And The End.

Well, it happened. After those long and tedious hours of work, I finally felt confident stepping foot into that AP Exam. The multiple choice seemed sort of harder than I thought it would be. I mean I have always been bad at those type of questions when it comes to Lit, just because.... ? But, once I got to the essays I felt a little better, well alot better since the first essay was very easy. Second was a challange, and third was kinda ironic. Besides that, I think the best activity that helped me prepare for this exam was probably the essays that we got to pick ourselves (3 of them) and make outlines of. I don't know if that worked for everyone, but  I ended up using one of the outlines I had worked on for class, which helped me review the book for the exam. It really was good review. Also, the charts are tedious but they do really help out when you try to go back and hit the main points of each novel. I am pretty sure I passed this exam and I feel as if I have grown as a writer, even if my blogs don't prove it. Cheers to a good year!

Act II-Ernest

I would like to discuss the important matter regarding Jack’s cigarette case. Jack’s case exposes his secret identity leading Algernon to develop suspicions about his other life. That life itself is a lie to the extent that Jack has always lied to Algernon about what it really is. Moreover, “three-volume novel” in the dour Miss Prism’s past suggests that Miss Prism herself has had an alter ego at some point. Miss Prism tells Cecily not to “speak slightingly of” fiction. She says, “The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily.” Even before this exchange, Cecily avoids her schoolbooks. She would rather write than read and pulls out her diary, where she records her “wonderful secrets.” This leads me to conclude that these are themselves lies. Cecily’s schooling is part of Miss Prism and Jack’s desire for Cecily to “improve herself in every way,” and Cecily continues this attempt to continue her writing. This is also ironic in the text as it poses a reason for Cecily avoids the schoolbooks and writes in her diary instead.

Moreover this quote is of great significance to the novel: Algernon:  “Oh! I am not really wicked at all, cousin Cecily. You mustn’t think that I am wicked.” Cecily:  “If you are not, then you have certainly been deceiving us all in a very inexcusable manner. I hope you have not been leading a double life, pretending to be wicked and being really good all the time. That would be hypocrisy.” Here, Algernon, who is presenting himself as Jack’s brother Ernest, is shown into the garden. He greets Cecily, calling her his “little cousin,” and she greets him as “my wicked cousin Ernest.” The moral status of Jack’s fictional brother  undergoes a change between Acts I and II. At Algernon’s flat in Half Moon Street, “Ernest” was merely “profligate”.  As Jack says, he got into “scrapes,” which is to say “jams” or mischief. They are, however, something Algernon is fond of. When Jack warns him that Bunbury may get him into “a serious scrape some day,” Algernon replies, “I love scrapes. They are the only things that are never serious.” This is a bit ironic to the text I would say as well because it clearly shows how Algernon and Jack have a play on words here and just how detailed the language between them can get. They sort of talk sarcastically about “scrapes” and this is ironic to the text.

Earnest

The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde seems to be one of the funniest plays we have read this whole year. Even though we are still on the first act, it already appears that this play has some funny criticism about society in those days. Some of the themes that are already evident are double life, social criticism, marriage and appearances. The language and wit consists of chiasmus, contradiction, and puns.

The author seems to make fun of marriage a lot in the play through criticism that is spoken by Algernon. For example he says, “I really don’t see anything romantic in proposing. It is very romantic to be in love. But there is nothing romantic about a definite proposal. Why, one may be accepted. One usually is, I believe. Then the excitement is all over. The very essence of romance is uncertainty. If I ever get married, I’ll certainly try to forget the fact”. Later he goes on to say that “divorces are made in heaven”. Both of these quotes show contradiction and criticism of marriage. As marriage should be happy on earth and the fact or proposing should be one of the most important and romantic things in life, Wilde makes it seem that they are quite the opposite.  Later on Algernon says, “then your wife will. You don’t seem to realize, that in married life three is company and two is none”. Algernon perhaps seems to be representing and mocking society in which he resides in. While he represents the society, he seems to be mocking through the use of contradictory statements in his speeches.

