Fifth Business - Davis

Contrary to public opinion, Dunstan Ramsay has lead an interesting life. Well, if you really like saints.
Ramsay ends up playing a part in all of the grander lives around him. His guilt about a snowball and obsession with Mary Demptster leads to the route of his entire life. He becomes assured of her sainthood then devotes his life to the pursuit of learning more about them, on the way truly discovering the fantastic reality.

Hamlet - Shakespeare

Did you see "The Lion King"? Ok, we're fine here. Just kidding.
Hamlet returns from school to attend his father's funeral and mother's wedding. He's quite distressed by this and is acrid in his appraisal of his mother and country. His father's ghost has been appearing and Hamlet eventually meets it. The ghost  delivers a shocking message: Hamlet's Uncle killed his father and now he must avenge the death. Hamlet thinks about this for a while. He pretends to be crazy so as not to raise suspicions. Claudius and Polonius attempt to use Ophelia, Hamlet's lover, to trap him into telling the truth behind his behavior. Instead of showing his love, he tells her to get to a nunnery, leaving her heartbroken. Hamlet tries to trap Claudius in his guilt with the "Mouse Trap" play, but finds he cannot kill him. He confronts his mother instead and mistakenly kills Polonius. Ophelia goes mad with the death of her father and Hamlet's rejection. She drowns herself. Claudius tries to send Hamlet to England to be killed, but he is somehow returned to Denmark by Pirates. He ends up attending Ophelia's funeral and fights with her brother in her grave. Laertes and Claudius hatch a plan to kill Hamlet in a duel. Hamlet decides to meet the challenge despite knowing the possibility that it will be his death. He is stabbed by a poisoned blade, wounds Laertes with it, and kills Claudius while his mother dies of poison. He then dies, leaving Horatio to tell his story.

Pride and Prejudice - Austen

What trouble for the Bennets! Five daughters, none married, and the house titled to the obnoxious Mr. Collins! Have pity on my poor nerves!
Well, Lizzy always was the headstrong one, spoiled by her father I should think. At least Jane had a chance to land Mr. Bingley. He's ever so handsome, well mannered, and owner of Netherfield too! Mr. Darcy wouldn't dance with Lizzy, and I dare say, it is not a loss. He is ever so disagreeable. But what should you think but Bingley and his party leave without so much as a good bye? And he seemed so very fond of my dear Jane. (Not quite as dear as my Lydia, but a beauty just the same.) Lizzy blames our behavior, but I see nothing wrong with the country nor my daughters' exuberance.
On top of that, Lizzy rejects Mr. Collins! Yes, I could not make her know her mind despite the fact that she is snatching the bread out of our mouths. That Charlotte should marry him so soon after is the gal of it all.
What would you think that Lizzy should meet Mr. Darcy again while visiting Charlotte? And of all things, she rejects him too! Well, I can't blame her, really. He did separate dear Jane from Bingley and called her connections poor. As if she should have any reason to be ashamed for her family!
The worst of the stress on my poor nerves is yet to come. My darling Lydia eloped with that charming Wickham Lizzy was dallying with. Who could have imagined such goings on? It turns out that Darcy had a hand in ensuring their marriage, and reunited Mr. Bingley and Jane. Naturally Lizzy accepted him after this and they live quite grandly. Perhaps he's not quite as disagreeable as I thought.
Analysis: 
One must take Austen's life into account. She's writing for family and friends, never married (Daddy was rich and let her do whatever she wanted), and likely had quite a few lovers. That said, it explains why we don't hear about Lydia's gritty, hardscrable marriage. This is for amusement, not an expose of social inequities. The narrative voice has the trademark Mr. Bennet humor, sarcastic and particularly merciless of Mrs. Bennet and her three youngest daughters. So, what does it mean that Lizzy gets her fairy tale? She follows only her own counsel on marriage, yet so does Lydia. Why does one live in an enchanted castle and another with a gambling addict of few scruples? The difference: Lizzy and Darcy both tear the illusions of each other apart through confrontation or deed.
Meaning: True understanding of one's own character and that of one's love is necessary for a true relationship and marriage.  
"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife." - Sets the tone for the novel, largely lighthearted and scoffs at the upper class, also a jab at Mrs. Bennet.
"And your defect is a propensity to hate everybody."
"And yours," he replied with a smile, "is willfully to misunderstand them. - Shows the tension between Darcy and Lizzy, both understand each other more than any other character and aren't afraid to say so.

