Close Reading #4

“Madonna’s Tone-Deaf Tattoo”

Meghan Daum

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-1018-daum-yousafzai-madonna-20121018,0,1844038.column

In her article, “Madonna’s Tone-Deaf Tattoo,” Meghan Daum remarks on a recent incident where pop singer Madonna revealed a new fake tattoo during a concert. Emblazoned on her lower back was the name of Malala Yousafzai, the young Pakistani girl who has gained a lot of recent media attention after being shot by members of the Taliban. The article carries a strongly negative tone that ridicules Madonna and attacks her tattoo. Daum uses pejorative diction to style Madonna as obnoxious, which goes in sharp contrast to the honorific diction she uses to endear readers to Malala. The language throughout is very sardonic, often used to mock Madonna. Also, Daum’s deliberate choice of details highlights many of Malala’s good deeds while bringing up ugly things from Madonna’s history.

The article uses a very sardonic language that mocks Madonna. With the very first line in the article, “There goes Madonna, classing up the joint again,” Daum immediately sets the sardonic tone of the article, making it clear that Madonna is not going to get much love from her. It doesn’t get much more sarcastic than saying someone is “classing up the joint.” By calling Madonna the “Hottest Bod in the AARP,” Daum gives Madonna a backhanded compliment, more of an insult than a real compliment. It’s a demeaning title for Madonna, meant to ridicule and dismiss any remnants of her status as a sex symbol. Daum again ridicules Madonna’s tattoo as pathetic and ineffective against the Taliban. She says, “Take that Taliban! Mess with a girl’s education and you’re messing with a 54-year-old pop star in a leather corset.”  The sardonic and belittling language that Daum uses throughout the article doesn’t do anything to flatter the pop singer. Instead, readers get the sense that Madonna is classless and grossly promiscuous.

            Daum also uses diction to put critical labels on Madonna, while putting positive ones on Malala. She says Madonna has an “obsession with her body.” She calls Madonna an “extremist.” She describes Madonna’s tattoo-exposing as “relentless self-promotion” and “envelope pushing.” All of these words carry negative connotations for Madonna that depict her as obnoxious. On the other hand, Daum describes Malala’s face as “earnest” and “un-primmed.” She refers to Malala as a “modest Muslim girl.” Although these words don’t directly praise Malala’s character as fervently as Daum’s criticism of Madonna does, they highlight some of Malala’s qualities that endear the reader to young girl. Daum’s choice of diction in this article is subtle, but it still does enough to influence the reader.

Through her deliberate choice of details, Daum gives unflattering stories and examples of Madonna’s actions to depict her as disgraceful. For example, the article mentions that Madonna “superimposed a swastika on the forehead of French politician Marine Le Pen.” It mentions that she “called President Obama a ‘black Muslim’ while ‘endorsing’ him at a performance.”  Yet, the details that Daum chose to leave out of the article are just as meaningful as the details she chose to include. Madonna has had a long, successful career as a singer. Like many pop singers, Madonna has done volunteer work, charity concerts, and fundraisers. But of course, Daum doesn’t mention any of this. Why? This article is supposed to be explaining why Madonna’s stunt is inappropriate, as the article title suggests. By highlighting a lot of the stupid, ugly things that Madonna has done, Daum paints a negative picture of Madonna.

In contrast, Daum chooses to highlight certain details about Malala that depict her as a virtuous person. For example, the article mentions that Malala has written a blog for BBC. It mentions that she was the first ever to receive Pakistan’s National Youth Prize. It mentions that “Desmond Tutu nominated her for an International Children's Peace Prize.” These impressive accolades definitely make Malala a respectable and morally righteous young girl.

            In the article, not only does Daum express her disgust with Madonna’s tattoo, but she also reveals her disgust with the pop singer in general. This is clear in her heavy use of sardonic language, negative diction, and biased choice of details to define and describe Madonna.

Open Prompt Response #4

1992. In a novel or play, a confidant (male) or a confidante (female) is a character, often a friend or relative of the hero or heroine, whose role is to be present when the hero or heroine needs a sympathetic listener to confide in. Frequently the result is, as Henry James remarked, that the confidant or confidante can be as much "the reader's friend as the protagonist's." However, the author sometimes uses this character for other purposes as well. Choose a confidant or confidante from a novel or play of recognized literary merit and write an essay in which you discuss the various ways this character functions in the work. You may write your essay on one of the following novels or plays or on another of comparable quality. Do not write on a poem or short story.

Often in literature, the protagonist encounters a problem or dilemma that calls for the help of a close, trustworthy friend. This trustworthy character is the protagonist’s confidant. In The Great Gatsby by Scott Fitzgerald, the eponymous main character, Jay Gatsby, is troubled by his inability to win back his old sweetheart, Daisy. Throughout the course of the novel, Gatsby confides in the narrator, Nick Carraway. Nick is one of the very few people Gatsby opens up to. Because of his exclusively close relationship with Gatsby, Nick gives the reader a good perspective into Gatsby’s life and thoughts, thereby helping the reader better understand the motives for Gatsby’s mysterious actions. Also, Nick is an outsider to the gaudy lifestyle of wealthy Long Islanders, which makes him the ideal narrator of Gatsby’s actions.

Jay Gatsby is a man who keeps himself hidden from the public eye. Though he’s mysterious and ultra-wealthy and famous for throwing extravagant parties, few have actually met him. Nick is one of the very few people Gatsby opens himself up to. As Gatsby’s confidant, Nick has a very revealing window into Gatsby’s life. And because the story is narrated and told from his perspective, the reader is able to see a very candid version of Gatsby. Without Nick’s access to Gatsby, the reader wouldn’t get the interesting details of Gatsby’s past life and motivations. For example, Nick was the only one who saw Gatsby staring out at the green light across the river. This is a key detail that illustrates the level of Gatsby’s devotion/obsession for Daisy. And being Gatsby’s confidant, only Nick is able to report this kind of intimate details about Gatsby.

Nick is also a level-headed, observant, unbiased character, which gives him more credence as a reliable narrator for the reader. Coming to Long Island from the Midwest, Nick brings a quiet, down-to-earthiness that Gatsby lacks. Nick’s a lot less preoccupied with flaunting his wealth or maintaining his reputation than Gatsby is. As Gatsby’s close friend, Nick serves as a visible foil to Gatsby. Nick is passive and conservative, while Gatsby takes risks and exhibits extravagance. Through his role as a foil to Gatsby, Nick helps highlight Gatsby’s extravagance and eccentricity even more. Without Nick, the reader might have a harder time recognizing the extremity of Gatsby’s obsession over Daisy. If the narrator was Tom, or Myrtle, or some other New Yorker, the reader would be viewing Gatsby from the perspective of someone who’s just as extravagant and image-obsessed as Gatsby. Since Nick is an outsider, he shares more in common with a typical reader. Therefore, readers can trust him to report more accurate opinions and insights of Gatsby.

