Hills Like An Essay Written by An AP student

Fitting Tone Word: Confusion, Calm argument

Literary Elements & Device: Anthing reffered to as "white" can be seen as an allegory about innocence, or ignorance. The girl character, Jig,ends up learning the world is not what she expected it to be. She is confused.

Symbolism can be seen when she states that all she does is wait to try new drinks. Which could sugest sex. The hills are almost sugesting a womans figure, probably Jigs. White elephant sounds very innocent like, or godlike, perhaps the elephant god from the hindu religion. White demonstrates clear, unused.

A Very Short Essay

"A very Short Story" by Ernest Hemingway, shows the process of a young couples love, while comparing thier personalities to the actual nations they are from. Hemingway uses a moment in history, either World War I or World War II, to demonstrate a very short romance. He uses characterisation, structure, and word choice to validate his intent.

The choice of words are very important to understand what the author intended by the end of his short story. The reader is first introduced to a character refered to as "him." The use of the pronoun "he" and "him" provides the reader with no name, no concrete personality, or person. The character forms with the story. Meanwhile, the female character is immediately reffered to by the name "Luz." If translated from the latin languages, it means "light." This character is called by three terms, her actual name, and the pronouns "she" and "her." The way these characters are identified changes quickly. Thier relationship changes quickly, therefore changing the words "him" and "her" to "they." In the third paragraph, the two characters are united as a couple. Its the only paragraph which only refers to "them" except for the "he" in the first sentence. Before this paragraph, they were together in the previous paragraphs, but not quite one. In the paragraphs after, the two characters are once again acknowledged separately. Hemingway shows the point of view of Luz. The fourth paragraph only mentions what she feels, which creates a sort of isolated, lonely feeling. The fifth paragraph does the same, except this time it only mentions "perspective" until close to the end of the paragraph, where the two characters are reunited for a short moment. Its the last time the chracters excist as "they." Hemingway washes away this unity in one sentence, starting the next sentence with a separation of "he," "When they had to say good-bye, in the station at Milan, they kissed goodbye, but were not finished with the quarrel. He felt sick about saying good-bye like that."

They become separated, not only emotionally, but also physically. Luz stays in Italy, and he goes back to the United States. The structure of the story, has various separations aswell. For a story of only a page and a small bit, it has quite alot of paragraphs, eight paragraphs. Each one show a different idea, from a different view, whether it be "him" "her" or "they", the structure is helpful into showing how separate each of these moments in this couples lives are.

THe entire piece, does not only relate to the hardships of a couple who can't be together, but also thier nationalities. One is italian, and the other is american. Towards the end, the italian woman, Luz, ends up falling in love with an Italion mayor. She claims she was never inlove with the american man and that thier relationship was "only a boy girl love." This is during one of the world wars. When the USA was still viewed as a young country. She calls the relationship a "boy girl" relationship, which suggests being young, and immature. The United States, at this time, could also be viewed as young and immature. She states she is inlove with the "major of the battalion" in italy. He is Italian, and unlike the young american soldier, he is suggested to be alot older, and more powerful. Italy, likewise, has experienced far more power than the USA, and is also alot older, perhaps even wiser. She decided to marry someone more well known, and leaves the american to die in a taxicab with a broken heart.

"A Very Short Story" is not only a short story, but also a short romance. Also, the USA had only been around for a short period of time. This peice uses language, structure, and the time period to create the authors intent. Its a story of sexual, and emotional feelings, as well as learning to mature, both the young soldier, and the nation from where he is from.

Deep into es-es-essay

The poem with the ending "W-o-te-M" by Patricia Grace, is a poem which deals with nature, life, and death. Grace uses structure, personification, and assonance, to form these points in her poem. Her poem involves nature, yet it also involves death, with a mix of giving life.

The poem is made up of three stanzas, each with six lines. This forms the number 666, which can be seen as the devils number in the bible. The number three, which is the number of stanzas in this poem, is also seen in other literary works including the bible. The poem ends up feeling very dark, since most literary works with these numbers are also very dark. The number of syllables in each line go from one to six, but none of them have five syllables. The number five, can be also related to the bible, but is related more to Christ and his five wounds. The structure helps by showing a sort of evil in the nature of the world, and the nature of the poem. When the poem is read outloud, it sounds like a chant. A spiritual song calling out to nature, or mother nature about her dead child.

