Course Material Response (9/29)

One of the first things we talked about this year was DIDLS (Diction, Imagery, Detail, Language, and Syntax).

It was the syntax explanation that gave me the greatest insight into my own writing. I have this tendency to use the passive tense in my writing, which I now realize is less useful and more indirect. I think I use it because I took Latin, and there was more passive voice in the things we translated than in the everyday English language. The constant use of the passive seeped into my writing, usually for academic papers. I also find myself using conjunctions to link sentences, but I know that is a good way to connect ideas and create flow now, so I am glad to be in the habit. Many of the devises used to create suspense are not used in my writing, which makes sense because I do not write suspenseful works, still, I would like to try using verbal and asyndeton in my creative writing, so I can get used to using them.

When discussing diction, I realized that I label any language that I do not consider colloquial or informal as elevated, when elevated language is a few steps above conversational language. Just because a word is not usually used in everyday conversation does not necessarily mean that the word is elevated. In The Jungle excerpt we were given, the word “clad” is used. This word is not typically used in everyday language, but it is most definitely not elevated. Before I might have immediately labeled it as elevated, just because it is not conversational. I also think diction is an interesting element in movies and plays, where there is generally only dialogue. Every word must also work to convey the thoughts and emotions of the characters, because it cannot be described through the narration or tone of the speaker. Writing dialogue seems more difficult to me now.

With imagery, language, and detail, I pay attention to things that stand out more. When I am first reading something, like The American Dream, I notice things that immediately stand out. I am constantly asking why the author would include things that seem unimportant, especially when considering detail. I re-read the first Harry Potter recently and I started to notice that she always puts a number to things, when she really does not need to. For instance she uses specific numbers like “Number 4 Privet Drive” or “vault 173”. These are not needed, but their addition makes me think they mean more.

I like to describe existentialism as “with great freedom comes great responsibility.” I think the concept of finding your own meaning in life is truly represented in many books and movies, but I feel like the meaninglessness of life depicted is less common. A French movie called Love Me If You Dare displays its two main characters as free with no sense of responsibility for their actions or the consequences of their decisions. The two characters only want to one up each other; they do not care about getting anywhere in life. Their complete disregard for any meaning in life seems to be the exact opposite of the existentialist views. In the end they sacrifice their lives for each other and for their love, but this is the only view they convey. They are displayed as irresponsible characters that do not display all of society, but overall the movie shows a complete lack of the existential views. I do like the existentialism’s idea of responsibility and life determined by individual actions. I think it is an interesting concept that is not well displayed in pop culture.

The theater of the Absurd reminds me of Rocky Horror Picture Show. The complete craziness of the mansion mixed with the “everyman” characters Brad and Janet displays the meaninglessness of everything. The surreal actions of Frank-N-Furter and the people staying at his house display a barbaric nature. The movie’s main center of entertainment is the humor which distracts the viewer from how ridiculous the plot of the movie is. The ending portrays humans as ants and makes the world seem that much more meaningless. Janet and Brad presumably go back to their lives and do not worry about what happened at the castle. The movie ends in full circle with everything back to normal (kind of) and the lips form the beginning singing again.

The theories of humor offered an interesting look into movie and television comedies for me. Many comedies implore the use of more than one of the set types and theories. The Big Bang Theory for instance relies on High comedy for its use of science and witty remarks, but the show displays mostly low comedy with tricks and boasting. It also displays farce with characters that are highly exaggerated parts of the population. There are very few people that know incredible amounts of science and are that socially inept. I think that the theories of comedy are all important aspects of humor. For instance, Scary Movie would fall partly under the ambivalence theory with their goriness and partly under the incongruity theory because the viewer feels some superiority over the ridiculous characters. Books, movies, and television shows can fall under more than one theory or type and they often do. This helps appeal to more than one audience. Not everyone is going to laugh at things that are gross, so putting some more intelligent humor can appeal to a new group. This is also used in children’s shows. A show can be interesting to children, but also has humor that may be more intelligent or inappropriate so adults can also laugh.

Open Prompt (9/22)

2004. Critic Roland Barthes has said, “Literature is the question minus the answer.” Choose a novel, or play, and, considering Barthes’ observation, write an essay in which you analyze a central question the work raises and the extent to which it offers answers. Explain how the author’s treatment of this question affects your understanding of the work as a whole. Avoid mere plot summary.