                As Gatsby’s confidant, Nick serves to help the reader understand Jay Gatsby better.  As Henry James would say, Nick is as much “the reader’s friend” as Gatsby’s. Since Nick has exclusive close access to Gatsby, he’s able to give the reader more details about Gatsby than other characters would. And because of the fact that Nick is an outsider looking into New York, he’s less likely to get caught in the gaudy, image-obsessed way of thinking that New Yorkers have. Therefore, he’s more reliable of a narrator, too.

Summary and Analysis of Death of a Salesman

Author:

Death of a Salesman was written in 1949 by Arthur Miller, an American playwright. Miller wrote many other plays, like The Crucible and All My Sons, featuring discontented characters railing against stifling social conventions.

Setting:

The play is set mainly in the Loman house in Brooklyn, NY. Willy Loman makes business trips throughout New England. The play takes place some years after WWII, a time when consumerism was starting to become prevalent in American society.

Characters:

Willy Loman has been a traveling salesman for the same company for over thirty years. He’s a sub-par salesman who works long hours, earns little money, and gets little respect. Yet, he deludes himself with the belief that he’s got it made. He repeatedly tells himself, his boys, and his wife that he’s “well-known in Boston” or that things will pick up the next day. He constantly comes up with excuses for his failures. His self-delusion and denial of cold, harsh reality only delay the inevitable trauma of having to face it later. Being forced to see Biff for who he really is, a bum, is the tipping point that brings Willy to commit suicide at the end of the play.

Biff is the elder of Willy’s two sons. Biff, unlike his father, is unable to completely ignore things by. He resents his father for bringing him up with empty rhetoric and false expectations. Towards the end of the play, he unleashes all this resentment in a long, angry outburst. Biff repeatedly tells  When he finds out that Willy is having an affair with another woman, the emotional distress hits him so hard that he loses the will to go to the University of Virginia.

Happy is Willy’s younger son. He works a miserable, low-paying job as an assistant to an assistant. At Willy’s funeral at the end of the play, Biff asks Happy to come with him (out west). Happy responds with “I’m staying right in this city, and I’m gonna beat this racket,” making it clear that he’s a doomed static character. Unlike Biff, he doesn’t learn from his father’s mistake of blindly chasing an unrealistic dream. Happy is destined to carry Willy’s legacy of blindly and unsuccessfully chasing the American Dream. 

Linda is Willy’s loyal and loving wife.  But in the play, even she plays more of a role as Willy’s over-protective mother than that of a wife. She never confronts Willy about his ridiculous self-delusional behavior and all the suffering it brings to everyone, especially her. Rather, she puts up with her lot in life, having to maintain the house on a shoe-string budget, mend stockings that she knows other women have been wearing, and keep a horrifying rubber hose in the house. She shields Willy from reality by continuously going along with his elaborate excuses. Rather than scolding Willy for being irresponsibly blind to the suffering he’s causing everyone, she attacks Biff and Happy for not doing more to help.  All she gets in return from Willy is disrespect.

Plot summary:

Death of a Salesman begins when Willy Loman has returned home early from a business trip. His two sons, Biff and Happy, are back home for the first time in years. Biff is now jobless, after having worked numerous temporary jobs out West. Happy lives in his own small apartment in NYC, working in a demeaning, low-paying job. The two of them, in a bedroom upstairs, start fantasizing about living a life out west working outdoors, where they can be free.

Meanwhile, Willy begins to lose himself in a daydream of a memory of Biff and Happy during their high school days. Younger Biff is confident, popular at his school, and a star football player with multiple colleges recruiting him. Willy is gleefully bragging to his sons, telling them that he’s a popular and successful salesman all throughout New England. Their studious neighbor, Bernard, runs onto the scene to remind Biff that he needs to start studying to avoid flunking math. The three Lomans laugh at this and ridicule Bernard, agreeing that “he’s liked, but he’s not well liked.”

But later, he reveals to Linda that his New England sales were modest. He complains that he’s being disrespected for being talkative and fat. Willy’s daydream ends on a less-than-glorious note, as Bernard and Linda are nagging Willy about Biff’s irresponsible behavior (not studying, driving without license, stealing the football, being rough on the girls).

Willy’s neighbor, Charley, comes over to check on Willy. They play cards. Charley offers Willy a job, which he refuses. In the middle of their game, Willy has a conversation with imaginary Ben, Willy’s brother. Angry and confused, Charley leaves. Willy goes on daydreaming again, remembering the last time he saw Ben.

Biff, Happy, and Linda see Willy daydreaming. Linda scolds Biff and Happy for not being supportive of their father, telling them that he has tried to kill himself multiple times. At this, Biff and Happy earnestly promise to try to succeed to make Willy happy. When they tell Willy about their plan to start a business and meet with Bill Olliver, Willy instantly cheers up and has a new hope in Biff. Willy enthusiastically gives tips to Biff for his meeting with Bill Olliver.

The next day, Willy goes into his boss’ office asking for a promotion to be assigned as the company’s New York City salesman. The boss rejects the idea and fires Willy. Dejected, Willy goes to Charley’s office for a loan. There, he sees Bernard, now grown-up and a successful lawyer. He desperately asks him why Biff hasn’t succeeded in life, but Bernard doesn’t know and just tells Willy that it’s best to let Biff be. Charley offers Willy a job, which Willy again refuses out of pride. When Charley gives Willy the money, Willy tells Charley, “you’re the only friend I got.” By revealing such a humbling truth to Charley, Willy has made it clear something in him has changed.  At this point, nearing the end of the play, Willy has come to accept the reality of his humiliating situation. Having been fired by his company, Willy doesn’t have any earning power. Even though it was clear to the reader that Willy wasn’t making much money, it took being fired for Willy to realize his predicament. Willy used to envy Charley way too much to even acknowledge him as a friend. Even when Charley would offer Willy financial help in the past, Willy’s pride got in the way of any thought of accepting it. This quote by Willy shows that he recognizes his tough financial situation.

That night, Willy, Biff, and Happy meet at a restaurant to talk about their day. Willy tells his sons that he was fired from his job. Biff tries to tell Willy that his meeting with Mr. Oliver didn’t go well, but Willy keeps interrupting and finishing Biff’s sentences for him. In the end, Biff claims that he got a lunch date with Mr. Oliver, but can’t go of embarrassment. Willy’s emotions overtake him and he falls into another flashback from Biff’s high school days. He and Happy leave the restaurant with two girls, leaving their babbling father behind.