The reader may believe the poem shows the good side of nature, since the poem makes it appear warm in loving at the beginning "Sky love earth" "earth give life." Nature in the poem is personified to sound like a loving mother "Turn breast to chi-i-ld." This chant like poem represents this "mother" like surroundings as good. What becomes bad is the child who is born. The child "steal light" and makes the rain turn away. The rain brings life, but without rain, thier is death. There is an actual murder of the earth "thrust bright sword deep into ea-ea-earth." The birth of this child, has created the death of its surrounding. The mother "bleed"s, and the child who has caused this "die"s. The child was only born, but is "already dead."

There is also alliteration and assonance, which creates an even more chant like feel to the poem. Each phrase starts with a consonance, except for the fifth line in the first stanza, and the sixth line in the last stanza, "Earth give life" "Already Dead." The mome also has a repetition of vowels in the world "ra-ai-ain" and "ea-ea-earth."

I believe the poet is trying to show a darkness of humanity, the child, and how it has created its own death in the life it was given by earth. The use of structure, aswell as personification and repition, allows this idea to manifest itself. Therfore becoming a chant like poem, to mourn the self destruction of nature upon nature.

Change

(once again, my blog is not separating into paragraphs) What I truly believe Toni Morrison is trying to explain in the interview, is not racisom, is not loneliness or the salem witch trials. I believe she wants to go further than that, and understand change in society. She studies history to understand these changes. She wants to see these changes with innocent eyes, which is why she chosses young girls, like Pecola and Claudia, to be the central figures of her book. These girls see what happens around them through innocent eyes, they are vulnerable to thier surroundings. Although Morrison did mention 'slavery' and 'racism,' she is not only looking at how blacks vere descriminated, but also how whites throughout history were discriminated. For example, she mentions the 'Salem witch trials' which delt with the killing of white people thought to be witches, and religion. She encorporates this idea of religion being an influence, to show that over time, people used religion to view an African American as a devil like creature. She doesn't only pin point religion, but defines it as a main cause. She shows that slavery does not mean the 'enslavement of black people through history', but instead 'enslavement of all races, and prisoners of war. She shows that in history, slaves have come from everywhere, not only africa, and not from only one race. The idea of slaves has only changed over time, and developed a change of how those people were viewed: through racism. There is also a personal slavery she talks about. One that I think Pecola relates to: loneliness. She speaks of how this feeling has changed. In the past, which I believe Pecola feels, a person had to stay in thier loneliness on thier own. They were left to thier own suffering, and thier own confusion, but now, our loneliness has changed. We are no longer as isolated as we used to be, we are more connected then ever! Whether it be through facebook, cellphones, TV, there is no denying we are more connected, and less 'lonely'. Perhaps in this world, Pecola would have solved her curiousity in good way, or a bad way, it could go both ways, just like before. We live in a dangerous world, and that hasn't canged from the past. We live in a world that is sometimes open to new ideas, or sometimes closed, it just depends on the moment in time. Morrison views herself as a voice. She is the voice of all her characters, and she is a voice of ideas. She states her opinion on racism, places it in her stories, and shows change in characters, such as Pecola and Claudia. She shows that everone changes, and that the change of ideas only takes time. She describes what america was before, and how she had to research how much its changed, yet how even with Obama, as the first African American president, some things haven't changed, and will remain the same for a while. We dream for our ideal perfect world, like Pecola dreams to be white. But as Morrison says , 'its a dream.' Ending on that note, I believe she thinks that the world can change, but its based on all our fantasys, and the world never reaches that fantasy level.

