Amendment 2

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/devon-corneal/right-to-bear-arms-childs-right-to-grow-up_b_2303197.html
The right to bear arms isn't more important than a child's right to grow up

Devon Corneal's piece is both sad and stunning in her tribute to the Sandy Hook children and her push for better gun control. Corneal implements syntax, imagery, and diction to help create this powerful effect.

Corneal uses syntax to convey emotion in her writing. Short sentences she uses as a sort of punch to the gut, each new sentence building on the last, with a growing anger. "Nearly 20 children are among the victims. One man. With a gun (or two)," says Corneal. Her short sentences at the end show us just how powerful we make one man when our laws help things like the Sandy Hook shooting to happen. Corneal also uses parallelism to make her point: "The answer isn't to wrap our schools in barbed wire and turn them into prisons with pretty murals on the wall and jungle gyms. The answer is to stop ignoring the fact that the availability of guns in this country is literally killing us," she says. By going from "the answer isn't" to "the answer is," Corneal emphasizes the importance of "the answer" and tells us exactly what she believes it is.

Diction is also used throughout the article to help make Corneal's point. Corneal says that "after seeing similar scenarios play out over and over again, in schools, movie theaters and malls, [she is] ready to throw the 2nd Amendment out the f*cking window." By effectively cursing, Corneal shows us the depth of the fear and anger over the shooting, shows us how stupid it is that this hasn't already been done. "It's a pillar of parenting," Corneal says, speaking of the measures parents take to keep their children safe. The word "pillar" indicates something set in stone, obligatory, strong and ready to protect. But because of the second amendment, children don't always have that protection. "Someone's "right to bear arms" is not more important than a child's right to grow old enough to get to middle school, have her first kiss, see Santa or light the final candles on the Menorah," says Corneal.

What makes her piece so effective, however, is mostly due to Corneal's imagery. At the beginning of the article, Corneal writes that all she wants to do is keep her son home, "lock the door and read stories about superheroes while eating peanut butter crackers in our pajamas." This image of home and comfort is sharply contradicted  by the "lock the door" portion, effectively showing the contrast between a desire for normalcy and one for safety. Corneal says that classrooms are turning into "shooting galleries," an image that sickens us as we compare it to the image of a classroom full of children. Almost immediately following up on this, Corneal assaults us with another image, equally sickening but in a different way. She talks of the families "who will spend their holidays wondering how a season of lights could end in such darkness." With her series of images, Corneal manages to take us through a roller coaster of emotion and leave us with just one thing: "the answer."

What We Want

1973. An effective literary work does not merely stop or cease; it concludes. In the view of some critics, a work that does not provide the pleasure of significant closure has terminated with an artistic fault. A satisfactory ending is not, however, always conclusive in every sense; significant closure may require the reader to abide with or adjust to ambiguity and uncertainty. In an essay, discuss the ending of a novel or play of acknowledged literary merit. Explain precisely how and why the ending appropriately or inappropriately concludes the work. Do not merely summarize the plot.

In The American Dream, Albee concludes with Grandma leaving her family forever. Grandma tells the audience that everyone has what he wants, or at least, what he thinks he wants. So, though Albee's ending is certainly an ending, it isn't necessarily conclusive, for Grandma suggests that the family isn't even yet truly happy, has not yet found that elusive satisfaction, may have the slightest chance of redemption left.

Throughout the play, Mommy and Daddy just can't seem to get the satisfaction they're looking for. As Grandma suggests, this is because they're looking in all the wrong places--they are so off the mark, in fact, that as they search their apartment they can't find anything, not even Grandma's room. All that should matter to them is a sense of dignity, according to Grandma. But Mommy and Daddy don't even have this, as they throw temper tantrums in hat shops and dismember babies in an attempt to "fix" the broken product. The source of Mommy and Daddy's problems and the heart of the play lies in the American Dream. Grandma's heart lies with the Old American Dream: she is frugal, earnest, hardworking and smart. Mommy and Daddy, however, embody the New American Dream: materialistic, shallow, power-hungry, and wealth-crazed.  

In the end, the Young Man becomes Mommy and Daddy's new "toy" child, their new "bumble." The Young Man truly is the new American Dream, and Grandma even calls him this when he enters the apartment. He is handsome to a fault and not quite smart enough to have misgivings about being adopted by Mommy. So, in the end, one comes in, and one goes out. Grandma leaves the apartment, and her family, forever. Mommy and Daddy chose newer values over older values, and they should be happy with their lot, now that they've finally found that satisfaction, that perfect family image. In this lies Albee's "conclusion."

But are Mommy and Daddy happy? Grandma thinks not. Even if Mommy and Daddy may be temporarily satisfied, it will never last. Like Mommy's hat, which she was happy with for all of two minutes, or the bumble, which was promptly dismembered, satisfaction is directly proportional to standards. And unfortunately, the standards of the new age seem to be exceedingly high. Mommy and Daddy may think they want it all: the fame, wealth, beauty, etc., but what they really want, and must find for themselves, is dignity. Mommy and Daddy's true fault lies not in the societal values they embrace, but their own virtue of pride. They must accept that they will not always get satisfaction, that human beings are not products to be bought, used, and thrown away, and that ultimately, what we want and what they want are not so different: to be loved, to be happy, and to find what's worth living for.