In his flashback, Willy thinks back to a night in a hotel room he spent with a mistress. Willy and the woman are playing in bed when they hear a knock at the door. Willy tries to hide the woman, but when young Biff comes in he’s horrified to see with his father with the woman. Biff bursts into tears, calls his father a phony, and angrily storms off. Willy’s flashback ends and Willy leaves to go home.

At home, Linda yells at Biff and Happy for abandoning their father. When Willy comes home, Biff confronts him and forthrightly tells Willy that he should accept him for who he really is, a bum. The two of them erupt in anger and argue. At the end Biff is sobbing, which touches Willy. After everyone else goes to bed, Willy talks to imaginary Ben about whether to accept a $20,000 proposition. He goes outside, speeds away in his car, and kills himself in a crash. Willy killed himself so that Biff would get $20,000 in insurance money.

Author’s Style:

This play is essentially written from Willy’s point of view. It frequently cuts to Willy’s flashbacks. It frequently features Willy’s imagined conversations with Ben. Rather than looking at Biff and Happy’s night out with the girls from the restaurant, the play keeps its eye on Willy as he daydreams in the restaurant bathroom. By taking Willy’s point of view, Miller’s play gives the reader critical insight into Willy’s abnormal and often confusing thought process. The reader gets to see Ben just as Willy sees him, so we empathize with Willy a little bit more. Without witnessing Willy’s frequent flashbacks and hallucinations, the reader would have no idea why Willy suddenly erupted in anger during his card game with Charley. This is ultimately a play centered around Willy and his reactions to triumph and failure.

Theme:

Freedom and confinement, a major theme in this play, shows up again and again in the Loman family.

Biff is the most outwardly expressive of his urge to be free. Unlike Willy and Happy, Biff repeatedly rejects the notion of being stuck in a job he doesn’t feel comfortable in. Biff spent some years working on farms and ranches out in the West. He tells Happy he loves to work outdoors, where he can feel free and alive.

Meanwhile, Willy is stuck in a demanding, rat-race job as a traveling salesman. He’s confined by his own expectations and ambitions to make it big. Not only does he confine himself, but he also takes Biff’s freedom by putting lofty expectations and ambitions on him.

Especially at the end of the play, it’s clear Happy is destined to be confined just like Willy. At the funeral, Happy boldly declares, “I’m going to show you and everybody else that Willy Loman did not die in vain. He had a good dream. It’s the only dream you can have – to come out number-one man.” Even after seeing Willy’s unhappiness and obsession lead to a life of lies and misery, Happy still doesn’t get it. Willy’s example was not meant to inspire, but rather to warn people against being so stubbornly devoted to a single, inflexible goal. Happy is going to grow up to be confined by his stubborn ambition, just like his father was.

Even Linda finds herself confined by Willy. Having to constantly fret over Willy’s contemplation of suicide, Linda is confined to a life of mothering a grown man. In the very last lines of the play at Willy’s funeral, Linda says, “We’re free…We’re free…” 

Response to Course Material #4

Now that we’ve finished our last reading of Death of a Salesman, I’m surprised at how little my views of the book have changed. Since the very first time I read Death of a Salesman, I always despised Willy Loman. I tried to bring myself to feel sympathy for him and see him as the tragic hero that Arthur Miller says he is, but I couldn’t. I see him as the root of all of the family’s problems. He gives his wife, Brenda, all sorts of hell that she doesn’t deserve by angrily lashing out at her for interrupting him. He earns very little money, causing her to stress out and struggle to maintain the house on a shoestring budget. Yet, he doesn’t even acknowledge his problem, leaving Brenda with no one to get mad at. He leaves the rubber hose out, giving her the burden of worrying about him committing suicide. And he cheats on her with a mistress!

He also raised Biff and Happy on false values, teaching them that being likable is the only thing a man needs to survive. Also, by having an affair with a mistress, Willy permanently traumatized Biff and took away his motivation to go to college. Ultimately, Willy prevented Biff from succeeding.

In my mind, Biff doesn’t owe it to Willy to bring back riches and success. I think Willy owes it to his family to stop the charade, acknowledge his failure as a breadwinner, and apologize for everything. 

Close Reading #3

What greed has wrought in D.C.

By Colbert I. King, Published: November 16

http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-11-16/opinions/35502980_1_lottery-contract-money-orders-council-member

In his recent article in the Washington Post, “What Greed has Wrought in DC,” Colbert King takes a look at a recent Washington D.C. political corruption scandal. He then steps back and criticizes political atmosphere in Washington, focusing on the prevalence of corrupt local politicians accepting money from private special interests. He uses unflattering details, colorful figurative language, and effective syntax to give a brutal account of the political corruption that plagues Washington D.C.

King creates a harshly negative depiction of the political corruption in Washington D.C. using details that illustrate dramatic instances of corruption. For example, he includes details of two former Washington D.C. councilmen to make apparent the growing trend of corruption in local D.C. politics. He mentions that former councilman Harry Thomas Jr is in prison and former council chairman Kwame Brown is now a convicted felon under house arrest. These eye-opening instances of corruption are meant to warrant King’s urgent cries for dramatic reform. In another example, he writes that “D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D), who was an at-large member of the council when the contract was awarded, was the lone legislator to vote against” a 2009 D.C. Lottery contract, an alleged product of corruption. By pointing to the fact that Mendelson was the only councilman to vote against the suspect contract, King implicitly suggests that the other councilmen were bought. With this detail, King suggests that corruption is so deeply-rooted in D.C. that special interests were able to influence all but one member of the council. King includes this detail to illustrate the severity ubiquity of corruption in D.C.

King uses figurative language by expressing his ideas in easy-to-understand metaphoric terms and analogies. By doing this, he clarifies his message for the reader and strengthens the voice of his argument. For example, he refers to the deep-pocketed special interests as “moneybags,” a name that unambiguously expresses King’s disdain for private interest companies. Another example arises when King talks about the shadiness of the DC lottery contract. Rather than expressing his suspicion of the situation in literal terms, King chooses a more colorful metaphor, saying “the odor stunk up the place.” Metaphors like these resound much better with readers than literal statements. King also uses an analogy to explain how strongly-rooted the problem is, saying that “[b]reaking money’s hold on our politicians may be akin to keeping an alcoholic away from strong drink.” These instances of colorful figurative language make the writer’s message clearer and his argument stronger.

