Fifth Business

Theme: Davies urges readers to accept the possibility of the unknown despite one’s fears.
Summary, characters: Fifth Business begins with the story from Dunstable's childhood. He is sledding with his rich friend Percy, but Percy gets upset when Dunstable's sled is faster than his. Percy begins to throw snowballs at him and the last one he throws hits the pregnant Mrs. Dempster who falls down. The baby is delivered prematurely that night by Dunstable's mother. It is then explained that Dunny is writing all this as a letter to the new headmaster to prove he has had a interesting life. 
Percy is Mrs. Dempsters son and Dunstan teaches him to do magic tricks but Mr. Dempster gets very angry because he thinks it's trickery and a sin. Mrs. Dempster has become "simpler" and the people in the town do not like her at all. She goes missing and is caught sleeping with a hobo because "he wanted it so very much and he was so polite".
Dunstan then leaves home to go the war. He writes Leola every week but does not like her much over paper. He is almost killed and is nursed back to health by Diane who he eventually has to leave because she reminds him too much of his mother. When he returns to his hometown, Leola and Percy are engaged. 
Dunstan goes to college and starts looking for Mrs. Dempster who he finds living with her aunt. Dunstan finds Paul in Europe and he is now a magician. Percy, Boy, is now very rich and him and Dunstan are still close friends. Boy is married to Leola but he cheats on her often and she is very sad. She tries to commit suicide but she dies from pneumonia. 
Dunstan joins up with Paul's circus and becomes Fifth Business, a person that Liesl explains as coming in at just the right time to do something important. 

Quotes:“If you don't hurry up and let life know what you want, life will damned soon show you what you'll get.” This quote was probably my favorite from the book because it is so applicable to everyone's life. 

Response to Course Materials

Since the past response, school has seemed pretty sparse and there haven't been a ton of normal days. We began by finishing off Frankenstein, which I enjoyed. I did feel like our discussion of it wasn't very good. In fact, I've noticed our discussions have gone considerably downhill but luckily we ended on a high note with our discussion of Fifth Business.

I strongly dislike the syntax and diction of Frankenstein, but I love the story and the meaning behind it. It made me think of the nature vs. nurture argument that we argued about in AP Bio last year. Basically, what parts of a person are ingrained into them when they are born and what parts are learned behaviors through society? Frankenstein believes his monster is pure evil, but the monster thinks that he learned his behaviors by being an outcast and not having anyone to look after him.

After we finished Frankenstein, we began Fifth Business. This book was wonderful. It is so strange to read a book and have to constantly remind yourself that you have to take everything you are reading with a grain of salt because the narrator is not 100% reliable. It also made me think about how single events can be pivotal in peoples lives, like Willy having an affair, or King Hamlet's ghost coming to see Hamlet. 

We wrote two AP essays, which I actually enjoyed. I've been looking forward to having graded essays for a while now because I needed to know how much work I had to do before the exam! We also had a quiz on the Critical Lenses&Literary Eras, which showed many of us (including me, sorry Ms. Holmes!!) that we absolutely need to study them more before the AP. 

Frankenstein

Settings&Plot:
Frankenstein begins with Walton writing letters to his sister. The key things here are that Walton is on a quest for knowledge and glory, wants a friend, and is very close with his sister. He sees a strange creature being pulled by a dog sled and a man is pulled up onto his boat who is very cold and ill. He nurses him back to health and the man tells him a cautionary tale. This tale starts out when Frankenstein, the ill man on the boat, is a child. He is always super into learning and has a close knit family that he feels like doesn't understand him. He is "given" Elizabeth (blonde haired angel who is a noble that was abandoned with a poor family) and she is his sister/potential life mate. He goes off to college and learns lots from his professors and books and becomes obsessed with creating life. He cuts himself off from his family and friend (Clerval) and manages to create a giant human. Although Frankenstein means for his creation to be beautiful, as soon as it comes to life he is disgusted by it so he runs away and becomes very ill. His good friend Henry Clerval comes to see him and nurses him back to health but Frankenstein won't tell him what made him so ill. Victor gets a letter from home telling him that William, his younger brother, has been murdered so he goes home and realizes the monster is responsible for his death. Justine, a close family friend, is charged with the murder and is eventually executed which causes Victor to feel incredibly guilty. He meets up with the monster and the monster catches him up with all that has gone down since Frankenstein abandoned him and asks Frankenstein to make him a lady friend. Frankenstein agrees and begins to make it, but cannot. The monster appears and says that he will be with Frankenstein on his wedding night. Victor goes on a trip with Clerval, and Clerval gets murdured. Victor is charged with his murder and spends some time in prison. When he gets out, he marries Elizabeth and on their honeymoon, big surprise, Elizabeth is killed by the monster. Victor then begins to chase the monster, ending up in the North Pole which is where the story catches up to his meeting with Walton.
Author: Mary Shelley
Theme: The inaccurate judgment of character based on society’s prejudices contributes toward alienation and unnatural instability.