Nakedness

Slashed by ~Cherry-RagDoll on deviantART
*note, my blog was separated in paragraphs, but for some strange reason, it won't post as paragraphs.
The chapter named,"HEREISTHEHOUSEITISGREENANDWHITEITHASAREDDOORITISVERYPRETTYITISVERYPRETTYPRETTYPRETTYP" seems to be all about life, change, home and family. This chapter, chapter two, even has the words "house" and "door" in its title, as if to state "in you go and out you change." The chapter describes thier living situation. Demonstrating that the house, which they live in, has also seen change. When we think of change in materialistic things, we tend to think of the object as becoming rotten or overused. These words would not be used in a family, especially on a child. A family is constantly changing, and reshaping to form new families. This comparison is used to show how short family life is. The house may be overused, but has served as a home for various families, while the families in the house, are together for a shor time. Then leave, wanting to change, and the kids all grown up. The kids, grow up way, to fast. The, "store on the southeast corner of broadway and Thirty-fith streen in Lorai, Ohio" has been "abandoned", yet its still there, and still has a personality and its role, "It does not recede into its background of leaden sky, nor harmonize with the gray fram houses and black telephone poles around it." The store is calm, and relaxed, not in a hurry, like the people passingby "It foits itself on the eye of passerby in a manner that is both irritating and melancholy. Visitors who drive to this tiny town wonder why it has not been torn down, while pedestrians, who are residents of the neighborhood, simply look away when they pass it." The visitors to be in such a hurry, in comparison to the house, they want change and want the old to be "torn down." At this point the author, Tony Morrison, takes us back in time, the old. We are taken back to a time when, "when the building house a pizza parlor", which often had "teen-aged boys huddled about the corner." We are placed in the lives of these teenagers, and a moment of the store's life. These teenagers are nothing like the store, they want to live life fast, and practically show off that they are "there to feel thier groins, smole cigarettes, and plan mild outrages." They smoke because they feel that it makes them appear more like an adult. The teenagers want this appearance of maturity to fill thier bodies,"The smoke from thier cigarettes they inhaled deeply, forcing it to fill thier lungs, thier hearts, thier thighs, and keep at bay the shiveriness, the energy of thier youth." These teenagers have the appearance of taking life calmly since they "moved slow", but they don't want to move slowly, they want to move fast and reach a more mature age, they, "flicked the ashes from thier cigarettes too quickly too often, and exposed themselves, to those who were interested, as novices to the habit." They are just like babies, born into a new life. We are told of other changes in the store, the hungarian baker, the real-estate office, and even the gypsies who used the store as a base. What really caught my attention were the gypsy girls. They sit at the window and "occasionally smiled, or winked, or beckoned." They were, "elaborate dresses, long sleeved and long skirt"(s). They appear to be flirting with the people who pass by. They are young, so they are almost afraid to flirt, which is why they flirt "occasionally." But like the young teenage boys, thier innocence is seen. The teenage boys innocence was seen as "novices to the habits", while the girls innocence is described as a "nakedness that stood in thier eyes." I think the personification of the house and the growth of the family is seen in the patchwork quilt. Its a mix of material, and reality of experiences. Its described as a creation for "a sense of belonging" and "a way they found each other." This piece of material, contains meomories, but other objects, seen later on, have no meaning. The furniture in the home is described as "various states of thoughtlessness, greed, and indifference." The furniture "aged" and no one recognized it. No one cared about the furniture, therefore, thier were no memories in the furniture. This seems to describe the family. Tied together by incidencts, like a split in a sofa, yet having no meaning, yet having no pride.

How do you get somebody to love you?

mature by ~atrophi on deviantART From the very start of the novel, "The Bluest Eye" I was drawn into the story from the first words, "here is the house." There is a small story at the start of the whole novel, which appearst to have no reason for being there. Perhaps I will know later on what it means. This short story explores the use of punctuations and spaces.. First the sentences are short, and have commas and periods. Then, the story has no punction, and later, no spaces. Its a strange yet intriging beginning. What really caught my attention in the first chapter of the book, was the way the girls reacted to adults and adulthood. Specifically, how Claudia, the main character, reacts to her mothers scolds, and how she describes what they truly are, " My mother's voice drones on. She is not talking to me. She is talking to the puke, but she is calling it my name: Claudia." The moment she describes a relationship with an adult, is also the moment we learn her name. She views grownups as a group of people who nag, and who can be annoying, but have power, and whom you must obey, "Grown-ups talk in tired, edgy voices." But not all adults are like this, she specifically describes women to be this way. Mr.Henry is described as a man who is "pleasantly mysterious", not at all an annoying yacky-dy-yack stubborn mother. The mother on the otherhand, along with her friends, are a group of gossiping birds who "do not hide thier curiousity" and are like "a gently wicked dance." Grown-ups is a terminology used to only describe the people they obey, which is why Claudia states that, "with grown-ups we listen to watch out for thier voices." 'Grown-ups' are practically like dangerous creatures., and belong to a dangerous mysterious world, 'outdoors' of thier own childlike world. Men are seen as "sensible" or "pleasant." Quiet the opposite of what women are viewed as. They are viewed as balanced people who seem to know what they are doing. Mr. Henry is an example of this perfect man, he smells wonderful, he smiles alot, and actually talks to the young girls. When we first here about thier father, we are told that he smiles. When the young girl, Pecola, joins the family, it is also the beginning of her journey into adulthood. To become one of those, "grownups." She has to start understanding things about her body which she didn't know about before. She learns what her body is capable off. She is on a diffrent level then Claudia and her sister, who have yet to mature. But will she become another grown up?We have yet to find out.

