Thursday, February 2, 2012
IB Jr English Reflection
When I first came into IB Junior English, I didn't really know what to expect. Everyone told me it was "hell" blah blah. And yeah, it was pretty challenging, but I feel like I really did learn a lot. I can now read a book or (unfortunately) watch a movie, and think about why the creator did that or made that character say that or why is that car blue not red, why are the curtains up not down, yada yada. I can now analyze all that and possibly write a paper about how important it is to everyone else. My point being, I did actually learn a lot from this class, and I really do feel I have the fundamental skills to go to Senior English and beyond.
Monday, January 9, 2012
Blood Wedding Journal 2
Symbols:
Archetypes:
Lorca seems to be accepting most archetypes presented so far in the text. Through the characterization of the Mother in the first few pages, I can come to the conclusion that Lorca views mothers as slightly controlling and clingy, as a mother should be, and frantic at times, like when she goes off on a tantrum when the Bridegroom asks for a knife to cut some grapes, "(Muttering as she looks for it) The knife! The knife! Damn all of them! And the monster who invented them!"(6) Unprovoked, the mother starts on a tangent of violence by including the word monster and damn, the bridegroom simply wanted to cut some grapes, and had no intention of using it for violence, yet the mother freaks out.
Lorca seems to enjoy his take on neighbor-mother side-talk. The neighbor and mother chit chat for a few pages, just flitting from subject to subject like a hummingbird with flowers. I picture Lorca as almost cynically writing the script for the neighbor and mother, but that may just be me.
- Knife
- Weapons
- Flowers
- Vineyard
- Horse
- River
Archetypes:
Lorca seems to be accepting most archetypes presented so far in the text. Through the characterization of the Mother in the first few pages, I can come to the conclusion that Lorca views mothers as slightly controlling and clingy, as a mother should be, and frantic at times, like when she goes off on a tantrum when the Bridegroom asks for a knife to cut some grapes, "(Muttering as she looks for it) The knife! The knife! Damn all of them! And the monster who invented them!"(6) Unprovoked, the mother starts on a tangent of violence by including the word monster and damn, the bridegroom simply wanted to cut some grapes, and had no intention of using it for violence, yet the mother freaks out.
Lorca seems to enjoy his take on neighbor-mother side-talk. The neighbor and mother chit chat for a few pages, just flitting from subject to subject like a hummingbird with flowers. I picture Lorca as almost cynically writing the script for the neighbor and mother, but that may just be me.
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Antigone Journal 4
Page 52
Creon. Listen to me. They don't know it, but the truth is the work is there to be done, and a man can't fold his arms and refuse to do it. They say it's dirty work But if we didn't do it, who would?
Page. I don't know, sir.
Creon. Of course you don't. You'll be lucky if you never find out. In a hurry to grow up, aren't you?
Page. Oh, yes, sir.
Creon. I shouldn't be if I were you. Never grow up if you can help it. [He is lost in thought as the hour chimes] What time is it?
Page. Five o'clock, sir.
Creon. What have we on at five o'clock?
Page. Cabinet meeting, sir.
Creon. Cabinet meeting. Then we had better go along to it.
The author, Anouilh chooses these lines to be the last spoken words by any characters, besides the Chorus. These 15 lines are important to this story because they embody the idea that life goes on after death. In the sense that, the people that knew someone who has passed away, their lives are only affected for a short time. This period is called "mourning". In this case, Creon is already thinking about business and running his city, just moments after learning his wife had committed suicide by hanging, once learning that his niece had just died, along with her fiancee and others. Anouilh is referencing the Vichy Government in this passage when Creon says "it's dirty work. But if we didn't do it, who would?" this type of statement was used a lot during Nazi occupation. When Anouilh wrote this adaption of Antigone, France was occupied by Nazi Germany, and a puppet regime, "Vichy" was put in place. These types of governments would label war jobs as "dirty work", but somebody had to do them. After Creon says "Never grow up if you can help it", he gets lost in thought and is only re-awakened by the chiming of the hour bell. This dozing off while in thought about never growing up shows regret and remorse in Creon. Creon is reminiscing about something that he has done, and it seems as though it has negative connotations.