Open Prompt Part 2

2003. According to critic Northrop Frye, “Tragic heroes are so much the highest points in their human landscape that they seem the inevitable conductors of the power about them, great trees more likely to be struck by lightning than a clump of grass. Conductors may of course be instruments as well as victims of the divisive lightning.” Select a novel or play in which a tragic figure functions as an instrument of the suffering of others. Then write an essay in which you explain how the suffering brought upon others by that figure contributes to the tragic vision of the work as a whole.

In Hamlet, by William Shakespeare, Hamlet is a perfect tragic hero. He is of noble birth and his tragic flaw is his inability to make decisions which is exacerbated by his isolation. Because of his tragic flaw, Ophelia is driven to commit suicide, his mother, uncle and Laertes are all killed, and his kingdom is to be run by a foreigner. Hamlet is made a tragic work by Hamlet because his tragic flaw eventually brings down the kingdom and everyone in it.

Hamlet begins with the pivotal moment that turns Hamlet into a tragic hero. His father, King Hamlet, has died and comes back to Hamlet as a ghost and tells him that Claudius, the king's brother, murdered him and Hamlet must get revenge. This sets up Hamlet's single task that dominates the entirety of the play. Hamlet has all kinds of power and prestige, but he cannot accomplish this simple task.

The first person who Hamlet causes to suffer is his girlfriend, Ophelia. He knows that Claudius and Polonius will use her to get to Hamlet, so he curses her and says he never wants to see her again. He then stabs her father when Polonius is spying on him and Gertrude, because he thinks Polonius is Claudius. Ophelia is possibly pregnant at this time and her father has been killed and she goes insane and drowns herself. Hamlet caused this by killing Polonius and being incredibly awful to her. The death of Polonius and Ophelia also causes an incredible amount of suffering for Laertes.

Hamlet causes the suffering of his entire country in the end. Because of the deaths of Ophelia and Polonius, Laertes does what Hamlet cannot; takes his revenge. He battles Hamlet, using a poisoned sword and poisoned wine. The wine kills Gertrude and the sword kills Claudius, Hamlet, and Laertes. This allows Fortinbras to overtake Elsinore because everyone who has a claim to the throne is dead.

If Hamlet had been decisive enough to immediately kill Claudius, he would not have led to the destruction of his entire family and girlfriend. He had all the tools he needed and had several opportunities to do the deed, but he was unable to do it.

Open Prompt Part 1

2003. According to critic Northrop Frye, “Tragic heroes are so much the highest points in their human landscape that they seem the inevitable conductors of the power about them, great trees more likely to be struck by lightning than a clump of grass. Conductors may of course be instruments as well as victims of the divisive lightning.” Select a novel or play in which a tragic figure functions as an instrument of the suffering of others. Then write an essay in which you explain how the suffering brought upon others by that figure contributes to the tragic vision of the work as a whole.

Essay #1

This essay uses Jay Gatsby as the example of the tragic hero. The first paragraph is not set up like we have been taught to in class: the first sentence includes the author and the work but it does not state who the tragic figure is and it does not say how his suffering contributes to the tragic vision of the work as a whole. I do not think that the introductory paragraph could stand alone as an answer to the prompt and it also did not include a theme. Obviously the AP grader does not agree with me though because they call it a "strong introductory paragraph". I do agree with the AP reader that this author does a nice job of avoiding plot summary and only mentioning specific incidents when they perfectly prove how Gatsby impacts other characters and the reader. I did wish that the author had included a more concise summary.

Essay #2

The next essay starts with a quote that goes along nicely with the theme of tragic heroes but it does not state what work King Lear appears in. This is mentioned in the beginning of the next paragraph and followed by a pretty intense plot summary. This really annoyed me but the AP reader seemed to appreciate that at least they focused on the parts of the plot that explained the tragic nature of Lear. The author does do a nice job of explaining that it is King Lear's vanity that leads him to be a tragic hero and impacts other characters and the work of a whole. Without reading the AP reader, I would have given this a 5-6 because of the plot summary, disappointing introductory paragraph, and lack of organization.

Essay #3

This essay... is super crappy for lack of a better word. The intro paragraph does exactly what Ms. Holmes warned us against. It merely acknowledges that Patrick McMurphy IS a tragic hero and DOES hurt other characters. There is no description of how this happens or what this adds to the work. Basically the entire thing is a plot summary. It does mention how McMurphy throwing the party leads to the nurse asking Billy what his mom would think which causes him to commit suicide but there is so much plot summary surrounding it.