"Kurtz"

(Unrevised blog) (blog stil in process of being edited)
Since I spoke in my last blog about how Kurtz can be viewed as a evil, I want to look more into who Kurtz, the character, is. Specifically in chapter three.

When chapter three begins, we are introduced to a poor ragged man who is entirely devoted to Kurtz. Which Marlow fears to be dangerous. He states that "It came to him, and he accepted it with a sort of eager fatalism. I must say that to me it appeared about the most dangerous thing in every way he had come upon so far." The man even tells Marlow that,"it was dangerous to ask Kurtz too many questions." Marlow fears it to be dangerous because of Kurtz's power and appearance of being indestructible. Kurtz holds a certain power,so that when he speaks everyone drops wha they are doing and listen to him. Such as when he hooked the Russian to every word he said, or got a tribe to go hunting with him by himself. He is powerful, yet he creates a sense of hopelessness,"never before, did this land, this river, this jungle, the very arch of this blazing sky, appear to me so hopeless and so dark, so impenetrable to human thought, so pitiless to human weakness." He is a person who places a thought of weakness in both humans, and the nature surrounding him. Nature is hurt by this man, and takes "its revenge on him" bye showing him what an evil man he is, "It whispered things to him, things about himself that he didn’t know until he was out there alone."

Kurtz is also a man who will get his way no matter what, which probably explains his cruel power. He threatened the Russian that he would kill him if he would not give him the little piece of ivory he was given as a present. He manipulated people, such as the tribe at the lake, to believe he has human strengths that don't excist, such as controlling lightning and thunder.
Wanting his way seems to be an obsession. He is obssesed, because he is obssesed with obtaining one item : ivory. He has become insane, the reader notes this, and so does Marlow, both audience members of the Russians story, "Why he is mad!". Yet the russian continues to praise Kurtz blindly, because he believes Kurtz is a good man in the end, even though he has tried to kill him several times. The russian, like the natives, worships Kurtz, and thats part of what Kurtz wants, so that he may obtain his central goal.

Kurtz is a man of death. He gets his way by killing people, and getting his way is killing people. He seems to be obssesed with death by the way his house is decorated. Thier are skulls and head on poles surrounding his house. Marlow describes one of them, " It was black and dried and caving in. Its eyelids were closed so it almost looked like it was sleeping on top of the pole. Its shrunken dry lips were slightly open, revealing a narrow white line of teeth. It was smiling, endlessly amused by the dreams of eternal sleep."The dreams of eternal sleep" show death, since death is forever. The head almost seems to represent Kurtz's madness. Its "endlessly amused" by death, just as Kurtz is. He is obssesed with his evil ways, "They [the heads] only showed that Mr. Kurtz had given in to his dark desires and that there was something wrong with him."

My personal views of Kurtz is that he is an almost demonic hypnotising dictator, who has all those, who have fallen, bow down to his feet. My view, I believe is the same view Marlow has. Yet there are those who worship him for his grand views, "on love, justice, conduct of life - or what not." All those who love Kurtz, seem to have come crawling on all fours for his love. They are scared of him, yet they are blind from the fires of his evils. Kurtz is a man, with a dark blank heart.

