Catcher pre-discussion discussion

Some things to think about before the discussion test (both for those of you who missed class yesterday and for those who want to continue talking about some of the things we began discussing)

1. Think about the structure of the book--how important are the first/last chapter in our understanding of Salinger's purpose? Of Holden as a character?

2. Literary allusions... The Great Gatsby, A Farwell to Arms, Of Human Bondage, The Return of the Native, Oliver Twist, Emily Dickinson (think about how Allie calls her a war poet) and of course the Robert Burns poem to which the title (erroneously) alludes: how do these enhance our reading of the text? Setting the novel in a high school works well for incorporating canonical literature without it seeming hackneyed, but why these specific texts and authors?

3. We talked about museums and the purpose they serve (preserving, freezing artifacts), but how do the other places Holden visits in New York serve to enhance our understanding of his desire, anxiety, nostalgia or emotional state in general?

Feel free to post other questions or ideas, these are just a starting point. Enjoy your weekend, wear your red hunting hats if you go out in the snow.

The Scarlet Letter: A Romance

Think about the subtitle of The Scarlet Letter. In what ways is this text "a romance"? What, if any, relationship, is there between "romance" and Romanticism?

If you are unfamiliar with Romanticism as a literary movement, please read the following background information:

http://www.wwnorton.com/college/english/nael/romantic/welcome.htm
(Byron features prominently)

In Harold Bloom's introduction to Modern Critical Interpretations: Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, he writes: "Pearl...is the romance's prime knower no reader would doubt. The subtlest relation in Hawthorne's sinuously ambiguis romance is not that between Chillingworth and Dimmesdale. It is the ambivalent and persuasive mother-daughter complex in which Hester is saved both from suicidal despair and from the potential of becoming the prophetess of a feminist religion only by the extraordinary return in her daughter of everything she herself has repressed" (Bloom 4).

Opening the exploration to any of the major four characters in the novel, what specific passages do you see that highlight the extent to which Hawthorne was influenced by romanticism? What tension(s) are illuminated, complicated or otherwise illustrated by Romanticism (or vice versa)?

Shame as Control (and a few announcements)

It seems that the combination of my being out, your presentation yesterday during class and today being a day off school has kind of thrown things into confusion. Tomorrow I need to collect your passages so that we can do the class activity I have planned. We can push the class activity until Friday if need be, but please bring those to class tomorrow so that I have time to photocopy them. (This is all explained on that note I left for you with the sub.)

For the blog tonight if you knew to post--I would like you to search though what you've read so far for evidence of Hawthorne's opinion on the public shaming of Hester as a means of discipline (or control to use the same word we used when discussing the Crucible). We will talk more about the idea of public shame tomorrow, in the general sense, but for now I want to begin the conversation with the text itself. So--what is Hawthorne saying about this as a practice?

Also: announcement incase you did not see it--ghost papers postponed until Monday, Scarlet Letter revised reading schedule coming soon and explanation of major assignment for Scarlet Letter to come shortly thereafter.

Chapter 2: "The Market-Place"

"In either case, there was very much the same solemnity of demeanour on the part of the spectators; as befitted a people amongst whom religion and law were almost identical, and in whose character both were so thoroughly interfused, that the mildest and severest acts of public discipline were alike made venerable and awful" (Hawthorne, 37).

This quote does a great job of summing up Puritan society, and you will see instances of the intertwining of law and religion throughout the novel. Consider these questions:

• While reading The Crucible, we talked about the ability of various opposing/seemingly related ideas to coexist. Do you think that morality and law coexisted in Puritan society? Is morality synonymous with religion in Puritanical society? Is morality always synonymous with religion?
• Why do you think religion played such a huge role in the Puritan's lives? Could it be kind of like the glue of their society? With this in mind, why were Puritans like Hester Prynne so harshly punished and frowned upon by their neighbors?
• Is it possible to be an individual in this strict society? Think about Hester's presence as she stands on the scaffold with her child.