King also uses a variety of sentence syntax techniques to give importance and emphasis to messages. Writers often use short sentences to create points of emphasis. In the most powerful tone-creating technique in the entire article, King ends the article with a one-word sentence, “Disgusting.” Usually one-word sentences are powerful enough in and of themselves because they’re so short. But King also places it at the very end of the article so that it will surely leave a resounding impression on the reader. With this kind of ending, the reader walks away from the article with no doubt of King’s visceral hatred of political corruption. Another example of effective syntax comes up when King recaps the negative effects of “buying” politicians. Rather than explaining all of the effects in just one sentence, King uses three sentences. He writes, “The cozy, and corrupt, arrangement supplants your voice in government. It undermines public policy and directs resources toward the powerful and privileged. It fouls our leaders and stinks up the city.” Though it might make for a choppier read, the use of anaphora emphasizes the severity of the situation by giving special importance to each point.

            King’s article is a very critical one, one that offers a severe view of corruption in local Washington D.C. politics. Yet, it doesn’t have the kind of extreme, negative diction that a lot of criticizing opinion articles often use. Rather, it uses deeply unflattering details, colorful figurative language, and effective syntax techniques to attack the corruption in D.C. With these elements alone, the article paints a harsh, eye-opening picture of the political atmosphere in D.C.

Open Prompt Response #3

2010, Form B. “You can leave home all you want, but home will never leave you.” —Sonsyrea Tate

Sonsyrea Tate’s statement suggests that “home” may be conceived of as a dwelling, a place, or a state of mind. It may have positive or negative associations, but in either case, it may have a considerable influence on an individual. Choose a novel or play in which a central character leaves home yet finds that home remains significant. Write a well-developed essay in which you analyze the importance of “home” to this character and the reasons for its continuing influence. Explain how the character’s idea of home illuminates the larger meaning of the work. Do not merely summarize the plot.

                In JD Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye, sixteen-year-old Holden Caufield discovers the pain of being homeless, both literally and emotionally. After being expelled from Pencey Prep boarding school, Holden decides to leave school three days earlier than he’s supposed to. The story follows Holden as he wanders through New York City, meeting new people. Holden is extremely jaded and doesn’t connect with people very well. He often passes judgment on strangers he observes and talks to, calling them “phonies.”   Despite his disgust with his peers at school and parents at home, Holden finds out that being “homeless” is a lot more miserable than being with familiar people. In an emotional sense, Holden has two kinds of homes: one at school and one at his home. Though he never directly acknowledges it, he realizes he misses home. Through his rough experience living alone on the streets, Holden ultimately learns to appreciate the familiarity of home.

                For Holden, leaving the boarding school means leaving one of his two emotional “homes.” Even in the extreme case of Holden, who doesn’t get along with people and is inclined to harshly judge his peers, the familiar faces of friends and teachers at Pencey Prep create a comfortable home for him. During his three days on the streets of New York City, Holden often thinks back to fond memories from school. He thinks about Jane Gallagher, a girl he likes. He thinks about Stradlater, his roommate at Pencey. He even calls and arranges a date with his former girlfriend, Sally Hayes. These clearly stem from his a strong emotional attachment to the school. Pency Prep was a sort of home for Holden, where Holden found comfort and safety. Because of the loneliness he experiences on the streets of New York, Holden recognizes the emotional value of his home at Pency Prep.

               Holden also has an emotional attachment to his real home away from Pency Prep. But his parents aren't the reason. It’s clear that he harbors negative feelings towards his parents. He sneaks into the house at night, careful not to wake his parents, and goes directly to his sister’s room. In an uncharacteristically kind gesture, he happily takes Phoebe to the zoo and takes her to a carousel ride. Watching Phoebe on the carousel, Holden cries out of happiness to be with his sister. Phoebe is one of the few people Holden seems to be relaxed and comfortable with. After three days of uncomfortable and cold interactions with strangers in NYC, Holden gets a breath of fresh air in his day with Phoebe. Coming home to his sister reminds Holden of the emotional value of his home at home.

Holden’s constant homesickness reflects his internal struggle, a central aspect of the book. Although he thinks everyone is a phony and doesn’t outwardly admit his loneliness, there are clear signs that he feels the pain of having no home. At one point, he asks a taxi driver “Where do the ducks go when the pond at Central Park freezes?” His question reveals his yearning for a safe, comfortable home. Being kicked out of school and harboring resentment towards his parents, Holden is a duck that doesn’t have anywhere to go. 

Response to Course Material #3

I was surprised at how similar Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman and Edward Albee’s The American Dream were, yet had two different impressions on me. Both works were post-modern plays that had messages and themes centered around criticizing American consumerism. Yet, my reactions to the two works were very different.

There were several things about Albee’s The American Dream that I didn’t particularly enjoy. I didn’t like the general premise of the play; the whole thing was just a ridiculous farce of American consumerist values. Even though Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn was a satirical piece, it also had entertaining action and relatable characters. The American Dream had neither. The whole thing was set in a mundane living room. The dialogue didn’t seem to resemble anything close to real-life conversations. With the exception of Grandma, all the characters seemed very plastic and impersonal. Mommy was one-dimensionally cruel, while Daddy was one-dimensionally passive. Also, I didn't appreciate how the play was so ambiguous in its message. When our class discussed The American Dream, it felt like a messy rain of different interpretations and little to agree on. After having the chance to read Albee's works, I've learned that Theatre of the Absurd isn’t really my thing.

On the other hand, in Death of a Salesman, I felt a lot more sympathy for Willy and Biff. Their predicament is familiar and relatable. Though it’s not an action-oriented play, there are scene changes that keep the play more interesting. After having endured a Theatre of the Absurd play, I’m looking forward to Death of a Salesman.

Summary and Analysis of The American Dream

Setting:
The 1950s, in the living room of a middle-class American family's apartment.

Author:

The American Dream was written in 1960 by an American playwright named Edward Albee. He’s famous for writing plays that reflect modernist ideas of the post-WWII era. Many of his plays are part of the Theater of the Absurd, including The Zoo Story and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Setting:

The play takes place in the living room of a family apartment. It’s a very generic setting, a familiar scene to middle-class Americans. Though the time period is unspecified, the play most likely takes place during the 1950s or 60s, the era of consumerism.