Wrong Way Every Way

After our class disscussion about the novels beginning and ending, I came home to finish the last few pages I had to read. We spoke about what all the dark symbolism meant in the novel, either than the fact that it was already placed in the title. We also spoke about how there is a sence of many evils in the book. We discussed how the excistence of ignorance is evil, yet how knowledge can also become corrupt, as well as evil. The novel appears to talk about different "evils." 'Evil' being a word which tends to be familiarized with bad in the 'Good' VS 'Bad' in religion. Realigion, like the novel, being a search for truth, moral ideas, and exploration of good. The novel also deals with these ideas, but leans towards an exploration of hypocrisy, and moral confusion.

The idea of something being 'good' changes with every persons beliefs and morals. Marlow, the central character, appears to question if the 'dictator' rule of Kurtz is 'good' or if the world of the English Empire is 'good'. Or atleast, which one is the better of two evils. He views racism, people suffering, cannibalism,the destruction of nature and other things in the novel. This leads him to reflect why humans do things the way they do, asking wether or not the world is insane, or if its just him. He views this insane world as a drive of creating issues with near death situations, creating a thoughts of moral confusion. The british empire is a ridiculous power hunger, while Kurtz is practically a death machine.

The book shows how the world is distorted by using two colors: black and white. Just how he questioned the lesser of two evils, he also is looking at the placement of two catagories, wondering what it all really means. Africa first being a blank page, than turning into a cloaked darkness. The sun is bright, yet the whole world is dark. What shows the bad and what shows the good? These colors end up showing how we fail to see humans as humans. We regard in selfishness to ourselves, have no sympathy for others, yet wish for other to sympathize with us.

The book shows that the world is distorted like a fog. Everything is obscure, and there are always two sides to one story, with no point of showing which side is right or wrong.

Moving Heart of Darkness

In Dreams by ~Maleda on deviantART
As I continued to read the novel, "Heart of Darkness" I began to envision the descriptions placed more and more as a painting. Eventually I could imagine the seens in my head, like a movie. Word by word, screen shot by screen shot. I realised I was enjoying the descriptions I was reading. I was learning how depictive and majectic Joseph Conrad is with his writing, and now I am sorry for what I said in my first blog. Offcourse, I still dislike the beginning, but the further I read in the book, the more I like of it.



Now I can envision Heart of Darkness as a movie. Perhaps it already is. There are objects, and moments which reappear, and the novel almost has an Inception sort of feel to it. It is not a dream within a dream, or maybe it is, but it does have sense of being in more than one places at once. There are various audiences, as well as different story tellers.



The first story teller is Joseph Conrad, who is the omnipotent writer of the novel. He tells us the story through his characters words. The character who tells us the story is anonymous, and he himself is reapeating the words of another narrator, Marlow. This centralized character, Marlow, is mainly telling his own story, but within his story he has other narrators who take the stage for a short moment to explain a moment of their life, or why things happen.



There are also several audiences. We are an obvious audience, there is an audience on the boat, and Marlow himself is an audience to the people he describes.



We have more than this Audience, Narrator thing going on (obviously). We also have several repeated objects and moments ( oh! do tell us blogger Annamaria!). Now you see, if I was making a movie about this book, I would pay close attention to these objects. Objects, such as the one animal which appears in about everysing chapter, the hippo. What does the hippo mean? I don't know yet, perhaps some symbolic feature. I think I will blog about the hippo next, seems rather interesting how often its repeated. We also have the words "black" "white" "bright" and "dark" appear alot. The contrasts bettween these words are very important, if there is a movie, I can imagine it plays with these colors alot. Part of that darkness, is the dark figure, or the white man that changes who it is depending who is seeing the person.



Overall, I think if there was a movie based on this book, colors, descriptions, repitition, and symbolism would be very important.
One paragraph, in particular, caught my eye, and I would like to conclud my blog with that excerpt from the book:
"I became in an instant as much of a pretence as the rest of the bewitched pilgrims. This simply because I had a notion it somehow would be of help to Kurtz whom at the time I did not see- you understand. Do you see him? Do you see the story? Do you see anything? Its seems to me I am trying to tell you a dream- making a vain attempt, because no relation of a dream can convey the dream-sensation, that commingly of absurdity, surprise, and bewilderment in a tremor of strugling revolt, that notion of being captured by the incredible which is of the very essence of dreams..."

