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.