Cermony - Silko

Tayo begins his journey as a traumatized WWII vet. After your brother/cousin dies in your arms, you'd naturally experience some survivor's guilt, but Tayo doesn't stop there. Tayo takes on the burden for his uncle's death, mother's alcoholic destruction, and the drought that plagues his people.
No wonder he feels like puking all the time.
He returns home and is cared for by his aunt and uncle who gradually lose patients with his condition and suggest the help of a medicine man. Although Tayo originally attempts to numb his anguish in beer with the other Laguna vets, he cannot find solace in the stories they swap, stories of when they were appreciated and admired by other Americans. He finally snaps and stabs Emo, rattling his can of deadmen's teeth.
The healer Betonie is one of the few that can understand Tayo's predicament, how he lost his way on the hoop of time.  A half-blood like Tayo, he can understand how Tayo has felt isolated from both cultures. He sets him out on his spiritual journey to turn back the witchery and find purpose again.
Tayo tries again to complete Josiah's dream of raising a hardy, yet meaty cattle and sets out to reclaim them. Along the way he runs into the mystical T'seh and has a healing sexual experience with her.
He spends the summer with T'seh, but eventually the witchery shows up again. Emo is on the hunt for Tayo, but settles on mutilating and killing his friend Harley instead. Tayo resists the urge to attack Emo and the witchery consumes itself, Emo ends up in jail.
The circle completes itself
Analysis:
Silko relies on Laguna archetypes to bind this novel together. The message of the novel is that union with the earth is necessary for the health of the individual and the role of dualities. Nothing is all bad or all good. This is perhaps best represented by T'seh Montano, look at her name, she is the earth. Only after Tayo has reconciled with her can he find his way back to present.
Meaning: Only through uniting the traditional and modern can society and the individual move forward.
"There are balances and harmonies always shifting, always necessary to maintain." - Betonie explains both the dualities of nature, but also the necessity to incorporate old and new.
"... most people are afraid of change. They think that if their children have the same colored skin, the same colored eyes, that nothing is changing."  - Night Swan explains why the Lagunas reject Tayo, they react to the changes of new America by demonizing all the new. Real change to the traditions and culture is more insidious, in the thoughts of the younger generation, not what they look like.

