Response to Course Materials.

The past few weeks have been very segmented and unusual in class. We got lots of in class time to read Frankenstein, with short discussions with our classmates every twenty minutes. I did not find this helpful because everyone reads at their own pace so some people were getting spoilers and others could only discuss half of what they read. I also think a lot of people did not actually read during this class time.
Overall I really enjoyed Frankenstein and the discussions about it. My favorite article was the one that talked about childbirth and how this aspect of Mary Shelley's life impacted Frankenstein. When I was going through my 2nd read and annotations I found evidence of the monster being Frankenstein's "child" and it made me see the resemblance between Frankenstein abandoning his creation and Mary Shelley's mother dying in childbirth. It made me wonder if Shelley believed growing up without her mother had impacted her in a negative way.
Another thing I found interesting about Frankenstein was the similarities between Walton. the monster, and Frankenstein. All of them dealt with isolation, really wanted to find companionship, and were super into nature. I also noticed some similarities with Hamlet and Willy. Hamlet was extremely alienated, like the monster, and this lead to him being kinda crazy. His relationship with Horatio reminded me a lot of Clerval and Frankenstein. Both Clerval and Horatio seemed to be utterly devoted to their friends and have no lives of their own to live. Willy reminded me of Frankenstein before he built the monster because they both had such one track minds and were so devoted to what they wanted their futures to be like that they neglected the people that loved them the most.  
As homework we were all supposed to watch a prezis on Literary Eras and Critical Eras. I thought both of these were really fascinating, especially the parts that talked about how people have viewed writers in the past. I had never fully considered how important writing is to not only our current society, but past societies also. Writing is immensely powerful because it can spread information to the masses which can be amazing, but also dangerous. These prezis also showed me how little I know about how writing has changed over the years, and it reminded me of how art is classified into different movements.

March 15th

2007, Form B. Works of literature often depict acts of betrayal. Friends and even family may betray a protagonist; main characters may likewise be guilty of treachery or may betray their own values. Select a novel or play that includes such acts of betrayal. Then, in a well-written essay, analyze the nature of the betrayal and show how it contributes to the meaning of the work as a whole.

In Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, Dr. Frankenstein betrays the monster by creating him and then abandoning him. Frankenstein is obsessed with the monster for years of his life; he does nothing but sit in a dark room and slave over it. He does everything he can to make it beautiful, but when the monster actually comes to life, it is hideous. Frankenstein takes one glance at what he has made and is so horrified that he runs away, leaving this childlike beast to fend for itself. The theme of this novel is that creativity and single-mindedness can lead to destruction and heartbreak.

The monster in Frankenstein is kind of like Dr. Frankenstein's child. The doctor gave him life but then threw away his responsibility and left. This left the monster to develop in complete loneliness which made him dark. The monster learned to talk by watching a family in a cottage but when he tried to interact with the family, they were disgusted by him. Events like this led to the monsters intense feelings of loneliness and longing for a companion. When Viktor, Dr Frankenstein, met with the monster in the mountains, the monster has already killed once but he said he will never do it again if Viktor creates a partner for him. Viktor feels intensely torn, but decides not to. Because of this, Frankenstein kills Viktor's new bride.

Because Viktor left the monster, the monster had to deal with civilization with no buffer. This led to him being very solitary and craving companionship, but there were no other beings like it. The monster knew Viktor was the only one who could create another one but Viktor despised the monster, so he had to be threatened. Because of this, the monster tried to force Viktor to make another one by saying he would kill all of Viktor's family if he did not comply, but Viktor could not make himself do so. Viktor's betrayal of the monster forced him into this impossible situation, and it eventually ends in heartbreak when Viktor's wife is killed.

March 8th

The prompt for Question 3, the “open” question, began with a quotation from Kate Chopin’s novel The

Awakening (1899), in which the protagonist Edna Pontellier is said to possess “that outward existence

which conforms, the inward life which questions.” Students were then asked to identify in a novel or play

that they had studied a character who conforms outwardly while questioning inwardly and to analyze how

this tension between outward conformity and inward questioning contributes to the meaning of the work.

Readers found that students responded positively to the admonition to draw on material they had studied.

Moreover, most students understood that the prompt required that the tension between outward

conformity and inward questioning be the crux of their discussion. Thus, the inherent tension in the

character helped students to organize their ideas and to extend the discussion to a consideration of the

meaning of the work. Because AP students read a variety of texts with characters who struggle with the

complexities of human existence, they had ample titles to choose from and were not forced to distort less

appropriate texts to fit the prompt.
#1.
This first essay is the best out of the three of them, and was made all the more enjoyable for me because The Scarlet Letter is the only piece of literature I have actually read from these three essays. The introductory paragraph is specific and nicely sets up the organization for the rest of the essay. The author does a wonderful job of proving how the question of conformity adds to the novels theme of people who appear guiltless being the guiltiest. My largest complaint about this essay is that it is near impossible to read!

#2 This essay has a good beginning but the end of the introductory paragraph does not tie into the meaning of "The Dolls House" as much as I would like it to. While the actual writing style of the author is quite bland and repetitive, the content of the essay is good. Even though I have never read this, I can tell that their thesis of Nora wanting to conform as the perfect housewife and yet wanting independence is strong.

#3 This was the worst essay by far. After reading it, I felt like I much more clearly knew the plot of "Their Eyes Were Watching God", but this is not the point of these essays. The author did not seem to know how to answer the prompt and much of the essay was simple facts that did not tie into proving the thesis.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Summary

Theme: Stoppard suggests that there may be incomprehensible forces shaping our lives, making it impossible to control or understand them.
Summary:
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are flipping coins and the coins keep being heads. This makes them talk briefly about the laws of probability but they get confused and remember their journey, which is to travel to Elsinore. On the way they bump into The Player along with his entourage. He interrupts their game and offers to perform some...hm not so PG material...for a few guilders. It takes Ros&Guil a while to get this and while Guil is horrified, Ros is a little interested. The Player desperately wants to perform in front of them so he makes a bet; if the coin lands on heads, The Player loses, if tails, The Player wins. It lands on tails but The Player covers it so they have to perform, but Ros and Guil leave them to go to Elsinore. At Elsinore, they meet with the King and Queen who cannot tell them apart and then with Hamlet. Questions are a big deal here; they play the question game and they unsuccessfully try to interrogate Hamlet. Hamlet then kills Polonius and they are all on a boat to go to England. Ros and Guil are given a letter to give to the King of England but they accidentally open it and see that Hamlet is going to be killed. Because they love having a purpose and directions, they don't say anything. Ros and Guil then find themselves on the beach and can hear music playing, but it is muffled. The Player shows up and tells them how angry Claudius was at their play, which is now they are all in England. Ros and Guil jump into some barrels, Hamlet disappears, and the lights go down. When the light comes on the Player tells Guil and Ros about death, and the last scene of the play shows them all dead.
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead: This title is significant because Ros and Guil die at the end of the play, but what does that really mean? Every time the play is reenacted they are alive again so does death really matter?
Quotes:
"Give us this day our daily...week"
This is an incorrect repitition of the Bible quote "Give us this day our daily bread." It is uttered many times throughout the play,never correctly.