"Censoring Myself for Success": close reading #4

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/09/opinion/sunday/knaan-on-censoring-himself-for-success.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0

Close reading of "Censoring Myself for Success," by K'naan

In this essay by K'naan, a Somalian-Canadian musician who has recently achieved international success, he discusses the "self-censorship" of music in the pursuit of fame and radio play. Compellinglly telling his own story, K'naan uses rhetoric skillfully to draw the reader in and treat them to an entertaining, as well as thought provoking, read. His use of figurative language, diction and syntax especially contribute to the effects he creates.

The figurative language is essential to the presentation of this piece. It is placed in the context of an extended metaphor, in which K'naan is compared to "a fox that wanted to walk like a prophet," and his attempts to mimic the prophet destroyed the "elegant walk for which the other animals loved him." Upon first reading this, I was shocked to see a musician writing in the New York Times bashing their own music so harshly, as through this metaphor he implies that his newest album is well below the standard that his previous albums had set. The use of this metaphor draws the reader in, especially if they are familiar with K'naan's music, because it is an incredibly real thing to read in a piece distributed as much as this one must have been.

This metaphor is the most important part of all of the techniques that I noticed, and it ties in with the syntax that is found in the article. The organization of the ideas that are presented is that it lapses between storytelling and reflective writing, making for a very fluid commentary on the way that musicians feel pressured to produce music that could be popular among larger audiences. In the opening few paragraphs, he tells two stories related to Somalia, one a fable and the other a personal experience, drawing connections to his recent experiences in the music industry. He tells the fable of the fox, refers to his situation in his musical career, and asserts that he doesn't want to"censor [his walk] in the name of marketing." He then tells about how the Somalian government carried out real censorship, showing him the power that truly thoughtful music can have but also taking the blame for the censorship away from the record companies, as many might be quick to jump to do.

Smaller, more subtle techniques are also important in the way he tells his story. When K'naan refers to "His sense of self. His walk." he uses anaphora, and he does the same in the following passage:

"So I began to say yes. Yes to trying out songs with A-list producers. Yes to moving production from Kingston to Los Angeles. Yes to giving the characters in my songs names like Mary."

The repetition of the word yes shows how he was persuaded by the executives to change so many aspects of his "walk," leading him to where he was in his last album.

Diction is another important technique that K'naan uses in this article. At several points, his word choice causes the reader to stop and think about what he just said, and why he said it. He refers in passing to "the killing ground of Somalia," as if the entire country were a warzone, something that a reader probably would not expect. The references to "anti songs" also stood out to me, as he seems to classify songs of rebellion in their own genre, apart from love songs or folk songs. This is a different way of thinking about music than I am used to, and the way he tells the story elevates the position of "anti songs" above the other types that he lists. He also referred to how, in his older works, the auidience "see[s] geography" when they listen to his music, another choice of word I wouldn't have expected. He seems to be saying that they are taken to his homeland of Somalia, but by saying geography he broadens the definition to whatever the reader thinks when they see the word geography.

This article was very enjoyable to read, and displayed adept understanding of the use of rhetoric in order to write a compelling piece. I can only hope that it means his music in the future will return to the quality of his past albums.

Open Prompt #4

2007. In many works of literature, past events can affect, positively or negatively, the present activities, attitudes, or values of a character. Choose a novel or play in which a character must contend with some aspect of the past, either personal or societal. Then write an essay in which you show how the character's relationship to the past contributes to the meaning of the work as a whole.

In Death of a Salesman, the often seamless blending of both past and present into one narrative causes interaction of characters with the past to be an important part of the play. This is especially evident with Willy, who often relives past events at the same time as he is interacting with people in the present. He is unable to let go of the past and causes it to become a distorted reality of the present, unable to accept the sometimes harsh realities of life.

This distorted reality is embodied in Willy's relationship with his son, Biff. Willy had seen Biff as an extremely promising young man with boundless potential until he failed to graduate from high school, something that has haunted Willy ever since. He decided not to pursue his degree after he walked in on Willy having an affair in a Boston hotel, and went between dead-end jobs for fourteen years after that. Because Willy was driven by a desire to be "number-one man" and his passion was to make it big as a salesman, he was crushed by Biff's decision not to follow in his father's footsteps seemingly solely because of the affair that he witnessed. Willy can't believe that Biff ruined his life for any reason other than "to spite [Willy]," and he makes this clear throughout the play. This conflict of one life goal with another is one of the key themes of the play, with Willy going the route of a capitalistic salesman and Biff taking another which he doesn't seem to be quite sure of, but it is doing whatever makes him happy.

Their neighbor Bernard plays the role as a foil to Biff and draws the reader's attention to the actions Biff took in high school. A football star with the opportunity to go to a fantastic school on scholarships in U of V, Biff seemed to be going places to his father despite the fact that he was "failing math" according to Bernard. While blowing off school, Biff worked to become "well-liked" as Bernard worked hard to acquire skills that would help him succeed in the real world. The turning point in their relationship occurs when Biff returns from Boston and burns his U of V sneakers, making it clear to Bernard that he had "given up." They switch places as adults, and Bernard's role as a foil to Biff is clear when Willy finds that Bernard is arguing a case before the Supreme Court as Biff fails to find a job. This shows very clearly that the relationship to the past plays a large part in the lives of the Lomans.