Death of a Salesman - Miller

The family one meets in DOAS makes Ordinary People look like the paragon of a function family. Willy Loman has a tenuous grip on reality, delusions of grandure while lost in a past that never was. His wife Linda displays the loyalty of a golden retriever, constantly trying to soothe him while he swings between abrasive outbursts and self-deprecation. His sons visit, with hopes to start a business together. Both appear impressive, but neither have managed to be successful. Willy is delighted in what believes to be the long awaited triumph of his sons, particularly in Biff, his long favored son. Biff has returned from "out west" and a stint in jail. Willy is fired from his job by a man he has watched grow from a baby. He cannot bring himself to accept charity from Charley. The boys take Willy out to dinner where he gets lost in delusional ramblings and flashbacks to the event that has shadowed their lives: Biff's discovery of Willy's affair. Ashamed, the sons abandon their father at the restaurant. At home, Linda berates her sons for their treatment of Willy and their inability to mature. She reveals that Willy has been attempting suicide. Willy returns and has one last confrontation with Biff. Biff declares that Willy had filled him with  unrealistic expectations, and that he is just an ordinary man not destined for greatness. He decides to move out west and not attempt to win the rat race. Willy misunderstands him completely believes Biff to turn a corner into success. He commits suicide so that Biff can use his insurance money to start his business.
Analysis:
Through the Willy's tragic life and Biff's rejection of him, Miller shows the American Dream to be an unobtainable and fruitless goal.  The presence of the flute lends a Pide Piper atmosphere to Willy's dreams, they lure him away from a satisfying life and to his death. Both Biff and Happy live with the burden of Willy's teachings. Biff can't settle to a job that matches his ordinary talents and Happy is kept in a state of emotional insecurity. Despite catching his father with The Woman being his downfall from college and scholarship, it ends up saving him from his father's fate. By realizing that his father's image is false, Biff can reject him and his way of life, choosing to go west and make a new life there. (Wow, what a very traditional, pioneery thing to do) Happy lacks this moment with Willy and, still desperate for his approval, continues with a life Willy would have approved of.
"You can't eat the orange and throw the peel away - man is not a piece of fruit!" - Willy recognizes his insignificance in society after his conversation with Howard.
"Isn't that - isn't that remarkable! Biff- he likes me!" - Perhaps the most heartbreaking line in the play, Willy completely misunderstands Biff after he tells Willy that he is leaving and can't bear to see him anymore. Represents the complete disconnect between them and Willy's failure to accept reality.

The American Dream - Albee

Well, it feels like I've already done these, but here goes...
We are introduced into the highly satirized America comprised of Mommy and Daddy. As immature as their names, they are unable to derive any kind of satisfaction from their lives, be it sexual, spiritual, or material. They live with the slightly cantankerous, witty, and resourceful Grandma who does not hide her disdain for her daughter and son-in-law. All three are joined by Mrs. Baker, the neighborhood authority figure and government symbol. She is able to turn Mommy's opinion on anything, and Daddy finds her authority arousing. While this triangle attempts to get to the root of Mommy and Daddy's lack of satisfaction, The American Dream is welcomed into the apartment by Grandma. We find him to be hollow, despite his outward appearance of beauty and completeness. He is found to be the twin of the child Mommy and Daddy adopted before, but mutilated when it couldn't conform to their desires. Grandma leaves the apartment, but Mommy and Daddy find The American Dream to be the perfect addition to their family.
What Albee's getting at within the absurdity:
Grandma is the old American Dream, the dream America was founded on. She is resourceful, independent, and "comes from pioneer stock". She is rather androgynous, saying that at this point in her life she "looks just about as much as an old man as an old woman", in addition to taking the pseudonym "Uncle Henry" to win a baking contest (hinging on the American public being unable to tell good from bad when packaged). The Young Man is the new American Dream; empty, superficial, and glossy. Although he comes from "out west", it is not the plains of the Dakotas or rugged Rocky Mountains. He is from Hollywood, the phoniest place in America.
Through Mommy and Daddy's rejection of Grandma and adoption of the Young Man, they show that the values America was founded on no longer apply. Instead of striving with dirt, sweat, and ingenuity to lead a satisfying life, Mommy will debate beige hats with a sycophantic Daddy. The true irony is that they have what they want (the hollow Young Man), instead of what they so desperately need.
Meaning:
We are on a path of destruction with our current materialist values, but it's not too late to look back to the values of old America and reclaim our individualism.

It's the Circle, the Circle of time!

Ceremony. Why is this the odd one out? Well, for starters, we've read an odd number of books, but it seems to evade the two groups I've made. It does cover the "main themes" of both other sets of texts, but I feel that that's not really the main point of Ceremony. I also set it apart because it diverges from the other very Western texts we've read.
Learning about the Laguna culture was a very rewarding experience in understanding this novel. It took on a whole new meaning the second time I read it, before I new there had to be some reason for the way things were, but didn't understand why. The more I understood, the more beautiful it became, the poems blending in with "the story" until it becomes "the story". And that's what Silko intended, the importance of the stories, that they're shared. They become your culture, they become you.

