Great Expectations

I feel Charles Dickens titled his novel Great Expectations, because that is exactly what the main character, Pip has for himself and his life. He doesn't go around expecting his life to be dull and mediocre.

BQ Introduction

Is violence hereditary or taught from environment?

At birth, we are taught many things to help us adapt to life and everyday living. There are a lot of skills, characteristics that come naturally, and have no necessity to be taught. When it comes to certain characteristic traits, it is merely questioning whether or not these traits are heredity or learned from the people and environment the individual is exposed to.

Natural emotions that one individual experiences is questioning whether they were taught those or they naturally experienced them. Anger, I believe to be is a natural emotion that one experiences at birth. For example, when a baby is tired, hungry, or uncomfortable; they cry, whine, and holler until they are given the attention needed. This emotion is a common part of humanity. The questioning area is whether that anger which turns into violence is the hereditary or learned part.

The Great Gatsby

THE GREAT GATSBY by F. Scott Fitzgerald

1. Nick Carraway,a young man, has moved to West Egg in New York, and his next door neighbor happens to be a very popular, wealthy man, named Jay Gatsby. After settling in, Nick, his cousin Daisy, and her husband Tom,grow close and attend Gatsby's grand parties late in the summer. That is where Nick discovers his love interest,Jordan Baker. Soon the discovery of Gatsby's past secret love affair with Daisy and the reality of the affair that is continuing throughout the summer. When Tom's suspicions of the affair get a hold of him, he begins accusing Gatsby of crimes and put his fury upon Daisy. He does not even question his own affair and the effects it has had. After a night out, Gatsby and his company are driving and accidentally kills Myrtle with his car. When Myrtle's husband finds out Gatsby was the one who killed her, he kills Gatsby and after shoots himself. The novel ends in the summer with Gatsby's funeral and leaves West Egg. He reflects on his relationships and experiences in West Egg.


2. The main themes in this novel is the corruption of the American dream and the lack of values and morals in high society. The main focus many have is on their rise in society and the next grand party they will be attending. The American Dream has been distorted and somehow turned into something different than it once was, which is the want of a steady job, house, and family life. These wealthy people don't work for their money, set themselves up high on a bar, and still manage to go on in life with no care. Almost, as is their life is being handed to them on a silver platter.

3. Nick has an admiration tone, when discussing Gatsby and all his pleasures. Which is only natural when one is exposed to those grand pleasures. The odd thing, was Nick's disapproval and almost judgmental dislike towards the other wealthy people in town. He felt they were merely rude and had a lack of integrity. NIck did have a tone of hope, but only when it came to love.
-"He knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the mind of God,"
-"He had one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. It understood you just as far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself,"
-"I felt a haunting loneliness sometimes, and felt it in others--young clerks in the dusk, wasting the most poignant moments of night and life."

4. Fitzgerald used many literary techniques throughout the novel. He was able to use symbolism through the green light to display Gatsby's hope for love and to rekindle his relationship wit Daisy. It had also symbolized the corruption of the American Dream and how it was dimmed down. Fitzgerald's diction was crucial in describing every little detail and making it as clear and thorough as possible. He took on the wealth people's persona and was able to portray them in an understandable way. Foreshadowing plays a crucial role in the unraveling events in the story. Gatsby's car crash early in the novel gives a hint of what is to come to later. Fitzgerald sets this novel during the early 1920's, which is around the time most had looked to heavy partying and drinking. The standards for American and their goals had decreased.
-"A single green light, minute and faraway, that might have been the end of a dock,"
-"I see now that this has been a story of the West, after all--Tom and Gatsby, Daisy and Jordan and I, were all Westerners, and perhaps we possessed some deficiency in common which made us subtly unadaptable to Eastern life,"
-"...with her chin raised a little, as if she were balancing something on it which was quite likely to fall."

Weekend Glory

Weekend Glory -Maya Angelou

Some clichty folks don't know the facts,
posin' and preenin' and puttin' on acts,
stretchin' their backs.

They move into condos up over the ranks,
pawn their souls to the local banks.
Buying big cars they can't afford,
ridin' around town actin' bored.

If they want to learn how to live life right
they ought to study me on Saturday night.

My job at the plant ain't the biggest bet, but I pay my bills
and stay out of debt. I get my hair done
for my own self's sake, so I don't have to pick
and I don't have to rake.

Take the church money out and head cross town
to my friend girl's house where we plan our round.
We meet our men and go to a joint
where the music is blue
and to the point.

Folks write about me. They just can't see
how I work all week at the factory.
Then get spruced up and laugh and dance
And turn away from worry with sassy glance.

They accuse me of livin' from day to day,
but who are they kiddin'?
So are they.

My life ain't heaven but it sure ain't hell.
I'm not on top but I call it swell
if I'm able to work and get paid right
and have the luck to be Black
on a Saturday night

I chose this novel because it is very inspiring. Maya Angelou is an inspirational woman. The poem is not only showing her pride of being able to work hard, with a moral standard, but also also her pride race. It's an enjoyment to see the comparisons of daily lives, and also the joy of what the activities bring after work and on the weekends bring to a hard working woman.