One of the most noticeable times that the mixing of past and present occurs is whenever Ben is present, as Willy's focus alternates between what "Ben," or his mind's perception of Ben, and the people he is really interacting with. In scenes with Charlie and with his family in their yard, Willy often returns to the times that Ben visited his house and offered him what seems to him now an opportunity to make it big. In the climactic scene where Willy ends up killing himself, this mysterious figure from his past influences Willy to do what his family dreads. He represents the desire to earn money at all costs and Willy subscribes to this ends-justify-means approach by killing himself for insurance money. His son Happy then goes on to commit to the same ideals as his father, and the cycle of self-destructive work as salesmen vying to be successful continues in the Loman family, making the relationship between past and present of this particular character cyclical and continuous throughout the family.

Death of a Salesman reflection

Death of A Salesman is a play written in 1949 by Arthur Miller about a family that lives in New York City. Willy Loman, the father, is a salesman who has worked for the same firm for 34 years (same age as his son Biff). He has a wife (Linda) and two sons (Biff & Happy). Happy works in NYC, lives in his own apartment and has a job similar to that of Willy's. Biff works on a farm in Texas and is visiting NYC during the play.

Theme: Death of A Salesman is about the way people are treated in the system of capitalism and how this is at odds with the traditional values of American people.

Much of the play takes place in the Lomans' house, a very important part of the setting. It is in one of the boroughs of New York other than Manhattan (maybe Brooklyn? not sure if stated in text) and seems to be run-down although Willy used to enjoy working around the house so much. All around it there are now apartment buildings which crowd out the sun, making it unable to grow a garden like Willy would like to do. This is an example of the way Miller shows that capitalism is crowding out the more traditional way of life that the Loman family would seem to enjoy. Their presence in New York seems to be significant because it is the country's financial center and seen as the center of American free-market capitalism, with Wall Street and the financial system's big players located there.

quotes:
"There's more of him in that front stoop than in all the sales he ever made." -Biff about Willy
In this quote, Biff is saying that Willy was not suited for the job of a salesman, and referencing how much Willy enjoyed working outdoors and on the house. Biff knows that a job Willy would have liked and been successful in is one that he enjoyed and was good at, something where he could use his hands and build things.

"No man needs only a little salary." -Charley
In the capitalist society that the story takes place in, and in the business world where Willy works, there is a feeling that more is always better. Since money is so highly valued, Willy believes that those who make more money are more successful or somehow superior to others.

"You can't eat the orange and throw the peel away-- a man is not a piece of fruit!"
In this quote, Willy is fighting against the harsh reality of the for-profit company in which he works, which is impersonal and profit motivated, placing little value in the lives of its employees.

As I read the play while reading Brave New World, Miller's style contrasted with Huxley's extremely overt style and seemed to be extremely clever and hidden with all of the clues to his message. Having read the interviews with Miller, everything seems more obvious to me now, with the title and some of the key quotes pointing very directly to what Miller meant by the play.
I also really enjoyed the symbolism that Miller used. Things like the cars and the house or his jacket didn't stick out to me on the first read (/the movie), while things like the rubber tube and the U of V sneakers were much more obvious. There are multiple layers of meaning, and the complexity of the symbols reflect that.

Response to Course Materials #4

Since the last response to course materials, we have finished discussing and reading Death of A Salesman and this past week we began our study of Hamlet. 

In Death of a Salesman we read a play that I found pretty enjoyable (the annotations for The American Dream were nothing short of torture). Reading all of the discussions afterward was also really helpful, as it helped me to develop my thoughts and consider the meaning of the work more than when I had been reading  the play itself. Miller is a great writer and I just hope that next time we watch a movie, it's more entertaining than Salesman or his Crucible were.

So far in Hamlet, we've only gone through about an act and a half, but I can tell it's going to be much harder than the last couple of works for me. It's challenging to follow everything that the characters say without my attention drifting off while we read in class, but when we go back and re-read what has been said it is helpful. The Shakespearean language hasn't really been a problem for me this far and the subtleties of it that I would miss have been explained well by Ms. Holmes (fishmonger=pimp? never would have known). I haven't read any Shakespeare since Julius Caesar a couple years ago, and I didn't really pay all that close of attention to that play so I'm looking forward to closely reading Hamlet this next quarter.

"Why Obama Needs To Go" (Close Reading #3)

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/08/19/niall-ferguson-on-why-barack-obama-needs-to-go.html

In this article in The Daily Beast (also in Newsweek) Niall Ferguson argued why he believed Romney to be a better candidate than Obama. He uses diction, details and syntax to convey this message, something I have found to be a recurring theme in the political articles I have read closely.

