30 October 2001–Open Prompt

1986. Some works of literature use the element of time in a distinct way. The chronological sequence of events may be altered, or time may be suspended or accelerated. Choose a novel, an epic, or a play of recognized literary merit and show how the author's manipulation of time contributes to the effectiveness of the work as a whole. Do not merely summarize the plot.

 Senility comes with old age. Memories and the present are either lost or muddled together. In Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman, the main character, Willy Loman, slips in and out of the present along with the events of the drama itself. Miller's manipulation of time better communicates Willy's mental situation to the audience and reveals important plot information while perpetuating his emphasis on abandonment. 

The actual events of the play follow Willy's relapses into his past. Without this, the audience would only view Willy talking to himself, just as the other characters view him. Taking the trip with Willy allows viewers to feel empathy, to experience the same level of disorientation as Willy. Willy's confusion and misunderstanding become the audience's confusion and misunderstanding. Willy is transformed from a nettlesome old man to a sympathetic old-timer abandoned by his sanity.

Miller chooses to show supposedly "happy" times from Willy's past, back when his son Biff was the high school football star and he felt "well liked" by his clientele. Those times are not happy, though. Money troubles are a constant plague in the Loman's household, Willy has an affair while he's away for work, Biff's football success clouds his academics, and Willy is eventually forgotten by his clients. The dichotomy of these memories show the audience how Willy's

22 October 2011—Response to Course Material

Close Reading of the American Dream
Seriously doubting my capability to do anything with this. All I have for DIDLS and close readings are questions, not answers or even musings. Whenever I think I am coming to conclusion, I'm always way off-base. Misinterpreting everything forever.
Is Albee being borderline sexist with the emasculation of Daddy? Why is his masculinity so important? What does it have to do with the American Dream?
The more we go over the American Dream, the less I see Grandma as having been the Dream, or Barker as being the corporation. That's not how that's supposed to work.
How do we separate absurdity from meaning?
"Good Works" is capitalized...how would an audience "get" that?

Open/Closed Prompts
Getting worse and worse at these.

Literary Terms
Hey I actually know something. Thanks to pop culture, "lampoon," "non sequiter,"  and "in medias res" are not a problem, but who decided to name different forms of repetition?
I won't understand litotes or chiasmus until I have a list of examples.
Paraprosdokian might be the equivalent of Arson, Murder, And Jaywalking

22 October 2011—Close Reading

Occupy Wall Street and Hollywood


In his article, Occupy Wall Street and Hollywood, Frank Bruni shows the inherent hypocrisy of celebrity involvement in Occupy Wall Street, and the detrimental affect it could have on the integrity of the movement.

Bruni asserts that celebrities are not members of the 99%. He uses sarcasm, invective, and details to separate figures such as Roseanne Barr, Russell Simmons, Kanye West, and Susan Sarandon from the protestors. Of Barr, Bruni says, "Such a subtle creature, she, and so oppressed to boot! Back in the 1990s, for the final seasons of her sitcom “Roseanne,” she made at least $20 million a year." Highly-paid supporters only "confuses the identity of [the] protest movement" made up of those feeling that there's too great a difference in income in the first place.

Celebrities' involvement in OWS is hypocritical in that they primarily make money for Wall-Street-like executives. Bruni again sensationalizes this, using details and harsh diction. He describes the amount of money made with "oodles" and executives as "lavishly compensated." Even the pure intentions of celebrities are shown to be polluted in some way. Work for celebrities includes advertising. Bruni disparagingly refers to celebrities as "pitchmen" and "pitchwomen," not performers. He qualifies actor Alec Baldwin's claim to give away his earnings from bank commercials with the fact that "he’s still promoting the company, and there remain other facets of his work and life that render him, like other stars, a very odd fit for a movement concerned with the sway of big companies and the distribution of wealth." Baldwin's boss made almost $35 in 2010.

Bruni argues that among the "mixed signals in the celebrity assist to Occupy Wall Street," is the fact that celebrities act greedily themselves. Though "many donate generously to charity" there are cases of "accepted payments in the hundreds of thousands of dollars to show up and even perform at the private parties of superrich despots." He conveys his idea that the actions and lives of celebrities do not fit in with the movement; the movement needs its foundation to remain solid and purposeful, and the addition of celebrity only trivializes the message.

