Hemingway

Below is an excerpt from “Soldier’s Home” by Ernest Hemingway (1925).  

This prompt is a variation on a previous AP prompt:

“In many texts a character has a misconception of himself or his world. Destroying or perpetuating this illusion contributes to a central theme of the text.” Using the excerpt below,  explain how this  statement applies, and write a response in which you consider the following:

(1) What the character’s illusion is and how it differs from reality as presented in the text.

(2) How the destruction or perpetuation of the illusion develops a theme of the text.

     

Life of Pi

The below passage comes to you from Yann Martel's Life of Pi.  

Read this passage and analyze the tone.  Be sure to explain how the diction, imagery and figurative language all speak to the tone.  Then, what is his point?  Happy reading!  

"In zoos, as in nature, the best times to visit are sunrise and sunset. That is when most animals come to life. They stir and leave their shelter and tiptoe to the water’s edge. They show their raiments. They sing their songs. They turn to each other and perform their rites. The reward for the watching eye and the listening ear is great. I spent more hours than I can count a quiet witness to the highly mannered, manifold expressions of life that grace our planet. It is something so bright, loud, weird and delicate as to stupefy the senses.

I have heard nearly as much nonsense about zoos as I have about God and religion. Well-meaning but misinformed people think animals in the wild are “happy” because they are “free.” These people usually have a large, handsome predator in mind, a lion or a cheetah (the life of a gnu or of an aardvark is rarely exalted). They imagine this wild animal roaming about the savannah on digestive walks after eating a prey that accepted its lot piously, or going for callisthenic runs to stay slim after overindulging. They imagine this animal overseeing its offspring proudly and tenderly, the whole family watching the setting of the sun from the limbs of trees with sighs of pleasure. The life of the wild animal is simple, noble and meaningful, they imagine. Then it is captured by wicked men and thrown into tiny jails. Its “happiness” is dashed. It yearns mightily for “freedom” and does all it can to escape. Being denied its “freedom” for too long, the animal becomes a shadow of itself, its spirit broken. So some people imagine" (15-16).

Crime and Punishment in our World

The ideas present within the novel transcend not only the time it was written but lift themselves from the pages to manifest within pop culture.   What Dostoevsky was focused on still resonates with audiences today.  So, this week, pay attention to your world.  Listen to your music, watch your television, see your movies, and read your books.  Think about what point is being made and how it is connected to our novel, Crime and Punishment.

This is your opportunity to not only read our texts, but to read the world:)

Crime and Punishment

The following passage from Crime and Punishment.  In your blog this week, explain how the author's use of imagery, and figurative language characterize the two characters: Raskolnikov and the Pawn Broker.                           Remember to explain why it matters!

"The old woman was as always bareheaded. Her thin, light hair, streaked with grey, thickly smeared with grease, was plaited in a rat’s tail and fastened by a broken horn comb which stood out on the nape of her neck. As she was so short, the blow fell on the very top of her skull. She cried out, but very faintly, and suddenly sank all of a heap on the floor, raising her hands to her head. In one hand she still held ‘the pledge.’ Then he dealt her another and another blow with the blunt side and on the same spot. The blood gushed as from an overturned glass, the body fell back. He stepped back, let it fall, and at once bent over her face; she was dead. Her eyes seemed to be starting out of their sockets, the brow and the whole face were drawn and contorted convulsively" (1.7. 16).

Wilde

Aestheticism

According to The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms Aestheticism is a movement that started in Europe in the second half of the 19th century.

Supporters of this movement insist that there is a separation of art from morality.  Art needs no moral to have value.  Art for Art's Sake or L'art pour l'art

In literature--it was about praising the form with little authorial presence. 

Aestheticism is shown through this character--Cyril from Wilde's The Decay of Lying (1889):

• Art never expresses anything but itself.  It has an independent life, just as Thought has, and       develops purely on its own lines.  It is not necessarily realistic in its age of realism, nor spiritual in an age of faith.  So far from being the creation of its own time, it is usually in direct opposition to it, and the only history that it preserves for us is the history of its own progress.

This is a very brief explanation as to what this movement meant and just a glimmer as to Wilde's involvement.  In looking at this description, how does this change the way you see The Picture of Dorian Gray?  Can a piece of Artwork exist without any moral, social, or political value? Think about your speeches and the art pieces you incorporated when making your argument.  

Grammar

The semi-colon and the colon--

These two punctuation marks are giving people a run for their money.  So, because I have observed semi-colon and colon abuse, this week's blog will be an analysis of how we use these in our writing.

1. Your first assignment is to go to the Grammar Girl website and read the pages on how to use semi-colons and colons.  

2. Then you will explain how to use each mark in your own words with examples for each rule.  

3.  Your examples should be about Crime and Punishment or Dorian Gray.  

Poetry Analysis

Below you have a poem.  Analyze the poem.  In your analysis, explain the author's purpose and how the author conveys this purpose through the use of literary devices.  Pull two to three devices to address.  (Note--the structure:))   

Anthem for Doomed Youth

BY WILFRED OWEN

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?

      — Only the monstrous anger of the guns.

      Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle

Can patter out their hasty orisons.

No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells; 

      Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,—

The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;

      And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all?

      Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes

Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.

      The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;

Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,

And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.