Moreover, Algernon seems to criticize women in his society by saying “well, in the first place girls never marry the men they flirt with. Girls don’t think it right”. I think that is one of the funniest things I have read all semester! But why is Wilde making this one character say all of these things? Why is he mocking society and females? Later he goes on and mocks dentists by saying that “it produces a false impression”. How ironic and funny is that?

Another, theme is double lives. Jack seems to also be Earnest. What is the importance of double lives though?  Is he stating that everyone in society is two-faced and changes their personality based on where they are and who they are with, such as being in the country or in town? Country seems to represent a high moral tone, while the town is represented as scrapes. Is this true in real life as well?

A little lesson about AP Lit

With the end of the school year right around the corner, I must admit this year went by pretty fast. I believe my writing skills have increased a whole lot since I first stepped foot into AP Literature class. I must mention a few if the skills I have gathered over the course of the past 9 or so months.  Well, for starters, I stopped limiting my thesis statements down to the basic “simile, metaphor, personification” items that I would usually mention in my thesis. Now, I mention these items in the actual essay of mine, not in the thesis statement, because this way I am not limited to just those three components when writing my essay. Next, I learned that I should not use “one” as in reference to a person when writing my essays. For the most part, that is “too cliché”. Hmm, well it is hard to not refer to someone as “one” when you are not sure of who the audience or the subject is, but hey, in order to pass the class, you gotta do what you gotta do. Moreover, I have also increased my verbal skills drastically; well at least I think I have. I seem to have a variety of words in my essays now and perhaps I am less repetitive. With that being said, I believe that my analytical skills have become much stronger overall. I seem to comprehend poetry a bit better now and I somewhat became better at reading Shakespearean stuff. I nitpick each line one by one and try to really reveal the “so what” with textual support. Oh! Almost forgot! Never say “the author uses similes”, haha. No, “the author does not simply pick them up out of the ‘magic tool box’ and sprinkle them on his or her paper”, said Mrs. Clinch. NONONONO. Is that clear enough? Instead of saying that, simply reveal how and why the author uses his or her simile in the text J Yes, simply. It is not that hard. And, do not ever evaluate the author in your essays! You are writing an essay about how you think the text does what, not about what the author could have done or should not have done. It is pointless. Of course when you begin your first paragraph on your paper, you must identify the author and the work as well. If you can buy it at Barnes and Nobles then it is underlined! If not, put those quotation marks on it :D And of course there is the simple rule of “do not merely summarize the text”! But you must and should use the text to help you out with your analysis of the work as a whole!

Oh the tedious Emma...

The end of Emma, made me sit back and finally praise the almighty that after hours of reading and days spent annotating that this book is finally done. On the first day of school I was so excited to hear that we will be reading this book, in fact, I thought it would be my favorite. But my God, as the hours went by, the pages and chapters seemed to become longer and longer. I did not enjoy reading this book at all, as the whole novel seemed to be a bunch of women gossiping and chit-chatting about who wore what and who said what. I mean it is great that Emma goes on a great “maturation” journey and discovers, or at least is supposed to discover what the true values in life are, but really? Why write such a long book about a bunch of women having nothing better to do in their lives except gossiping about each other? Now it might seem as if I am going on a ram-page or something, but really, I am most certainly glad this part of my life, is almost over. At one point I even made myself and my parents watch this movie, in hopes of getting a better sense of what the novel is about and how things were back then, but midway into the movie, my dad fell asleep, my mom pretended to be interested and I was just trying to keep up with all the gossip the women were saying, in order to better understand the book. But honestly, that was a horrible experience. I mean usually movies are supposed to make boring books seem more interesting, but in this case I do not know which one was worse.