Ferguson uses diction and syntax to directly and indirectly characterize Obama from beginning to end of the article. He first quotes himself from 2008, reaffirming that Obama's election was "a cause for great rejoicing" and relating it to the assassination of MLK in terms of historical importance. He continues praise Obama, saying that his "remarkable qualities" include "soaring oratory" and "near faultless campaign organization." He begins the article by lavishing all of this praise on Obama, painting a picture of Obama as a great figure but not mentioning his qualities as a president or any of his actions. Through this good-spirited acknowledgement of some positive qualities of Obama, there is an attempt to draw readers in who agree that Obama's qualities as a candidate were good, but might not be convinced that he was the greatest president. This seems to be intended to target an audience of undecided voters and moderates who might be persuaded away from voting for Obama.

In a short third paragraph, however, there is a shift in tone with the use of the word "Yet" to begin it and ending with the claim that "[Obama] has not... delivered on his promises." This is a segue into the meat of the article, filled with endless claims and characterizations of Obama as an incompetent, incapable leader who has lied to the American people.

Through pointing out the promises of Obama that have been broken, especially those regarding the economy, Ferguson attempts to discredit Obama and his supporters' arguments on how he has succeeded. After assembling an "economics dream team" to advise him, Obama "'[didn't] know what he was deciding'" in regards to the economic disaster that he faced. This is an excellent example of the way Ferguson uses details to attack Obama, as he takes a negative view towards Obama but fails to take a great opportunity to emphasize the positives of the candidate that he supports, Mitt Romney, a veteran of the business world. In fact, near closing the article, Ferguson states that "by picking Ryan as his running mate, Romney has given the first sign that—unlike Obama—he is a courageous leader," hardly a convincing endorsement of the candidate.

Indeed, Ferguson seems to be attempting to discredit Obama on nearly all fronts, claiming that "a much more accurate term [for the Affordable Care Act] would be 'Pelosicare,'" attributing one of the biggest pieces of legislation that Obama supported to the former House majority leader. The reform of the financial sector didn't go far enough, as "10 too-big-to-fail financial institutions are responsible for three quarters of total financial assets" in the US, seemingly advocating banking reform immediately after he called the Democrats' banking reforms "a near-perfect example of excessive complexity in regulation." The inclusion of these details while not acknowledging the extremely limited control Obama has over legislation helps Ferguson to send the message that Obama is merely a poor candidate for the job of US President.

The ending of the article tops it all off in dramatic fashion; in the second to last sentence, readers are told they have "a choice between les États Unis and the Republic of the Battle Hymn," implying that Obama is a socialist (association of Obama with France and socialism) while Romney and Ryan are best represented by the symbolic American anthem. By placing this at the very end of the article, Ferguson leaves the reader with the impression that not only is Obama a poor leader, but that he is un-American and his competitors are easily beat him in that regard, using this organization of the article to influence the readers' impression of Obama even further without attempting to use the logic used throughout the rest of the piece.

By cleverly using details, diction, and syntax, Ferguson creates an argument that could influence many who share similar sentiments regarding Obama's tenure as president.

Power: Open Prompt #3

2005, Form B. One of the strongest human drives seems to be a desire for power. Write an essay in which you discuss how a character in a novel or a drama struggles to free himself or herself from the power of others or seeks to gain power over others. Be sure to demonstrate in your essay how the author uses this power struggle to enhance the meaning of the work.
_______________________________

Bernard Marx, a character of Aldous Huxley's novel Brave New World, is ultimately driven to destruction by his desire for power. Through his use of foils and symbols, Huxley sends the message that power is at odds with the ability to know the "truth."

In the vastly different society of Brave New World, based in the twenty-sixth century, Bernard struggles to fit into the social structure that is engineered by the government to create a "happier" society. He doesn't fit into the caste he was decanted (artificially born) into, and is a social outcast for much of his life in a world where solitude is dreaded and even regarded as immoral.

Huxley uses Helmholtz, another high-caste and intelligent man, as a foil to Bernard. Helmholtz is a very popular man who fits in extremely well but he grows discontented with all of the low pleasures that others in society value. He enjoys conversing with Bernard, or rather speaking to him without much response, and is everything that Bernard wishes he could be.

After going through the misery of not being accepted by the world and developing a relationship with Helmholtz, Bernard takes a trip into the Savage Reservation and finds a very peculiar young man who was born of a "civilized" mother, a character referred to as "the Savage" by almost all characters but someone who is well versed in Shakespeare. Upon returning to London society, Bernard gains status and power through the desire of everyone else to meet "the Savage," or John as Helmholtz properly calls him. Bernard uses this power to sleep with many women and to gain influential contacts and he lords his new-found power over Helmholtz's head, although Helmholtz seems entirely disinterested. This contrast is accentuated in the conclusion, in which both Helmholtz and Bernard are exiled to far away islands to live with like-minded people who have been similarly punished. When all of his dreams come crashing down, Bernard turns to drugs to try to regain happiness, while Helmholtz is delighted and accepts his exile excitedly. It is made clear that true happiness is only found through the pursuit of truth, while Bernard finds only despair in the pursuit of power.