The Crucible Continued

After two days of student-led presentations, we still have a lot to say about The Crucible. While I am asking you to write a formal response as part of your summative grade for the discussion, I also want to encourage you to continue your discussion of the text as a class. Please respond with one specific piece of textual evidence that you think illustrates an important duality or paradox in The Crucible. We have spoken, for example, about light and dark, morals and laws, the Church and witchcraft, the town and the forrest, etc. Jung's archetypes may (or may not) be useful in considering the symbolic nature of some of these dualities, but what does examining these dualities or paradox contribute to your overall understanding of the play?

What is "American Literature" anyway?

Over December break, I'm going to ask you each to choose a piece of American literature to read in small groups... But the article below raises the question: what can be classified as American literature?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/18/weekinreview/18schillinger.html?_r=3&ref=weekinreview

Questions

Ask me a question about Gatsby! (No har har questions, please)

ps-thank you to everyone who did not comment on the missing letter "k" in this post.

Chapter VIII

As opposed to earlier chapters, where time seems to by almost halted, in this chapter the reader sees time as "running out". How does Fitzgerald use foreshadowing, imagery, and vocabulary to convey this very important point to the reader?

(A quote to spark some thinkin')

"I jumped out of bed and began to dress--I felt I had something to tell him, something to warn him about and morning would be too late" (Fitzgerald, 154)

Chapter 7

In Chapter 7, there are occurrences of heat/the sun, and once again, we see the emotional imbalances between the characters.

In order to demonstrate your understanding of these themes and symbols, we have two questions for you:

1. Throughout the chapter, as mentioned, we see more emotional imbalances within the characters. Referring to the tensions we discussed in class (pink sheet), where do you see examples of these tensions, contributing to the imbalances?

2. How does the SUN and the heat of the sun relate to the abstract sense of time within the novel? What do you think that the heat represents?

Chapter VI

"'Can't repeat the past?' he cried incredulously. 'Why of course you can!'
He looked around wildly, as if the past were lurking here in the shadow of his house, just out of reach of his hand.
'I'm going to fix everything just the way it was before,' he said, nodding determinedly. 'She'll see.'"

--F. Scott Fitzgerald (117)

Our question tonight can be categorized into 4 separate yet related topics:

1) What overall role does memory and the past play in influencing any character's actions and thoughts? (For example, Tom immediately believes Gatsby to be "'some big bootlegger'" (114) simply based off of past experience.)

2) What effect do you believe status and name have on Gatsby's society?

3) Can the past truly be re-created and/or changed?

4) If so (or if not), how does this affect one's lifestyle?



P.S. This blog needed a little bit of color

Chapter 5 (again)

This chapter is filled with many “awkward moments,” as Daisy and Gatsby meet for the first time after 5 years of separation. Comment on evidence in chapter 5 that illuminates both Daisy’s and Gatsby’s different perceptions of love, and how their actions and backgrounds affect their relationship. Also, feel free to include and discuss the tensions we talked about in class on Thursday (pink sheet) like time, light, status, etc that effect Daisy and Gatsby’s relationship.

Also, how Gatsby's relationship with Daisy changed over the course of the chapter and what factors contributed to this?

Chapter 5

I did not bring my plan book home with me this weekend, so I do not know who is supposed to post tonight. I am posting something for those of you to respond to who have to leave or who want to get the response done early this afternoon rather than waiting. If the chapter 5 group posts also, you can choose to answer their question or mine, or some combination of the two.

Notice the importance of time in Chapter 5--from the big sense (the passage of time) to the very literal sense (clocks). What is Fitzgerald saying about history, memory and time? Is there a paradox here? If so, why or how does this paradox enrich our understanding of the novel? Use specific textual evidence in your response.

Announcement

Chapter 5 duo, you do not need to post until this weekend because we will not be discussing Chapter 5 until Monday. Out of consideration for a range of weekend schedules, please try to post by Saturday afternoon.

Mr. Chiappetta, our guest from last week will be back visiting our class from Tuesday-Friday of next week, so he may (or may not) comment on your questions as well.

See you tomorrow. Don't drive me crazy on spirit day. And Greg, I love your profile picture. For some reason I did not get the same google results...

-AP

Chapter 4

What effect does Fitzgerald's juxtaposition of details, characters, settings etc., have in the story and on the reader?