 Now to get more into the analysis of the book itself, I was hoping that Emma would ultimately learn her big mistakes and get to the point of which we were all waiting for, but at the end she “must sink; their friendship must change into a calmer sort of good-will”. Really?! I mean this whole time we were all waiting for Emma to finally learn that rank and class order should not matter, but in the end after all that she still sticks to her “higher status in society” and decides to fade her friendship with Harriet away! I am furious! Not is the whole book a big gossip scene, but the end of it doesn’t even get to the point of the whole journey! And oh yay, she marries Mr. Knightley, as expected! What a terrible ending. I am so disappointed that this is the true story of Emma, as I was hoping for something much more different.

Second Volume of Emma

As I approach the middle and almost the end of the novel, I start to make more connections of whom is with whom and what each character’s role is exactly in the story and towards Emma. It is evident that Emma makes a few mistakes by continuing her matchmaking business, even though she is many times proven to be wrong, such as when Mr. Elton ends up marrying Ms. Hawkins. It is a bit ridiculous that Emma continues her falsehood matchmaking business even though she is proven to be wrong numerous times. Moreover, it is strange to me that Mr. Knightley is throwing out random signs of having affection for Jane, such as by sending her apples, but at the same time he denies any feelings towards her when Emma confronts him about it. What is he up to?  Why is he acting like this? I do not understand. Maybe he is trying to make Emma jealous in order to find out if she has any feelings for him or maybe he is just plain out bored and trying to find something to entertain himself with. Who knows. Furthermore, the way that Mrs. Elton tries to change Jane Fairfax can parallel the same way that Emma was earlier trying to change Harriet. It is ironic that Emma judges Mrs. Elton in a negative way even though she herself acts the same way towards Harriet. One would think that Emma and Mrs. Elton should become best friends based on their interests and personalities but I guess in this case it is the opposite. What is the purpose of the author for doing this? What is Austen trying to reveal here? What significance does Mrs. Elton have to this novel and what does she represent? All these unanswered questions yet again haunt me as I approach the end of this novel. I hope more of the facts and clues tie up in order to reveal and help emphasize the big “so what” of this novel. Does Austen have another idea playing here besides the fact that Emma’s stubbornness and stupidity cause her pain and pain to others as well? The change in Emma is present as she begins to notice how badly Mrs. Elton treats Jane and when Emma herself sees that Harriet has a heart, which is more valuable than anything, and on the contrary Emma is cold-hearted. But if Mr. Knightley does have feelings for Emma, what does he see in her?

While doing my poetry notebook...

While working on my poetry notebook I learned many new things. First I learned that procrastination is never a good thing. If you wait until the last few days to do a huge assignment, you will go crazy, you will be deprived of sleep, your fingers will be numb from typing, you will not function properly anymore and all the words will begin to blur together. Second, I learned that there are different types of structures of poems. There is the Sonnet, which consists of 14 lines and is usually about love, there is the Blank verse, which is unrhymed, similar to a Free verse, and there is the Didactic, which teaches a moral lesson. The meter of a poem counts how many syllables are present. Moreover, I became introduced to many different poets and writers that I did not know of before. Each one came from a different time period and represented a different part of time with a different idea. While some poets came from the Harlem Renaissance others came from 1970’s. One particular poet stood out to me by the name of Paul Dunbar, an African American poet. He wrote the poem “Life’s Tragedy” in which he contemplated the attitude of society, by ignoring the accomplishments and emphasizing on disappointments. His poem spoke to me and made me sit back and realize that truly bad things happen, but worse ones could happen as well. I realized that I should not get so upset with the little bad things that occur on a daily basis, because the next day something even worse could happen. The real tragedy of life that Dunbar says is failing to attain perfection. Now what makes me so emotional about this poem is the fact that Dunbar came about during the Realist literary movement. It is clear that his poem does fit this time period, as realists tried to write about ordinary things that happen to ordinary people every day. But was Dunbar’s own life filled with tragic events and he wanted to express his feelings out on paper? Or did he just have a lot of altruism? We may never know. The questions I am faced with while reading all kinds of poem’s for this assignment make me really gain knowledge about the past and about how certain people thought and related their own lives to poetry. Really makes me appreciate all the great poems that we have as of today and all the contributions that people have made throughout the years in order to help lead literature forward.