Characters:        

Mommy is a cruel, authoritative, selfish woman. Since she was little, she manipulated others for her personal gain and always intended to marry a rich man. She treats her husband, Daddy, like a disposable tool rather than a person. In one instance, she tells Daddy, “I can live off you because I married you,” indicating that she values her husband because of his wealth, and nothing more. This quote also shows her attitude of being self-entitled to everything. Throughout the play, she constantly belittles and patronizes him. In an overt display of her aggressive and sadistic nature, Mommy also remarks, “WHAT a masculine Daddy! Isn’t he a masculine Daddy?” This quote fully displays her outright lack of human  for Daddy. She’s also very pretentious.

Although he’s a man, Daddy is a powerless and impotent character. He often acquiesces to Mommy’s domineering personality. When Mommy openly demeans Daddy, he never tries to defend his dignity. To add to this, Daddy has a physical disability that perpetuates his powerless persona: sexual impotency. He is a thoroughly emasculated character, both internally and physically.

Grandma is a character who takes on the role of a bystander rather than a real participant in the play. Unlike the other characters, Grandma isn’t pretentious. Her dialogue is often gruff and brusque. She doesn’t get treated well by Mommy or Mrs. Barker. Yet, the reader should recognize and appreciate Grandma’s genuineness because of how it contrasts with the other characters. If Grandma wasn’t in the play, we might have a harder time realizing how pretentious the other characters really are.

               

Plot summary:

The American Dream starts out with Mommy and Daddy sitting in their apartment living room, having a dull conversation and complaining about someone being late. Mommy begins describing the time she went shopping for a hat and made a giant fuss over the color. Grandma enters the room carrying a lot of wrapped boxes. Mommy comments on how nicely the boxes are wrapped. She then tells a story from her childhood, describing how Grandma would pack her lunch in nicely wrapped boxes, which Mommy wouldn’t open. Mommy would take sympathy food from her classmates during lunchtime and bring her unopened lunch back home for Grandma to eat. Now that Mommy has married Daddy, who is rich, Mommy says that she’s entitled to everything Daddy has. The doorbell rings and Daddy hesitates to open it. But when Mommy coaxes him and tells him he’s masculine, Daddy finally opens the door to let Mrs. Barker come in. Although Mrs. Barker seems to know the Mommy, Daddy, and Grandma, they don’t seem to remember Mrs. Barker very well. Mrs. Barker takes off her dress, making Daddy uncomfortable. The four of them sit down and talk about numerous small things. Throughout, Mommy and Grandma have arguments with one another. Daddy leaves the room after Mommy tells him to find Grandma’s television and break it. Mommy makes a snide allusion to the fact that Mrs. Barker’s husband is in a wheel-chair. Mrs. Barker becomes uncomfortable, so Mommy leaves the room to get her some water. While they’re out of the room, Mommy and Daddy struggle to find Grandma’s room. Grandma smugly remarks that she has hidden everything. Now that she’s alone with Mrs. Barker, Grandma begins to tell Mrs. Barker the reason why she’s here. Years ago, Mommy and Daddy adopted a baby from the adoption center Mrs. Barker works for. Mommy got annoyed with the baby’s habits, so she murdered it by cutting its body parts off. After Grandma’s story, the doorbell rings and Grandma finds a handsome young man at the door. Grandma calls him the American Dream because of his perfect physical appearance. The young man is the twin brother of the baby that Mommy murdered long ago. He lacks the ability to feel emotion or love, in ways that parallel his twin’s chopped-off body parts. Just like how the baby twin had its eyes ripped out by Mommy, the young man lacks the ability to look at people with pity. The young man explains that he’s looking for a job so that he can make money. Mommy sees the handsome young man and immediately becomes pleased with him. She takes him in, just like she adopted his twin (it’s implied that the young man has been “hired” to satisfy her sexually). The play ends right there, after Grandma leaves the house.

Author’s Style:

Albee’s choice to write The American Dream in only one act and one setting is important for the point of view. The entire play is set in the living room of Mommy and Daddy’s apartment home. This generic and static setting serves to emphasize the play’s focus on the reality of a consumerist family lifestyle and not a doctored image. With this setting, it feels as if the reader is taking a candid, uncensored look at the happenings of Mommy and Daddy’s life.

There is no spectacular action or frantic drama in the play. The imagery found in the dialogue of the play is generally dull. Even when Grandma is describing the time when Mommy mutilated her adopted son, she doesn’t use the image-invoking or emotional words that would warranted for such a violent thing. The plain and emotionless words in the dialogue create a surface appearance of a peaceful, untroubled family. But after discovering the horrors of Mommy’s sadistic nature and actions, the reader will realize that the lack of strong imagery in the play is a deceptive veil.

Theme:

A major theme of the book is the idea that surface appearances are often incongruous with reality. Behind the façade of Mommy and Daddy’s happy American lifestyle, there are many distressing things that go on. The play opens up with Mommy and Daddy having a mundane conversation in a plain living room, talking about fixing the toilet. This boring opening creates the impression that their lives are so untroubled that fixing the toilet is one of their biggest problems. But later, we learn about disturbing issues like Mommy’s sadistic control over Daddy, Daddy’s sexual impotency, and their mutilated adopted son.

This theme is supported by Albee’s choice of title for the play. The American Dream was written in the 1960s, a time where consumerism became a huge part of American culture. During this era, American people saw numerous magazine ads, TV commercials, and billboards that depicted middle-class American families living happily in houses with the latest household appliances and products (TVs, refrigerators, washers, toys, etc). Eventually, this culture of consumerism became a big part of the prevailing image of the happy American family. In the minds of many Americans, living the American dream meant buying a lot of things. As its title suggests, The American Dream is meant to pick apart the illusion of this so-called “American dream” and reveal how it’s incongruous with reality.

This general theme of reality clashing with image is symbolized by the handsome young man, whom Grandma calls the American Dream. The fact that this young man shares his name with the title of the play is very significant and should lead us to believe that he symbolizes a major theme of the play, which he does. In fact, he perfectly embodies the theme. On the outside, he’s young and handsome, and appears to have the potential to succeed. But as he later reveals, he’s empty inside. He can’t feel love, affection, pity, or even lust. His surface appearance is incongruous with reality, just like many of the things in the play.

Closed Reading #2

“Madonna’s Tone-Deaf Tattoo”

Meghan Daum

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-1018-daum-yousafzai-madonna-20121018,0,1844038.column

In her article, “Madonna’s Tone-Deaf Tattoo,” Meghan Daum remarks on a recent incident where pop singer Madonna revealed a new fake tattoo during a concert. Emblazoned on her lower back was the name of Malala Yousafzai, the young Pakistani girl who has gained a lot of recent media attention after being shot by members of the Taliban. The article carries a strongly negative tone that ridicules Madonna and attacks her tattoo. Daum uses pejorative diction to style Madonna as obnoxious, which goes in sharp contrast to the honorific diction she uses to endear readers to Malala. The language throughout is very sardonic, often used to mock Madonna. Also, Daum’s deliberate choice of details highlights many of Malala’s good deeds while bringing up ugly things from Madonna’s history.