Symbols are everywhere in Brave New World, from the replacement of "Lord" with "Ford" in all instances to the soma (drugs) with which everyone is so obsessed. The use of Shakespeare, banned in the future society, to represent everything that has been lost by civilization is hard to ignore, especially as it becomes a focal point for the entire second half of the novel in the discussions between John, Helmholtz and a World Controller named Mustapha Mond. All of these characters recognize the artistry of Shakespeare, but they all view it differently. John enters a state of rapture when reading it and loves it passionately, while Helmholtz finds it amusing due to the cultural differences he encounters in it. Mond also finds it to be incredibly great literature, but he long ago gave up the search for "truth" in order to try to preserve "happiness" for the rest of the society, persuaded by having been offered a position as one of the most powerful men in the world. In their common love of Shakespeare, these men agree that there are commonalities in the values between the old and new societies and Mond even acknowledges that the world might be better if seeking knowledge (the truth) is its focus. However, the power that he has gained changes his view on this all important issue. Huxley uses this contrast explained in arguments over Shakespeare to send the reader the message that power for its own sake is bad and corrupting.

In Brave New World, Huxley provides a critique of the power-hungry and mourns the value of happiness over knowledge. He sends these messages through the use of foils and satire involving the central characters of Bernard and John.

Course Response #3

Since the last reflection I posted, we have finished studying The American Dream and moved on to Death of A Salesman. While I feel this play covers many of the same topics as The American Dream, I haven't spent enough time with it yet to be able to say conclusively what I think its themes are. Since the title draws our attention towards the fact that Willy is a salesman, it is clear that this is a very important detail. The focus of the work seems to be on capitalism or the American Dream, but I can't really articulate exactly what it is. It also seems to me that the portrayal of women in Salesman could be important, but I don't know exactly what for.
The terms test retake on Friday was also still really hard, but I know I made some dumb mistakes that I shouldn't have. Hopefully going into the next quarter I'll be able to stay on top of the material and work ahead of schedule.

Close reading #2

Barack Obama for Re-election

 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/30/opinion/brooks-the-upside-of-opportunism.html?src=me&ref=general

Four more years?

The New York Times recently endorsed President Obama for the 2012 presidential election, not a surprise to anyone who follows politics. The NYT is generally regarded as very liberal, and this endorsement would be expected to come from them. In this editorial, the reasons for the endorsement are explained in great detail, and it is clear that the author has a very strong opinion that Obama is would be a better president than Romney.

While many might disagree, the editorial takes the view that there is a very clear contrast between Obama and Romney. On nearly every issue important to voters, the author asserts that Obama is the better choice, whether it is the economy, health care, deficit reduction, foreign affairs, civil rights, or even the election of justices. Painting a picture of Romney as the conservative that showed up for the Republican primaries, it is claimed that Romney would appoint justices that are "among the most conservative justices in the past 75 years." While Romney might have tried to tack to center as the election nears, the author claims that "Mr. Romney’s choice of Representative Paul Ryan as his running mate says volumes about" whether Romney would side with the Republican party on many issues.

Through the selection and omission of certain details, this article is both overtly and covertly trying to persuade readers to vote for Obama. A conservative paper would probably place more emphasis on the high unemployment rate and the recent security problems in Libya. The claim that the stimulus bill "prevented unemployment from reaching 12 percent" would seem ridiculous to some people, who would be outraged by such a high unemployment rate, but others give credit to Obama for something remarkable: that "[he] prevented another Great Depression." This is a claim that is not supported by facts in this article even though it is the centerpiece of the argument that Obama's qualifications on the economy are better than those of Romney. 

In the diction that the author uses, the two candidates are rarely directly characterized, but there is still a noticeable slant towards Obama. Both candidates are referred to as "Mr.," which takes away the elevation of President Obama versus Governor Romney. This seems to be due to the author's desire to use facts and numbers to make his case, rather than rely heavily on rhetoric that a politically informed audience could see through. Indirectly, though, the author implies that Obama is the champion of "reproductive freedom for American women and voting rights for all," presenting a scenario in which the two candidates are the deciding factor on these issues. When talking about gay rights, "[Obama] overcame his hesitation about same-sex marriage," implying that Obama had privately been a supporter and that Romney opposes what the author calls "marriage-equality." I'm not sure many Republican columnists would be willing to concede that they oppose any form of equality, and Romney certainly wouldn't, so the use of the word equality here helps convey a positive view of Obama and shows the liberal bias of the article.

The syntax of the article is similar to the diction in that it may appear to be biased towards neither Obama nor Romney at first, but it clearly helps make the case for Obama. In some places, paragraphs begin with matter-of-fact statements about the candidates views or actions that are free of any manipulation by the author. However, he follows up a statement like that with another one that characterizes that action positively or negatively, depending on the candidate in question. When it is claimed that Romney has distanced himself from those who want "to criminalize abortion" in all cases, the very next sentence says he has contradicted his own statements on contraception by "[promising] to deny federal money to Planned Parenthood." The juxtaposition here makes the reader doubt that Romney actually has expressed his true views on abortion, without the author making any claims that would discredit him in the reader's eyes.

This piece uses sophisticated rhetoric to endorse Barack Obama in a way that seems non-partisan and reasonable, but really could be characterized as neither of those things in many of its arguments.