Chapter 3 The Great Gatsby

Chapter three undoubtedly develops Gatsby’s character. At the beginning of the chapter, we come to know Gatsby as a neighbor: the lavish parties he hosts, “oranges and lemons left on his back door in a pyramid of pulpless halves” (43), the arrival of the orchestra (the party set up), the lighting/scenery….As the chapter progresses and Nick describes his first party at Gatsby’s, again, Gatsby is shown in a new, more personal light. He is the topic for gossip: that he once killed a man, payed for the repair of Lucille’s ripped dress, attended Oxford…- no one has a concrete explanation for who Gatsby really is- how he attained his mansion on Long Island, and how he’s come to host so many lavish parties, he has a very mysterious reputation. Before we even meet Gatsby, we come to see him from many different angles and perspectives all that contribute to perhaps a pre-image of what sort of a man Gatsby ought to be, what we would expect him to be. When we finally meet Gatsby we are caught off-guard, he, in his brief interaction with Nick, does not seem to match the picture of expectation rendered throughout this chapter and even previous chapters. How does the pre-image and pre-expectation for Gatsby’s character match/contrast etc. the Gatsby Nick meets? Furthermore, in Nick’s position, which image (rumors/ Nick’s personal experience/perception of Gatsby.…) would you observe/predict to be most accurate about Gatsby’s character? Take into account that sometimes first impressions aren’t entirely correct, that Gatsby could be reinventing himself (as mentioned in class for those there- the difficulty/ease to reinvent oneself…) after a life of these rumors, and that personal impressions always differ.  What sort of overall picture do we have of Gatsby’s character as of chapter 3? How does the overall picture hold conflicting ideas/opinions/perceptions of Gatsby's character within it?

Also, Brooke and I are just curious about this, (if anyone would care to pose their interpretations, obviously you don't have to), what do you think about the meaning/symbolism of the "garden"mentioned throughout this chapter, in terms of the atmosphere of the party and how it contributes to the image of Gatsby's character?- "A wafer of moon was shining over Gatsby's house, making the night fine as before and surviving the laughter and the sound of his still glowing garden" (60). 

Great Gatsby: Chapter Two

In class we have discussed how people view both themselves and others, namely during our discussion of T.S. Eliot's poem, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." In the poem, the narrator stands apart from the party and ruminates on the universe and humanity.

In Chapter Two of the Great Gatsby, Nick finds himself in a similar position when he tags along with Tom to the city. Throughout the chapter, the personalities of many characters warp to match changes in setting.

How do the characters present themselves and act differently based on their surroundings ? To what extent does the setting play a role? Do inter-personal interactions contribute more to their demeanor?

Gatsby Chapter 1

In class on Friday, we ended with this notion of "tension" as a central part of Eliot's poem. Similarly, tension is at the core of what makes literature worth breaking down into individual lines, words, even syllables... that tension is (or is not) resolved, at least partially, through language. Tension is created formally (by form) in order to influence content.

What types of tension do you see in The Great Gatsby so far? Respond with a specific passage that you think illustrates tension in Gatsby, or respond refuting a classmate's claim about thon's (!) passage. In your comment, be sure to specifically explain what tension you see developing and why.

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

After you have read and annotated all of T. S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," reread the translation (in the footnotes) of the epigraph. Considering what we read in "Tradition and the Individual Talent," what do you think of Eliot's choice of epigraph? Why the choice to allude to an epic about a journey through hell? How do you think form and content work together in this poem? Your response should refer to specific lines or words in both the poem and the epigraph and to what the commenters before you say. Remember this is a conversation...

Steinbeck's Central Argument in The Grapes of Wrath

After reading and considering Chapter 1 of Everything's an Argument, what do you understand Steinbeck's central argument to be? How does he use literary devices common in fiction to present that argument? What rhetorical devices and strategies does he employ? How effectively does he present this argument? Use specific textual evidence to support your comment.

American Literary Tradition

What would T.S. Eliot say about the pieces we've read over the summer--how do they fit in, if at all, to the American Literary tradition? Use specific textual evidence to support your answer from AT LEAST one text we read over the summer.