The article uses a very sardonic language that mocks Madonna. With the very first line in the article, “There goes Madonna, classing up the joint again,” Daum immediately sets the sardonic tone of the article, making it clear that Madonna is not going to get much love from her. It doesn’t get much more sarcastic than saying someone is “classing up the joint.” By calling Madonna the “Hottest Bod in the AARP,” Daum gives Madonna a backhanded compliment, more of an insult than a real compliment. It’s a demeaning title for Madonna, meant to ridicule and dismiss any remnants of her status as a sex symbol. Daum again ridicules Madonna’s tattoo as pathetic and ineffective against the Taliban. She says, “Take that Taliban! Mess with a girl’s education and you’re messing with a 54-year-old pop star in a leather corset.”  The sardonic and belittling language that Daum uses throughout the article doesn’t do anything to flatter the pop singer. Instead, readers get the sense that Madonna is classless and grossly promiscuous.

            Daum also uses diction to put critical labels on Madonna, while putting positive ones on Malala. She says Madonna has an “obsession with her body.” She calls Madonna an “extremist.” She describes Madonna’s tattoo-exposing as “relentless self-promotion” and “envelope pushing.” All of these words carry negative connotations for Madonna that depict her as obnoxious. On the other hand, Daum describes Malala’s face as “earnest” and “un-primmed.” She refers to Malala as a “modest Muslim girl.” Although these words don’t directly praise Malala’s character as fervently as Daum’s criticism of Madonna does, they highlight some of Malala’s qualities that endear the reader to young girl. Daum’s choice of diction in this article is subtle, but it still does enough to influence the reader.

Through her deliberate choice of details, Daum gives unflattering stories and examples of Madonna’s actions to depict her as disgraceful. For example, the article mentions that Madonna “superimposed a swastika on the forehead of French politician Marine Le Pen.” It mentions that she “called President Obama a ‘black Muslim’ while ‘endorsing’ him at a performance.”  Yet, the details that Daum chose to leave out of the article are just as meaningful as the details she chose to include. Madonna has had a long, successful career as a singer. Like many pop singers, Madonna has done volunteer work, charity concerts, and fundraisers. But of course, Daum doesn’t mention any of this. Why? This article is supposed to be explaining why Madonna’s stunt is inappropriate, as the article title suggests. By highlighting a lot of the stupid, ugly things that Madonna has done, Daum paints a negative picture of Madonna.

In contrast, Daum chooses to highlight certain details about Malala that depict her as a virtuous person. For example, the article mentions that Malala has written a blog for BBC. It mentions that she was the first ever to receive Pakistan’s National Youth Prize. It mentions that “Desmond Tutu nominated her for an International Children's Peace Prize.” These impressive accolades definitely make Malala a respectable and morally righteous young girl.

            In the article, not only does Daum express her disgust with Madonna’s tattoo, but she also reveals her disgust with the pop singer in general. This is clear in her heavy use of sardonic language, negative diction, and biased choice of details to define and describe Madonna.

Open Prompt Response #2

2003, Form B. Novels and plays often depict characters caught between colliding cultures – national, regional, ethnic, religious, institutional. Such collisions can call a character’s sense of identity into question. Select a novel or play in which you describe the character’s response and explain its relevance to the work as a whole.

                Often, societal values and prejudices shape many of our ways of thinking. We learn to yearn for one thing and hate another thing, just because that’s what people around us do. Depending on the kind of society we live in or the people we grow up with, we develop certain types of ideas and prejudices. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison tells the story of a young black girl, Pecola Breedlove, who learns to hate herself because of her ethnicity and the supposed ugliness that’s attached to it. All around her, whether it’s in her parents, teachers, books, toys, or peers, Pecola sees evidence of the idea that whites are far prettier than and superior to blacks. Rather than embrace her identity as a black girl, she experiences an unfortunate loss of identity by yearning to be white and to associate herself with white culture.

                One key trait that Pecola associates with white culture is beauty. Throughout the book, Pecola feels that she’s ugly and thinks that she would be pretty if she were white. More than anything, she wishes to have blue eyes, a quality only white girls can have.  She sees that Maureen Peal, who is a light-skinned girl, is admired as pretty and favored by teachers and classmates alike. On top of this, she realizes that there are only white toy girl dolls that her peers play with. Being exposed to white culture in this way, Pecola directly associates white culture with beauty.

                Pecola also learns to associate white culture with stability and tight-knit family lifestyle. When she reads stories about Dick and Jane at school, she sees two white kids who are happy and have loving parents. She also sees her light-skinned classmate, Junior, come home to an attentive and caring mother. By seeing examples of white kids receiving care and love from their families, Pecola finds another reason to want to be white.

 Meanwhile, Pecola’s experiences with the realities of being black often teach her to hate black culture. Much of Pecola’s hatred comes from her own upbringing with her parents. The two parents are always arguing and physically fighting one another whenever Pecola gets home from school. Pecola had to live in a foster home as a small child because her drunk father burned down their house. Often, her mother wouldn’t be home to make food until late at night. To Pecola, the unhappy, volatile lifestyle at her home directly represents black culture.

Understanding how Pecola was exposed to black and white culture, it’s easy to see why Pecola struggled to find self-worth as a black girl. The sharp contrast in quality of life and quality of treatment made it clear to Pecola that becoming a white girl would be the best thing ever to happen to her.

Response to Course Material #2

When learning about the literary movements, I found it ironic that many of the concepts and elements from the Classical, Medieval, and Renaissance Eras are so much more familiar to us than concepts and elements from the Modern and Postmodernist Eras. A lot of people know who Hades is, because they saw him on the Disney movie Hercules. A lot of people are familiar with Dante’s depiction of a hot, fiery Hell because that’s the way TV and movies portray it today. Many people know Shakespeare’s story of Romeo and Juliet because it’s reproduced in numerous different ways in pop culture. Then why aren’t Modernist/Postmodern concepts like Impressionism and The Simulacrum as familiar?

I can think of one reason for this. We recognize things from earlier literary eras because of a few recognizable characters and stories that come from those eras. These early eras had more defining characters and stories, while Modernism and Postmodernism simply didn’t. The Classical Era survives through its famous Greek gods and heroes like Zeus and Hercules. The Medieval Era survives through the legend of King Arthur and the Round Table. The Renaissance survives through the famous plays of Shakespeare. The Romantic Era survives because of the extravagant images of Frankenstein or the great whale from Moby Dick. Even the Victorian Era survives through famous characters like Sherlock Holmes and Alice from Alice in Wonderland.

