LIFE AFTER THIS BLOG POST

This evening, I wrote an email to myself one year in the future using the website futureme.org.  At first I didn't know what to say so I rambled on in a stream-of-consciousness style.  Then, I decided on reminding my future-self on some of the current events in the world and in my life.  I figured that in the future, I could do some comparing.  I went on in the letter to talk about how I hope I am happy at whatever college I chose to attend.  In conclusion, I gave a couple of inspirational words of encouragement in case I am a little down at that date in the future, and I wished myself well, which is weird to think about.

THE PERFORMATIVE UTTERANCE IN HAMLET

Apparently, I accidentally left this post in my drafts and forgot to publish it until now.  These are my notes from the essay "The Performative Utterance in William Shakespeare's Hamlet" by Fredrik deBoer.

• 1st paragraph - Hamlet's utterances provide an insight into his character and illustrate his thoughts.
• The locutionary force, the illocutionary force, and the perlocutionary force are all part of performative language that can convince someone of its meaning when a phrase is said.
• Harold Boom - "argues that Shakespeare's characters frequently develop through 'self-overhearing.'  Shakespeare's characters, in this argument, overhear themselves speaking and in doing so gain knowledge.
• This "self-overhearing" occurs when Hamlet contemplates whether or not to commit suicide and when he decides whether or not to kill his uncle while he is praying or wait a little longer.
• Talking to oneself or stating something can bind that person to their word.  It is additional insurance that they will come through with what they say.
• I still think that Hamlet could genuinely be mad, by seeing his ghost and through his strange behavior.  I think he is traumatized by the murder of his father and might need some psychological help.

LIT CIRCLES

My literature circle read Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. We shared and discussed our information while reading the book through Facebook group chats.  I was in charge of identifying and explaining literary techniques in the novel.

Imagery - Used by Dickens to describe the appearance of new characters in Pip's journey.
"A fearful man, all in coarse grey, with a great iron on his leg.  A man with no hat, with broken shoes, and with an old rag tied round his head.  A man who limped, and shivered, and glared and growled; and whose teeth chattered in his head as he seized me by the chin." (Page 2) (Describing Magwitch)
"She was dressed in rich materials - satins, and lace, and silks - all of white. Her shoes were white.  And she had a long white veil dependent from her hair, and she had bridal flowers in her hair, but her hair was white.  Some bright jewels sparkled on her neck and on her hands, and some other jewels lay sparkling on the table." (Page 47) (Describing Miss Havisham)

Personification - Used by Dickens to demonstrate Pip's nerves and his childhood imagination.
"Every crack in every board, calling after me, 'Stop thief!' and 'Get up, Mrs. Joe!'" (Page 12)
"The gates and dykes and banks came bursting at me through the mist, as if they cried as plainly as could be, 'A boy with Somebody-else's pork pie! Stop him!'  The cattle came upon me with like suddenness, staring out of their eyes, and steaming out of their nostrils, 'Holloa, young thief!'" (Page 13)

Diction - Used by Dickens to emphasize Joe's social standing through his poor speech.
"My father, Pip, he were given to drink, and when he were overtook with drink...he hammered at me with a wigour only to be equalled by the wigour with which he didn't hammer at his anwil." (Page 37)

Breaking the Fourth Wall - Used by Dickens to allow the audience to connect with Pip if they believe he is telling his story to them personally.
"Pause you who read this, and think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day." (Page 61)

Repetition - Used by the Dickens to show Magwitch's influential comments and emphasize Pip's many thoughts.
"A boy may lock his door, may be warm in bed, may tuck himself up, may think himself comfortable and safe, but that young man will softly creep and creep his way to him and tear him open." (Page 4)
"I saw in this, that Estella was set to wreak Miss Havisham's revenge on men...I saw in this, a reason for her being beforehand assigned to me...I saw in this, the reason for my being staved off so long...I saw in this, the distinct shadow of the darkened and unhealthy house." (Page 260)

Metaphor - Used by Dickens to explain figuratively how used Pip feels by Miss Havisham and Estella.
"And it was not until I began to think, that I began fully to know  how wrecked I was, and how the ship in which I had sailed was gone to pieces." (Page 278)
"I only suffered in the Satis House as a convenience, a sting for the greedy relations, a model with a mechanical heart to practice on when no other practice was at hand." (Page 279)

Simile - Used by Dickens to describe the weather and Pip's feelings in a more illustrative way.
"The wind rushing up the river shook it that night, like discharges of cannon, or breakings of a sea." (Page 269)
"With my heart beating like a heavy hammer of disordered action, I rose out of my chair." (Page 274)

PRACTICE ESSAY

     Bursting The Bubble

       We often become accustomed to the world around us.  We form habits in our actions and ways of thinking, entrapping ourselves unknowingly in a bubble of knowledge and reality.  According to the theme of Jean-Paul Sartre's play "No Exit" and Plato's "Allegory of the Cave," this bubble can only be expanded or popped through critical thinking, critical thinking that can result from an alteration in a person's environment, allowing them the opportunity to question and compare what they knew before with what they now know.

       The character of Inez in "No Exit" enters hell, or Sartre's version of it as an ordinary room containing two other people besides Inez, and she initially assumes that the man who has already been taken to the room is the torturer.  The life that she knew on Earth described to her that she would have to endure torture from weapons and fires so she expected the man to be the torturer because she was still in an unenlightened state of mind.  Later in the play, however, through some contemplation of her surroundings, Inez is the first of the group of three to realize that the people in the room are all each other's torturers.  This is illustrated through the use of irony that Inez is tortured by the love between the other two people although she is described through indirect characterization to be hateful and cruel, as seen through her reactions to the others in the room and their increasing dislike for her.  Even though she was placed in an unfamiliar place, she became enlightened to her surroundings and the new reality they presented.

       Like Inez, the prisoner who escapes the cave in the Allegory of the Cave was also the first one of a group of people to achieve enlightenment through critical thinking, through the realization that there was more to their world than what the eye could perceive.  This was symbolized through the prisoner's freedom from shackles that had previously been containing him physically and mentally in the cave.  Once outside the cave, it took some time for the prisoner to adjust to the light, just as it took Inez to adjust to Sartre's hell.  In the end, both the prisoner and Inez attempted to explain their newly discovered version of reality to the others in their group of people, but the others were unable to see past their bubble of limited knowledge.  Inez and the prisoner illustrated that enlightenment to a situation can only come from an analysis of one's thoughts, sometimes with the assistance of the enlightened, but never directly from the mind of the enlightened.

       When presented with new surroundings, a new reality, both Inez and the prisoner in the cave adapted and attempted to help others understand.  Plato's Allegory of the Cave and Sartre's "No Exit" illustrate the theme that the road to enlightenment is through critical thinking through the actions of the prisoner and the dialogue of Inez.  Both characters demonstrated that they would deal with changes in their environments with insight and critical inquiry, leading them to a better understanding of their world by bursting the small bubbles of knowledge that once surrounded them.

I CAN READ!

My time: 4:47.  Number of mistakes: 3.

THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX

Both Plato and Sartre use conversations to describe the complex theme of how people go from ignorance to understanding.  Plato's conversations involve onlookers of the situation, while Sartre uses the observations and actions of people directly involved with illustrating the theme.  To best describe the limitations of our thinking both of the authors use stories.  In Plato's allegory, the characters, or the prisoners in the cave travel from a place of limited thinking to a place of enlightenment.  The same occurs in Sartre's "No Exit," except that the characters undergo mental traveling from ignorance to enlightenment, rather than physical traveling.  Lastly, the solutions to obtain knowledge from ignorance differ between the two authors.  In Plato's allegory, a person's enlightenment is only obtained by their own devices, no matter how much others try to explain things to them.  In Sartre's play, however, the character's become enlightened to how they are going to be tortured by interacting with the people around them.  Basically, Plato claims that knowledge and enlightenment is obtained internally, while Sartre claims that it is facilitated externally.

"NO EXIT"

"No Exit" by Jean Paul Sartre Reading Notes and Answers to Embedded Questions in This Text.

