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.