American Dream Summary/Analysis

American Dream Close Reading Reflection

                The American Dream by Edward Albee is a one-scene play from 1960 about the materialism in American society which Albee felt was so dangerous at the time he wrote it. The play is seen as a part of the Theater of the Absurd, which I understand to be a movement in theater in which language is devalued and nothing really happens, leaving the viewer confused. In this play, there is definitely a plot and certain messages which Albee tries to send, so it doesn't really fit that well into the pigeonhole that many literary critics have put it in.

                As a brief summary of important details, the characters are Mommy, Daddy, Grandma, Mrs. Barker, and the Young Man. Grandma is the only really normal character, and seems to represent the "old' American dream. Mommy and Daddy have switched gender roles and act ridiculously much of the time, and Mrs. Barker has power struggles with Mommy inside Mommy's own home. The Young Man is called the "American Dream" by Grandma, and, as he said, "I let people love me... I am incomplete... I can feel nothing." It all takes place inside Mommy and Daddy's apartment, where Grandma also lives. I think an important detail I may forget is that Mommy and Grandma come from "pioneer stock" and used to be poor. A summary of the plot: Mommy and Daddy argue, Grandma gets in on the arguing, Mrs. Barker arrives and also argues, and then Mommy and Daddy leave to try to destroy Grandma's TV. Grandma then reveals the horrible story of a baby Mommy and Daddy adopted being mutilated. The Young Man arrives soon after, and he is the twin of that baby who experienced the mutilation on an emotional level as opposed to a physical one. Grandma moves out (possibly symbolic for dying?) and the Young Man (pretending to be the "van man") becomes a part of the family.

                As this is a play, there isn't a narrative voice, although at the very end Grandma does speak directly to the reader. The author's style is very foreign to me, but I got used to it after the first read. The way he switched tones quickly and made things happen in ways that weren't logical made it hard to pick out important details. The symbolism, however, was often clear, and I think it was fairly easy to identify the symbolism in Grandma and the Young Man when she called him the American Dream. For the imagery, when he elaborated on how the baby was torn apart by its adopted parents it really added a lot of detail and made it seem more real, causing me to experience more emotion while reading it. While I read the play, the repetition really stood out to me the most. There was a ton of it, and it showed me what details were important since I could tell something was important if it was repeated a lot.

                

One-sentence theme statement:  To me, the most obvious messages that the book sent were mostly about materialism and society's values changing.

                The materialism piece has been emphasized so heavily in all the readings we have done, and there is a ton of evidence for it in the text. The treatment of Grandma and the adopted baby like objects are two very good examples, as well as the beginning of the play where they talk about hats and their color, and shopping. After discussing it with a few classmates, I feel the idea that Mrs. Barker represents corporations is probably correct, and seems to me to be the most likely meaning that Albee had for her. This also ties into the hypothesis that the materialism is a theme in the book.

                The changing of society's values also seemed very clear to me, especially because of the contrast between Grandma and the Young Man. With the Young Man tied to the American Dream, and that being the title of the play, Albee placed much emphasis on the fact that the Young Man represents the new American Dream. If at the end Grandma has truly died, that really supports this analysis as well, because the old American Dream would have been replaced with the new one.

quotes: 

                "everybody's got what he's wants... or everybody's got what he thinks he wants." -Grandma

In this quote, the last line of the entire play, Grandma reveals that she doesn't believe that everybody actually has what they want, but they mistakenly think they do. I think this is a condemnation of the materialism and the "new" American Dream which the play has criticized.

                "old people don't go anywhere; they're either taken places, or put places." -Mrs. Barker

This quote shows how Grandma is treated not like a person, but like an object to be moved around without consideration of her desires. It is consistent with the view that Mrs. Barker represents corporations or business of some sort, as many businesses are involved with "taking" or "putting" old people in places they may not want to be.

Open Prompt #2

2007. In many works of literature, past events can affect, positively or negatively, the present activities, attitudes, or values of a character. Choose a novel or play in which a character must contend with some aspect of the past, either personal or societal. Then write an essay in which you show how the character's relationship to the past contributes to the meaning of the work as a whole.

                

                In Edward Albee’s The American Dream, the Young Man has to deal with the effects of the mutilation of his twin brother on himself, an event that occurred some twenty years in the past. This results in his inability to feel, his lack of direction and his passivity evident in his behavior and words. Through this struggle, Albee emphasizes the materialism and deterioration of the American Dream that are the focus of the work as a whole.

                When the Young Man was just a child, he had a twin brother who lived at an adoption center with him. Grandma reveals that Mommy and Daddy “bought” this twin brother, but they grew dissatisfied with it and accordingly they got rid of him, but not before punishing him through physical abuse. When he wouldn’t show Mommy the love she wanted, she gouged out his eyes, just one of many body parts that were cut off. Every time a part of the twin was cut off, the Young Man lost feeling in that area, and as a grown up man he cannot feel anything but passively lets others love him and enjoy the perfect image that they see in his appearance. This is how the mutilation causes the Young Man’s present to be different.