• Estelle, Garcin, and Inez in a room; they discover its the afterlife; can't figure out how they are supposed to be tortured.
• Garcin doesn't care about the girls, Estelle cares about herself, and Inez cares about Estelle.
• No mirrors in the room - characters are left to only themselves through others' perceptions of them (taken literally when Estelle sees her appearance through Inez's eyes as the mirror)
• Garcin deserted the army and was shot twelve times before heading to Mexico.
• Inez's lover had a husband.  The husband was run over by a tram.  The lover turned on the gas at night and killed both her and Inez.
• Estelle drowned her baby after having it with a man besides her husband.  That man killed himself.  She died of pneumonia.
• They are all unhappy about the imprint or lack of imprint of them left on Earth: Garcin is called a coward, Estelle's best friend flirts with a boy who admired Estelle, and Inez's room is let out and moved into by a couple.  
• Tone: darkly humorous
• Irony: In the beginning, the characters explain to one another why they aren't the torturer, but in the end, it is revealed that they are actually all each other's torturers.
• Inez tortured by Estelle and Garcin's relationship, but tortures Garcin with the power of declaring or not declaring that he is a coward.
• Garcin tortured by Inez stating or refusing to state his cowardice, but tortures Inez by being with Estelle.
• Estelle tortured by Garcin not loving on her, but tortures Inez by being with Garcin.

Answers:

1.  The place I have chosen as my hell is ordinary-looking similar to that described of Sartre’s drawing room.  The mind can be in hell in a beautiful place because according to Sartre it is the people that make the place either hell or a blissful escape.  Also, what some people may consider beautiful others may consider hell; it depends upon the perspective.  However, I don’t believe there is a way to find peace in a hellish physical environment without numbing your senses to eliminate sounds, smells, and sights allowing you to have peace of mind.  Living in Sartre’s space endlessly, night and day, would likely be torture.  I may have started out okay, but I fear that I would soon get claustrophobic by my unchanging, constrained surroundings and turn insane, like astronauts are tested for their cabin fever.

2.  I am a supporter of the quote “everything in moderation.”  Too much cheesecake would ruin your health, and diminish the satisfaction each additional time you eat cheesecake.  In economics, it is called the law of diminishing marginal utility.  Every additional time you interact with something that you have interacted with before, you receive less pleasure from the situation because you have already experienced it so the novelty has worn off.

3.  Sartre creates a sense of the setting through dialogue by using the characters to ask questions about the setting that are answered by another character, slowly forming a picture of the setting in the minds of the audience.  I can’t imagine what it would be like to stay awake all the time with the lights on with no hope of leaving a specific place.  I think eventually I would go mindless and become numb to my surroundings.  At least, I hope that I would.  Garcin reacts to this type of hell as one of the torturing aspects of the hell he has heard about.  I could make my daily activities a daily routine with no change whatsoever.  Every day, I would do everything exactly the same, with no variations.  This is a circumstance that reinforces the experience of hell, being stuck in a state of preservation.

ALLEGORY OF THE CAVE SONNET

The wall of the cave is all that they see,
Left in darkness through body and mind,
With only shadows to watch of those who could be
In the world of the enlightened outside.

Then imagine one is freed of his own accord,
And transcends above to the light,
How confusing and painful, like the wound of a sword,
Would this strange place be to his sight.

After some time he would have changed,
Deciding to return to tell those that remained,
But his shadow and echo to them was estranged,
And they couldn't understand no matter how he explained.

A teacher can only help and guide;
It is the student who must look inside.

-Allyson Brown

BRAIN WITH 6 LEGS

My literature circle group is reading Great Expectations by Charles Dickens.  The version from the school library is 412 pages.  When we divided those pages evenly among the ten days we have to read the novel, we decided on 41 pages per day with an extra 2 pages on the last day.  We are going to communicate through group messages on Facebook, and we each chose a role in the group, but we all agreed to help each other with anything we thought they might want to include in their work on the novel.  I am the member who identifies and explains literary techniques used in the book.

Plato's Allegory of the Cave

See Questions Here.

1.  According to Socrates, the Allegory of the Cave represents the enlightenment and unenlightenment present in human nature.

2.  The prisoners in the cave can only see the shadows on the wall in front of them.  There is a fire which fuels their ignorance of the real world by helping to create the shadows, the only world the prisoners know.

The setting of a cave represents confinement; it could be paralleled to confinement to a certain set of beliefs or the limitations to one's knowledge.

3.  The allegory suggests that education is the process of enlightening an individual to what they didn't know they didn't know.  The allegory suggests that metaphorically, education is the process of bringing a person out of a dark cave, where they were prisoner to their own ignorance, and showing them the rest of the world that they never knew existed or that they thought existed in a different form.

4.  I accidentally answered this in the second half of number two.  The "shackles" and the "cave" represent the limited and confined knowledge of the prisoners; with the cave, the allegory portrays the prisoners as literally "in the dark" about reality and what life is like outside of their field of vision.

5.  Television is the main thing that shackles the minds of my generation.  Most television shows are purely for entertainment, and watching them keeps us from time when we could be expanding our knowledge.  It is like the dancing on the walls in front of the prisoners; to them, it is entertaining, but it isn't allowing them to learn any additional truths about life.

6.  The freed prisoner's perspective is that the world which he has know seen is the real world, and he pities those prisoners that are still stuck in darkness about life is really like and how their world, in the freed prisoner's new world, consists only of shadows on a wall.  To the prisoners, however, who have never known the difference between a shadow and the object it outlines, they don't know what the freed prisoner's "real world" is.

7.  Intellectual confusion in the allegory occurs when the freed prisoner is thrown into the light outside the cave, and sees everything in a new light, and it is when that same freed prisoner returns to the cave to share what he's learned, but his eyes take a long time to adjust to the dark; he has to become accustomed to being "in the dark" about the world, now that he has experienced what is beyond the cave.

8.  Cave prisoners are freed through either self-enlightenment, thinking that there is something more to what they can see in front of them, or through a freed prisoner, a teacher, returning from outside the cave to explain to them that there's more, or help them escape their bonds.  This suggests that intellectual freedom can occur in two ways: you can have an epiphany yourself about how your perspective of the world may not be the truth, or you can be enlightened to this concept by a teacher who already has this knowledge, like Socrates was to Glaucon.

9.  Yes, I agree that their is a distinction between appearances and reality.  The appearance of the shadows on the wall in front of the prisoners, wasn't reality because they hadn't seen the whole world.  Often we will interpret situations uniquely because of our unique backgrounds so how a situation appears to me may not be the reality.  No human will ever be able to see a situation and observe it completely objectively; we will all have our own versions of it because we all have our own minds and lives.

10.  If we assume Socrates distinction between appearances and reality is incorrect, it is because the appearance of a situation to each person is their own reality.  It is the only way they can perceive that situation.  Appearances meld with realities in respect to individual people.  In respect to the world, their is most likely a reality that no one can understand because it will always be a unique mixture of how it appears to others.

WE HANG TOGETHER

SONNET ANALYSIS #1

Today's sonnet lecture notes:

A POETIC INQUIRY

Initially, I was going to alter my big question to how is our perspectives of others a reflection on our perspective of ourselves?  Sonnets, however, usually contain a subject pertaining to beauty, love, or admiration, so I knew that the closest concept to my original big question would be a sonnet about vanity.  With this in mind, I found this sonnet.

Could it be you admire your comely curves 
While in your room you gaze into your mirror? You know your figure must unravel nerves, So you value it, to you nothing is dearer; For hours you primp in timid preparation Of what might come to greet you for the night, But having done your hair and put your face on, No one there admires your enviable sight. The sight of you... and in the neighborhood You walk, and garner compliments from all; They say you bear yourself as all girls should, You being graceful, featured soft, so tall: But know you'd never have managed thus to rout me Had I been born with decent wits about me.


- Tom Rook

It mentions the vanity of a girl who prepares herself for a long time in front of a mirror, an object mentioned in my original big question.


This author has many more sonnets on this website.