16 October 2011—Open Prompt

2004. Critic Roland Barthes has said, "Literature is the question minus the answer." Choose a novel, or play, and, considering Barthes' observation, write an essay in which you analyze a central question the work raises and the extent to which it offers answers. Explain how the author's treatment of this question affects your understanding of the work as a whole. Avoid mere plot summary.

Questions of fate and purpose plague the average person as well as the most intellectual philosopher. In John Irving's novel A Prayer for Owen Meany, these questions manifest themselves in the would-be normal life of Johnny Wheelright. Irving forces Johnny, as well as the audience, to ask, "Is there such a thing as fate? How does one know their life is moving in the right direction?" However, the answers Irving provides are nebulous and unfinished, demonstrating how neither he, Johnny, nor anyone else can answer the question completely.

The first-person narrative follows a middle-aged John's explanation of why he believes in God, why he knows there is a God. By the novels "present," he and Irving had already answered that question. Which religion is "correct" is not determined. However, John was not always a believer. It took the life and death of his best friend, Owen Meany, to give him the certainty. Many aspects of Owen are peculiar—his appearance, his voice, his intellect—but most of all would be his knowledge of his purpose in life, he knows he is "God's instrument." But Owen does not symbolize humanity. Humanity does not know its fate or purpose, and Owen never explains to his best friend anything more than he feels John needs to know. Owen, and by extent Irving, does not allow Johnny to know. He just demands that Johnny trust in his friend. Here, Irving illuminates the one-sided relationship faith demands, but he does not expose the side human beings are missing.

Owen demands more from Johnny than unquestioned trust. Throughout their childhood and beyond, they practice the same basketball maneuver repeatedly. Johnny is still left in the dark as to why Owen is obsessed with performing the trick faster, better each time. At the point of Owen's death, however, it becomes clear. The same maneuver was needed to fulfill Owen's destiny. Perhaps here Irving tries to show that though there are things one does throughout his or her entire life with seemingly little purpose, one is always preparing for something greater, again offering a limited answer to such a large question.

9 October 2011—Close Reading

Why "occupy"? It's personal

In this article, Maria Cardona interprets the source of the Occupy Wall Street movement. She argues that Americans do not feel the pressures of the day primarily economically or politically, but personally—that the actions of the right-wing are intimate in their effects on the "average" American. As she sees it, protestors aren't fighting against opposing ideologies, they're defending their well-being and dignity against a conservative-run system.

Cardona lists statistic after statistic demonstrating the prosperous upper classes and waning less fortunate. She first mentions that "executive pay is now about five times higher than it was in 1980" while the working class pay has remained stagnant. She also points out that "the average CEO makes $11 million a year while the average person makes $40,000." With these details, Cardona means to emphasize an inequality and instill a sense of unjustness, appealing to a reader's emotions, illuminating that personal feeling of OWS. She uses other statistics to further this cause and target the free-market-favoring GOP. Cardona reveals the amount of money donated by large corporations to political candidates to support her claim that politicians must cater to the money, not the needs of the American people, again appealing to the emotions of a reader. With detail, she also prods at readers' sense of morality, stating, "latino children now rank highest in child poverty rates. Latinos and African-Americans suffer from much higher unemployment rates than others."

Cardona writes colloquially, meaning to stress how intimate yet universal the effects of the actions taken by corporations and Republican politicians have been. Her diction is informal, and she keeps emphatic sentences short. With this perhaps Cardona is trying to convey to readers that if she's down-to-earth and personal with them, and if she takes the current situation in the US personally, then the readers should thereby take it personally as well, and feel as vexed as she. Her diction also trivializes the tactics of the opposing party and business executives. She uses "scream" and "cry" to show their immaturity, to show that those upsetting the protesters of OWS are not acting professionally or in accordance with political ideology. They're acting like stubborn toddlers, making the situation very much personal and undignified.

