Open Prompts

2004 Prompt: The most important themes in literature are sometimes developed in scenes in which a death or deaths take place. Choose a novel or play and write a well-organized essay in which you show how a specific death scene helps to illuminate the meaning of the work as a whole. Avoid mere plot summary.

In Shakespeare's Hamlet, one of the most gripping and suspenseful scenes is the one where all the important characters get killed. That said there is a lot of importance that Shakespeare has packed into the last scene and the deaths in general. The burning question that Hamlet has to ponder through the whole play is whether he should let God punish his fathers killer or take action into his own hands, the reader gets closure to this question in the final scene of the play and also gets another level added on to the meaning. 

The crucial question in the play is whether Hamlet should usurp God's power and avenge his father or if he should let God punish Claudius. This question is truly all about death; Hamlet's father got killed, Hamlet talks to his fathers ghost, and Hamlet has to decide whether he should kill another person or not. Because of these aspects, the meaning of the play has death wrapped into it already. The meaning of the play is that God should have the power and fate will play out in the end, this question for Hamlet and all the death in the play adds to the fact that God really is in control. 

In the final scene of Hamlet the most important characters die one by one, this adds to the meaning of the play but also the tragedy. The good guys and the bad die in the end, creating suspense and sadness. All the death shows the mortality of humans and that Hamlet was correct in deciding that God should take the reins in the end, in the grand scheme of things human life is very fragile and this play showcases that. The most interesting and controversial death in the last scene is Gertrude because it isn't clear if she knows the wine is poisoned and wants to sacrifice herself for her son or if she is oblivious. Either way it says something about Gertrude and Claudius, would Gertrude be so loyal to her son to leave her husband in death? I believe she was sacrificing herself but there is evidence for both sides. This is one of questions that makes the meaning of Hamlet so complex and her death adds another layer. 

Death scenes always mean more than just a life lost, in Hamlet all the death leaves to a central meaning and that is that God should always have to power. Hamlet has to hold on to his anger and not kill Claudius to avenge his father and leave it to God, in the end when Hamlet dies and Claudius dies it gives the reader closure, tragic but needed. It allows the reader to understand that fate will take over in the end and that God is always in control.

Ceremony Summary and Analysis

Basic Facts: 

-Written by Leslie Marmon Silko
- 1977

Setting: Pueblo Reservation, New Mexico

Important Characters:

Tayo- He is the main character in the book, he is half Native American and half white. He had to go to fight a war against the Japanese and came back very sick.

Rocky- He is Tayo's best friend growing up, Tayo watched him die that changed him forever and game him severe PTSD. He was the one in the story that didn't look down on "white" culture and actually enjoyed it.

 Auntie- The person who raises Tayo because his mom is not around. She is more superficial than the other characters and pays more attention to what people think of her over anything else. She is the mother of Rocky who died in the war.

Emo- His name in itself is a horrible thing, his real name is Geronimo which is like Hitler to the native Americans. Tayo ends up killing him, he pretty much stands for everything evil in the book.

Symbols:

-The atomic bomb (symbolizes a false hope)
-Grandma ( sometimes called thought women)
-Emo (witch/evil)

Theme:  In Ceremony Silko suggests that good and evil exists in everything and are therefore meaningless classifications; understanding this allows one to achieve a personal balance.

Explanation of Theme: Through the book Tayo both has good and evil in him, so do all the other characters as well. The important thing that Tayo has to learn is it is the balance not the classification, he must fight the evil inside him to be successful.

Our Class

As I will miss AP lit quite a bit....one month closer to graduation! It seems like we have covered a lot in the past couple weeks through our discussions and have also prepared for the AP test.

Rozencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead is done! It was a fun and interesting read but I am excited that we have discussed it and have moved on with another work. It seemed like we didn't have as much time to discuss as other works, most likely because it is much harder to understand. We started discussing it and discussed what happened in the play but I do not feel fully satisfied that we came to a conclusion. I wasn't here some of the time and when I came back after day or two we had already finished with the play, when I asked for a theme we only had a couple short prototypes not a full theme. That was a bit worrying to me, I wasn't here for all the discussion so maybe the theme was more clear in class.

We also began preparing for the AP test in class by writing yet another essay. Of course this is necessary to be able to do it correctly on the test but they can become tiring. This time many of the essays were wrong because we didn't really know what "characterization" meant so our evidence didn't point to the right conclusion. After Ms. Holmes explained it, it made sense but I'm still worried that more prompts out there I am not going to know what they mean and that's why I will get them wrong.

The critical lenses that were discussed in class I thought were quite tricky. They all make sense if you do them one at a time but it is so hard to try to keep in the same lens while discussing because than things are brought up in other lenses. Also when we discussed every lens we didn't seem to come up with much of a conclusion for each one so the discussion to me seemed to get no where.