HAMLET REMIX

My visual remix of the topics addressed in my Hamlet essay: 

To Speak Or Not To Speak

     Throughout the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare, the main character, Hamlet, delivers many soliloquies and asides to himself.  Their effect on the plot and the development of the characters in the play turn Hamlet's words themselves into actions, and my own self-overhearing is similar to Hamlet's in the way I use it to talk myself through making decisions and understanding a present situation.
     Hamlet's lengthy soliloquies complement Hamlet's actions by illustrating the progression of his thoughts and allowing him to think through the many conflicts he encounters, both internal and external, by talking himself through the situation.  For example, Hamlet's famous speech "To Be Or Not To Be" is his outlet for contemplating suicide and his existence while addressing the reasons against it.  This is evident through his concerns for the afterlife in the quote, "For who would fardels bear/To grunt and sweat under a weary life/But that the dread of something after death/The undiscovered country from whose born/No traveler returns, puzzles the will/And makes us rather bear those ills we have/Than fly to others that we know not of?"  Later in the play, Hamlet talks himself through another internal conflict when he sees King Claudius, his uncle and suspected murderer of Hamlet's father, praying and he thinks out loud whether or not to kill him then.
     The content of that contemplative speech shows Hamlet's dynamic character as the audience is able to identify the evolution of his choices and personality in the play.  In the "To Be Or Not To Be" speech, Hamlet is uncertain what lies for him after death, and this is the main reason he chooses not to kill himself.  In the speech when Hamlet is contemplating murdering Claudius, however, he chooses not to kill Claudius while he is praying because he is worried that Claudius would go to heaven, not to hell.  Before, Hamlet's uncertainty about life after death prevented him from killing, but in that speech later in the play, Hamlet's certainty about where Claudius would go to after death prevents him from killing.
     My own self-overhearing talks myself through situations and usually leads to a better comprehension of the subject of my utterances.  For example, the "To Be Or Not To Be" speech isn't written in the common vernacular of today, and the first couple of times I read it, I didn't understand it.  As I was memorizing it, however, I started to comprehend Hamlet's meaning of each sentence because in my process of memorization of the speech, I divided it into small segments and repeated each segment many times, memorizing it alone and then combining it with the one before, slowly building the entire speech in my head.  Through this repetition and through hearing myself out loud, I developed a better understanding of the internal conflict Hamlet describes throughout the soliloquy about whether or not he should kill himself and how thinking about its consequences convinces him not to.
     In the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare, Hamlet delivers many soliloquies that talk himself through difficult situations.  During these soliloquies, we see the progression of the thoughts and motives of Hamlet, Shakespeare's technique for creating a character who the audience can sympathize with because they understand his reasoning.  In addition to character development, Hamlet's speeches serve as Hamlet's outlet for working out all of the complications within his family and his own self-deprecation.  The only similarity between Hamlet's self-overhearing and my own is that I also use it to occasionally comprehend my surroundings.

VOCAB #9

aficionado: an ardent devotee; a fan; an enthusiast
The football aficionado new every team's players and how many games they had won or lost.

browbeat: intimidate by overbearing looks or words; bully
His brother browbeat him into agreeing to do a prank on a neighbor.

commensurate: having the same measure; equal extent or duration; proportionate; corresponding in amount
The price you pay for something should commensurate with the happiness or use you will get from it.

diaphanous: very sheer and light; almost transparent or translucent; delicately hazy
The diaphanous wrap over her dress didn't keep her very warm in the winter weather.

emolument: profit; salary; fees from office or employment
People aren't likely to work without an emolument for their services as a motivation.

foray: a quick raid; a sudden attack; pillage; an initial venture
The foray on the base camp resulted in many fatalities during the war.

genre: a class or category of artistic endeavor; of a distinctive literary type
His favorite genre of music is alternative rock.

homily: a sermon; a moralized discourse; an inspirational saying
Her grandmother told her a homily that encouraged her to live her life to its fullest.

immure: to shut in; confine; imprison
The criminal was immured in the state prison with maximum security.

insouciant: free from concern, worry, or anxiety; nonchalant
His insouciant personality about college applications worried his parents.

matrix: something from which something else originates or develops;
Latin provided the matrix for the romance languages.

obsequies: a funeral rite or ceremony
With the funeral came certain obsequies that the family felt they must follow.

panache: flamboyant manner; style; flair;
This certain panache he had drew many people to him.

persona: a character in a literary work; a person's evident or perceived personality
He had developed the persona of being the town drunk.

philippic: speech or discourse of bitter denunciation
She was so mad that she needed a moment to come up with a well thought out philippic against him.

prurient: characterized by lustful thoughts or desires; causing lust; having a restless desire or longing
The romantic movie was full of prurient moments between the two main characters.

sacrosanct: extremely sacred; not to be entered or trespassed upon
She considered her home sacrosanct and rarely invited anyone into it.

systemic: of or pertaining to a system
The systemic corruption of the organization led to its shutdown because so many employees were involved.

tendentious: having or showing definite tendency, bias, or purpose
No one dared to stop the tendentious lady as she briskly walked down the street.

vicissitude: a change or variation in the course of something; alternating or changing phases or conditions
The vicissitudes of his life kept it interesting.

Tools That Change the Way We Think

See the excerpt that this is in response to here.

Technology, with the Internet now more easily accessible through smart phones, has changed my generation. Before, people would have to recall facts from memory if they didn't want to find the page in a book or the paragraph in an essay where they read about the concept in the first place. Now you can simply whip out your smart phone, laptop, or portable tablet and search that concept. However, with a seemingly limitless supply of descriptions, directions, photos, music, videos, social networking sites, and online shopping, for me, the internet absorbs time at a rate that seems unfathomable. It is the bearer of distractions which, depending on your state of mind, can either make the Internet desirable or despicable.

I also just wanted to add my first thoughts after reading this selection. How would people measure intelligence or value intelligence if there was an implant that allowed anyone to be a walking encyclopedia? How would people be prevented from using these implants during tests or contests where the participant's success should depend on what they know up to the point of taking the exam or going on a game show? I think it's an intimidating thought to think of everyone with the knowledge of the Internet not just on the tips of their fingers but already inside their minds.

"FILTER BUBBLES"

"Filter Bubbles" TEDx Video

a) I learned that Facebook deletes people from your profile that it believes you don't want on there because you are more likely to go to another person's profile. I also never realized that the Internet basically replaced editors for spreading news to the public. I suppose this is because I can't remember a time without the Internet.

b) I already knew that Google uses filter bubbles to suggest sites that I am most likely interested in. This information doesn't make me think too differently about what I see online, except on how different other peoples' searches look, because it makes it is more convenient if Google predicts what links I may want. However, this could just be because I am not able to see what other options I have which may only appear on a different person's search.

c) It makes me wonder whether many years from now, the Internet will be able to predict possible future searches based on what you have looked at in the past, possibly even based on your personality type. I also wonder how many links there are on the Internet that won't be a result of my search, but they may be more beneficial to me than the other results.

d) For me to improve the effectiveness of my search, I am going to look at more than the first five links that result from my search. I will look at the results on the next couple of pages to make sure that I can get the best link for what I want and not what the Internet thinks I want.

THOUGHTS ON HAMLET (IN PROGRESS)

In the beginning of the play, I sympathized with Hamlet because he was so grief stricken by his father's death and disgusted by his mother's quick marriage to his uncle, the new king.  By the end of Act III, however, I am sympathizing less and less with Hamlet because he is either driving himself insane with revenge on King Claudius or he is self-sabotaging by pushing away those who had little to do with his father's murder, like Ophelia and his mother, Queen Gertrude.  I will accredit Hamlet, though, with being very perceptive because of the way that he inferred Rosencraz and Guildenstern were visiting under orders from the king and queen and not simply to see their friend Hamlet.  Unfortunately, I don't see things going too well from here.  I know its a tragedy and with tragedy comes death.  I believe that Hamlet's revenge on Claudius will somehow backfire and Hamlet's unbridled craziness and his convolution of thoughts will lead to his demise.