Death of a Salesman

Plot: In essence, Death of a Salesman is set up in the larger framework of the prodigal son story. Biff Loman, who has spent many years drifting and lost in the West, comes home to the rest of his family, Willy, Linda, and Happy. Willy and Biff are constantly at each other's throats: Biff because Willy refuses to listen to him, and Willy because he thinks Biff is wasting himself and acting childish. As the play goes on and Willy regresses further and further into the past and into himself, we learn that Biff gave up on himself after he learned Willy was cheating on Linda, and that Willy has made plans to kill himself. Finally, in the end, Biff decides to leave his home forever and instead find happiness where he knows his heart lies: in the West. Willy, clinging to the belief that Biff loves him and will become a successful city businessman with a little insurance money, finally kills himself. His other son, Happy, makes a vow to follow Willy's dream and "make it for him," in essence vowing to become Willy himself, disillusioned and unhappy, believing that money and popularity are the keys to salvation.

Setting: The broader setting of the play is in New York, the city of material and dreams, money and power. It is the city that holds Willy in the palm of its hand. Taking a closer look, Willy's home has no ceiling. It's openness both stands in stark contrast to his refusal to open up to his family and allows readers/watchers to "see" the solid vault of apartment houses (others' dreams) that crowd out the sky, obliterating the stars and refusing to let Willy see all of the opportunity he might have. The apartment houses so block the sun (hope) that Willy's garden refuses to grow. He can't cultivate hope, opportunity, or a new dream because of the twisted values he holds and others' dreams/values crowding around him.

Theme: Follow your own dreams, don't get caught up in the dreams/success of others. At the end of the play, Biff remarks that there was "more of him [Willy] in the front stoop than in anything he ever sold." This solidifies readers' suspicions: Willy's true happiness lay in his hands. He was constantly building and fixing things, and in fact, he did dream of exploration and opportunity once: he had the chance to go to Alaska with his brother Ben, but Linda instead reminded him of Dave Singleman, a salesman who made his living making phone calls at the age of eighty five. Thus is Willy corrupted and influenced by the dreams/success of others, and in this way he remains like a child, as shown in the play's continual references of "pal," "kid," and other childish nicknames.
In contrast to Willy, Biff has found himself in the West, on the farm. As he says, he is extremely happy there, but he can never manage to stay there but instead runs back to the city, because Willy has taught him that you can't be happy unless you're making a lot of money or at the top of the industrial chain. In spite of this, Biff knows where he is happy; this is something Willy can't seem to grasp. Willy and Biff are identical in their true dreams, but Biff stands as a kind of foil in that Biff is willing to recognize and stand up for it, while Willy refuses to believe that he was meant for such "lowly" things. The irony is that Miller even points out where Willy should be heading with his name, "Loman," as in "low man," like Willy claims carpenters and farmers are. He doesn't seem to realize that a life as Dave Singleman is the loneliest life you can lead, and in the end, Willy is just a single man against the great windshield of life. Yes, he was knocked aside, chewed up, spit out, but maybe, if he hadn't tried so hard to follow someone else's footsteps, he'd have made his own prints in the sand, and found his way to happiness.

Tone: I think Miller's tone is pretty heavy and serious. This play is a drama and tragedy rather than an absurdist allegory like American Dream. Every character leads a tragic life and the play is interspersed with Willy's regressions into the past or his fights with Biff.

Characters: Linda is a somewhat controversial character to discuss. On the one hand, she loves Willy deeply, but takes care of him as a mother would a child. On the other, she helps prevent him from finding inner happiness and hides the truth from him. When Willy wants to go with Ben to Alaska, it is Linda who reminds him that he has a job in the city, and that he "wants to be" like Dave Singleman. And when Linda discovers the rubber tubing that Willy might use to kill himself, instead of confronting him, she leaves it there. She's continually trying to amp up his spirits with lies like that his boys will become successful and that things are going to turn out "wonderfully."

More Quotes: 
"When I was seventeen I walked into the jungle. When I was twenty one I walked out, and by God, I was rich!" This is a quote from Ben. He is a low man in an entirely different way from the Lomans we know. Obviously Ben is excluding the darker details from his younger brother, of how exactly he got rich.   However, this quote also symbolizes both the "jungle" Willy walks through in his quest for riches and Willy's dream of exploration and opportunity, which he never fully realizes.

To Blog, or Not To Blog

Well, we've started reading Hamlet. I went into Hamlet with a certain kind of dread held near and dear to my heart. I've read it once before and it wasn't the most pleasant of experiences. To be frank, I hated it. I despised it, loathed it, wanted to rip the pages out of the binding. I've never had all that great of a resume with Shakespeare in the first place, and then all of Hamlet's long monologues/soliloquies really threw me off. Let's just say I'm extremely thankful to Ms. Holmes for stopping after most scenes to explain what's going on. I actually think that I like it more now she's explaining things, It'll help to focus in on other things on the second read (although honestly, I don't know how much I'll actually be able to extract from that tangled mess of words).

I'm pretty sure the only thing we've done besides this is the blogs. I guess the blogs are going okay. I really don't like open prompts. I have trouble doing them in forty minutes, and I don't like not being able to completely develop my own opinions on a work (because you're limited to a certain idea/prompt). Also, I sometimes have problems with finding evidence without the book.