Creon. Listen to me. They don't know it, but the truth is the work is there to be done, and a man can't fold his arms and refuse to do it. They say it's dirty work But if we didn't do it, who would?
Page. I don't know, sir.
Creon. Of course you don't. You'll be lucky if you never find out. In a hurry to grow up, aren't you?
Page. Oh, yes, sir.
Creon. I shouldn't be if I were you. Never grow up if you can help it. [He is lost in thought as the hour chimes] What time is it?
Page. Five o'clock, sir.
Creon. What have we on at five o'clock?
Page. Cabinet meeting, sir.
Creon. Cabinet meeting. Then we had better go along to it.
The author, Anouilh chooses these lines to be the last spoken words by any characters, besides the Chorus. These 15 lines are important to this story because they embody the idea that life goes on after death. In the sense that, the people that knew someone who has passed away, their lives are only affected for a short time. This period is called "mourning". In this case, Creon is already thinking about business and running his city, just moments after learning his wife had committed suicide by hanging, once learning that his niece had just died, along with her fiancee and others. Anouilh is referencing the Vichy Government in this passage when Creon says "it's dirty work. But if we didn't do it, who would?" this type of statement was used a lot during Nazi occupation. When Anouilh wrote this adaption of Antigone, France was occupied by Nazi Germany, and a puppet regime, "Vichy" was put in place. These types of governments would label war jobs as "dirty work", but somebody had to do them. After Creon says "Never grow up if you can help it", he gets lost in thought and is only re-awakened by the chiming of the hour bell. This dozing off while in thought about never growing up shows regret and remorse in Creon. Creon is reminiscing about something that he has done, and it seems as though it has negative connotations.
Antigone Journal 3
The author's warning in the play Antigone is that life and death is absurd. It's not so much a warning, it's more of a message then anything. Anouilh is telling his audience that once someone is dead, you will only impact the living for so long, everything goes back to normal and life continues on. Just like in the play at the very end, "She has played her part."(53) Anouilh is breaking the 4th wall by having the chorus say this. He is making his audience realize that they are indeed, watching a play and it is coming to an end. Later on the same page, "Only the guards are left, and none of this matters to them. It's no skin off their noses. They go on playing cards."(53) Anouilh has this as the closing statement to remind the audience that when they go home after this play, they will most likely forget it fairly quickly. As with the guards, they go on with their life, as does Creon. "Listen to me. They don't know it, but the truth is the work is there to be done, and a man can't fold his arms and refuse to do it. [...] Cabinet meeting. Then we had better go along."(52) Right after the death of his niece, wife, niece's fiancee etc. he just goes on with life. He was affected for a short time, but life must go on. The living must continue living, disregarding the dead after mourning. That is Anouilh's "warning".
Antigone Journal 2
-Polynices gets killed
-Creon makes it illegal to bury Polynices
-Antigone goes to Haemons house
-Haemon and Antigone fight
-Antigone buries Polynices
-Antigone goes home
-Nurse talks with Antigone
-Ismene wants Antigone to not break the law (burying polynices)
-Antigone tells Haemon they will never be married
-Haemon goes away
-Ismene asks Antigone again to not bury polynices
-Antigone shows Ismene that she buried Polynices
-Creon makes it illegal to bury Polynices
-Antigone goes to Haemons house
-Haemon and Antigone fight
-Antigone buries Polynices
-Antigone goes home
-Nurse talks with Antigone
-Ismene wants Antigone to not break the law (burying polynices)
-Antigone tells Haemon they will never be married
-Haemon goes away
-Ismene asks Antigone again to not bury polynices
-Antigone shows Ismene that she buried Polynices
Antigone Journal 1
I picture the opening scene to have a long set of stairs that everyone is sitting on. I pictured the chorus as one guy standing at the top, but moving downstage once the curtain rises. I picture Antigone looking very depressed and having long black hair covering her eyes kind of like The Grudge. Then the three guards would be sitting in a group, I picture them to kind of look like Cronk from The Emperor's New Groove. Then Eurydice and the Nurse I both picture as being kind of background people, not too special. I see Haemon as being very handsome and Creon is old, and resembles the old future Spock from the new Star Trek(Leonard Nimoy). The characters would be dressed in normal older day attire. Kind of like pilgrims but a little more modern then that. I would need a chair, stairs and then the people and lights.