WHAT I THINK ABOUT WHEN I THINK ABOUT ACT III

Act III reminds me of the play that was interrupted by the guilty conscience of the king.  It reminds that Hamlet must be right that his uncle murdered his father because King Claudius prays after the play to have his guilt assuaged.  I think of how badly that entire family and court communicates, and I am reminded of Lord Polonius's accidental death by Hamlet because he wasn't minding his own business.

LITERATURE ANALYSIS #3

1. I read A Passage to India by E.M. Forster.  The main character is Dr. Aziz, and the novel takes place in an India under British imperial rule.  One night, Dr. Aziz meets Mrs. Moore and likes her because she is one of the only Englishwomen he knows who is kind to him.  Her travel companion is Adela Quested, the possible fiancée of Mrs. Moore’s son, the City Magistrate who is vehemently against all Indians.  After a party requested by Adela to meet Indians, Adela instead meets Fielding, who works at the Government College.  Aziz is invited by Adela to have tea with a Hindu professor, Fielding, Mrs. Moore, and her.  Aziz and Fielding get along very well, but the gathering is interrupted by Mrs. Moore’s prejudice son.  Aziz offers the people at tea a trip through nearby caves.  Because Fielding and the professor are delayed, and Mrs. Moore becomes claustrophobic and scared of the echoes, Aziz and Adela are go through the caves together.  When Adela offends Aziz, he runs off, and when he returns, she has already driven away from the caves.  Later, he is arrested because Adela accused him of trying to rape her.  This shatters Aziz’s illusions that he could be friends with Englishmen.  In the end, Fielding defends Aziz and causes more conflict between the two races, Adela finally confesses in court that nothing happened, and Mrs. Moore dies on a trip back to England.  Fielding becomes friends with Adela because he admires her strength in court, and Aziz breaks ties with him because of it.  Years later, Aziz finds out that Fielding married Mrs. Moore’s daughter, and the two want to become friends, but Aziz says that can’t happen during that time of conflict and tension.

2. An imbalance of power in a society that consists of two different cultures, one of which considers itself superior to the other, can create a schism that can’t be bridged even if one wants to.

3. The tone is objective, but sympathetic to both sides of the culture.  “The earth didn’t want it, sending up rocks through which writers must pass single file.”  Through this matter of fact statement, Forster emphasizes all of the obstacles figuratively that the people of the separate cultures would need to overcome in order to connect their cultures and lifestyles.  “Fielding, for instance, had not meant that Indians are obscure, but that Post Impressionism is; a gulf divided his remark from Mrs. Turton’s ‘Why, they speak English,” but to Aziz the two sounded alike.”  This shows Forster’s sympathy that these two are trying to understand each other, but objectively put, their cultures are just too different.  “ ‘Why can’t we be friends now?’ ”  This shows Forster’s sympathy for combining both cultures, even though it would be an impossible road to take.

4. Imagery – Forster uses this technique to describe the setting of the book in a way that allows the reader to picture its elegance and beauty, elegance and beauty that is now infringed upon by “Englishmen.” 

“Clouds map it up at times, but it is normally a dome of blending tints, and the main tint blue.  By day the blue will pale down into white where it touches the white of the land, after sunset it has a new circumference – orange, melting upwards into tenderest purple.” (Page 8)

“League after league the earth lies flat, heaves a little, is flat again.  Only in the south, where a group of fists and fingers are thrust up through the soil, is the endless expanse interrupted.  These fists and fingers are the Marabar Hills, containing the extraordinary caves.”  (Page 9)

Personification – Forster also uses this technique to describe the setting of the novel by assigning human actions and verbs to non-human things.  “The toddy palms and neem trees and mangoes and pepul that were hidden behind the bazaars now become visible and in their turn hide the bazaars…Seeking light and air, and endowed with more strength than man or his works, they soar above the lower deposit to greet one another with branches and beckoning leaves, and to build a city for the birds.”  (Page 8)

“The sky settles everything...By herself she can do little – only feeble outbursts of flowers.”  (Page 9)

Parallelism – using parallelism provides a smooth transition to different actions of trees that Forster is describing.

“They rise from the gardens where the ancient tanks nourish them, they burst out of stifling purlieus and unconsidered temples.”  (Page 8)

Point of View – Forster writes A Passage to India in third person omniscient perspective, allowing the readers to know some of the thoughts and motives of some of the major characters, like Aziz and Mrs. Moore.

“Some day he too would build a mosque, smaller than this but in perfect taste, so that all who passed by should experience the happiness he felt now…he always held pathos to be profound.  The secret understanding of the heart!” (Describing Aziz’s thought process on Page 19-20)

“He had not forbidden her to think about Aziz, however, and she did this when she retired to her room.”  (Mrs. Moore’s thoughts on Page 34)

Foreshadowing – Forster prepares the reader for the rude way in which the Englishmen treat the Indians by including an argument over this between the main character, Dr. Aziz, and his friends in the beginning of the book.  A couple of pages later, Aziz was snubbed by two Englishwomen. (Page 17)

Simile – Forster uses this simile example to provide the reader with a better picture of the night sky in his description of it.  “Then the stars hang like lamps from the immense vault.”  (Page 9)

Repetition – Forster uses repetition to emphasize the multiple descriptions of the city from different perspectives.  “It is a city of gardens.  It is no city, but a forest sparsely scattered by huts.  It is a tropical pleasaunce washed by a noble river.”  (Page 8)

Symbol – The horses symbolize that even though Fielding and Aziz want to be friends, their two cultures were against coming together like the horses in the example, “But the horses didn’t want it – they swerved apart,”  (Page 322)

Cultural Allusions – Throughout the book, Forster incorporates multiple words from Indian culture like “purdah,” “hookah,” and “chuprassi”

Irony – Mr. Turton throws a Bridge Party to form an invisible bridge for an evening between the two separate cultures.  However, the Bridge Party consists mainly of all of the Indians standing on one side of the tennis court in a line and all of the Englishmen standing on the other, the Englishmen not really wanting to form the “bridge.”

 Characterization

1.  Direct Characterization – “His memory was good, and for so young a man he had read largely; the themes he preferred were the decay of Islam and the brevity of Love.”  (Describing Dr. Aziz on Page 15) and “Rather small, with a little moustache and quick eyes.” (Mrs. Moore describing Dr. Aziz on Page 30)

Indirect Characterization – “ ‘If Dr. Aziz never did it he ought to be let out.’ ” (Adela says on Page 203) and “ ‘She was certainly intending to be kind, but I did not find her exactly charming.’ ”  (Describing Mrs. Callendar on Page 22)

Forster uses the first example of indirect characterization to increase the conflict between the Englishmen and the Indian culture because she is an Englishwoman, and the Englishmen in India weren’t supposed to sympathize with the Indians, like she is doing in the quote.  Forster also includes direct characterization because most of the accounts of Aziz by Englishmen are biased by their intense dislike for and demeaning attitude towards all Indians.

2.  Yes, diction changes because when Aziz is with his Indian friends in the beginning, he openly jokes around with them about death or all the food being eaten, but when he is with his English friend Fielding, they are more formal and their conversations can be somewhat strained because of a society that doesn’t encourage the melding of the two cultures and lifestyles.

3.  Aziz, the protagonist, is round and dynamic.  At the beginning he really believes that he can be friends with Englishmen if they accept his kindness, but then, when Adela falsely accused him of the crime, he became disillusioned and realized in the end that there isn’t a way for him to be friends with Fielding, an Englishmen.  He is round because the reader is allowed to witness the similarities and differences in his interactions with Indians, his thoughts when he is observing the world alone, and his conversations with Englishmen.

