Friday, February 12, 2016

Is The Dead Poets Society a modern greek tragedy?

Well, lets check the list.

The downfall of the hero/heroine: Neil, our hero, commits suicide. He realises that this is his fate, as his parents are not accepting of who he is, an actor, and are forcing him to give uo that part of him and become a doctor, as they want.    
Hero/heroine encounters limits: Neil's limits are his father. He lies to him about the play. But his father is constantly
 dictating what Neil must do, his classes, extra curricular. His father acts as a fence surrounding Neil's passions, and once Neil hops the fence he is trespassing and metaphorically shot on sight. 
Includes a tragic hero(es):Neil is our tragic hero.

                 Bloodline- He attends a prestigious school
                 Flaw- he is cowardly and doesnt stand up for what he believes in and and what he wants to                                     do with his life
                  Mistake- lying to both his father and his teacher
                   Change- he decides he is going to do what he wants and he follows his passions
                  Downfall- he realizes he cant be who he wants to be so he commits suicide

Anagnorisis: The final scene where Keating, the teacher, returns for belongings. There seemed to be an underlying sense of fate and destiny that I felt the characters understand, 

Viewer feels Catharsis: Sure, personally not for my, but i know plenty of people who when they watch this movie are always purging their emotions,


Odes: The meetings of the society served as the odes, as they occurred between the scenes of actions. Each one was focused on a different poet. 


Choragos: Keating is the choragos, he started the meetings but leaving the book, and all his notes are written in the book and used at the meetings initiating them. Even though he never actually attends the meetings, he is essentially starting it. 


Exodus:The final scene where the students stand on the desks chanting "Oh captain my captain" This shows the significance keating has made on their lives and the fact that they wont be the same again.


SO yes, It is a modern Greek tragedy. 

Why Tragedy?

Why do we love tragedy so much? The reason is due to, as David E. Rivas describes it,catharsis or the purging of the emotions. These tragedies allow us to expel the emotions, these fears we have repressed, and in essence clean our souls. The catharsis allows a renewing of the psyche and a clean outlook at life, without the repressed emotions in effect.  Another reason we indulge in the tragedies is so know what happiness truly is. These tragedies allow you to experience the pain and the evils of life, without you having to physically, emotionally and mentally having to experience them, or having your life be effected permanently from them. The tragedies show you the bad, so you can fully understand what the good in life is actually, and in return experience them more. 
Tragedy is used as a guide to show you the worst in life so you can enjoy the best, and a vessel to clense the body from the repressed emotion kept inide. The tragedy is one of the most important tools anyone can use to help allow them to live a better life 


















Sources:

"You cant handle the truth!": a formalist perspective of Heart of Darkness - A Read Along Journal



  • The sentence structure is extremely varied. There are a lot of complex sentences, and simple sentences. 
  • The author seems to go in depth. The essay is filled with the examples from the text, which increases the effectiveness of the analysis. 
  • First paragraph intros the book  and the importance of an analysis.
  • He  reveals the advantages of using a formalist lens.
  • He gives a breifsummary of the book. 
  • Thesis statement is clear and and thoughtful in the first paragraph. 
  • Block quotes are present to enhance the analysis. This brings the evidence into the paper to improve the analysis.
  • In text citation are present to reference back to the book. Uses a specific format (Author's Last name, Page number)
  • Claim is  strong. The author  uses evidence and a good analysis to prove the claim. 
  • Recalls certain moments in the book and follows with a quote. 
  • the author gives more information on the quote and connects it to the claim.   
  • Uses literary devices to enhance the essay and analysis.
  • Work cited is only the book itself.

Wednesday, February 3, 2016

Reflection to the Critical Lens Essay

Well, wasn't that an experience. The essay, personally for me, was one of the most difficult essays i have written, and i still fell as if its not competed. I totally forgot to add quotes from the book to help back up my evidence, but more importantly, i feel as if the analysis is not deep enough.

That seems to be a reoccurring problem. In my in-class essays, the analysis is considered shallow. That's my Achilles heel.

I don't really have anything else to say about that dumb essay. I just hated it with the intense passion of one thousand burning suns. Yet, I will have to write more of them in the future because I want to have an English major in college. So yeah that's my story. That's my feelings about this assignment. I'm so glad the hard part is over, now i can finish it, place it in a box and not touch it for a few years. Thank you and good night.

Friday, January 29, 2016

PARADOS Ps AND Qs

1. Dirce was a woman, who, after a large amount of tragedy, was murdered. The god Dionysus created a stream where she was murdered, commemorating her death. The significance of the two armies fighting next to the stream is that here is a place where a woman was murdered, and something beautiful was created. But for the two armies, people were killed next to this stream, but there was no commemorative creation. Instead more violence and death was created, not something life giving.

2. Windy phrases mean that Polyneices, the commander of one of the army, was continuously giving orders, creating a whirlwind of orders. The windy phrases was used to contrast the two pr others, one an overwhelming dictator, and the other a calm captain.

3. Metaphor "He the wild eagle screaming"
    Simile  " Rose like a dragon behind him, shouting war"

4. The parados is referencing man as a whole. The men in the army, and the the men affected by the deaths.

5.  "... his noisy power"
    " Or pine fire took the garland of the towers"

6. The his in line 100 is referring to Polyneices.

7. We are to think of either the sound or the movement of the tongue when we read the word "Bray"

8. He and his in lines 107-110 is referring to God. Their in line 110 is referring to the people who worship the god.

9. Summary of lines 119-122
These brothers united by blood, will fight only to be killed the same way they killed the other.

10. This in not personification. The city of Thebes is singing, yet its the people that are singing, not the actual city.

Tuesday, January 19, 2016

Sort of a Song
By William Carlos Williams
What an interested poem. On first read, the poem has a disconnected feel.  The poem seems as if there are two topics, one being the first stanza dealing with a snake and writing, and the other stanza calling the first stanza a metaphor.
¨Let the snake wait under
his weed
and the writing
be the word,¨  describes the accused metaphor  as the snake being the devil, or the evil in the world. Williams describes the snake as hiding in plain sight. Williams describes in the metaphor that the writing is ¨slow and quick, sharp
        to strike, quiet to wait
        sleepless¨, or just as a snake would be described.
The second stanza seems to be as if Williams is analyzing himself, describing the literary techniques he used in the first stanza. He writes
¨ -through metaphor to reconcile”  describing  his techniques, and how it is used in the stanza above. Williams then continues talking about some ideas he has about the poem, stating that ¨Saxifrage is my flower that splits the rocks”. The saxifrage is a tiny flower, seen mostly in the wildflower bunches. Williams is essentially saying that the smallest things make the biggest changes, and he relates this to his own writing.
Williams wrote a poem and in the poem he create a beautiful stanza, and then dissects it in the second one. WIlliams is proving he knows what he is doing, and in this case I must applaud him for his creativity.