                Another aspect of the adopted baby that is very important to mention is that in the story, he is always referred to as an object without gender. He is called a “bumble,” and referred to as “the bumble” or “it.” This has huge significance for the meaning of the play. A baby, usually a symbol of innocence and love, is turned into a commodity and used as a means for Mommy and Daddy to experience pleasure. By doing this, Albee is warning that we shouldn’t treat people like objects that we can use to fulfill our desires and then discard when they no longer serve that purpose. Relationships between parents and a child should not be about the best interests of the child or the adult, but about love between the two, and the materialism of modern society has threatened this.

                The way the Albee chooses to address the American Dream is also through the use of the Young Man and his twin brother. The Young Man is called “the American Dream” by Grandma three times, and he represents the “new” American Dream as people saw it in Albee’s time. The new American Dream values things like money and the ability to earn it, as the Young Man shows when he is very interested in all things related to money. It doesn’t place any value on empathy or any sort of feeling at all, but instead allows people to love it and attribute whatever they want to it. The old American Dream, represented by Grandma, is willingly replaced by the new one before the end of the play. There is a stark contrast between the two: the Young Man’s appearance is flawless, and on the outside he contains all of the qualities that people see as positive. Grandma, on the other hand, is old, wise, and has many positive qualities on the inside that aren’t shown by her appearance. It isn’t even possible to tell if she is a man or a woman, as she implies that she really isn’t either, but possesses qualities of both. The new American Dream certainly seems better, and after everyone meets the Young Man their thoughts about Grandma are completely forgotten and replaced by this new American Dream.

                In his character the Young Man, Albee created a mechanism through which he could convey his thoughts on the old versus new American Dreams, and also how the materialism in society was wrong and could lead to very disconcerting situations.

Response to Course Materials (October 7th)

Coming off of the activity this Friday where we reviewed material about trends over time in literature, it is very clear to me why we need to do posts like this. Reprocessing the information we learn in class and using it independently helps to solidify it in our minds, and if we put a good effort into it then it'll increase the amount of time we remember the things we learn.

Looking at essay questions together and breaking it apart helped me to understand the immense importance of answering the question that is asked--something Obama and Romney clearly don't care about when "answering" questions in their debates. It really is a great example of language that avoids answering the question; if an essay doesn't seem to be directly addressing what is asked, it probably isn't doing so.

Beginning our reading of The American Dream by Edward Albee was also a big step, as it is the first longer that we will closely read in this class. When I first read it, it was almost disorienting, like the first time you take off on an airplane. Above all, I was just confused, as there wasn't really anything logical happening, but there were some humorous moments. As I've only read it once, my understanding will deepen in the future, but at the moment almost all of my understanding of the play comes from the analyses that we read in class.

All of the allusion work that we did and the different critical lenses was a lot of information that I took in during a short time, so I probably need to review this. I plan to try to force myself to adopt a routine which reinforces the things that I have learned already in this class, since I would really like to become a better reader and writer as a result of taking this class.

Close Reading #1: The Coming Meltdown in College Education & Why The Economy Won’t Get Better Any Time Soon

The article which I am analyzing for my first close reading is "The Coming Meltdown in College Education & Why The Economy Won’t Get Better Any Time Soon," a blog post by Dallas Mavericks owner and entrepreneur Mark Cuban. Predictably, this article discusses parallels between the economy and higher education, focusing on similarities between ballooning college debt and the housing bubble which led to the economic crisis in 2008. 

Cuban seems to have a working knowledge of the rhetorical situation, if he isn't consciously considering it. The piece uses very clear, direct vocabulary that nearly anyone can understand, delving into more complex language only when necessary to convey meaning. As his target audience probably includes a wide range of people, most notably fans of the Mavericks, his writing would be easy to read for anyone interested in his thoughts. His subject is also very obvious, as he is focused only upon college and the economics of getting a degree. He seems to want to convince people that college debt is a problem in the US, and his purpose may be just that. The way he wants readers to see him requires a bit more analysis on the reader's part; I would say he is trying to appear to be an intelligent, well-informed and experienced person from the business world delivering the 'truth' about the value of a college education, having had many varied experiences in different jobs himself. 

As far as more specific aspects of rhetoric go, his diction carries strong negative connotations when referring to college loans. The title itself refers to a coming "meltdown" when other less alarming words could have been chosen; simply coming forward and directly referring to "outstanding college loans" would convey more information about the topic and carry a more neutral tone. Much of the diction gains significance in the context of the economy, and carry a different connotation than elsewhere. He refers to the housing "bubble," a dreaded economic collapse that reminds people of specific economic problems in recent decades. "Easy money" is also mentioned a few times, and it would seem to be a positive thing. However, when used in the context of ballooning debt figures for American college students, it becomes negative.

