Response to Course Materials

September 25th
In class, we are working on close reading more specifically with poetry. Poetry is generally always a sore subject when brought up in school. I always find myself making these random connections that I feel as if make perfect sense but generally these ideas to not turn out to be the same ideas the author is trying to convey. People say that you can analyze poetry personally and that everyone finds out something different but i find that to not be true. I deal with the fact that poetry will always be something that i have to work with. Lots of practice will be needed on my part. The practice we do in class is incredibly helpful even if i understand or locate certain things only after Mrs. Holmes or someone else in class first brings it up, I think it gets my mind thinking and helps me read poetry differently then i usually do. Also the AP essays are something that we have been working on and i still feel as if i am confused about the exact format and how to write the essays. Maybe if we saw more examples of good essays that got an 8 or 9 would be helpful instead of having to base my essay on the one example 8 that we were given? Last major topic would probably be DIDLS, which i still have trouble differing between language, details, and diction. I guess i can differentiate they are just too similar sometimes and lines get iffy. Anyways basically i just need lots and lots of practice and that will probably solve all these issues.

Open Prompt

#1
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.

                  Some people enjoy looking back at the past and smiling at joyous moments that have come and gone, but others think of the past as distressing and would prefer to forget about it completely. In the case of Arthur Miller’s play Death of a Salesman, the past is an incredibly painful subject that seems unavoidable. The past plays such a major role in the lives of the main characters that without understanding the past, the play loses much of its meaning.

            Right away the conflict between Biff and his father, the salesman, Willy, is brought to light. The mother constantly brings up the fact that they are always fighting. This conflict immediately throws several questions into the reader’s head, the most obvious one being, what happened between Biff and his father? To answer this question we must look back into the past, which the author conveys through the use of flashbacks. One of the first flashbacks shows Willy and Biff talking and its shows them as very close and friendly with each other. It is clearly present that Willy is proud of his son and that Biff in return looks up to his father. Willy could not be prouder of his son because of his superior athletic ability, and his charming charisma and because the two are almost identical in personality they get along amazingly. This brings up the questions once again of what happened? In the present, Willy is seen as mentally deteriorating and he cannot stop fighting with his son, while in the past Willy is seen as smart, hardworking, and a great father. This tremendous difference causes Willy to want to live in the past, which he does in his head through hallucinations and flashbacks. Willy is so caught up in the past that he is unable to think of the present and fix the many problems that are going on the most evident being his ruined relationship with Biff.

            The most important quote in the play that wraps up all the questions is “What happened in Boston Willy?” (Miller 94). The key to the play is what exactly happened in the Boston. In Boston, Biff ends up walking in on his dad cheating on his mom with another woman. This causes Biff to skip summer school and throw away his future. Biff and his father never make up; Biff never forgives his father and throws away his life and all his potential as a result of the grudge that he holds against his father. This, although a painful memory, is one that stays with both characters and one that remains unavoidable making the characters who they are in the play today. His mother is constantly telling him to be easy on his sick father and Biff tries but he cannot get over the fact that his father was unfaithful. He also blames his father for his failure because his father’s mistake did lead him to spiral downward, although later he does learn to realize that it was in fact his own fault that his life was ruined, not his fathers. So you see from this a clear influence of the past. Willy cannot get over the past and cannot get over the fact that he ruined his son’s life and its drives him to depression. He lives in the past and therefore cannot move on leading us to the theme of the play, don’t dwell on the past and instead work for a better future. Both Willy and Biff has a negative relationship with the past, more specifically of the incident in Boston and cannot move on because of this.

            Therefore, the past is evident in much of today’s literature and in Arthur Miller’s play Death of a Salesman, the past leads the main characters down a downward spiral that they are not able to recover from until the final death of Willy Loman, the salesman who dwelt on the past and couldn’t deal with the future.

CLOSE READING

#1Loss and Hope

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/11/opinion/sunday/loss-and-hope.html?_r=1&ref=editorials 

In this article the author uses many of the DIDLS techniques to prove his point about the effects of 9/11.  The use of syntax is seen in this article when the author says "as much hope as grief, as much love as anger,"(NYT). In this quote, you can clearly see that the author purposely places the good part in the beginning followed by the negative opposite, as a contrast to get his point across more effectively. Diction is also very evident in this article. This article is very short and so in order to get his point across effectively, every word that the author uses is a strong adjective or verb. Some examples of the words that the author uses includes "enormous," "heartfelt," "xenophobia," "resilience," "juncture," (NYT). These are just a few of the very strong words that the author uses to set across a very powerful, serious tone. Also, along with syntax and diction, the author also uses a strong language in this article to get the serious tone across to the audience. He uses serious language that gives a serious tone to the article. He achieve this with words and phrases such as "Our civic life is tainted by a rise in xenophobia that betrays our best ideals."(NYT) Through this kind of language you can identify that this is a political piece that is very serious because it is talking about a very serious topic. Like we discussed in class, this author effectively uses many of the DIDLS techniques to properly achieve the tone that he wants to that is appropriate for this article.