"Grotesque Masks"

What I found interesting in the novel, "Heart of Darkness" is that Black people are often talked about through out the book. Marlow speaks of them as below him, yet at the same time, he feels a confusion on whether or not to call them humans, he states that there is a "suspicion of thier not being inhuman." So he views these "savages" having simliar qualities to the English. He almost feels for them, referring back to a time when the English were slaves themselves (blogger can not find quote).

From very early on in the novel, Marlow refers to Blacks differently to the White man. He never states that he saw a 'white pale men who blended in with the white sky' (made up example) but he does describe in detail what the african men who are paddling a boat look like:

" It was paddled by black fellows. You could see from afart the white of thier eyeballs glistening. They shouted, sang; thier bodies steamed with perspiration; they had faces like grotesque masks= these chaps; but they had bone, muscle, a wild vitality, an intense energy of moevement, that was as natural and true as the surf along thier coast. They wanted no excuse for being there. They were a great comfor to look at."

This quote alone shows how he views these men. He appears to admire them, yet he points out qualities which appear odd to him. . Marlow refers to this event in the past, so at first, I thought this was from a near past, but since his story is so long, and he mentions other moments where he reacts to african americans. I am beginning to think we are hearing a story from a man who has experienced life for a while. Which makes me question if he will change his opinion over time, or if it will remain the same. At an early point of his story he refers to Africans as "black ants" which shows an animal quality to them. Perhaps his opinion will shortly change since he will be exploring the vast African continent. He is there to learn, and is constantly watching his surroundings, looking at the mysterious, unreachable black faces. Marlow even notes the difference in personality. When the Cannibals reach them, the black men are calm, and pay close attention to what is happening so that they may react well. Meanwhile the white man freaks out for a moment.

Because of all these references, I am beginning that the title of the book, really does deal with Africa and the people that live there. Its a book that describes a mans experience, and what he learned from there. Previous from reading the book, I thought it would be a dark depressive sort of book, which led to a romatic tragedy. I have not yet finsihed the book, but I do know that my first perception of the book was a mistake.

Heart Of Boredom

As much as I do enjoy reading a good book,reading Joseph Conrad's novel, Heart of Darkness, was much more like draging my feet through mud instead of sitting down to be captured by a good book. Now, don't get me wrong AP Literature enthusiasts. I know this is a collge level course, and I thouroughly appretiated the descriptions placed in the book. Because up to page 25 (where I have read unto) I could really feel the , "The tidal current" running, "to and fro" leading me not into "crowded... memories of men and ships" but instead it lead me to day dream, so I kept finding myself having to constantly re read passages.

I was not so thrilled by the start of the novel, and yes, AP literature is about understanding the text, but I was far more drawn to the start of previous novels I have read this year such as, Pride and Prejudice, and, The Count of Monte Cristo (A novel I have almost finished reading).

Reading to the entrance of this blog, I apologise if it appears rude and almost ignorant about the book ( which it probably is) , but I do not want to come off as a person who entirely hated what we are reading (heavens no!). If anything, I was impressed and inspired by several of the descriptions, which Mr.Conrad gives his character, Marlow, the honor to say.

I feel that the way Marlow was introduced was very random. We started the novel off with one person, who called himself "I" and he introduced us to Marlows story, describing the man as a "seaman, but...a wanderer too." From the first 25 pages, you can see that Marlow has wandered the earth, but has also wandered through history. His knowledge is seen when he tells of "old times" not just of his memories, but of history previous to his , like when the Romans first came to the sea "nineteen hundred years ago." He is a story teller and he goes on to tell the story of the Romans, "Imagine the feelings of a commander of a fine-what d'ye call 'em?- trireme in the Mediteranean, ordered suddenly to the north; run overland across the Gauls in a hurry; put in charge of one of these craft the legionaries," he goes on to explain more, but just this small passage shows part of his intelligence and experience.

I thought that everything Marlow said was very philisophical sounding. Such as when he said, "mind, none of us would feel exactly like this. What saves us is efficiency-the devotion to efficiency." It is an interesting quote which your brain practically turns into a toungue twister.

The ups and downs of this mans life is interesting, and its almos random how he just suddenly starts talking about his life. Overall, I am still not that interested in the novel, but it's not all bad, there are still some interesting short stories inbettween, like the white man who tried to kill the african chief.