On to the Future

http://www.ericgarland.co/2012/11/09/letter-to-a-future-republican-strategist-regarding-white-people/
Letter to a future Republican strategist regarding white people

Eric Garland may be incredibly snarky in his article, "Letter to a future Republican strategist regarding white people," but he couldn't have achieved this without his extensive use of DIDLS: diction, imagery, details, language, and syntax.

Garland's most notable use of literary techniques comes through his syntax, which he uses both to emphasize his own status and then to explain why it doesn't matter. "Garland family of New England-> John Adams -> Howard Alden -> Plymouth colony ->KINGS OF MUTHAF***IN’ ENGLAND," Garland says of his family lineage. By tracing back to famous and revered groups/people and even kings, he emphasizes the family's "extraordinary" standing. It's something that merits a good exclamation of "HOLY WHITE PEOPLE, BATMAN!!!" in Garland's opinion. This is another piece of syntax that mocks society's emphasis on white people, that they have become holy, people of such significance that they are kings and superheroes. And, after revealing his outstanding credentials of intelligence, wealth, and lineage, he drops the bomb: he voted for Obama. "B-b-but, what?" Garland asks, showing the lack of confidence that according to him, Republicans should feel regarding their policies.

Because people like him should be "Low Hanging Fruit," or easy pickings, ripe and full to burst of confidence in the future--but like fruit, people like him are being eaten up, chewed up and spit out. With his diction, Garland takes things even further. Throughout the article, Garland uses phrases like "you guys" and "the Republican Party," distancing himself and his family from people he can no longer understand, but in fact holds in contempt. "You guys suck at running wars," Garland says. "That Iraq thing" isn't the only thing he expresses disillusionment over, however. Due to her profession, "...my wife watches poor WORKING people show up in emergency rooms with fourth-stage cancer because they were unable to afford primary care visits." The emphasis on working stills any arguments that if Americans weren't so lazy they could have afforded health care. The fact is, Romney's 47% are the same people Garland's wife has to watch show up in the ER, day after day. They are working people, as Garland points out, but that doesn't make them rich, doesn't guarantee them health care under the Republican system. These policies are certainly something to go "Egads" over, especially considering their childish and therefore irresponsible lack of commitment to actually cutting spending like they said they would.

Lastly, Garland uses images to bring the Republican Party into new perspective. As Garland says, "The Republican perseveration on homosexuals as any sort of threat consigns them to history’s trough of intellectual pig dung." Bringing in images of pigs, dung, and troughs forces readers to confront what Garland is getting at: that Republicans are lower than the meanest of animals, and must grub for ideas so disgusting that they're akin to pig dung.

Death of a Dreamer

1970. Choose a character from a novel or play of recognized literary merit and write an essay in which you (a) briefly describe the standards of the fictional society in which the character exists and (b) show how the character is affected by and responds to those standards. In your essay do not merely summarize the plot.

Willy Loman may have died the death of a salesman, but he also died the death of a dreamer. In Death of a Salesman, Willy, who originally would've liked nothing more than to work with his own two hands, is instead thrown into the dreams of others by societal standards. 

As his son, Biff, comments, there was more of Willy in the front stoop than in anything Willy ever sold. In this, Biff reveals that Willy's passion is truly in carpentry. Willy is constantly fixing the roof, the chairs, the porch, etc. He's never happier than when he's outside working, like Biff. However, society's influence comes in the form of Willy's brother Ben and in the vault of apartment that trap the Lomans in the city. Ben started out like Willy: he went away chasing a dream. But unlike Willy, Ben "came out rich." Suddenly, Ben is the New American ideal: rich and very materialistic. Willy, who regrets not having gone with Ben, attempts to follow in his footsteps by becoming rich. Through the city and the dreams or apartments that surround him, Willy conceives that social connections are the key to success rather than hard work. It's an idea reaffirmed by the old, pajama-clad salesman that stands as the symbol of Willy's ideal and society's dream. The apartments are like others' dreams; they crowd out Willy's own and overshadow the garden of opportunity, preventing it from growing. While Willy attempts to save and cultivate it, it simply will not grow. Willy, like his house, is crumbling under the weight of societal values, and has turned to materialism: the salesman.

Willy shares his old dream with Biff, who likewise dreams of working on a farm in the West, the real garden of opportunity. But as society has shaped Willy, he has grown more and more opposed to Biff working out West. He has gone from asserting Biff's need to "find himself" to asserting Biff's need to settle, get a job, and most importantly, make money. There it is: society has changed Willy from a strong worker with a hands-on dream to a materialistic, money-loving prisoner of society. Perhaps Willy's opposition to Biff is simply that Biff is too old to be finding himself, as Willy points out in the novel. But maybe it's simply that Willy, who ultimately is unable to accept any form of reality, can't stand seeing Biff head down the path that Willy never got the chance to go down himself.

The society Willy Loman lives in is one of uncompromising fortitude. It kills the slightest ray of sunshine, shadows the smallest bud of green. He has been trapped into societal standards and forced into others' ideals and dreams, crumbling under the weight of it all. And unlike his son, Biff, or Biff's friend Bernard, who both in their own ways continued to chase individual happiness, Willy has relented to it. He continues to travel, reminding himself of what could have been, and what isn't. The fact is, the problem isn't that Willy isn't "well-liked." It's that Willy, like the rest of society, is too busy with the money and the material and the denied dreaming that they don't realize what's right in front of them: the opportunity to accomplish that dream, and to die, not a dreamer, but a fighter.