AP Lit. Term

Paradox- a statement or proposition that seems self-contradictory or 

absurd but in reality expresses a possible truth

 

• A statement contrary to received opinion

• An opinion that conflicts with common belief

• Contradictory qualities or phases

Examples:

• It is a paradox that computers need maintenance so often, since they are meant to save people time and energy

• The swiftest traveler is he that goes afoot.

Thinking Outside the Box

In  "Allegory of the Cave", Plato describes a group of people chained together, whom believe what they see and experience to be truth due to that being all they have known. Plato describes people unable to think for themselves, because hey have been merely confined from knowledge and reject new ways of thinking and ideas.  When the man is able to go out of the cave and learn of other things, no one believes him. We tend to reject new things, which is ultimately what is holding us back from blossoming.

Sarte described in, "No Exit," the experiences of three people in hell. These people don't come to the terms of being in hell because their expectations of hell are much different than their experiences. They unconsciously decide not to help each other figure out what is going on. Instead they create a personal hell, and begin torturing each other. These stories are similar in their characters struggles. They are unable or unwilling to figure out their problems and reach out into new possibilities and knowledge.

 Sartre and Plato use different writing techniques and to get there message and purpose to the audience. Plato’s allegory uses dialogue within the story to illustrate his ideas. The people are limited to their thoughts not by force, but because it is their own personal choice. The “shackles” in the story represent the characters themselves, and even after the man escaped and came back to teach them, they refused his knowledge. The problem of the people isn't that they are incompetent  but that they  refuse to branch out and grasp knew knowledge presented before them. Humanity tends to set their own limitations.
 Sartre's writing on the other hand uses an actual conversation between characters  to set the tone and theme in action. In a similar way, the characters in, "No Exit" have there own limitations they have set, but also have been set for them. They perceive hell to be a certain way and don't even think twice to look for the answer.The limitations being set for them being them being placed there without a further word of instruction.

There are such distinction in the writings of these author, and yet they have a similar purpose. The purpose being the limitations we set or have been set on the human mind.

The House on Mango Street

1.The House on Mango Street is about a young girl named Esperanza who has moved with her family into a house on Mango Street. The family is of Mexican heritage and struggles economically. Esperanza does not understand her family struggles and ultimately resists the move. The time span of the novel was her first year living on Mango Street, and Esperanza speaks nothing but negative things to the town, house, and people living on the street. Within that year it is seen Esperanza making new friends, Rachel and Lucy, whom she always fights with yet can not separate from. Within the novel it is seen Esperanza ultimately maturing into a young lady. Her feelings of the move has not changed, but ultimately finds other things to think about. She  fantasizes about boys and discusses leaving the town to find love. Esperanza finds a friend named Sally whom has the same wishes. With influence from Sally, Esperanza begins to feel neglected by her family and wants to leave Mango Street more than ever before.  As the time came, Esperanza feels that it's time for her to leave home on Mango Street but she just can not bring herself to do so. She looks to writing as an escape. She writes to avoid the truth that she'll never be able to leave Mango Street.
  2. The theme of the novel is the fight between physical and mental decisions. Throughout the novel Esperanza wants to grow up and be like the other older kids she observes on Mango Street. Though she does not want to live there she wants what the other kids have. Esperanza fight the physical decision to leave Mango Street. When the time came for her to do so, sh couldn't follow through. From the beginning Esperanza wished to leave and make a life of her own away from Mango Street. She comes to the conclusion that she is physically and mentally unable without he family.

• Someday I will have a best friend all my own. One I can tell my secrets to. One who will understand my jokes without my having to explain them. Until then I am a red balloon, a balloon tied to an anchor. (3.4)

• When I am to sad and too skinny to keep keeping, when I am a tiny thing against so many bricks, then it is I look at trees. […] Four who reach and do not forget to reach. Four whose only reason is to be and be. (29.4)

  3.Sandra Cisneros's tone in the novel is desirable, hopeful and earnest. You see this in the novel when Esperanza hopes to to leave Mango Street, the reasons for it, and how to make it possible. It is made clear that Esperanza dislikes Mango Street and is tired of seeing the families in a wealthier, more comfortable lifestyle than her.
  4.Sandra Cisneros's uses various literary elements, being personification, similes, allusions, and hyperbole.

• "Sally is the girl with eyes like Egypt and nylons the color of smoke. The boys at school think she's beautiful because her hair is shiny black like raven feathers and when she laughs, she flicks her hair back like a satin shawl over her shoulders and laughs"

•  " They grow up and they grow down and grab the earth between their hairy toes and bite the sky with violent teeth and never quit their anger."

• "The kids bend trees and bounce between cars and dangle upside down from knees and almost break like fancy museum vases you can't replace."