4.  I feel like I met a character in Dr. Aziz.  A third person omniscient perspective allowed me access to his thoughts, and being inside someone’s head like that lets you connect to them, even if it is only a character in the book.  It let me know what his interests were as well as what or who he detested. “The contest between this dualism and the contention of shadows within pleased Aziz.”  (Page 19)

DEAR OPHELIA (with Vocab #8)

Dear Ophelia,
     It sounds like you're in a bit of a conundrum.  I will tell you this, though; love is not an abomination nor an anomaly in life.  If you are sure that your affections for this prince are not ephemeral, then do not be the saboteur of your own happiness.  I would advise you to make sure that he loves you.  Ask him if he was king whether or not he would be willing to abdicate himself from the throne for you.  Make sure he is worthy of you in that he doesn't abase you in public, reply brusquely to your innocent questions, or behave in a bellicose, rapacious, rancorous, or churlish way towards you.  Don't slip into the temptation of a debauchery by allowing yourself to make precipitous decisions.  If your father and brother detest your love, then there must be a reason why.  Ask them what it is, if you don't already know, and determine whether this reason is enough to end your relationship with him.  For example, if their reason is that he is just gauche, then this may not be enough for you to stifle what you feel.  Good luck with whatever you choose.

LITERARY FICTION AND EMPATHY

After reading the article, I would almost like to be a psychology major now. My main response was what is the difference between popular fiction and literary fiction?  I googled "literary fiction vs popular fiction" (I think "googled" should be a real verb), and this site compares them very clearly.  Now I know that literary fiction focuses more on the characters than the plot unlike popular fiction, which emphasizes the opposite.  For this reason, I definitely see how literary fiction can help you to understand others.   Reading characters that are deep, round, and realistically written can be almost the same as meeting a person and learning what makes them do what they do with the personality that they have.  The play Hamlet allows the audience to dive into the main character Hamlet's innermost thoughts and motives with every soliloquy that he completes during the play.  Without these soliloquies, the audience wouldn't be able to know Hamlet's plans, regrets, or motives as well by the end of the play, and therefore, the audience may feel slightly indifferent towards his death in the end if they never got to know the character enough to sympathize with him.

Hamlet Learning Communities

Finally, I was able to discover three learning communities that are studying Hamlet at the present.  I first tried just typing "Hamlet" into the search bar, but it wasn't specific enough to produce results for what I was looking for.  After some thought, I decided on the search phrase "Hamlet discussion group."  This got many relevant hints, but most of the sites didn't have the ability to comment that I was looking for.  I did find one site that I liked, though: this cox teach Hamlet Discussion Group.  Then, I tried my luck with a new search phrase because I realized that I wanted a site that had the ability to post comments, like a blog.  For this reason, I searched the keywords "Hamlet blog."  That came up with a lot more relevant results than my first search.  From this search, I found The Hamlet Blog, which provides summaries and insight into some parts of Hamlet, and it even uses the vocabulary word "juxtapose!"  The third site I found is actually an interactive high school site of the English Lit class at Herbert Hoover High School, which is somewhat related to our setup.  The teacher posted some interesting questions, and the students have answered some of them.  This is a current learning community because the questions are from this fall.

GREEN EGGS AND HAMLET

a)  All I know about Hamlet: Hamlet sees his father's ghost and knows that his uncle killed his father.  His uncle is in a relationship with his mother because he wants the throne.  Hamlet loves this girl named Ophelia, but I think he kills her father and so she kills herself by drowning.  Then, I believe that Hamlet's mother is killed, and he dies from a poisoned sword in a duel at the end of the play.

b)  I know Shakespeare wrote the plays Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Julius Caesar, Macbeth, and Hamlet.  He lived in Stratford-Upon-Avon in the 16th century in England.

c)  Students involuntarily frown when they hear "Shakespeare" because his writing is not contemporary, and therefore, there are many words and phrases, sometimes even words that he has made up, that take time to decipher the actual meaning of a scene.  Also, reading a play is a lot less interactive and intriguing as watching a play performed.  I feel like the meaning of the lines of Shakespeare's plays can be more easily inferred in the context of the actions and facial features of actors in the play.

d)  We can make studying this play an amazing experience if we go to see the PCPA production of it in the spring.

WHAT I MEANT TO SAY WAS

Thesis: In The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer appeals to the general public of his time through his Prologue, the Cook's Tale, and the Wife of Bath's Tale and the use of humor, irony, and direct characterization to challenge the beliefs and social conceptions of the occupations in his time period.

VOCAB #7

Because Miki was hiking more slowly than the rest of the group, she turned a corner and the group was gone.  Miki was lost and sat down on a rock, only to fall backwards through a wall of ivy.  She discovered a cave, which at the other end, opened up in view of a giant tree house.  Miki heard a noise in some of the trees, and Lindsey came swinging in on a vine, only to ricochet off a tree.  Miki was now involved in Lindsey’s shenanigans.  Lindsey was ebullient when she saw Miki, filled with a plethora of excitement.  She became loquaciously garrulous and asked Miki how she found her.  Then, suddenly, she burst into a harangue and started verbally attacking Miki.  Lindsey’s ephemeral happiness, then capricious attitude scared Miki.  Miki called her a dipthong, but secretly wished that they would get along and be interdependent with each other.  Lindsey’s sanity was at a point of no return; everything she muttered was undetermined codswallop, with the use of a sesquipedelian.  By the time the rest of the group arrived, they figured Miki had become wonky. 

            Meanwhile, the group’s inchoate plan to find Miki caused them to search along the trail for hours.  Finally, they found Miki’s water bottle by a rock and Rachel stumbled into the wall of ivy.  When they found Miki with Lindsey, the Lindsey they saw was juxtaposed to the one they knew in high school; she wore mungo clothes and her hair was messy.  When Lindsey saw the group, she tried to eschew them away from her hideout.  After talking to Lindsey and trying to see the composed and tame Lindsey they once knew, the group knew that they needed to get Lindsey back to civilization, but she refused any help from them, saying that the world was too stressful.  A schism formed in the group over whether to stay with Lindsey or leave her.  Then, perspicacious of this controversial decision, Melissa suggested that they compromise by taking turns to come visit Lindsey every so often.  Everyone in the group, besides Lindsey, agreed, and then, the group became uncertain as to what they should do next.  They didn’t see much of a need to continue hiking the Pacific Crest Trail when they had “found” Lindsey.  Then, Rebecca had an idea.  She was thinking of the times they had had in high school and remembered how they had all wanted to go to explore Egypt together.  She didn’t want this reunion to be over so she suggested this trip to the group.  After some hesitation, they seemed genuinely excited about the prospect of adventure.  They said goodbye to Lindsey, each of them promising to return, and headed back the way they had come so they could all travel to Egypt.

IF I JUST HAD MORE TIME

I was not as prepared as I could have been for yesterday's vocabulary midterm.  I had a Physics lab due on Friday that took me longer than I thought it would.  Because of this and other factors, I didn't get as much studying in for the test as I would've liked.  This studying probably wouldn't have benefited me for the second question of the test because I don't think I would've thought to study Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales; I would have focused mainly on vocabulary.  If I just had more time I could do everything I want done and have the spare time to relax.  I would have been much more familiar with the words, and as a result, I probably would have been able to list and define more of them.  For me, on the test I could define all the words I remembered; the trick was remembering the words.  In the future, I need to plan even more ahead for the time that I think I will need for certain assignments and studying for exams.  Basically, even if I think I will have enough time, I need start planning as if I won't.

