Notes Nov. 22-23

Hamlet
http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/SLT/plays/incest.html 
Is Gertrude's remarriage to her husband brother incest?

• "Hamlet: My Mother: Father and Mother is man and wife: man and wife is one flesh, and fo my mother"
• If they are one flesh then to marry your dead husband's brother is to marry your brother- incest. 

http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sources/hamletsources.html

Sources for Hamlet

• based on Norse legend by Saxo Grammaticus
• tell of the rise and fall of the great rulers of Denmark
• Similarities between Hamlet and legend:
• brother kills the king
• marries his brother's wife, the queen
• the son feigns madness and plans revenge
• Difference:
• In the legend the son becomes the new and rightful king of Jutland, but in Hamlet he dies. 
• Shakespeare's Hamlet based his play on Thomas Kyd's play, Ur-Hamlet, which was based on the legend.
• In Ur-Hamlet there is a character named Hamlet and a ghost who cried "Hamlet, revenge!"

http://humx.org/vocabulary/revenge-tragedy

Revenge Tragedy

• Aristotle defines tragedy in the Poetics "as an imitation of a single, unified, action that is serious, complete, and has a certain magnitude.
• Tragedy: fall of a good, believable and consistent character caused by and error or frailty.
• Revenge tragedy: depicts a son's revenge for a father's murder, which is revealed by the murdered man's ghost- inspired by Kyd's Spanish Tragedy
• Plot may include:
• hesitation of hero
• real of pretended insanity of hero
• hero's contemplation of suicide
• multiple levels of intrigue
• an able scheming villain
• abundance of philosophic soliloquies 
• the sensationalized of murder on stage or the exhibition of dead bodies
• dynamics of revenge:
• the offense
• the antagonist
• clarification of strategies
• series of delays, obstacles, diversions, mistakes
• the showdown

Connections

          When reading about the typical ideas included in a revenge tragedy plot it mentioned the great amount of soliloquies, which I remembered noticing while reading Hamlet.

Notes Nov. 15-19

 AP Exam Multiple Choice 

1. Know what you're supposed to do.
2. Know the structure of the question
• Rhetorical Function
• explain purpose of a part of a piece
• ask yourself what the selected part of the poem does
• Context
• identify the meaning of a word used in the context
• Antecedent
• what does word refer to? -from previously in text
• usually for poetry questions
• Style
• overall question about whole piece, about a pattern in the piece
• consider the choices the author has made
• usually has a correct answer and a more correct answer
• look for words like "primary, most important..."
• Tone
• identify the tone
• pay attention to who is named as person who is projecting feeling

             *For both style and tone- will give answers with pairs of words

                   -if one is incorrect the whole thing is incorrect.

       3. Know yourself- know what trips you up and what works best for you

Outside Reading: Reflective Essay #2

Reflective Essay: "From Rage to Relief: View from a Nurse's Station"
By Theresa Brown
published March 30, 2010

     Brown's reflective essay, "From Rage to Relief: View from a Nurse's Station" discusses the importance of healthcare with a tone of criticism and then consolation. The Nurse begins by criticizing the V.I.P. patients who get special treatment and their meals served on china, while others can not even afford a meal. Even worse, there are some people who, without having any health insurance, can't even pay for treatments, surgeries, or medication.

     With an opening criticizing tone, Brown pulls the reader in by either standing up for the reader or causing the reader to feel a sense of guilt or defensiveness if he or she is one of those wealthy patients with good health insurance. The other readers, the less wealthy ones with no health insurance, would completely agree with what the writer is saying, and therefore both groups of people would read on to see what Brown has to say. Brown says that the "vast disparities in health care coverage" troubles her because they affect her ability to do her job of being a "patient advocate" (2). 

     The tone of this piece not only intrigues people with it's blunt criticism, but it also persuades the reader of the importance of health insurance. The nurse's tone turns into relief when she begins discussing the positive effects the health care bill would have. She gives a sense of hope to the less fortunate patients when using repetition of the word, "relief," saying, "she feels relief. Relief that a patient will not have to worry about affording the treatment need to stop her cancer. Relief that medication decisions will be based on effectiveness and not cost. Relief that I can educate patients about the drugs they need without fretting that they won't take them if they can't afford them" (2). 


     Brown's successfully accomplishes her main purpose of convincing the reader that the health care bill is important, based on her experiences as a nurse. Her main technique used to fulfill this task is a tone of rage replaced by ease, which shows her passion for the controversial topic. 

Outside Reading: Book Review #2

 Book Review: "Double-Fault"
by Chelsea Cain
published October 22, 2010

      In Chelsea Cain's book review of "Our Kind of Traitor," by John le Carre, she uses a small amount of the formalism and historicism critical perspectives to analyze the novel, but generally she just summarizes the novel and her opinion of it.