I am excited to keep reading Ceremony, so far it seems like a good book. I wish that there were breaks in the book, like dialog and ends of paragraphs because I tend to loose my place in the sea of words and then get frustrated. I am excited to read more and discuss because Ms. Holmes said "it will blow your mind" so I am excited to see what is in store for us.

Open Prompts 2003

2003. According to critic Northrop Frye, “Tragic heroes are so much the highest points in their human landscape that they seem the inevitable conductors of the power about them, great trees more likely to be struck by lightning than a clump of grass. Conductors may of course be instruments as well as victims of the divisive lightning.” Select a novel or play in which a tragic figure functions as an instrument of the suffering of others. Then write an essay in which you explain how the suffering brought upon others by that figure contributes to the tragic vision of the work as a whole.

 In Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller Will Loman acts as both a victim and an orchestrator of tragedy. He himself was a once successful businessman that could support his family but now is a lonely father that cannot except the fact that he is no longer excelling at being a salesman. This leads Willy into a downward spiral not only effected himself but also his family and relationships. 

Willy Loman's family are ones that are directly effected by Willy's tragedy. Throughout the play Miller uses a non-parallel structure of time to show how much Willy is stuck in the past and wants to relive the times when he was successful and his family was happy. Biff his son, is one of the characters that is very effected by Willy's downfall, Willy cheated on his wife and that is what really started the spiral and his relationship with Biff to deteriorate. Biff was only the start to Willy's affect on his family, Willy being a tragedy of the common man very much so affected the relationship with his wife as well. When Willy started to look to the past for answers and tried to kill himself it put serious strains on his wife and Willy started to act hostile towards her. She being very loyal and forgiving never gave up on him but Willy could still not take on the guilt of having an affair and being very mean towards her. Willy being a tragic hero did not only lead Willy to an eventual death it caused a lot of pain to his family as well. 

Willy's family weren't the only ones that were affected by Willy's tragic downfall. He also had other relationships that were ruined by the fact that he couldn't except his life and how it had become. Charlie is Willy's next door neighbor and his only friend, Charlie is giving Willy money to pay the bills and even offers Willy a job, Willy refuses the job very rudely and is jelous that Charlie has a successful son. This in turn hurts their relationship and creates a rift between them, when Willy was trying to deal with his own tragedy he took some of it out on Charlie and was mean to him in the process. When Willy is trying so desperately to hang on to his job as a salesman and his life how it once was he also ruins the relationship with his boss Howard, he ends up losing his job and getting himself even more depressed than he was before. 

Willy Loman is a tragic hero, he started out his life successful and happy, then slowly deteriorated from there. During the process he ruined every relationship that he had and that proved to be a catalyst in his undoing and suicide. He was a victim in the fact that he was just trying to do everything right but made fatal mistakes along the way like cheating on his wife. Part of the why he was not as successful as his brother Ben was the economy at the time and some of the events were not all Willy's fault adding more pressure on him and making him a victim as well. He however was also the conductor of some of the tragic events in his life, for example cheating on his wife was also something he could control, he made a mistake but it was still his fault in the end. Another way he sped up his own deterioration was the way he handled situations, he ruined all of his relationships, lost his job, couldn't get over the past, mistreated his wife, didn't take Charlies help because of pride, and tried to commit suicide multiple times. The play illustrates the tragedy of the common man and how Willy couldn't help some of the things that happened to him but he also had a choice about a lot of the other things leading to his death in the end. 

Death of a Salesman is not only about Willy as a tragic hero, it is also about what kind of effect that can have on the people around him. The way that his relationships with family and friends changed shows how the tragedy as a whole is deeper than just one person. The meaning of the play is to understand the consequences of actions and how they can be very serious, in Willy's case they lead to death. Willy was not only a victim of tragedy he also made decisions that lead to him being a tragic hero in the end, so wrapped up in the past that he lost his chance at the future.







 

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern

Major characters: 

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern- I am writing about these two together because they are practically the same person. They often mix each others names up and one of them seems to be the missing half of the other. They really have no understanding of what is going on around them, who they are, or what they are being a part of. They play games with language using tennis references and add other characters into the game without them knowing.

The Player- Well he seems to be the all knowing throughout the play. He seems to know what is going to happen and is the overall orchestrator of the play within the play. He is a very tricky character that likes to take advantage of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

The Plot: There are things that happen in this play but there doesn't seem to be very much of an actual plot. The characters are always waiting to be told what to do or where to go, they are always confused and can't make decisions for themselves. In the beginning, the whole thing starts with them being summoned not them on a quest for themselves. Than to make it worse they get sucked up by the player and end up in a play without their knowledge. In the middle they get to Elsinore and become part of Hamlet, but all their actions were already written from Hamlet. Then they get the letter to kill Hamlet and once again they follow directions because they don't what else to do with their lives. Then they meet the infamous "pirates" that Shakespeare briefly mentions in Hamlet and Hamlet gets away. The end up "dying" on a boat except its not really known if they are dead or alive because they died in a play...within a play.

