In the past few weeks we finished
discussing The American Dream. Reading this book before The Death of a Salesman was helpful as I was able to draw
connections between both, and it helped me with analyzing. For instance I noticed how Willy has this
idea of an American dream where he wants to become a successful businessman and
earn a considerable amount of wealth.
Willy always seems to be thinking about money and how much better his
life would be if he could just be successful. Similarly Mommy in The American Dream is trying to get
satisfaction and once she gets satisfaction her life will be fine. However, neither of the characters will ever fully
be satisfied and content because their happiness is only relative; what makes
them happy can disappear.
Reading the poems in chapter four
and then connecting them to the characters within The American Dream was beneficial because it placed the characters
thoughts in relation to what actual people think about America. I noticed that not many of the authors from
chapter four were indifferent to America as the young man is in The American Dream; instead the majority
of them either feel disdain or gratefulness toward America. I wonder why this is, and what Albee intended
for it to mean? Perhaps it is what
people thought in the sixties, and he is trying to show us what our attitude/feelings
are.
In addition to reading the poems
and the two plays we learned how to approach and answer the AP Literature exam
questions effectively. I know that I
will need more practice throughout the year, especially with the questions
involving antecedents because those really confuse me. I saw that another peer listed out topics
that we have covered and then wrote words to describe them to help her remember
them, and although it is more like restating I found it helpful so…
Rhetorical Function: explain purpose of sentence in relation to
entire poem
Context: identify meaning of a word used in the
context of a passage. The definition has
to match the way the author intended for it to be used.
Antecedent: which antecedent the quoted word is
referring to.
Style: the author’s choices in the work (constant
throughout), so see if there are any shifts.
If the answers give two options per answer make sure both fit.
Tone: from the narrator and it shifts. These questions ask to identify tone of a
certain passage.
I am also glad we read The American Dream and Death of A Salesman back to back because they have such similar messages. They both warn people not to become infatuated with a dream that doesn't have true value, but in very different ways. While Death of a Salesman follows a logical plotline and an optimistic ending, The American Dream is very hard to follow and has a pretty bleak ending. One thing I found interesting that they have in common is how both families are dysfunctional because of the faulty American Dream. In The American Dream, it is obvious that the family has a lot of sexual issues, but it takes longer to see how Willy's family also has strange sexual pulls. Willy never has a sexual relationship with his wife, yet Biff's life is shattered when Willy has sex with another woman because he is romantically attached to Willy. I guess there will be simmilarities between Hamlet and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead in the future, which I look forward to comparing.
ReplyDeleteI like how you related everything we've done to other things and used them to guide a review on what we've done so far. In particular, I agree with what you said about reading The American Dream and Death of a Salesman back to back. They really help contrast each other and Ms. Holmes seems to be really good at setting up our curriculum so there are links between all of the different reading assignments.
ReplyDeleteI find what you said about the young man to be interesting. I think the point of the young man is to show that the American Dream, which is what he was called, isn't really interested in anything but money anymore. I don't think he's meant to illustrate how members of society saw America, but more of the overall goal of the society as a whole (be rich). The others were more reacting to the American Dream and how achievable it is in America than representing the American Dream.
I forgot that we had done a lot of work on multiple choice questions in preparation for the AP test. Thank you for reminding me. I agree that those questions were difficult. Hopefully we can work more on them in the future!
Writing out terms seems like a really good idea which I never thought of. I agree on the AP questions; while I found some of them simple, many of them took me by surprise with vocabulary that was completely foreign to me. And to think, I thought my vocabulary was fairly good…
ReplyDeleteI honestly didn't think too much about the order we've been reading these books until you pointed it out. The connections we're therefore able to draw have been incredibly helpful, though at times I tired of ideas that were stated repeatedly. I wish we could read literature with more varied opinions, so we could compare and contrast the ideas from each story that way.