Bam. Horrifico.

It seems to me that we do course responses a lot. Probably because it's supposed to be the best way to learn. Hmm... hum hum. Well, today was the retake of the terms test. It's a weird thing, really, when you go into a test having done what you're supposed to to study, feeling confident, take the test, feel reasonably good... BAM!!! HORRIFICO GRADO! Okay, I realize that my Spanish is a bit lacking, but really, honestly, that test was just not exactly fantastico. It wasn't even "bad" like someone might say bemoaning their B-. It was really bad. Well, moving on...

The third (second?) open prompt. I'll be really up front here: I did not try as hard with this one as I did with the others. It's not that I didn't try, just that I got into an idea more than the essay or the prompt. It didn't turn out great, needless to say.

Enough of me talking about things that went wrong. What have I learned, what has gone well? I may take this back when I see my grade, but I think the close readings are going pretty well. I actually kind of enjoy looking through them, finding pieces of diction and such that give meaning. I don't think the author went through every word and made sure it had a triple meaning that fit with the theme--it's a news article!--but it's interesting nevertheless.

The summary and analysis was interesting. I had a lot of ideas, but I'm not sure many of them actually worked well for basic things like tone, point of view, or any of the other stuff the rubric required. Even tweaked it was (or wasn't?) interesting but scatterbrained.

I actually have no idea what we've done besides the blogs and the test. So I guess this is it..

American Dream

Plot: In essence, the American Dream is about an American family that craves satisfaction. The play opens with a couple, Mommy and Daddy, waiting. When the doorbell finally rings Daddy is persuaded by Mommy to open the door, where Mrs. Barker enters. None of the characters except Grandma seems to know why Mrs. Barker is there, and as the strange absurdist play continues Grandma reveals that Mrs. Barker, who runs the adoption service, sold Mommy and Daddy a baby, which, upon the baby revealing its unsatisfactory traits, was promptly dismembered. Mommy and Daddy now look to buy another baby. Mrs. Barker, being slightly crazy, doesn’t get it and wanders off to think. Meanwhile, with only Grandma on stage, another character enters the apartment: the Young Man. Grandma sets the Young Man up as Mommy and Daddy’s new child and finally leaves the scene, and the apartment, forever.

Setting: Even the setting of the play, the small apartment, contributes to the image of Mommy and Daddy’s small minds, an image reinforced by the fact that neither can find anything in their own apartment.

Theme: dangers of materialism. In describing her hat, Mommy repeats the word “lovely” in order to emphasize her “love” for material objects. But it’s a very shallow love, because she despises the hat as soon as she believes it’s wheat-colored, a reminder of her own bad standing. So when Mommy says, “I love Grandma,” we’re encouraged to believe it’s with the same kind of possessive, shallow love of a child with a toy, though of course Grandma is Mommy’s mother (65). Indeed, whenever the “toy” breaks, or says something Mommy doesn’t like, Mommy threatens her with the van man. Mommy views even Grandma as a possession; just as she viewed her child as a possession, leading to its mutilation.

Tone: Albee’s tone is faintly mocking. He mocks the values of the New American Dream and also mocks power struggles, be they societal, value, gender, or filial.

Societal power struggles are most prominent through Mommy and Mrs. Barker’s continued push for the upper hand. In the beginning, we first learn about Mrs. Barker only as “that dreadful woman,” but because of Mrs. Barker’s position in society, Mommy is “naturally…terribly fond of her.” While Mommy wants to dislike Mrs. Barker because of her position and her deflation of Mommy, she can’t because Mrs. Barker is simply too high up in society. Both women use the word “dear” to refer to each other, though both characters and readers understand that the affection shown by the word is false, biting even. The two women’s respective positions in the social hierarchy is exhibited through Albee’s images of hats. Mommy buys what she believes is a beige hat: a middle class, bland sort of color. Mrs. Barker buys a hat that is exactly the same, but she is very firm on the point that her hat is actually cream. Cream, after all, is a very rich, high class color, not to mention that it is a very Caucasian color. The word cream also refers to cosmetics, like face cream, implying the vain, materialistic attitude Mrs. Barker holds. Mrs. Barker then tells Mommy that Mommy’s hat is actually wheat. Wheat is a color that reminds readers of the farm, simultaneously reminding them of Mommy and Grandma’s “rural,” or lower class, standing, bringing in Albee’s theme of value power struggle: essentials (food) vs. material (toys). Mommy, however, refuses to concede that all three hats are a different color, for she tells Mrs. Barker that she does believe Mrs. Barker has the same hat that she got the other day. Mommy refuses to concede that she is “rural” and from “bad stock” while Mrs. Barker is all cream and upper class. She says that she can’t even tell the color in this “artificial light.” In doing this, Mommy says that class actually doesn’t matter in the environment they’re in—the environment of artificial light, artificial kindness and humanity.