Saturday, November 5, 2011
Dystopian Journal 3
The structure of the society:
In 1984 by George Orwell, there are three different superpowers in the present world, Eurasia, Eastasia and Oceania. These three superpowers support themselves by being in constant war with one another, this constant, never ending war allows the three superpowers to prop one another up. The three superpowers feed off of this constant war, by keeping the masses busy with work, so they do not realize what is going on. To help keep the masses out of the loop, atleast in Oceania, there are four ministries put in place. The ministry of Love, Truth, Peace and Plenty. Each of these ministries is respectively called miniluv, minitrue, minipax, miniplenty in Newspeak. The main tools of "the party", aka Ingsoc (English Socialism), are the ministries and newspeak. The ministries each concern themselves with different parts of propaganda for their superpower. Each ministry concerns itself with the opposite of what you would expect from their name, "The Ministry of Truth, which concerned itself with news, entertainment, education, and the fine arts. The Ministry of Peace, which concerned itself with war. The Ministry of Love, which maintained law and order. And
the Ministry of Plenty, which was responsible for economic affairs."(2) This contradiction directly connects to the party's next tool, Newspeak. The party uses control to obtain their power. The party controls not only their subject's mind, but the words they can literally say, and the emotions they feel, etc. Newspeak restricts the words used in the "english" language. By restricting the words used in a language, you can essentially take out all emotion and any negative inflection that could be used again the party. The people that run Oceania, are the referred to as the Inner Party, the people that work in the ministries are the Outer Party, and the Proles are the ones that do all the manual labor. Their is no change in power, Inner is always at the top, Outer is always in the middle, and the Proles are always at the bottom. Because the Proles know of nothing other then what the party wants them to know (recall newspeak/control of media/past) they have no reason to revolt. Why would someone revolt if they believe that their is nothing else besides the life they are living presently?
In 1984 by George Orwell, there are three different superpowers in the present world, Eurasia, Eastasia and Oceania. These three superpowers support themselves by being in constant war with one another, this constant, never ending war allows the three superpowers to prop one another up. The three superpowers feed off of this constant war, by keeping the masses busy with work, so they do not realize what is going on. To help keep the masses out of the loop, atleast in Oceania, there are four ministries put in place. The ministry of Love, Truth, Peace and Plenty. Each of these ministries is respectively called miniluv, minitrue, minipax, miniplenty in Newspeak. The main tools of "the party", aka Ingsoc (English Socialism), are the ministries and newspeak. The ministries each concern themselves with different parts of propaganda for their superpower. Each ministry concerns itself with the opposite of what you would expect from their name, "The Ministry of Truth, which concerned itself with news, entertainment, education, and the fine arts. The Ministry of Peace, which concerned itself with war. The Ministry of Love, which maintained law and order. And
the Ministry of Plenty, which was responsible for economic affairs."(2) This contradiction directly connects to the party's next tool, Newspeak. The party uses control to obtain their power. The party controls not only their subject's mind, but the words they can literally say, and the emotions they feel, etc. Newspeak restricts the words used in the "english" language. By restricting the words used in a language, you can essentially take out all emotion and any negative inflection that could be used again the party. The people that run Oceania, are the referred to as the Inner Party, the people that work in the ministries are the Outer Party, and the Proles are the ones that do all the manual labor. Their is no change in power, Inner is always at the top, Outer is always in the middle, and the Proles are always at the bottom. Because the Proles know of nothing other then what the party wants them to know (recall newspeak/control of media/past) they have no reason to revolt. Why would someone revolt if they believe that their is nothing else besides the life they are living presently?
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