Literature Analysis #2

1.  I read The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway.  The main character and narrator of the story is Jake Barnes, who lives in Paris.  The beginning of the book reviews the life his friend, Robert Cohn, had as a boxer in college.  Robert Cohn is a romantic who wants to write books and is controlled by his girlfriend Frances.  A couple chapters in, the reader meets another person Jake knows named Brett.  It is unclear what relationship she and Jake have until they kiss in a cab, and it is revealed that they are lovers, however a war injury prevents Jake from sleeping with her.  Brett, even though she is engaged, attracts the attention of and flirts with all of the guys around her, including Cohn.  Cohn goes with her on a trip to San Sebastian, and because Cohn is such a romantic, he falls madly in love with Brett after the trip.  This relationship that Cohn had with Brett makes Jake more jealous than any of Brett's other relationships because Cohn is a good friend, and so his actions just emphasize more what Jake can't do with Brett.  By the middle of the book, it is apparent that Brett doesn't love any of the men she strings along; she only loves Jake, but that isn't enough to overcome the fact that they can't be together.  Every time Jake and Brett talk, they avoid the elephant in the room with small talk that always ends in a forbidden love goodbye.  Jake travels with Bill to Spain to go fishing with Cohn and to see the bull-fighting, and Brett and her fiancée, Mike, who is oblivious to everything and a drunkard, are invited to join them.  In Spain, Cohn grows more attached to Brett, but she starts fooling around with a young bull-fighter named Pedro Romero.  Cohn gets more and more jealous, and he beats Romero into a bloody mess, being a former boxer.  The group splits up from there, and Jake goes to Saint Sebastian, where soon he gets urgent telegrams from Brett saying that she needs him to come because she is in trouble.  When Jake travels to San Sebastian, he meets Brett in her hotel, and she cries after they talk a while because she hates that their future together will never happen.  They go to drink at a bar, where we see that Jake needs to get drunk because it is too painful to face their nonexistent future together sitting across from Brett, and she comments on how great a life they could've had together.

2. The theme of this novel is that you can still live some sort of a life even if your are dissatisfied with your life situation, but it may not be the life you want. My favorite quote is the last line of the book when Jake responds, " 'Isn't it pretty to think so?' " to Brett's statement that they would have had a good life together.  This is a great example of the theme of the novel because it shows that Jake has accepted that he can never be with Brett the way he wants to, and instead of wasting his life with the romantic illusions that Robert Cohn and Brett have, he is set on living it, even if he's miserable and lonely.

3.  The tone is very objective and unemotional.  There are long passages where the only thing that is being described is the path the narrator takes to a certain destination.  The narrator, who is the main character Jake Barnes, goes into a lot of detail about turning down this road and that, listing off the names of streets and buildings, like the author is of the assumption that the readers have an extensive knowledge of the layout of this particular area in Paris.  For example, "We turned to the right off the Place Contrescarpe, walking along smooth, narrow streets with high old houses on both sides...We came onto the Rue du Pot de Fer and followed it along until it brought us to the rigid north and south of the Rue Saint Jacques and then walked south, past Val de Grace, set back behind the courtyard and the iron fence, to the Boulevard du Port Royal."  If the tone wasn't unemotional, then it would be expected that these streets and roads are being mentioned because they have some important significance to the character. Instead, Hemingway seems more concerned with illustrating his knowledge of Paris, rather than entertaining his readers with something pertinent to the lives of the characters.  Perhaps, with these listings of street and cafe names, Hemingway is attempting to include a part of a character's life that isn't normally included.  He is describing the journey to the destination, while other authors simply write "When they arrived at..."

4.  Allusion - Ernest Hemingway assumes that the reader is familiar with the literature of the time period, or in this case Horatio Alger's various publications. "For a man to take it at thirty-four as a guide-book to what life holds is about as safe as it would be for a man of the same age to enter Wall Street direct from the French convent, equipped with a complete set of the more practical Alger books." (Page 9)
Simile - Hemingway shows the thought process of the character Bill Gorton with this example of one of the many similes he includes in The Sun Also Rises: 
" 'Can you bet on bull-fights?'...'It would be like betting on war.' " (Page 98-99)
Also, Hemingway uses a simile to depict Brett's figure. "She was built with curves like the hull of a racing yacht..." (Page 22)
Hyperbole - Hemingway also used this literary technique example to illustrate the character of Bill Gorton. " 'It's enough to make a man join the Klan' " (Page 88)
Humor - This example shows the similar, non-serious personalities of Jake and Bill together. "The waiter who served us was soaked through.  His white jacket was purple under the arms. 'He must drink a lot of wine.' 'Or wear purple undershirts.' 'Let's ask him.' " (Page 88)
Imagery - This literary technique example provides insight into how Jake Barnes views the world.  "It was a warm spring night and I sat at a table on the terrace of the Napolitain after Robert had gone, watching it get dark and the electric signs come on, and the red and green stop-and-go traffic-signal, and the crowd going by, and the horse-cabs clippety-clopping along at the edge of the solid taxi traffic." (Page 14)
Metaphor - Hemingway, through character Georgette, compares a room to a box, illustrating Georgette's perspective of her surroundings, and how she possibly feels enclosed or trapped on all sides, like you would package something in a box. " 'My God,' Georgette said. 'What a box to sweat in!' "  (Page 19)
Breaking the Fourth Wall - Ernest Hemingway has Jake acknowledge that he is narrating a story, and consequently, he makes the audience feel more connected to Jake.  "He was the archivist, and all the archives of the town were in his office.  That has nothing to do with the story. Anyway,..." (Page 96)
Stream of Consciousness Writing - Hemingway shows Jake's thought process as he is "praying" in a church using a stream of consciousness style for this one sentence.  "I wondered if there was anything else I might pray for, and I thought I would like to have some money, so I prayed that I would make a lot of money, and then I started to think how I would make it, and thinking of making money reminded me of the count, and I started wondering about where he was, and regretting I hadn't seen him since the night in Montmartre, and about something funny Brett told me about him, and as all the time I was kneeling with my forehead on the wood in front of me, and was thinking of myself as praying, I was a little ashamed, and regretted that I was such a rotten Catholic, but realized there was nothing I could do about it, at least for a while, maybe never, but that anyway it was a grand religion, and I only wished I felt religious and maybe I would the next time; and then I was out in the hot sun on the steps of the cathedral, and the forefingers and the thumb of my right hand were still damp, and I felt them dry in the sun." (Page 97)
Personification - Hemingway includes the personification as Bill Gorton is describing and admiring his face to show how Bill views his looks.  " 'It's an honest face.  It's a face any woman would be safe with.' " (Page 102)
Repetition - Hemingway uses repetition in this context to illustrate that Bill Gorton is slightly drunk so he's rambling a little bit to Jake.  " 'Let us rejoice in our blessings.  Let us utilize the fowls of the air.  Let us utilize the product of the vine...Let us not doubt, brother.  Let us not pry into the holy mysteries of the hen-coop with simian fingers.  Let us accept on faith and simply say...' " (Page 122)

CHARACTERIZATION
1.  Hemingway used direct and indirect characterization to describe the character of Robert Cohn through Jake Barnes's eyes.  Direct Characterization: "This changed him so that he was not so pleasant to have around." (Page 9) and the long description on pages one to five that discusses Robert
Cohn's good and bad characteristics and actions in his lifetime. The long description in the beginning talks about how shy and dedicated a character Robert Cohn is, but the quote foreshadows a future dislike of Robert Cohn because he is haughty and oblivious.
Indirect Characterization: " 'I don't know. I just don't believe it.  Have you known her a long
time?' " (Page 38) and " 'That moron,' said Harvey." (Page 43).  The first example is a statement made by Cohn in response to Jake telling him that Brett is engaged that tells the audience that he is as irrational as he is romantic because he is hoping that she will be with him since he loves her so much.  The second example shows the reaction of a minor character when he sees Cohn coming towards Jake and him, implying that in general people that know Cohn don't have a very good opinion of him.
Hemingway uses both direct and indirect characterization because the direct characterization in this book narrated by the main character will always be influenced by the relationship Jake has with Cohn; it will never be purely objective observations.  The indirect characterization in this novel is to show the differences and similarities between Jake's description of Cohn and the general consensus of Cohn's personality made by various minor characters that interact with him, letting the audience decide which descriptions of Robert Cohn's character are the most accurate.

2.  Yes, Hemingway's diction changes with each character.  Many parts of the novel are written as dialogue between two or more people, and it isn't made clear who says what so the reader must interpret who say what by becoming familiar with the different styles of speech of the characters.  For example, Jake always makes short, to-the-point statements when he talks.  He never include flowery language.  Brett always describes situations as "dull" and calls everyone "Darling."  Robert Cohn's statements, throughout most of the story, are full of wishful thinking and illusions, and they most always have a subdued tone to them.