Despite this, Mommy still uses the hats as an excuse for her behavior. Not only does she hold herself in an elevated, dominant position in the household and in society, she puts on a white, or rather, cream hat, in order to pretend innocence and higher standing. She has tried on “blue hat(s) and green hat(s)” but neither fit, for she is neither calm nor new and innocent. Though she frequently threatens and insults Grandma, she berates Daddy for doing the same, even if Daddy is only parroting Mommy’s words. “Daddy! What a terrible thing to say to Grandma!” Mommy says. Grandma points out the hypocrisy when Mommy makes Daddy apologize and Grandma says “Well, that’s all that counts. People being sorry. Makes you feel better; gives you a sense of dignity, and that’s all that’s important… a sense of dignity.” In this, Grandma illustrates her values while pointedly remarking on Mommy’s lack of dignity. Grandma also reminds Mommy of her lower standing with her own self-deprecation, referring to herself as “bad stock” and “muddleheaded.”

Even though clearly there is a power struggle between Mommy and Grandma, Grandma still shows kindness when she tries to give Mommy a sense of dignity. When she was a little kid, Grandma would give Mommy her own food to take to school, so Mommy wouldn’t be embarrassed by going to school without lunch. Grandma is not only frugal but gives her daughter what dignity she can.

The power struggle between Mommy and Mrs. Barker continues when Mrs. Barker pays a visit to the apartment. While Mommy sheds public attention on what is essentially private, she highlights both inner values and the societal power struggle she undergoes. Mommy invites Mrs. Barker to take off her dress, which she does. Mommy then realizes this is a bad move when Daddy blushes, giggles, and goes “sticky wet.” Not only does this make Mommy realize that Mrs. Barker is now taking Daddy’s attention, but it highlights for readers that something is seriously wrong with gender roles between Mommy and Daddy. Mommy is completely dominating while Daddy is blushing and giggling. Albee has switched traditional gender roles in a strange and comical exaggeration to show readers that nobody can fit inside the box, and that perhaps we shouldn’t have boxes at all.

Mrs. Barker then suggests smoking, a term which is laden with sexual implications, not only for the actual cigarette but for its double meaning, as in “smoking hot.” Mommy essentially blows up at Mrs. Barker, having realized what a bad move she made, and also realizing that Mrs. Barker is playing it up to get an upper hand. Daddy, though, stands up for Mrs. Barker, justifying smoking by saying, “Grandma smokes and drinks.” Mrs. Barker has won over Daddy, all right, and Mommy can’t stand not being the object of attention.

In this way, Mommy is like a vain and dominating husband, illustrating the power struggle between genders. She and Daddy have switched roles. Daddy has “tubes where he used to have tracts,” implying that his masculinity has been replaced with something much more feminine. “the doctors took out something that was there and put in something that wasn’t there,” Mommy says (83). Mommy seems to have taken the role from him and left him with a traditional female role: obedient, parroting, doting. Daddy wrings his hands, blushes, and giggles. While Daddy is rather resigned to this (“If I must…I must,” he says), he hasn’t completely given up. Though Mommy pushes for him to send Grandma away, Daddy refuses. Mrs. Barker, when she comes, gives Daddy a sense of empowerment as he is allowed to stop giving so much attention to Mommy and focus on his more masculine senses. He begins to stand up for Grandma, saying, “Leave Grandma alone.”

Even with his small victories, though, Daddy cannot stand against the masculine will of his wife. Mommy uses the reverse gender role to manipulate Daddy. When Mrs. Barker arrives, Daddy, with his newfound conscience, hesitates to open the door. Mommy begins by telling Daddy he was right, empowering him. She continues, “so firm; so firm…. SO decisive! Oh, I shivered…. So masculine; I shivered and fainted” (74). In giving Daddy his masculinity and pretending the young girl, Mommy gives Daddy the authority to open the door. Then, when Mommy affirms Grandma by saying “Some of your opinions aren’t so bad,” Daddy realizes that Grandma’s older, wiser values may be the powerful ones, and backs off. Mommy has maintained the power to take Daddy’s authority away, though. When Daddy backs off from the door, Mommy says, “you’re a woman.” Because of Mommy’s continued influence over Daddy, continues to parrot Mommy and to do what she says, though he clearly understands what is going on. “The Pekinese may be blind, but Daddy isn’t,” he says, and “don’t talk to me about tubes.”

Albee uses Mommy to illustrate the power struggle between parent and child. Despite Mommy’s dominating role in the household, she is really the child of the house. Even her name, “Mommy,” shows us the mind of a child as she refers to “Daddy” and “Grandma.” She throws hissy fits, like the one she threw in the shop after Mrs. Barker told her her hat wasn’t beige. She constantly seeks attention, like the child tugging at the parent’s sleeve, saying “listen, pay attention!”

Mommy is also single-mindedly focused on material, on the “toys” of a child. Mommy talks of the “bumble” as if it were merely a toy: it was broken, so they “fixed” it by cutting off the broken parts. It cried, so she cut off its tongue. And she is upset not because she just ripped apart a baby, but because of the money she spent to get it. “You just can’t get satisfaction,” she repeats throughout the play, as if money and toys are the most important things in the world.

And, like a child, Mommy does not seem to know how to love. When Mommy rips apart the child, she really rips apart her own ability to love. She tears off everything needed for the act: a tongue for speech, hands for touching, eyes for seeing, and a sexual part for doing. This idea is emphasized when the young man comes along, who had been the twin of the baby and felt everything it felt. The young man describes his eyes burning, a pain to his groin, and then goes on to say that from that moment, he was “incapable of feeling love.”