The way his sentences are arranged also work towards his purpose of getting people concerned about the college debt situation. He mentions "innovators" immediately after "traditional universities" to emphasize that the universities are outdated and a system of the past. Juxtaposition is also used by referring to a degree as "a piece of paper" after writing that an employer searches for "people who can do the job" and "the best and brightest," again emphasizing his point that a college education does not guarantee to an employer that someone is a good candidate for a job. Cuban also uses short sentences set off from paragraphs in order to place more emphasis on key points of the article. In these places, he states that "a de-stabilization of the university system as we know it... can't happen fast enough," putting his view of the event as a positive occurrence in its own paragraph in order to make the reader focus on that sole idea. He does this a number of times, making his writing very clear to follow and very forceful in its statements.

The details which he chooses to include also clearly intentionally create a feeling of the facts being on his side. Nobody thinks positively about the housing crisis, so comparing the similarities between the two creates a very negative image. If Cuban were to simply give statistics as to the price of college over time and the amount of college debt, it might be a more powerful argument in terms of standing up to any opposing claims. However, it wouldn't carry the same weight to people who have just experienced the housing crisis and are likely to be scared if another such crisis is mentioned. There are very few statistics included, but it is stated that the student loan debt is "[past] 1 TRILLION DOLLARS." In an article with very few statistics, it makes this number seem even bigger, and the power of this one detail is emphasized by the lack of other details.

In his article about student loan debt, Mark Cuban uses rhetoric to convey his powerful and clear viewpoint on the issue.

Open Prompt #1: AP essay practice

Home is an emotionally powerful idea that has the potential to evoke strong responses from audiences in any form of communication. The meaning of home is different to each and every person, so it can draw widely varied responses from different people. When Sonsyrea Tate says that "you can leave home all you want, but home will never leave you" it could instill a feeling of dread in some readers, or a feeling of great joy in others, in addition to whatever other combination of deeply felt emotions the reader may be feeling.

The Grapes of Wrath is a work in which the characters may leave their homes, but their homes never truly leave them. Tom Joad is forced by the circumstances to become the major provider for his family, a major contrast to his position as an inmate while they still lived in Oklahoma. The family consisted of self-providing farmers who got by well enough on their own, but when they were unable to grow enough to survive, they were uprooted and it seemed like their whole lives changed. However, they still retained a few qualities that had been central to them at their home.

Family is very important when you are a farmer; when there are very few other people around, the bonds that are formed between family members are amazingly strong. An agricultural family works as a social unit to support each other against the face of a seemingly all-powerful force: nature. The Joad family tries to stick together throughout the story, but they are eventually split up as Tom again becomes a fugitive from the law, and the quality of home in the form of their family seems to be gone. It seems that their family is broken up, they have lost what held them together, and they are away from home in a hostile land where they can't survive like they used to. One could take away from this that they did indeed lose everything that had been theirs in their home. If all the details are accounted for, it would appear to be that while Tom may have lost almost all of what his "home" was, but there was still some with him. He refused to let the circumstances dictate his actions, and began to lead an effort to organize the farm labor of poor migrants with similar circumstances.

After losing his physical home, Tom found his home away from home in the form of his family. After being forced away from his family, Tom once again found a home in the form of the burgeoning organized labor movement that he became a part of. United once again with a group of people working to support one another against a seemingly all-powerful force, Tom retains an aspect of what his home was to him even though he has lost the most precious part of his home: his family, his farm, his livelihood. Home is not something that you can take away from somebody; it is a part of a person as much as their hands or their mind.

EDIT: I was responding to the following prompt:

2010, Form B. “You can leave home all you want, but home will never leave you.” —Sonsyrea Tate

Sonsyrea Tate’s statement suggests that “home” may be conceived of as a dwelling, a place, or a state of mind. It may have positive or negative associations, but in either case, it may have a considerable influence on an individual. Choose a novel or play in which a central character leaves home yet finds that home remains significant. Write a well-developed essay in which you analyze the importance of “home” to this character and the reasons for its continuing influence. Explain how the character’s idea of home illuminates the larger meaning of the work. Do not merely summarize the plot.

Response to Course Materials #1

The assignments in AP Lit up to this point have not been what I expected. I thought that I would be reading heavy literature this summer and analyzing much information, so the first meeting in the class was a surprise. The material is similar to much of what I learned in previous years but it is very clear that a much higher level of reading and writing is expected of me in this course, which I am actually glad about since I would like to become a better reader and writer.

Nearly everything that we have covered so far has clicked with me, except some of the poetry.Applying what we have discussed in class and in the readings is a little more challenging. Thinking back of books that I loved as a kid, there was so much about them that I didn't understand. In his Inheritance Cycle, Christopher Paolini clearly had something that he wanted to convey about the world and I didn't really think about how it was influencing me. My religious beliefs were greatly influenced by it, which I discovered when I re-read Eldest a year ago, as I found a passage with an extremely didactic tone about religion that I connected with on a very deep level. I must have missed a lot of the more subtle facets of his writing, as I didn't think about what it meant that it was raining when the character Roran was fighting agents of the evil Empire, and I have never even stopped to think about what the significance of the name Eragon could be. Since reading Foster's book, I feel like I have been thinking much more about seemingly random aspects of literature and why the author chose to include them.