3.  The protagonist, Jake Barnes, is a static character, but is very round.  Throughout the story, he remains ambivalent towards life because of his war injury, and he always has trouble dealing with the relationship he has with Brett.  Jake is a round character, though, because on the surface he seems unemotional and uncaring, but there are times in the book where the reader gets glimpses of his inner turmoil.  One of these times, he is lying in bed and starts crying because he couldn't tell Brett to stay the night, and he is always alone in bed.  Another time, he becomes the one with the romantic illusions for a brief moment when he asks Brett why they can't at least live together.

4.  After reading the book, I feel like I have met a character.  Part of this reaction results from reading a book with a first-person point of view of, in this case, the main character Jake Barnes.  With the first-person point of view, I got to read some of his thoughts and know the motives behind his actions.  Also, Jake breaks the fourth wall in the book by saying the quote that was listed above in the literary techniques: "That has nothing to do with the story."  That statement in itself influences the reader to feel that they are being personally told the story by the narrator, and it makes the narrator seem more real rather than an "I" constantly appearing on the page.  These two situations, combined with a number of other opportunities to see the many sides of Jake Barnes's nature, left me with the impression that I could most likely predict his reactions to many things because I know him so well now.

TALE OF A CANTERBURY TALE

My group chose to read the tale of the Wife of Bath.  In the beginning of the tale, a knight takes advantage of a maiden that he sees while he is riding.  He is condemned and sentenced to death, but the queen saves him from the king, on the condition that she won't kill him if in a year, he is able to find out the thing that woman most desire.  The knight asks every woman he finds, without luck, but just when the year is up, he comes across an old lady.  She says that she will give him the answer if he agrees to do one thing that she wants after he is pardoned.  In front of the queen, the knight tells her that the one thing that women most desire is to be in charge of their husbands, to be independent.  The queen and her court accepts this answer, and the old lady tells the knight that her bidding is for him to marry her.  On their wedding night, he tells her that he is acting weird because she is old and foul.  She gives him the choice of having either an obedient, chaste, but old wife, or a young and fair wife that will attract other men from around the country, and not be as obedient.  She also presents arguments for why her low social standing and state of poverty should not affect his opinion of her.  His response was that she should choose whatever pleased her, and that would please him.  She then told him that she would be both good and fair, changed her looks to a young and beautiful maiden, and they lived happily ever after.

1.  The knight is very impulsive through the impromptu way that he decides to take advantage of a girl alone on the side of the road, and through the way he quickly agrees to the old lady's arrangement without thinking of the consequences of the debt he will owe her.  The knight is ungrateful and selfish because instead of effusively thanking the queen for saving him from immediate death, and providing him with an opportunity to live, he sighs grievously and reluctantly gives his word that he will seek out the answer she desires.  The knight is noble and dedicated to keeping his word because he searches so ardently for the answer and for his life.  It is described that he visits every household he can to find the answer to the queen's question.  The knight is also very shallow because he refuses to see past the old wife's age, wealth, and social status before forming an ill opinion of her.  In the end, however, he is clever because he realizes that the answer the old lady is looking to hear from him when she gives him a choice between two types of wives is the answer she told him to what all women desire: power in their husband's lives.

2.  I believe that Chaucer's purpose in writing this tale was to challenge the demeaning attitude of society towards the poor and lower classes.  Near the end of the tale, he has the old lady explain how gentility shouldn't be affected by social standing, "that he is noble who does noble deeds."  This contradicts the popular conception that people of a higher social status are automatically considered gentlemanly, despite their actual actions, while those of a lower social status aren't considered gentlemanly, even if their actions are nobler than those who are considered to be nobles.  Chaucer, through the words of the old lady, also opposes the stigma that poverty is a shame to those who are in it.  He does this by having her present an appeal to authority saying, "The High God, in Whom we believe, say I,/In voluntary poverty lived His life."  This is intended to provoke the question, why is poverty despised in marriage and social standing when the God we look up to chose was poor also?

CHARACTER STUDY (III)

     With the heartfelt greetings completed, Allyson and the other women started hiking.  At first, Allyson felt like there was an elephant in the room or on the trail.  She knew that the possible death of Lindsey, their friend, was hanging over all of them, but nonetheless she trudged on with them because she knew it was her duty to Lindsey.  Melissa, the most athletic and the naturalist of the group, led the way.  Rebecca followed closely behind her, but willing to go ahead of the group to explore the sights along the trail.  Allyson thought, that is the same Rebecca from high school, adventurous and independent.  In the middle, Allyson walked with Brenna, and behind them, Rachel and Miki brought up the end of the line of friends Allyson was to spend the next twenty-two weeks hiking with. 
     It had only been a half an hour when the group heard loud, obnoxious laughter, and other noises that weren't part of the nature soundtrack that had been playing in the background until then.  A group of guys emerged around the next curve on the path.  There were three of them, two of them dark-skinned and one light.  When they saw the group of women, they started whispering to each other.  This made Allyson and her friends nervous, but it was six against three so they felt safe.  When the men reached them, they stopped and one of them exclaimed,
"Hi! I'm Javaris Jamar Javarison-Lamar.  Are you girls looking for the body?"
His cheerfulness made Allyson suspect that he was up to something, but when her friends' curiosity got the better of them, and they responded the affirmative to his question, his response assured her that the group would be out of their way soon.
"Yeah, we wanted the reward too, but Quatro Quatro here," he said as he gestured to the other dark-skinned guy who looked like a former gang member, "Is so deathly afraid of the bugs that he kept having panic attacks every five minutes.  Then, if that wasn't enough for me to deal with, Dan Smith, Mr. Brilliant, here," he stated as he motioned to his pale friend, "Kept reminding me of all the possible ways we could die on this trail by pointing out an immense number of poisonous berries and mushrooms along the trail.  Finally, I'd had about enough of it all, and I told them so.  I said, 'No reward is big enough for me to endure twenty-two weeks of torture with you guys.  We are turning back.' So here we are now. I wouldn't go on if I were you.  I don't think you girls can handle it.  It's a rough trail, and at nights, strange sounds, like you've never heard, come from all directions at you.  It'd drive anybody crazy.  It drove me crazy."
Then, Javaris grinned, and Allyson shivered.  She didn't have a good feeling about these men, and so she stepped to the front of the group and said,
"Thanks for the advice.  You're not too far from the beginning of the trail; it's about a mile and a half walk more.  I hope you all get your sanity back when you leave the trail."
With that, she tugged on Melissa and Rebecca's arms to get everyone moving again, and once the group of guys passed them completely, Allyson soon forgot about them.  It seemed that the odd encounter had given Allyson and her friends something to relate to, and soon their conversations reminded Allyson of how they used to be in high school, except that Lindsey wasn't there.  Rachel was still the jokester of the group and the social butterfly.  She had kept in touch with every one of the friends, and so when Melissa couldn't find one person from the group, Allyson learned that Rachel contacted them instead.  Brenna's comments revealed to Allyson that she was still as cynical as she was in high school and that she still brought her dark sense of humor everywhere.  Miki was as sweet as she had always been, but Allyson observed that she was slightly more dependent on the rest of the group for what to do.  In the end, the reunited friends chose the icebreaker of sharing the story of where they had all been when they heard that Lindsey was missing on the Pacific Crest Trail.  Allyson listened closely, waiting to share her part, but all the while, keeping one eye out for anything out of the ordinary that indicated the presence of Lindsey.  She could only picture her alive, of course, the alternative was too dismal for her mind to handle.

CHARACTER STUDY (II)

Allyson had been told to meet them at the start of the Pacific Crest Trail.  "Them" was a group of her old high school friends consisting of Melissa, Brenna, Rachel, Miki, and Rebecca.  It all started a week ago when it was announce on the news that someone had gone missing somewhere along the Pacific Crest Trail.  When the picture of the hiker was displayed on the television screen, Allyson saw it was one of her old friends Lindsey from high school.  A couple of days later, Melissa had contacted her with the idea of reuniting their main group of friends in high school to hike the trail and search for Lindsey.  Allyson was feeling nostalgic and curious, and she accepted the invitation.