Mommy doesn’t feel “nothing,” like the young man, but what she feels is immature and undeveloped as a child. In describing her hat, Mommy repeats the word “lovely” about ten times, in order to emphasize her “love” for material objects. But it’s clearly a very shallow love, because she despises the hat as soon as she believes it’s wheat, a reminder of her own bad standing. So when Mommy says, “I love Grandma,” we’re encouraged to believe it’s with the same kind of possessive, shallow love of a child with a toy, though of course Grandma is Mommy’s mother (65). Indeed, whenever the “toy” breaks, or says something Mommy doesn’t like, Mommy threatens her with the van man, rather like a parent tells a child to be good or the monsters will get him. In this way, Mommy seeks to underscore her childishness by imitating parenthood, though, like her imitation of masculinity, she falls far from the mark.

Even Mrs. Barker illustrates Mommy’s youth by telling Grandma, “You’re your daughter’s mother, all right!” (95). This syntax reverses the normal “mother’s daughter so that the emphasis is on the word daughter rather than mother, focusing on Mommy, and her youth.

Grandma is the humane character of the play. She represents the values of the old American Dream, values of frugality, essentials, and hard work. This is shown when Daddy mentions how Grandma is always cleaning to earn her keep, rather than just living off of Daddy as Mommy does. Grandma also illustrates her “waste not want not” attitude with her resourcefulness in winning a baking contest with “day old cake.” Grandma is literally tied to the old values, and in the same way, the old values tie her together. This is shown in Grandma’s boxes that she carries around, “neatly wrapped and tied.” Mommy and Daddy, of course, couldn’t care less about Grandma’s old values or what’s inside the boxes, rather, what’s inside Grandma. They only care about the pretty outside. Grandma says in the end that the boxes contain “a couple of regrets….86 years of living…some sounds…” The boxes are Grandma’s entire life, and despite her carrying them around, Grandma is not in the box. She thinks outside the box, shown in her resourcefulness with the day old cake. It frightened her to wrap the boxes, she says, most likely because it is like wrapping yourself away. Grandma illustrates Mommy and Daddy’s incompetence by dumping the boxes at Daddy’s feet, showing not only that they think inside the box but that the old values they contain are viewed as worthless.

In the struggle between old and new values, new values technically win. In the end of the play, Grandma and her old values finally leave for good. Mommy, with her shallow love for Grandma, is sad until she gets a new “toy” in the young man, who represents new, materialist values (“I’ll do anything for money,” he says). Mommy literally adopts the new values (the young man) from Mrs. Barker, who runs the adoption service. “You must learn to count,” she tells the young man, referring both to math and to importance. The subtle threat is there: if you’re broken, or unimportant, you will be thrown away too.

But we can’t completely give up hope on the old values. After all, Grandma isn’t completely gone. She’s there, off stage, telling us that everyone has got what he “thinks he wants.” In the end, Grandma shows us the pride of being whoever you want to be, despite class. Grandma is resourceful, and as she says, it is because she is “pioneer stock” (112). The change from bad stock to pioneer stock indicates there is no stock. You are what you make yourself. Grandma implies that despite the characters’ shallow intentions, needs, and motivations, perhaps someday they will realize what it is that truly matters: a sense of dignity and love and the resources to bring them together.

Quotes: “The American Dream... the American Dream, the American Dream, dammit!” (108). This quote by Grandma at the end of the play doesn’t just show her admitting to the loss of old values and her replacement with new ones (and the Young Man). Grandma repeats the words “the American Dream” three times, as if she tolls a bell. Three tolls of the bell traditionally means someone’s death, and not only do the old American Dream values die, but Grandma herself kind of dies, as she exits the scene, and her family, forever.

“I’d do anything for money” (109). This quote by the Young Man reaffirms his status as the New American Dream, the dream of wealth and beauty. Him replacing Grandma at the end then stands as a complete transition into the new way of thinking, getting rid of that nagging conscience.

“And lo and behold, it was beige!” (60). This was said by Mommy after she threw a fit in the shop over her hat being wheat. The shopkeepers gave her a new hat, the same hat, and told her it was beige. So she went outside and looked at it and found that “it was beige!” The quote represents the quest for reality and the disillusionment that many felt after WWII. Reality is so distorted by the media (Mrs. Barker, or the shop owners) that people believe anything they’re told without question.

Pawns of the Court

 A Baby Step Away From Partisanship
http://www.freep.com/article/20121007/COL04/310070142/Brian-Dickerson-A-baby-step-away-from-partisanship

With diction, imagery, syntax, and language, Brian Dickerson bares the ridiculousness of the campaign for supreme court justice.

Dickerson's diction portrays the fragile border between partisan and nonpartisan, or at least, what passes for nonpartisan. In the title, Dickerson implies that candidates are extremely close to being partisans. The diction choice "baby" carries with it connotations of fragility and smallness, showing not only that the candidates are fragile and small against the world, but just how easily "nonpartisan" can become partisan. In the end of the article, Dickerson uses slang such as "stinkin'" to deflate the political parties, bringing "'em" to a low standing for their manipulation of the nonpartisan court system. The slang is also used as an empowerment of the candidates, as Dickerson tells them to come out on top, telling those parties that "you're through going to their stinkin' convention." From fragile and weak to grim and victorious, Dickerson carries readers through the court process.