The simple sentence, "It is personal," or small variations are weaved throughout Cardona's article. She makes use of this repetition as well as rhetorical question to further place herself on the same level with the reader. Her questions mean to accentuate her own personal frustration and again draw on the emotional response of her audience, such as with "Really? Does American exceptionalism exist only at the top 1% of our workforce?" Cardona imparts the idea that the GOP and the super wealthy are demeaning the rest of society, and that's what angers the protesters of OWS, that's what angers her, and that's what should anger the reader.

9 October 2011—Response to Course Material

Syntax
If what's most important should be placed at the end of a sentence, when a writer wants to slip something past the readers, would he/she place it at the beginning of a sentence? Like, "gotcha!"
I use asyndeton, the omission of conjunctions, often.
When I look at things I've written, I see that I don't form sentences as if they're going to be read. I form them and punctuate them in the way I want them to be said. (Overcompensation of commas).

Theories of Humor and Comedy
I've been analyzing anything I laugh at on TV all week because of this. I have to disagree with the sixth requirement, that what's funny must be harmless. Seinfeld started pushing this limit in the 90s. On the commentary in one episode, one of the writers just says, "And another life ruined."
Now there's It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and Wilfred, which are two of the meanest comedies I've ever seen. While "the gang" in It's Always Sunny is never harmed in the long-term sense, everyone around them is. Maybe this is refuted by the fact that it's not live comedy and not real-life human beings being harmed. It's all fake. But still.

Theatre of the Absurd
"The play seems to end in precisely the same condition it began, with no real change having occurred."
It's Always Sunny and Seinfeld, again.
The distrust of language is postmodern. Thank you, British Literature.

American Dream
 How much can you fly past the radar while also blatantly ignoring the radar in every other sense?

2 October 2011—Open Prompt

1995. Writers often highlight the values of a culture or a society by using characters who are alienated from that culture or society because of gender, race, class, or creed. Choose a novel or a play in which such a character plays a significant role and show how that character's alienation reveals the surrounding society's assumptions or moral values.

  The expression "actions have consequences" is said and heard often, but rarely with the adjective "growing" between "have" and "consequences." However, the fact that actions have growing, prolonged consequences is the message J.B. Priestly relays in his drama An Inspector Calls. Set in 1912, the drama follows a night of revelations for the middle-class Birling family as an Inspector questions the members about the suicide of a young, alienated woman. Though she's never seen by the audience, the life and death of this young woman and how the Birling family connects demonstrate the cold, selfish, and impersonal society of early twentieth century England.

Each of the four members of the Birling family had some destructive stake in this young woman's, Eva Smith's, life. Arthur Birling, a hopeful, round business man with his eye on status, fired Eva from her job at one of his mills. Throughout the play, he insists on his lack of responsibility whatsoever with Eva's demise, justifying her termination with needs to keep operating costs low. Here, Priestly means for Birling to represent unsympathetic, every-man-for-himself capitalism. Arthur's wife, Sybil, is of the same stock. She too denies having anything do with Eva's death, yet it was she who, as a member of a charity, refused to help a pregnant Eva on her last legs. Sybil's uncharitable actions demonstrate the superficiality of that society. Positions in even well-meaning organizations are held for social status.

Mr. and Mrs. Birling's two grown children, though having inflicted Eva's life as well, provide contrast to their parents in that they feel guilt; they show evidence of having changed over the course of the night. The strongest of these two characters is Sheila. Sheila Birling had Eva fired from her job as a shopgirl out of impulsive jealousy of a pretty working-class girl. Unlike her parents, Sheila remorsefully accepts her responsibility. Moreover, as the night drags on, she encourages and fights with her unabiding parents to do the same. Perhaps with Sheila, Priestly means to show that society can change, that the provided-for classes can achieve sympathy and empathy if they only recognize the extending hand of their actions to the lower classes.

Though none of the Birlings directly wounded poor Eva, their ill-considered actions all played a part in her suicide. Through Eva and the Birlings, Priestly reveals the frigidity with which the upper classes can address those "beneath," as well as how tragic the consequences of unnoticed actions can be.