When Allyson arrived at the Pacific Crest Trail, she recognized them at once.  She couldn't remember how many years had gone by since she had seen some of them, ten years maybe.  Her stomach was full of butterflies as she got out of her small electric car and approached everyone.  After the standard greetings, she observed how the years had treated all of them.  They all seemed very healthy and relatively happy.  She recognized that everyone seemed prepared for the long hike, but she felt like she had packed too many warm clothes.  If only she hadn't had temporary amnesia from being kicked in the head by an alpaca the morning that she packed.  Oh well, it was too late to turn back now, hundreds of miles from home.  Let the journey begin.

CHARACTER STUDY (I)

In the plains of Montana, Allyson awakes at dawn in her small room.  She quietly slips on a pair of worn-out boots, ties up her dusty brown hair, and strolls outside of her quaint cottage, heading towards a burnt red barn nearby.  When she arrives at the entrance to the barn, she heaves open the broad doors, and various shapes, sizes, and colors of alpacas come racing out into the fenced yard.  In their excitement for breakfast, they are oblivious to the prospect that she will be leaving them in the care of a neighbor as she embarks on a journey, away from the life on her alpaca farm that she has always known.  For now, Allyson gently measures out the food for each alpaca, and greets each one with a pleasant "Good morning" and their name.  When she returns inside, she rummages through her drawers for versatile clothes that could be worn for any type of weather or any occasion.  She tries to make rational decisions about what to carry with her, and she smiles at the thought of being so unprepared that she has to wear a wool coat on a smoldering day somewhere.  The looming unknowns about her trip leave her no choice but to fit as much food, water, money, and clothing into an old hiking backpack as she can, hoping that what she brings will suffice for her journey.

CANTERBURY TALES (I)

I had only heard The Canterbury Tales mentioned a couple of times before we started the piece, so I wasn't exactly sure what to expect.  I think that the nature of the story as a very long poem adds to the humor and liveliness of the tone of the Prologue.  Words that normally may not be put together are put together for the sake of rhyming and rhythm.  Also, I was amused by Chaucer's extensive use of imagery as he describes the various character's.  My favorite simile that he includes is when he writes, "White as a daisy petal was his beard."  I enjoyed the irony in this phrase in that there are so many other more masculine comparisons that could have been made, but no, Chaucer sees fit to compare a franklin's beard to a flower, possibly implying the lower social status of a franklin.

I most want to read the miller's story in The Canterbury Tales.  I have heard some comments and innuendos about it, and I want to read for myself the details.  I want to see why it's so infamous and why it has the reputation it does.

Netvibes

Having the dashboard that I created is helpful for checking my email, keeping track of the things I need to do using a to-do list, and checking the course blog for this class all at once, without clicking on the links in my Favorites one by one.  I also like the ability to have a personalized theme and the ability to change the colors and arrangement of the widgets.  My glowing approval of this site, however, may be biased by the fact that I haven't searched for any other dashboard sites that could potentially be better that Netvibes and change my present opinion.

VOCAB #6

obsequious: showing servile complaisance; fawning; obedient; deferential
The obsequious child did whatever his parents wanted.

beatitude: exalted happiness; supreme blessedness
The beatitude she felt on her wedding day wiped away any doubts she had had.

bête noire: a person or thing especially disliked or dreaded
It is a sad thing when you become the bête noire of a community.

bode: to endure; to encounter; to wait; to dwell
He decided to bode his time wisely before asking his boss for a raise.

dank: unpleasantly moist or humid; damp and, often, chilly
The tourists took a guided tour through a dank and dark underground cave.

ecumenical: general; universal; promoting Christian unity throughout the world; interreligious or interdenominational
Their ecumenical relationship was criticized by their relatives.

fervid: vehement in spirit; overly enthusiastic; burning; glowing;
Her fervid attitude towards the group project had a positive effect on the attitudes of the other group members.

fetid: having an offensive odor; stinking
The fetid smell of trash stretches for miles on trash day.

gargantuan: gigantic; enormous; colossal
To an ant, an elephant must seem gargantuan.

heyday: the period of the greatest vigor, strength, success; prime
It was a sad time when he realized that the heyday of his acting career was over.

incubus: a nightmare; something that oppresses one like a nightmare
The incubus of her act of stealing the candy bar caused herself to turn herself in the next day.

infrastructure: the basic or underlying framework or features of a system or organization
The infrastructure of the store included a store manager and multiple clerks.

inveigle: to entice, lure, or snare by flattery; to acquire, win, or obtain by beguiling talk
She inveigled the boy into giving her the concert tickets for a cheaper price.

kudos: honor; glory; acclaim
Everyone wants kudos for their hard work.

lagniappe: a gratuity or tip; an unexpected benefit
They forgot to leave a lagniappe for the waiter for the meal in the restaurant.

prolix: extended to great, unnecessary, or tedious length; long and wordy;
His prolix essay wasn't even comprehensible; it was filled with jargon.

protégé: a person under protection, patronage, or care of someone interested in his/her career or welfare
The carpenter's protégé was becoming better than the carpenter himself.

prototype: the original or model on which something is based or formed from; model; exemplar
The prototype of the airplane looked promising that it would fly properly.

sycophant: self-seeking, servile flatterer; fawning parasite
The sycophant hoped to earn a promotion by becoming the personal attendant of the boss.

tautology: needless repetition of an idea without imparting additional clearness
Tautology can be tiring when it makes writing appear to be a very complex on the surface, but it really isn't.

truckle: to submit or yield obsequiously or tamely
He truckled to his cravings for sweets and went out for ice cream.

accolade: any award, honor, or laudatory notice; a touch on the shoulder with a sword during a knighthood ceremony
The accolade she received for her photograph in the art show came with a $50 check.

acerbity: sourness, with roughness of taste; harshness or severity in temper or expression
Because of the employee's acerbity, many people chose not to got to the store.

attrition: a decrease in numbers, size, or strength; the wearing down or weakening of resistance
She developed attrition towards her monotonous life.

bromide:  a platitude or trite saying; a person who is platitudinous and boring
His essay contained so many bromides that his teacher didn't find any original material in it.

chauvinist: a person who aggressively and blindly patriotic; a person who believes one gender is superior to the other
The male chauvinist thought that only men should go to work, while the women should stay home.

chronic: constant; habitual; recurring frequently
The child's chronic cough worried her parents, and they took her to see a doctor.

expound: to state in detail; to explain; to interpret
He expounded the process by which machine was supposed to be assembled.

factionalism: of a faction or factions; self-interested; partisan
The factionalism of our government inhibits its effectiveness.

immaculate: spotlessly clean; pure; free from errors
The mother always seemed to want the teenage daughter's room to be immaculate.

imprecation: the act of cursing; a curse; malediction
He cast all the imprecations he could think of at the hammer that had hit his thumb.

ineluctable: inescapable; incapable of being evaded
School is ineluctable to students who want to learn and get good grades.

mercurial: volatile; erratic; flighty; animated; lively; quick-witted
The teenager's mercurial and energetic personality puzzled her parents.

palliate: mitigate; alleviate; to relieve or lessen without curing
The ice pack palliated the pain from the inflammation of a sprained ankle.

protocol: the regulations and customs dealing with formality, precedence, and etiquette
Every teacher has a specific protocol of their classroom that they expect students to follow.

resplendent: shining brilliantly; gleaming; splendid
The resplendent snow excited the children, who rushed to go sledding through it.

stigmatize: to set some mark of disgrace or infamy upon; to mark with a stigma or brand
His disgraceful actions abroad stigmatized his family in their town.

sub rosa: confidentially; secretly; privately
The content of the business meeting was asked to be kept sub rosa because of ruthless competitors.

vainglory: excessive elation and pride over one's achievements; empty pomp or show
He didn't want someone to mistake his announcement of his achievement as vainglorious.

vestige: the mark, trace, or evidence of something that no longer exists; a slight trace or amount
Only small vestiges of love existed between the divorced couple.

volition: the act of willing, choosing, or resolving; a decision made by will
She didn't want to listen to her parents because she wanted to make decisions of her own volition.