The court process begins with the endorsement interviews. According to Dickerson, candidates "arrive... every election cycle looking sheepish, shell-shocked or simply weary with the absurd hypocrisy of their plight..." Dickerson's imagery is used to show the complete inferiority of candidates against the world of party dominance. With the image shell-shocked, we realize candidates are hollowed out, a shell of their former selves, light and easy to manipulate. It is as if they have undergone self-transformation via some horrid, traumatic experience. It shouldn't be like that. It shouldn't be "absurd hypocrisy." For a nonpartisan court, why should candidates have to become partisan? Why should they "kowtow to the power brokers and the union locals and the tea party wing nuts who wouldn't know a habeas hearing from a ham sandwich?"

Because the parties own the money, and money means campaigns. It means getting on the ballot and being advertised. Yet, as Dickerson points out, candidates have no control over what goes into those ads. They "complain that their campaigns are being promoted, or their opponents vilified, in ads they have never seen that are financed by people they don't know." Dickerson uses syntax to illustrate the horror of the entire thing. "Sometimes, I think they're lying. Sometimes, I suspect they're telling the truth. I haven't decided which possibility is scarier," Dickerson says. Dickerson's parallelism makes his second sentence all the more dark, all the more twisted. His diction of "suspect" usually has a connotation of sneaky, dark things, which adds to the suspense and is non-sequitur with the conclusion of the sentence, the word "truth," which has a connotation of goodness.

Finally, Dickerson's language emphasizes the sickness of the entire thing. "Because if candidates are as much in the dark as they claim, it only confirms the suspicion that they are mere pawns in a game controlled by others..." Dickerson says, on the campaign ads. Of course this is all figurative language, because candidates aren't really in darkness, nor are they shaped like pawns from a game of chess. But being a pawn in a game is horrific in a way that only clowns can compete with.

Dickerson effectively portrays the sick hypocrisy of the campaign race for court. In the end, though, he comes out swinging, encouraging candidates to "tell 'em" that they won't be part of that "stinkin' convention." Despite its laying bear of the truth behind a nonpartisan court, Dickerson's article still has that note of encouragement, of hope, that says that even pawns can win the game.

Jungle of Life

1984. Select a line or so of poetry, or a moment or scene in a novel, epic poem, or play that you find especially memorable. Write an essay in which you identify the line or the passage, explain its relationship to the work in which it is found, and analyze the reasons for its effectiveness.

 "Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference."

This quote by Robert Frost in his poem, "The Road Not Taken," is a well-loved and remembered line. The lines tie together the entire poem into themes of staying true to yourself and going the extra mile, enhanced by our sense of uncertainty and the final release at the end of the poem.

In his poem, Frost describes two paths: one is well-worn and clean-cut, while the other is grassy and untrodden. It is easy to see down the first path a long ways, but the second path is hard to distinguish because of all the grass. With this image, and his diction choice, "grassy," Frost creates the image of the dense, dark, and dangerous jungle of the second path. In stark contrast, the first path is clean, clear, and painless.

Despite this, in the end, Frost doesn't take the first path. The paths represent paths in life, and life choices. There's always the easy, clear choice, and the harder, murkier choice. It can be easy to just follow the flow of life and go where everyone else goes. But if you choose to travel through the jungle of life, Frost says, if you stay true to your own path in life, it will make all the difference.

The closing stanza of the poem is effective for its use of drama and closure. Through the poem, you don't know where either path will lead, and until nearly the end, you don't even know which path Frost chooses. It's a scary thing to learn he's chosen the path less traveled by. Nobody knows where it will lead, or what dangers it holds. Choosing an undefined path is no easy task. Without others having gone before you, it is hard to know where to place your feet. 

Perseverance isn't always the easiest task, but Frost, with his final lines, convinces readers that going the extra mile is well worth it. "And that has made all the difference," Frost says. His choice of the word "all" not only enhances our understanding of the difference being made in life but also shows us exactly how big it is. It is a world of difference, separating the narrator from all those who took the easy path. Because Frost persevered, he ended where he wanted to go rather than where it was easiest to go. It is with a sense of release that we can realize that the end of a jungle path may be all the more victorious for the work that went into reaching it. And that, well, that makes all the difference.

ABC: Not So Easy As 1, 2, 3

 I was a little nervous when we started learning DIDLS and how to close-read. I wasn't sure I'd actually be able to apply it. But when we analyzed "The Century Quilt" in class, I was surprised and pleased to find that I actually had things to say. I couldn't at first glance point out any effects, but I did pick up on a few trends and words that caught my attention, which on a second read deepened my understanding of the poem. And, also surprisingly, I actually really enjoyed the poem once I had a better understanding of what it's about. I'm not as nervous for analysis anymore now that a. I can analyze poetry and b. I can (maybe) analyze the essay prompt. Despite this, I frequently think to myself, "well, I couldn't analyze non-poetry."

But, actually, that's not quite true. In my analysis of an online article, I actually did analyze "non-poetry." It wasn't quite the same--not all the words painted images across my imagination, but it was still the same process. Pick out key words or strange syntax, find images, analyze their purpose. I'm actually not sure how successful I was at it, but I definitely did it, and can hope to continue to grow as the year progresses.

It was really helpful to me to do the peer review blogs. It helped me not only to look at writing with a critical eye but to be able to see faults in my own writing (something I'm generally pretty awful at). While looking at other people's open prompt responses, I noted how creative they were. I often get stuck in a kind of literary rut, thinking that I can only write about certain things in a certain way, but the peer reviews helped me see open prompts in an entirely different way.

