to be incredibly sarcastic in his tone of voice. He knows ans yet expects nothing to change.

4. Anaphora- "I am an invisible man. No, I am not a spook like those who haunted
Edgar Allan Poe; nor am I one of your Hollywood-movie ectoplasms. I am a
man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids -- and I might even be
said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people
refuse to see me. Like the bodiless heads you see sometimes in circus
sideshows, it is as though I have been surrounded by mirrors of hard,
distorting glass. When they approach me they see only my surroundings,
themselves, or figments of their imagination -- indeed, everything and
anything except me."

Metaphor: "Yes, full of light. I doubt if there

is a brighter spot in all New York than this hole of mine, and I do not

exclude Broadway. Or the Empire State Building on a photographer's dream night."

 Irony-
"Yes, full of light. I doubt if there is a brighter spot in all New York than this hole of mine, and I do not exclude Broadway. Or the Empire State Building on a photographer's dream night. But that is taking advantage of you. Those two spots are among the darkest of our whole civilization -- pardon me, our whole culture" Aphorism-
"The truth is the light and light is the truth." Allusion-
"Though invisible, I am in the great American tradition of tinkers. That makes me kin to Ford, Edison and Franklin." Anecdote- "look at quote in 3"

Simile- "I guess now it ain't nothing but knowing how to say what I got up in my head. But it's a hard job, son. Too much is done happen to me in too short a time. Hit's like I have a fever."

 Rhetorical Question- "What did I do to be so black and blue?"
 Personification of invisibility:"I am an invisible man. No, I am not a spook like those who haunted
Edgar Allan Poe; nor am I one of your Hollywood-movie ectoplasms. I am a
man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids -- and I might even be
said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people
refuse to see me. Like the bodiless heads you see sometimes in circus
sideshows, it is as though I have been surrounded by mirrors of hard,
distorting glass. When they approach me they see only my surroundings,
themselves, or figments of their imagination -- indeed, everything and
anything except me."

Verse- An old man singing on the side of a road.
"She's got feet like a monkey

Legs like a frog -- Lawd, Lawd!

But when she starts to loving me

I holler Whoooo, God-dog!

Cause I loves my baabay,

Better than I do myself . . ."

CHARACTERIZATION 
1.
Direct: the author doesn't use this because the narrator is the invisible man.

Indirect:

"I am not complaining, nor am I protesting either. It is sometimes advantageous to be unseen, although it is most often rather wearing on the nerves. Then too, you're constantly being bumped

against by those of poor vision. Or again, you often doubt if you really exist. You wonder whether you aren't simply a phantom in other people's minds. Say, a figure in a nightmare which the sleeper tries with all his strength to destroy. It's when you feel like this that, out of resentment, you begin to bump people back. And, let me confess, you feel that way most of the time.You ache with the need to convince yourself that you do exist in the real world, that you're a part of all the sound and anguish, and you strike out with your fists, you curse and you swear to make them recognize you. And,alas, it's seldom successful." Here the invisible man states his invisibility. Invisible does not mean some magical Harry Potter cloak. It means that he is ignored and this ignorance brings light to him about his situation. He is an introvert of society, someone who lurks the shadows taking what it needs.

"I almost laughed into the phone when I heard the director of Men's House address me with profound respect. My new name was getting around. It's very strange, I thought, but things are so unreal for them normally that they believe that to call a thing by name is to make it so. And yet I am what they think I am . . ." Here the invisible man recognizes that he has nametags all over him and in a way he is somewhat enjoying it. He is a person craving identity and accepts what he is thought to be. 
The author uses only indirect characterization because the story is told by the main character. This allows the reader to get into the invisible man's head without any opinions from an all knowing source.
2. The author's diction suits the education of the invisible man. He is somewhat educated but some words he does not know the meaning of. When the author focuses on other characters of his race, diction and syntax descend to an uneducated level. The diction and syntax follow most stereotypes of the language differences between both races. Yet, this is untrue for the invisible man. He is educated and in a way feels above his own race because of what obstacles Bledsoe and the Brotherhood have brought him. When the invisible man talks, his sentence structure is varied with long and short length sentences. This is especially true when he is describing something that made him bitter.
3. The protagonist is a flat, dynamic character. The invisible man is rather simple. He is bitter about what life served him and he wants his identity. The tone of the narrator's voice is blatant and you can tell that his life has brought him a sarcastic bitterness. He was what he hated and life continued to kick him while he was down. Yet the invisible man has changed his outlook while recounting his life story. He saw his invisibility and intends to change that by coming out with his identity. He initially was perfectly fine in subjugation, but now he wants something more than that.
4. " I am an invisible man. No, I am not a spook like those who haunted Edgar Allan Poe; nor am I one of your Hollywood-movie ectoplasms. I am  a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids -- and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me. Like the bodiless heads you see sometimes in circus sideshows, it is as though I have been surrounded by mirrors of hard, distorting glass. When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves, or figments of their imagination -- indeed, everything and anything except me. Nor is my invisibility exactly a matter of a bio-chemical accident to my epidermis. That invisibility to which I refer occurs because of a peculiar disposition of the eyes of those with whom I come in contact. A matter of the construction of their inner eyes, those eyes with which they look through their physical eyes upon reality. I am not complaining, nor am I protesting either. It is sometimes advantageous to be unseen, although it is most often rather wearing on the nerves. Then too, you're constantly being bumped against by those of poor vision. Or again, you often doubt if you really exist. You wonder whether you aren't simply a phantom in other people's minds. Say, a figure in a nightmare which the sleeper tries with all his strength to destroy. It's when you feel like this that, out of resentment, you begin to bump people back. And, let me confess, you feel that way most of the time. You ache with the need to convince yourself that you do exist in the real world, that you're a part of all the sound and anguish, and you strike out with your fists, you curse and you swear to make them recognize you. And, alas, it's seldom successful." After reading the book I felt like I had met a person. The invisible man touches on topics known around the world feeling invisible.  His invisibility is the result of the persecution he felt in his lifetime due to the color of his skin. He is bitter and rightly so. He sees this world as being the white man’s world and has been forced to subject himself to invisibility to truly see. The way this man details his experience gives the reader insight into his life and into his journey.

Winter is coming or is it my masterpiece...

So  my big question is all about why are segregating ourselves based on race, gender, sexual orientation, etc.. I'm an observer and that's how I came about my topic. I see a lot of division in communities across the world. It's horrifying to know that two people who love each other can't get married because of their sexual orientation. It's horrifying to see that racism still exists, while most are too blind to see it. The Ferguson case and the Garner incident are one of many incidents that prove this. I guess I just don't understand it. And by it I mean this segregation. We're all living here on this wonderful Earth whether we like it or not. So why are so caught up on hating each other for being different when it's the thing that makes us unique. Would anybody be happy in a world where we fall in line to hail Big Brother and live a life of conformity. Learning about this topic will help us learn to accept each other and to embrace our differences instead of pushing each other apart. This can get people to speak up against injustice and stand by each other in times of need.

This topic is going to require cross-cultural interactions, music, literature, social media, and an open mind. How I plan to start learning about the subject is by researching everything I can about these recent cultural injustices. I also want to look at other movements such as feminism and marriage equality. I want to look at both sides of these things. By looking at both sides we can take everyone's viewpoint into consideration and not just say "My opinion is right." To do my masterpiece, I will need Laura Ritchie and her class to collaborate with us on music for a video and possibly have phonar help us with pictures and interpretation of our idea through photography. I will continue to post on my blog for my masterpiece. I might create another tab once I figure out how to do that. I plan on making a video and posting it on every platform possible to try and spread what we created.