The most significant topic we covered in terms of analyzing the intent of writers will probably be the rhetorical situation, but it's only been a few days since we went over it for the first time. In both American Literature and Lit/Comp 9 rhetoric was something that we learned about and it's certainly not new to me, so I have consumed media while considering parts of the rhetorical situation for quite a while now. I hope that during this course it begins to become second nature to me, because I am much more likely to think about it when I listen to a politician speak than I am when I'm watching a movie for entertainment.

I hope to apply the writing skills from Nuts and Bolts in my college applications, speaking of which, I have something that I need to work on....

Sedaris Essay Analysis

        When I saw the title of Sedaris' essay, I gritted my teeth and prepared for a painful read. "Me Talk Pretty One Day?" All I could imagine was a nightmare of grammatical errors and broken English that would be about as pleasant to read as a dictionary. However, I was pleased by the quality of his essay. It genuinely amused me and I was impressed with Sedaris' writing abilities.

        Although he probably didn't write it with a copy of The Nuts and Bolts of College Writing in hand, Sedaris displays his skills in impressive fashion with this humorous essay. The flow of the essay is very good, due in part to the fact that it is a narrative and "[good] essays unfold like stories" (Harvey 23). Sedaris uses a few characters very often in his work, mostly himself and his evil French professor. Instead of presenting "a jumble of characters," he has two main characters and introduces other minor characters as needed to further the purpose of his essay (Harvey 23).

        The flow of the essay might have seemed spot-on to me, but when I looked more closely I saw that nearly half of Sedaris' paragraphs began with something along the lines of "the seamstress," "the second Anna," "the two Polish Annas;" did this not contradict Harvey's assertion that the opening sentence is "where the reader can see how the paragraph" is connected to the previous one (Harvey 71, Sedaris 2)? It seemed to be the flaw of the essay that I had been searching for, but those openings worked well to connect the ideas of each paragraphs, as Sedaris was dealing with a fairly straightforward story in his piece, recounting what had allegedly happened.

        Lest I admit defeat and claim Sedaris could do no wrong, I turned to the beast that can defeat even the most talented writers: proper use of punctuation. Maybe the writer isn't the most careful person and had a comma or a period out of place that he missed. This is when my triumph came, and it was sweet. When quoting his mother, Sedaris wrote that she had said "'I love my cat, and I love ...' My sisters and I leaned forward, waiting to hear our names." Looks fine, right? Commas in the right places, chose to include the optional comma in the first phrase, the period is in the right place. But one thing was neglected: Sedaris used the three-dot ellipsis, ignoring Harvey's admonition that "if you are using [a] quotation to end a sentence in your essay, add a fourth dot, representing the period" (Harvey 65). How could Sedaris miss a detail so essential to his essay, creating such a monstrosity of ambiguity in a work which seemed to exemplify the clarity that Harvey had championed? It can only be said that the reader can never know for sure, but that they are on their own to decide what the author's real intent was.

        Despite this catastrophic failure of Sedaris to adhere to the stringent rules of English punctuation, I feel that his essay is a great example of the type of writing taught by Nuts and Bolts. While it is not picture perfect, it is worth mentioning that the writer is only human; or at least I would hope so.

Poetry MC response: Summer entry #2

• LEARN MORE POETRY VOCAB!
• "feel" the poem (emotion, author's tone)
• Learn to recognize subtle distinctions in meaning
• Recognize importance of capitalization, line breaks and how they place emphasis on certain things
• Learn the different types of poems (I kind of know sonnets)

 There were two things that seemed the very significant to me when I did the poetry exercises. The first was that I was in a "test-taking mode," where I just try to quickly analyze the contents of the poem and move on through the questions. In class (the only place where I really read poetry) I think I usually do something like this, and I don't really feel the meaning on the poem as I read it but just try to focus intensely and somehow dissect it that way. I don't think this really works for me, but maybe I just need more experience. It certainly hasn't made reading poetry the most enjoyable experience.

The other thing that stood out to me was that I didn't understand a lot of the vocabulary used in the questions about poetry, so I definitely need to learn that. I know that the book about reading literature like a "professor" said not to worry about types of poetry (other than sonnets), but I think for the purposes of this class I'll need to know some of the types. The more subtle parts of the poems escaped me, probably because I was trying to get through them quickly and wasn't able to make notes on them (used the .pdf file without printing to save paper).

In general, I'm not confident at all in my poetic abilities, but I'm sure most of my classmates are in the same boat as me, so that gives me some comfort.

Diagnostic test reflection (blog entry #1)

Taking the diagnostic test brought back painful memories of AP review from last year, reminding me just how excruciatingly close the new school year is and how boring it gets at times. Not a good outlook for going into a new year.

On to the results: I got 35 out of the 50 questions correct, performing slightly better on the prose sections than on the poetry, which is worse than I expected to do overall but I can live with it. I think I just need to brush up my skills of literary analysis, as I haven't done any sort of serious analysis of a piece of literature this summer. I'm confident that the course will prepare me for the AP test, but I think it is a bit ridiculous that a literature test is based on peoples' abilities to analyze writing when they have nearly no time to think about it, as it hardly seems to reflect one's ability to meaningfully read a piece of literature.