Finding Voices in Act 2

**note, video is only a recording, there are no images***

So I began reading Act two silently, in my head, when for some bizarre reason I thought it would be better if I read the play out loud to myself. I mean, it is a play isn't it? Your suppose to watch it. But the way I was reading it was very monotone and boring, all the characters sounded exactly the same. If a the play is a mimesis, then they all sound different and have different personalities, right? So I started from the beginning, a third time, and read each character differently. Then I got curious, what do I sound like doing these characters? Couldn't I give myself a performance? So then I recorded it. Listening back to it I could find what characters I felt I understood more and what characters I was still trying to understand. Most of the female characters I felt was easy (for obvious reasons) but doing male characters, and of different ages and personalities, was hard. I was almost embaressed to do the male characters, at one point I had to do a section again because I thought Petyr was an old man! Probably the hardest part of reading all the characters is that I can't get a good fix on personality, or stick to one role. Also, It's my first time reading this play, so trying to find the emotions the character was feeling was difficult. Alot of guessing, but after reading the act several times, and listening to myself as I edited the video, I feel that I understand the scenes alot more.

[will have an edit to discuss what I think of each character]

"Not where... when" [an unrevised blog]

"Not where... when" is an over used line in movies about time travel, but in the play, "The Cherry Orchard", events from the past, present and future always seems to be the topic of the characters conversations.

In act one we already have several jumps back into the past. One of the first rooms just so happens to be a nursery, childhood. We have two characters who recall thier childhood, Ranevsky and Lopakhin. The nursery belonged to Ranevsky and Gayev when they were children, yet it brough back Lopakhins childhood memories aswell. Lopakhim uses his past to look at his future. He compares his past "peasant" status to a now "rich" man. The story about Ranevsky's kindess is used not only to show what influenced him whie growing up, but also how he feels about status. This may be one reason why he tells Dunyasha to remember her place.

Meanwhile Ranevsky wants to leave her present and go back to her past. She is happy when she sees the nursery and appears to want to be a child again , "Oh! My childhood, my innocence! It was in this nursery...". She holds on to her past, as if it were running away, meanwhile Lopakhin has just been using it to state why he's the man he is today.

The Cherry orchard is very much in this situation. Lopakhin sees a great future for it, by building cottages on the land. That way they are able to keep thier land, and also make a profit. Ranevsky wants the Cherry Orchard to remain the same as she always has known it, showing she still has her head in the past. But the present situation is that the Cherry Orchard is going to be auctioned off.

These are only examples taken out of the first act, but I am sure the importance of the past present and future are sure to come up throughout the rest of the play.

This blog does not want a picture.

To be continued. [edited]

There is a Garden In Her Face

This is my entry for creating "some sort of vizualisation" for the poem Cherry Ripe by Thomas Campion.

To see more go to www.jammyjaminated.deviantart.com

April

Alicia Ostriker
April
The optimists among us
taking heart because it is spring
skip along
attending their meetings
signing thier e-mail petitions
marching with their satiric signs
singing their we shall overcome songs
posting thier pungent twitters and blogs
believing in a better world
for no good reason
I envy them
said the old woman

The seasons go round they
go round and around
said the tulip
dancing among her friends
in the brown bed in the sun
in the April breeze
under a maple canopy
that was also dancing
only with greater motions
casting greater shadows
and the grass
hardly stirring

What a concerto
of good stinks said the dog
trotting along Riverside Drive
in the early spring afternoon
sniffing this way and that
how gratifying the cellos of the river
the tubas of the traffic
the trombones
of the leafing elms with the legato
of my rivals' piss at thier feet
and the leftover meat and grease
singning alo0ng in all the wastebaskets

Voice Behind The Character

When I read the article, by Anthony DePalma, about whom Huckleberry was inspired by. I immediately thought about voice actors. The article is, after all, called, "A Scholar Finds Huck Finn's Voice in Twain's Writing About a Black Youth" . I specifically thought of the voice actress Tara Strong, who plays various characters. She has played characters where her voice and personality helped create the entire character. There could be drawings of the character, or an animation with a storyline, but she helped complete the entire character by placing her voice, allowing the character to stand out. The , "10 year old black servant" Twain met just before starting his book, is not different to Tara Strong. Instead of placing his voice into a character on screen, his personality resounds in Huckleberry Finn. Huckleberry Finn is ,"the most artless, sociable and exhaustless talker" just like the 10 year old boy, who gave him his voice.