Yet, despite the importance and the impact that Modernist/Postmodernist writing has had on society today, we don’t really have any images or characters that have a major presence in our consciousness.  A lot of us would probably have to be in a literature class before reading the works of Hemingway, TS Eliot, Fitzgerald, or any of the other Modernists. The reason we are more familiar with the Romantic concepts of nature and extremes is because we are already familiar with the story of Moby Dick, which demonstrates this. Yet, we aren’t as familiar with the Modernist concept of impressionism because there aren’t many mainstream examples of Modernist literature that already demonstrate impressionism. Therefore, when we learn about impressionism, it takes more time to grasp the concept.

Close Reading #1

Don’t Blame Mitt for the GOP’s Problems

By Michael Tomasky

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/09/23/michael-tomasky-don-t-blame-mitt-for-the-gop-s-problems.html

In “Don’t Blame Mitt for the GOP’s Problems,” Michael Tomasky explains that Mitt Romney shouldn't necessarily be blamed for his recent campaign woes. Instead, him and and his campaign are being controlled by powerful GOP factions. Yet, Tomasky doesn't totally absolve the Republican candidate. Using strong diction with pejorative connotations, Tomasky puts Romney in a very demeaning light. Also, Tomasky uses powerful metaphorical language and syntax to further criticize both Romney and the GOP factions that control him.

Though titled “Don’t Blame Mitt for the GOP’s Problems,” the article's pejorative diction is clearly intended to demean Romney. Tomasky talks about “every idiotic thing Romney has done.” He talks about how Romney “tried absurdly to defend...” He refers to Romney as “the former Massachusetts governor who seems squishy.” Tomasky is attacking him with these words. Yet, Tomasky doesn't stop there. He uses strong diction also to attack the GOP factions that control Romney. When Tomaksy talks about GOP supporters “who invented this fable about Obama,” he accuses them of being ridiculous liars. When he talks about “the rabble-rousers—Rush Limbaugh, Michelle Malkin,” he accuses Limbaugh and Malkin of stirring up anger for no good reason.

Tomasky also uses vivid figurative language that ties the GOP to some strong negative images. For example, Tomasky says GOP factions are “holding guns to Romney’s temple.” He calls Romney a “big overeager floppy-eared dog, galumphing across the lawn anxious to please their masters.” With this, Tomasky creates a strong image of Romney that stays in the reader’s mind. Had he instead chosen to say “GOP groups are making strong demands of Romney,” Tomasky’s message would be much weaker. To the reader, Romney looks a lot weaker when Tomasky calls him a big dog with a gun pointed at its head. Tomasky’s strong figurative language makes his entire message clearer.

Even syntax plays a key role in the Tomasky’s article. Tomasky uses repetition and imperatives to sharply emphasize key points in his article. For example, in each of his first three sentences, Tomasky starts with “Yes, …”, making the statements seem obvious as if we, the reader, had suggested them and he’s merely nodding in agreement. In doing so, Tomasky sets the tone for the rest of the article by opening up with blunt criticism of Romney’s campaign and briefly providing a context for the rest of the article. Repitition is also used for emphasis when Tomasky says, “These groups permit no room… whatsoever. None. Not an inch.”  Tomasky’s message even becomes harsh and snappy when he uses imperatives. In the last sentence, he says, “Face it, Republicans: he was and is your best candidate.” This last sentence seems like an appropriate end to a piece filled with repeated, blunt criticism of Romney.

Tomasky’s article looks for the reason for Mitt Romney’s campaign woes and takes a critical angle on Romney and the GOP. Using unmistakably pejorative diction, it criticizes both Romney’s actions and the GOP factions that caused them. In vivid figurative language, it compares Romney to an obedient dog that acts only to please its owner, the GOP. The article also utilizes deliberate syntax techniques to put blunt emphasis on certain key points. Whether or not the reader shares Tomasky's views, it's important to understand and recognize the powerful techniques he uses to make his message stronger.

Open Prompt Response #1

2006, Form B. In many works of literature, a physical journey – the literal movement from one place to another – plays a central role. Choose a novel, play, or epic poem in which a physical journey is an important element and discuss how the journey adds to the meaning of the work as a whole. Avoid mere plot summary.

            In literature, characters are often wiser and more sensible at the end of a journey. The journey takes them through trials and tribulations that force them to adapt their way of thinking. Yet, this is not the case in William Faulkner’s novel, As I Lay Dying. The novel involves the Bundren family’s journey across the Mississippi countryside to find a place to bury their dead mother. The journey itself is poorly planned, unpleasant, and fraught with disasters. Many of the tragedies and disasters that happen during the journey give insight to the Bundrens’ lack of family unity and inability to learn from their mistakes.

            After losing a mother, family members will often become aware of the fragility of their own lives. The Bundrens’ disastrous river crossing is a clear sign of both the tenuousness of the Bundrens’ lives and their lack of caring towards one another. When the family tries to ford the river, a stray log knocks over their wagon. After the resulting chaos, Cash’s leg is broken and the wagon-pulling mules are all dead. The whole event gives insight into the Bundren family. The fact that a floating log can cause the Bundrens’ to lose so much emphasizes their precarious situation. Yet, this doesn’t necessarily awaken them to their fragile predicaments. As the disaster is unfolding, the father, Anse, doesn’t try to help recover the mules or make sure Cash is fine. Even after the crossing, Jewel still insists on spending time with his horse rather than with his family.

            At the end of the journey, when the Bundrens’ have finally reached their destination and have laid their mother to peace, it would seem most appropriate that the family become wiser as a result of all the troubles they’ve been through.  Yet, Anse and Dewey Dell’s behavior go against this. Just hours after burying his wife, Anse marries another woman. Anse also shows no shame in taking his daughter’s saved money to buy a set of false teeth for himself. In her own display of recklessness, Dewey Dell gives herself up to a pharmacy clerk who lies to her by promising to give her abortion medicine. The juxtaposition of Addie’s burial with the family’s reckless behavior serves to highlight the Bundrens’ lack of respect and reflection over their mother’s death.

            In As I Lay Dying, the Bundren family’s journey doesn’t serve to make the characters wiser. Rather, it serves to highlight the family members’ inability to learn and grow from past tragedies and mistakes. By involving a disastrous and tragic journey, Faulkner gives the reader the expectation that the family will emerge with new wisdom. However, in numerous instances, it’s clear the family isn’t capable of doing so.