There seems to be no other way of effectively writing Ceremony except in stream of consciousness.  Tayo has managed to bust the hoop of time, instead of living on one strand of the circle, he lives all levels at once and cannot separate which Tayo he is. Only once he has completed his quest around the circle to undo the witchery of the war does Tayo find himself. He comes to accept his Mexican eyes, and finds his purpose. He will not remain trapped in the past, but will continue with T'seh and Betonie to create a culture that will survive the drought with stories and regaining a connection to their heritage.

Rebellion ends in a marriage... or a bloodbath

Hamlet and Pride and Prejudice. On the surface they seem like polar opposites. Tragedy and Comedy, Laughter and Tears, Lizzy and Hamlet. However, both are an interesting look at rebellion.

Lizzy refuses to acquiesce to the societal dictates of her gender. She refuses to marry Mr. Collins despite the precarious nature of her family's land title because she does not respect him nor believe that either could be happy. She then later shoots down Mr. Darcy (one of top 100 richest men in Britain) because of his condescending attitude. Then to top it off she desides she will  marry him, but piss off his super rich aunt. Egad! What a rabble rouser! Well, kind of, yeah. Not only does she disobey parental mandates, she subverts many of the rigid class distinctions. Her hostilities with Lady Catherine are something that nice girls just don't do. Lizzy's techniques for retaining autonomy are particularly interesting in comparison to Hamlet. She becomes the master (as Hamlet is himself) of saying one thing and meaning another. She whips snide comments disguised as polite niceties. Lizzy learns that she can hide behind her words and remain true to herself by saying what she thinks, but safe by not having others understand her intent.

Hamlet. Oh, Hamlet. What chance did he have? He's either going to hell for murdering his uncle, or haunted by his father's ghost. He too finds himself in conflict and alienated from his society. After returning from Wittenburg he's got all kinds of new ideas, ideas that don't mesh with the warrior tradition of Denmark. On top of that his dad has been murdered and his mom got remarried a month later. Angst, angst, angst. Despite Hamlet's closeness with Horatio, and Lizzy's closeness with Jane, they are both alone in their struggle. After deliberating over every option available to him, Hamlet finally makes a decision and walks into what he suspects to be a trap. Why? Hamlet chooses an almost defiant trust in fate and rebels against what should have been his destiny. Through his death Hamlet ends up rejecting what he had been born to be: the next king. Born without even his own name, he finally makes his choice defines himself.

Same Destination, Different Maps... The American Dream

When thinking about the literature we've covered, the order in which Holmes had us read makes a ton of sense. Death of a Salesman and The American Dream have essentially the same message: The American Dream is now dead, quit wasting your time, and find real satisfaction. However, the way this message was served was completely different. Two plays, two ways.
The American Dream was my first experience with theater of the absurd, and I have to say, I'm quite taken by it. I loved the biting satire, the surreal nature of Grandma's boxes, and that sometimes to see the truth, you need a trip down the rabbit hole. Through the childlike diction and bickering of Mommy and Daddy, Albee creates an image of an emotionally stunted America, too entranced by the shiny and new to care about the opinion and well being of the old and wisest, Grandma. In this caricature of America, adults are so quick to agree with what the authority thinks they discount the truth and common sense (The hat was BEIGE!). It's all good fun until Albee shocks you with the horrific vision of Mommy and Daddy dismembering the baby, and you see the truly dark side of The American Dream. We're destroying our future and ourselves. With the actions of Grandma we see that The American Dream has changed. It once stood for individuality, freedom, and honest labor back in Grandma's pioneer days. She exits once the hollow, polished dream takes up residence with Mommy and Daddy.
In contrast to the farcical style in The American Dream, Death of A Salesman is too real to be at all amusing. Willy Loman is the man who tried and failed. Despite his ambitions for himself and his sons, he was never a success and has to retreat into his own imagination in order to survive his disappointment. Willy lived under a delusion that what people think of you, a good smile, easy manner, can make all the difference. In the end though, what matters is to whom you were born. Despite his seniority, Willy is treated deferentially by Howard, who simply had to inherit the business. He is tormented by Biff's lack of success, yet cannot bear to think he is the cause of it. Ironically, by having Biff's impression of Willy completely torn down due to his infidelity, he saves Biff from his fate. Biff chooses to reject Willy's lessons and live "out west", where we can presume is still in the pioneer spirit of self industry and fulfillment.