Symbols:
The Coin- representing the idea of fate, the coin only gets tails when the player controls it suggesting that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern cannot control anything in their lives.
The Wind- Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are trying to figure out what direction they are headed.

Motifs:

• memory
• logic
• direction
• repetition
• metaphors
• religion
• death 
• control  

Theme Statement: In Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, Stoppard suggests that you should develop your own identity rather than looking for others to do it for you. 

Explanation of Theme: In Stoppard's play, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are constantly looking for some kind of guidance. They are just going with flow and not making their own decisions are trying to figure out what is going on. Instead of looking for others to give them answers they need to find their identity themselves.

Setting: In the beginning of the play, Stoppard makes it clear that there is no setting. In the stage directions it says there is a blank stage that they are standing on and have no where to go. Later they go to Elsinore and become part of Hamlet but they are still confused on where they are/what they are suppose to be doing. Then the play ends with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern on a boat where they yet again sucked into the player's tricks.

Our Class #6

Ahh.....the joy of Rozencrantz and Guildenstern. As we get into our harder plays and next semester novels, they obviously become more confusing and frustrating. It's not that I don't like the play in general, it's the fact that it makes your brain ache after talking about it for more than five minutes. The constant agony of never fully understanding the text, like getting a tease of a nice back scratch without getting the full thing. I find myself zoning out during the hour because its quite exhausting. After saying all that I do like the increased complexity of the play, I like how it makes us think and is not soooo transparent. I'm hoping that through more articles and discussions I will come to the point where I won't question if I have all the parts together in the right order. I will probably not however be using this play on the AP test for fear of getting stuck mid paragraph trying to remember the most important details of the complicated plot. That is my current opinion of the play, I like it but I don't seem to even grasp the surface of the concepts.

I know that my peers will most likely have a fit when I say this but I think the super tightly timed AP practice activity was a very good one. AP lit in general is quite chill, and that's how I like to learn. Being from Montessori, no structure is kind of my thing. However.... when it comes to preparing for the AP test, pressure is what I need. We all needed to be kicked in the butt and made to do something for credit so we all understand the kind of time crunch and pressure that we will have to endure in May. I am very happy that Ms. Holmes made us do it, as chill and awesome as she is I was glad to be pushed for this specific situation. I ending up finishing the activity, I was so surprised to be honest. But than afterward I was really proud of myself, I was proud that even know we were sixth hour and we knew what we had to do, I had finished it. I wasn't the one that didn't get it done and made some lame excuse. It made me feel good that even know it wasn't perfect I'm sure, I had pulled it off in time. It gives me more confidence for the AP test and of course much needed practice.

So yay to more AP lit is the bottom line.

Open Prompts

2005. In Kate Chopin’s The Awakening (1899), protagonist Edna Pontellier is said to possess “That outward existence which conforms, the inward life that questions.” In a novel or play that you have studied, identify a character who outwardly conforms while questioning inwardly. Then write an essay in which you analyze how this tension between outward conformity and inward questioning contributes to the meaning of the work. Avoid mere plot summary.

In Shakespeare's Hamlet self doubt and moral corruption lead to a tragic outcome. The main character Hamlet has to either choose between avenging his father or trust that god will punish his father's murderer. This question that Hamlet has to overcome leads to many events in the play and almost leads to Hamlet completely usurping gods power. 

The question that Hamlet is dealing with inwardly is the ultimate decision, the decision to usurp gods power to avenge his father or to almost abandon is father and trust god. Hamlet's father came back as a ghost to tell him that Claudius, Hamlet's uncle, murdered Hamlets father. The fact that Hamlet actually talked to his father after death is part of the reason he wants to avenge him and kill Claudius. By killing Claudius however he will be taking power from god because he will choose when Claudius should die, this is a sin and could have serious consequences. The situation around him and the people around him also have an influence on his inward struggle. 

Hamlet is having trouble deciding if he should kill Claudius for various reasons. The most important reason is that Claudius killed his father, but then he also married Hamlet's mother quickly after. When Hamlet was trying to handle everything he pulls away from his love Ophelia from anger and also has to deal with this. He also finds out his two childhood friends Rozencratz and Guildenstern are sent to kill him. All the outside influence has made Hamlet want to avenge his father even more. At point in the play Claudius is on his knees praying and Hamlet goes to strike him, at the last minute he changes his mind, that scene illustrates just how close Hamlet was to usurping Gods power. Hamlet would have had a much easier decision if his life around him was not spiraling out of control.

As the play gets closer to the end, Hamlet has to make a decision, he was to seal his fate one way or another. Torn between his father and trusting god the tragedy starts, at the end of the play everyone dies except for Horatio. Hamlet kills Leartes, and Claudius in the final battle but not exactly in cold blood. It is more the battle than a plan for murder. The struggle is finally over, Hamlet didn't have to choose and fate took it tole. His inward and outward conflicts are now resolved.