Response to Course Material #1

For years, teachers have taught me to pay attention to my rhetorical situation when I communicate. They’ve told me that each unique rhetorical situation calls for a unique approach towards delivering a message. Because of this, I’ve always viewed essays, poems, news articles, TV, and movies as separate and exclusive modes of communication that have little overlap with other each other. Film directors follow the “film-making rules” while authors follow the “literature rules.” But this year, I’ve realized that these different modes often share many concepts and techniques with one another. Often, a good example of juxtaposition can be found anywhere from novels to documentaries.

When working on my presentation on Foster’s How to Read Literature Like a Professor, I was surprised at how often Foster’s literature concepts kept appearing in movies, TV shows, songs, and even commercials. While Foster focused on identifying his patterns and meanings in literature, my presentation helped me find those same patterns and meanings in pop culture. It showed me that having different rhetorical situations doesn't necessarily entail using entirely different rules and techniques for communication. After seeing how a low-brow comedy film like Pineapple Express utilized the same concept of communion that the Bible does, I finally understood that.

One example in particular really helped me understand this. In The Nuts and Bolts of College Writing, Michael Harvey says writers use punch lines, a “technique a comedian uses to make people laugh” (45), to organize sentences and deliver their messages more clearly in an essay. To me, this was like a craftsman from one profession borrowing a tool from a different craftsman's in a different profession. Even though an essay-writer and a comedian may have different rhetorical situations, there’s no reason they can’t use common techniques to deliver their messages.

Analysis of David Sedaris' "Me Talk Pretty One Day"

In his essay, “Me Talk Pretty One Day,” David Sedaris effectively uses many of the ideas set forth in Michael Harvey’s book, The Nuts and Bolts of College Writing, to keep his writing clear, concise, and fluent. When necessary, he uses passive voice and linking verbs to achieve clarity and concision. He avoids using the unnecessarily long and redundant language that typifies what Harvey calls the “pompous style” (3).

Throughout his essay, Sedaris follows all of Harvey’s rules to write clearly and concisely. For clarity, he writes without using nominalized verbs, which are known as “actions expressed as noun(s) rather than verb(s)” (Harvey 29). For example, instead of writing something like “the teacher asked them for a presentation on themselves,” Sedaris writes “the teacher instructed them to present themselves” (12). In this example, Sedaris uses the verb “present” rather than its nominalized form “presentation.” Though small, this difference in word choice helps present the message more clearly and directly. Also, Sedaris uses short, powerful verbs like in “I scrambled to think of an answer” (14) to write concisely. If instead, he used a longer verb phrase like in “I tried as hard as I could to think of an answer,” not only would he lose concision, but he’d also lose the sharper description from his original verb.

However, Sedaris also utilizes passive voice and linking verbs to achieve the same clarity and concision that active voice and active verbs often do. For example, he writes a passive voice with “After paying my tuition, I was issued a student ID” (11). As Harvey explains, writers should use a passive voice when trying “to emphasize an action or recipient and (not) the agent” (17). In Sedaris’ case, there’s no need to mention the agent of the action. Also, Sedaris uses a linking verb when he writes “Her temperament was not based on a series of good and bad days” (13). Harvey explains “It’s natural to use linking verbs when… describing things” (32). In Sedaris’ case, a linking verb was the most natural and clear option.

Sedaris makes his writing flow very well using consistent characters and frequent pronouns to make the subject of each sentence clear to the reader. In the following example, he utilizes both techniques.

The first Anna hailed from an industrial town outside of Warsaw and had front teeth the size of tombstones. She worked as a seamstress, enjoyed quiet times with friends, and hated the mosquito.

“Oh, really,” the teacher said. “How very interesting. I thought that everyone loved the mosquito, but here, in front of all the world, you claim to detest him. How is it that we’ve been blessed with someone as unique and original as you? Tell us, please.”

The seamstress did not understand what was being said but knew that this was an occasion for shame. Her rabbit mouth huffed for breath, and she stared down at her lap as though the appropriate comeback were stitched somewhere alongside the zipper of her slacks. (12)

Sedaris makes it clear Anna is the subject of the sentences in the first and third paragraphs, while the teacher is the speaker in the second paragraph. First, he begins each sentence with the subject to tell the reader who the subject is. If Sedaris didn’t do this, the reader would have to look through each sentence a second time to find the subject. In addition, Sedaris also uses pronouns frequently to make it clear that the “rabbit mouth” and “slacks” belong to Anna the seamstress, not the teacher.

In “Me Talk Pretty One Day,” Sedaris constructs a well-written essay using many of Harvey’s techniques for clear, concise, and fluent writing. Though there are instances where Sedaris uses passive voice and linking verbs, which Harvey cite as sources of unclear writing, Sedaris uses them appropriately.

Poetry Study Goals

• More easily understand a poem’s often difficult sentence syntax.
• Understand the significance, the big picture.
•  Learn more poetry terms
• Improve my general vocabulary.
• Make sure I get bogged down on detail only if I need to.

I really struggled with the poetry section. The first thing I noticed was the difficult sentence syntax that most of the poems had. As I read, my primary focus was on simply grasping the meaning of each sentence, a few words at a time. That’s why my biggest goal is getting used to the unusual poetry-style sentence syntax. And because of my narrow line-by-line focus, I had trouble recognizing the speaker’s emphasis on the paleness around him or his tendency to refer to the tombstone mournfully. Understanding the significance of these details will help me answer big picture questions. I realized the need to learn more poetry terms after seeing answer choices that included poetry terms that I weren’t familiar with, such as “masculine rhyme.” I also saw non-poetry vocab words that I didn’t know, such as “oblong” and “jetsam.” Not being able to use POI on these answer choices made it much harder to choose an answer. Finally, I realized most of the questions didn’t require as deep of an understanding of the poem as I thought. That’s why I made a goal to do a cursory read of the entire poem and look at the questions before I get bogged down on confusing sections

Diagnostic Test Reflection

I was surprised at how similar the test was to the reading section in the SAT. I was frustrated with questions that seemed to have two correct answers. For example, the Civil War passage clearly said that Brahmins weren't able to respond to "political nationalism and industrial reconstruction." But the book answer was "Civil War and Reconstruction." This didn't seem like a valid answer because Reconstruction wasn't even mentioned in the passage. That being said, it was helpful that I studied Ms. Holmes' vocab words. It helped me avoid tripping up on some of those really esoteric lit terms. I had no problem answering a question that asked for the conceit of the poem. I didn't do very well on the test, but I feel ready to improve.