Class Synthesis: The Art of Essay

Crafting the 7+ essay has been a major skill to master this year. Here is a brief recap:
 Opener
Don't jump in with a random dissertation on setting acting as a character in gothic novels, warm up with some outside information. Avoid at all cost the dreaded "Throughout time...".
The Thesis
Should be a road-map for the entire essay. This little monster MUST FOLLOW PROMPT! all of it. Including the implied "meaning" question. Split-thesis is acceptable. Must be arguable.
Body Paragraphs:
Opening sentences should refer back to thesis and are in the same order as topics addressed in thesis.
Plain-style:
Essays should be unadorned in adverbs and superfluous language. Use one word instead of three. Overloading on adjectives and adverbs is the work for the insecure writer and lawyers. It sounds pretentious and says nothing. Allow strong verbs and nouns to speak for themselves.
DIDLS:
Details, Imagery, Diction, Language, Syntax. These are the techniques to address in analysis essays, particularly useful in closed prompt poetry. Authors use these to create EFFECTS.
Effect:
This is the result of the author's choices on the reader. Includes mood, emotional response, characterization.

Response to Class Material

Dear Ceremony,
I know this is unexpected, and unprompted, but I love you. Yes, I used the L-word. This is a big step, so just hear me out. I love your imagery, you contain so many fantastic word paintings that even without a plot you could be complete. Don't listen to the others who call you confusing, you're just complex. The shifting times are just an added spice. Through our relationship I've learned so much, both about Native American culture and how empty my life was before I understood allusions. And even though you seem to be Native American-Ordinary People at times, it does not diminish my adoration. Everyone has faults. Even me (hint: writing letters to literature). I love that your plot is part road novel, part Born on the Fourth of July, part fascinating folklore, and all self discovery. Perhaps one day you can return my feelings, until then I'm stalking Leslie Marmon Silko.
Affectionately,
Emily

Nov 20 Response to Class material

Death of a Salesman. Hrm. I liked the points, but frankly was glad to have finished it. It created a complicated emotion, part pity, part extreme distaste. Willy is pitiful, but still majorly messed up his sons. It's hard to reconcile these emotions. I think I feel worst for Happy. He was always overshadowed by Biff, yet most believes in his father's legacy.

Our essays were a tad... rough. The highest score we had in our group was a 5. It's so hard to remember to hit all the points of the essay while being insightful AND original. Stupid 9. Oh well, onward we shall go!

Response to class Material

We've nearly concluded our time with The American Dream, examining themes, characterization, and how many metaphors for sex Albee can cram in there. The more I read the play, the more I like Grandma. She's wise without being pretentious, and has the best comic timing in the entire play. I really enjoyed her spats with Mommy. Albee has an interesting point, the idea of America was founded with more social ideals in mind, while it has become a materialistic and unsatisfying scramble. Maybe this is why Finland has a ridiculously high percent of artisan furniture makers, lower average income, and much greater national level of happiness.
In other news, we've been continuing with our work in creating concise essays. I'm glad we got a shot to rewrite the Eros essay. Detail example in mine was akin to "Eros said some things".

Response to Class Material 2

I don't know about you, but I really enjoy Albee. So funny, so biting. I really enjoyed reading "The American Dream" in class, plays have to be read aloud to really make sense to me. I never can seem to get a sense for how to flows and breathes without listening to it performed. That was a great time too, I'm glad everybody read with such gusto. It stinks to have people be unenthusiastic. In other news, we've been continuing our work on constructing essays, paying particular attention to thesis and intro sentences. Those are really the tricky parts of the essay in my opinion. Once you have the track laid out the essay can almost chug along on its own.