     Throughout the majority of the review, Cain takes the reader on a journey through the book and all of the feelings the reader may experience, while occasionally using a couple critical perspectives on the way. She begins with a little Historicism by mentioning the background of the author, le Carre, who is the "papa of cold war spy novels" (1). In Cain's view, the writer of the novel brings the reader a sense of nostalgia and "warms the hearts of those... who long for the era before Jack Bauer, when spies quoted P.G. Wodehouse and wore mackintoshes," while living in a time of only brooding and romantic vampire novels (1). After a little summary of the plot the writer then uses the formalistic critical perspective while discussing the "classic spy archetypes" that le Carre uses when the spies' code names are introduced as Tom, Dick and Harry (3). Using a historical approach, she notices that le Carre tries to be relevant to what is happening in the present, with a plot involving "Russian gangsters and international banking," not to mention the the publicity materials that "include a 2009 article from The Observer of London that echoes the narrative conspiracy" (3). Cain's reaction to this though is that the allure of this novel is that it does bring back the past, and does not conform to the modern genres.

       The person of this review seemed to be trying to communicate to the readers what a great novel this is because of it's familiar characteristics of old spy novels that brings the readers a sense of sentimentality. It's strengths are that it does use critical perspectives to analyze the novel, but they are used sparingly with few other techniques to accompany them. The majority of the time Cain seems to just summarize the novel.

      Some connections between this piece and other pieces we've read in English classes is the stress on typical types of stories. Cain describes a run-of-the-mill spy story with a whisky drinking, educated English gentleman. This similar to what we talk about with archetypes and how everything is an allusion to myths, the Bible, or Shakespeare. There are plot and character archetypes that are characteristics in everything we read and see, since there is basically only one story. Cain is saying the same thing, only using a more specific genre to focus on.

      In Cain's book review of le Carre's "Our Kind of Traitor," she uses the critical approaches of formalism and historicism to successfully convince the reader of the excellence of his novel. Over all the message of this piece is adequately conveyed to the reader.

Outside Reading: Editorial #2

Editorial: "I Believe I Can Fly"
by Thomas L. Friedman
published November 13, 2010

     Thomas L. Friedman's editorial, "I Believe I Can Fly," is a criticism on the ignorance of world leaders, using a strong voice and support of his argument. Friedman argues that national leaders are behaving as if they believe they can fly because they are "ignoring that sudden stop at the end that's sure to come" (1).

    

    Friedman uses a strong voice with a great amount of support to convince the reader of the leaders' ignorance.  He begins with Israel's prime minister as his first example. Bibi Netanyahu refuses "to halt settlement building as prerequisite for negotiations" even though he claims that he is completely committed to peace with the Palestinians(1). Unless the first outcome is war, Netanyahu will eventually hit that sudden stop at the end, when they no longer have a Jewish majority because of all the risks he took. The writer uses America as his next example, describing the undermining efforts of the Republican Party to have a clean energy bill put in place. By doing this we could break away from the countries we are dependent upon for oil, have "cleaner air, more renewable energy, a stronger dollar, more innovative industries and enemies with less money" (1-2). If nothing is done and people remain ignorant to the situation, future generations will reach that sudden stop, when they can no longer be carefree and fly, but rather have to hit that hard reality. Friedman's last supporting detail discusses the people "working to scuttle Senate ratification of the New Start nuclear arms reduction treaty" (2). In his opinion, many people don't want to pass the treaty just because they don't want President Obama to have the success. The writer then points out the important fact that people should care less about weakening their own president and more about the ties between Iran or U.S. and Russia. Friedman successfully argues his point with multiple pieces of evidence.


       Not only does Friedman support his argument with many key points and criticisms, but he also comes up with solutions to the problems. According to the writer, the Republicans continuously try to push Obama out of power and keep him only as a one-term president so that they can obtain power to achieve their goals. Friedman argues that they didn't pursue those goals the previous eight years they were in office, and he believes those aren't even the right priorities anyways. The writer argues that their priorities should now should be to "mitigate the recession" (2). He even then goes on to explain how to achieve this goal, which he believes is by improving the skills and education of workers. 


      Using clear evidence and a strong believable voice, Friedman successfully support his argument.  His writing is very persuasive because he seems to know about the evidence he provides and even offers ways to fix the problems. For an AP essay, this would definitely be appropriate, with his sophisticated voice and knowledge. 








    

Notes Nov. 8-12

Thesis

Thesis Answers Prompt

& etc.----> do NOT use on AP test
---> use: "and other effects" instead.

Theme=meaning

First example thesis:
In ________'s "_________," the opening scene uses ________ to demonstrate [theme].

Notes Nov. 1-5

Oedipus Class Discussion

• What is the purpose of rewriting Oedipus? What are the different purposes of the play compared to the original story?

• Translations- some lines different in different translations
• changes interpretation of characters- is he saying he won't lie or is he saying he can't guarantee anything for the future?
• Foil Characters- Oedipus and Kreon
• Oedipus: more passionate, takes responsibility, noble, emotional
• Kreon: in the shadows, says he basically gets rights of king without responsibility, rational
• Power may corrupt some people- power makes you blind.
• Motif- sight and blindness
• power makes you blind
• Kreon has better "sight"/knowledge, more rational
• knows most about himself while Oedipus is blind to a lot about himself.