Mammy

I remember when I was in elementary school, I use to watch all the old cartoons that were created way before I was born. I loved them, I found them entertaining, Bugs Bunny, Dumbo, Mickey Mouse, all of them. Last school year I found all those cartoons on YouTube, and what shocked me was that I did not realize how racist a lot of them are, when I was little. I never saw it as racist when I was little, I saw the dumb white hunter from bugs bunny exactly same way I saw the dumb African American hunter. I think the reason why I see those things as racist is because I have been taught to. When I hear someone say, "the Dumb Blond man" I think nothing of it, but when someone says, "The Dumb African American man" I immediately judge that person as racist. Off course I realize those cartoons were racists and were meant to make fun of the various non-Caucasian races.

Black face appears in a lot of the cartoons. Bugs Bunny even goes in Black face several times. People enjoyed it, and were fascinated by this form of entertainment. Even Mark Twain called it "the genuine nigger show, the extravagant nigger show." But Mark Twain does see African Americans as humans. He shows this with his character Jim. Even though Jim has a lot of stereotypical characteristics, he is also shown to be smart, think on his own, and a good friend to Huck Finn.
White people saw nothing wrong with Black Face; they enjoyed the imitation of "black man" dance and singing. But this is not because they were ignorant or blind to racism; they were purely racist and making fun of blacks. This is clearly seen by Court, a white man who posed as Jim for Mark Twains book, "he would jam his little black wool cap over his head, shoot out his lips and mumble coon talk.’ And when I look at Kemble's representations of Jim, I don't see a human being, but this same caricature. "

Yes people were racist, but even Mark Twain, a man who was entertained by Black Face, saw that racism was wrong, and that African Americans were equal to Whites. Huckleberry goes through the same transformation were he realizes that 'Jim is a Black man who has the mind of a white man' therefore showing we are the same.
http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/railton/huckfinn/minstrl.html

Can't Change The Past, Learn From It, Change the Present

During the winter Holiday we were assigned to read the book, "The adventures of Huckleberry Finn" by Mark Twain. Although I did note that the "N" word and the "I" word popped up several times, I just thought of it as the way people spoke back then. Off course these two words were racist back then, and they are racist now, but as Mark Twain states at the beginning of the book, he uses the language used by people he is writing about, "The shadings have not been done in a haphazard fashion, or by guesswork; but painstakingly, and with the trustworthy guidance and support of personal familiarity with these several forms of speech."

A new edition of the book, is planned to replace the "N" word by the word slave, as shown in the article from the Guardian . When my sister first told me about this during winter break my first reaction was, "What? No, they can't do that! Authors chose specific words to explain their ideas or to pass on a story. Why would they change the words of Mark Twain?". I realize these words are racist, but I don't feel that teachers need to be afraid to teach it. It’s part of history, and we need to be able to understand the mistakes made in the past, so that they will not be repeated. I completely agree with Churchwell, a senior lecturer from the University of East Anglia, who says that, “fault lies with the teaching, not the book." which is true. The book is not teaching people how to be racist, but how to move away from being afraid of something unknown. "You can't say 'I'll change Dickens so it is compatible with my teaching method'" it’s not right, and it takes away part of the idea the author was trying to express. They are ideas formed, and are locked memories of the past, "Twain's books are not just literary documents but historical documents, and that word is totemic because it encodes all of the violence of slavery."

'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn', is a book to learn from, there is a moral to the story, and even a transformation to the lead character Huck Finn, "The point of the book is that Huckleberry Finn starts out racist in a racist society, and stops being racist and leaves that society."

The past can hurt, but so can the present, the only way we can learn from them is if we know why we were wrong. Literature points things out in the world that we may or may not have realized, it’s not something to be afraid of.

Geff Barton, "It seems depressing that we are so squeamish that we can't credit youngsters with seeing the context for texts. Are we going to teach a sanitized version of The Merchant of Venice? What I would want to do is to explore issues of how language changes in context and culture,".