We had our second test since the first response to course material, on chapter 2 and 3. I'll admit that I didn't do all that well on the test. It was confusing as to what would be on it, because I'd heard that there was no close reading. I also heard (through a hideous misunderstanding) thirdhand that there would be no vocabulary, so I only studied Jago's advice on how to close-read. What did I learn from this? 1. Study EVERYTHING possible. 2. Never believe it if you haven't heard it yourself.

I found the allusions presentations really interesting. I didn't know some of the stories, and I look forward to recognizing them in the future. I probably could have done more with my presentation. I'm pretty sure I was glued to my paper, which is probably the reason why I didn't do fantastically on that either.

Overall, I think AP English is helping me to grow, especially as a reader. I can't say I'm excited to try to apply what we've learned to The American Dream yet, but I hope I can say that when I do go at it, I'll be surprised once again.

Intervention

http://blogs.wsj.com/peggynoonan/2012/09/18/time-for-an-intervention/
Time for an Intervention

DIDLS: Diction, Imagery, Details, Language, Syntax.

Peggy Noonan obviously has experience with these techniques. In her article, "Time for an Intervention," she uses them to illustrate the faults of Mitt Romney's election campaign.

Noonan uses diction to convey Romney's hesitation and childishness. "He should peer deep into the abyss...He must look down unblinkingly," Noonan says, referring to Romney looking within himself, the country, and the campaign in order to figure out the flaws in his strategy. Abyss is a particularly strong word to use, making us feel as if the gap in reason is in fact huge and potentially unfixable. And Noonan goes on to imply that Romney needs not only to look into it, but to stare it down, take it all in, without fear or hesitation. Another way Noonan uses diction is to mock Romney and illuminate the gap between him and the average American. With her frequent use of slang, Noonan portrays herself as an average American while standing in stark contrast to her ideas about Romney discounting that very same average American. When discussing Romney's ads, Noonan describes them as boring, and, considering how momentous an event the election is, "That musta taken effort!" The slang is repeated at the end of the article, emphasizing American values which, as Noonan implies, Romney doesn't have. "If you’re gonna lose, lose honorably. If you’re gonna win do it with meaning" (Noonan).

With her syntax, Noonan further mocks Romney's campaign, especially his idea that 47% of the people depend on government and therefore will not vote for him. "My goodness, that’s a lot of people who won’t vote for you. You wonder how he gets up in the morning...We are a big, complicated nation. And we are human beings. We are people. We have souls. We are complex. We are not data points." (Noonan). At first, Noonan's sentence structure is distinctly mocking, showing readers the ridiculousness of Romney's 47% theory. Then she goes on, using parallelism to give the sense of reinforcement, as if she seeks to sink each sentence into Romney's supposedly thick skull. "We are...We are...We are." Noonan is pointing out that just because people need help doesn't necessarily mean they won't vote for him, but they definitely won't if he treats them like data points. Noonan also uses parallelism to enforce the depth of the issue. "The big issue—how we view government, what we want from it, what we need, what it rightly asks of us, what it wrongly demands of us—is a good and big and right and serious subject." In the latter half of the sentence Noonan forgoes commas and uses and's instead, probably to solidify just how many facets of the campaign need to be addressed.

 Noonan's imagery further shows the depth of the issue, with an image of what, to Romney, must be a contradictory old woman. She is a "rural Ohio woman sitting on her porch, watching the campaign go by. She’s 60, she identifies as conservative, she likes guns, she thinks the culture has gone crazy. She doesn’t like Obama. Romney looks OK. She’s worried about the national debt and what it will mean to her children. But she’s having a hard time, things are tight for her right now, she’s on partial disability, and her husband is a vet and he gets help, and her mother receives Social Security.

"She’s worked hard and paid into the system for years. Her husband fought for his country.

And she’s watching this whole election and thinking.You can win her vote if you give her faith in your fairness and wisdom. But not if you label her and dismiss her" (Noonan).

But Romney doesn't see this, says Noonan. The issue is deep, but Romney is a shallow thinker. With her imagery and language, Noonan portrays Romney and his advisers as inept and completely out of their league. "Like a kid new to politics who thinks he got the inside lowdown on how it works from some operative," Noonan says. Those "old operatives," they are "jockeys who rode Seabiscuit and thought they won a race." This is all figurative, of course, because Romney is as much five years old as his advisers are jockeys. But with these images Noonan shows readers how childish Romney's campaign really is.

Even if this could be fixed, the damage is practically done, according to Noonan. Romney, considering his huge war chest, has saved much of it for one last advertizing blitz before the election. "For what? For the moment when Americans would rather poke out their eyeballs and stomp on the goo than listen to another ad?" (Noonan). This language gives us the impression that Romney's ads will be the things stomped on, that it is in fact too late for him.

Noonan's use of diction, imagery, language, and syntax help to emphasize and support her criticism and scorn of Romney's campaign stance. She is openly disdainful toward Romney and his advisers' attitudes, but she also tries to show where Romney went wrong with her diction and especially imagery. Overall, the piece does what Noonan no doubt wanted: it creates disapproval toward Romney, and an understanding of exactly why 47% of us are not quite so hopeless as Romney seems to believe.