Essay N achieves the first objective of sticking to a thesis that falls under the prompt well, with one central question that the novel discussed, Candide, addresses. The writer maintains the focus and gives evidence as they bring in key parts of the book and then go on to explain them with clear ideas. Breaking the question into parts is key to the structure of the essay and understanding of the ideas and flow. Breaking up how the question was addressed and then the authors’ intentions made the piece easy to follow and also clearly showed the answer to the prompt without having too much separation between ideas. The continued restating of “tending our garden” seemed unnecessary and took away from the explanation. If the writer just mentioned it once, or even broken the quote down so that they were talking about each word separately, the essay and explanation would have better flow and be less redundant. The only issues that took away were some uses of punctuation, like the almost random exclamation mark, and some word choices. Still, the final paragraph is able to reaffirm the whole essay’s message as well as display that the main question in Candide is both answered and unanswered without making it seem like the writer was trying to get out of the question and frustrate the reader.

Essay J does set up the essay to follow the prompt and go more in depth, but the essay reads more like a summary than an explanation for the question “What is freedom”. The essay does show that Huck and Jim may still be left with societal “restrictions” in the end which displays that they may not have any freedom at all. Still, the analysis of the intentions of the author or how the intentions were portrayed was not explored and the essay fell short of a deep analysis of the answer to the question. In the end, the writer devotes a whole new paragraph to another question: “was Huck’s and Jim’s trip a success”. Bringing in a whole new question here only sidetracks from the main point and is space that could be used to further investigate the original question. There are a few word choices that also distract from main points such as “ourselves” when the writer should focus on the effects on society, not personally. Overall, the essay manages to give a surface explanation of the prompt, but does not go in deep enough or explain enough to sufficiently address the prompt.

Essay U fails to address the prompt with a specific issue that is maintained in the novel, Things Fall Apart. The essay brings up major issues in the novel like the fight for dominance between contemporary and traditional values, but a clear position on how the author displays this issue is not reached. Where specific events could be cited, the writer simply says “certain events” and leaves the reader to guess which events they are. The descriptions of the novel are general and the specific examples are nonexistent. The overall subject of the essay answers the prompt, but there is no proof. If the writer had used specific examples and analyses to defend and prove their thesis, the essay would have worked very well and fulfilled the prompt. There were also some distracting uses of tense in the piece, with switches between the present and past tense when talking about events in the novel.  The essay could have met the prompt well, but it was too general and failed to have specifics needed for evidence.

"November 24, 1963" (Close Reading 9/15)

Article found here: http://www.believermag.com/issues/201303/?read=article_straight

Susan Straight’s article, "November 24, 1963", explores the life and death of her brother as well as what he “left behind.” The entire piece works as a reflection on Straight’s relationship with her brother and his relationship with life. Straight uses syntax, detail, and imagery to convey a nostalgic and unsure tone relative to her brother’s death and her feelings.

Straight’s tone throughout "November 24, 1963" holds an uncertainty about her feelings relative to things happening around her. The issue that is most clear is how she feels about her brother, but she uses questions a few times to convey her confusion with her own emotions. At one point, she sits with her mother as her mother cries over President Kennedy’s assassination, but she questions why she is really sitting with her mother: “to comfort her? to calm myself”  (Straight). The questions are set off within the sentence, displaying how unclear it really is to her. As the piece continues, Straight uses questions to display a lack ofguidance without her brother. Later Straight asks, “was he coming here” when speaking of the night her brother died from crashing into a tree (Straight). The question conveys guilt over the death of her brother, but does not show confusion in her love and loss for her brother.

The nostalgic tone in the piece is displayed as she talks about her time with her brother as a child, not only because of the description, but also because of the hurried nature of the sentence: “the harsh wind coming over the hills from the desert, the hawks overhead, coyotes watching us from a distance while we dug” (Straight). The lack of conjunctions between the activities makes the sentence feel quicker and more poetic. The reader feels the things happening all at once. On top of the memories, just the use of the past tense throughout the entire piece makes the reader feel the nostalgia. Straight rarely uses the present tense, so the past tense feels almost normal for the reader and at times conveys the message more clearly: “like who we were—crazy white-trash inland Californians” (Straight). The reader understands there is change because of the use of the past tense here and also is forced to wait for the punch line of the sentence with the pause.

The nostalgia is further conveyed in the specific things that Straight chooses to tell the reader, like when she talks about her mother teaching her to knit she says, “she taught me to knit as she had learned in Switzerland, hand-rolling the yarn around pieces of shiny hard candy.” The reference to her mother being from a different country conveys to the reader that Straight and her brother had to understand culture on their own. Then including how she learned to knit, with candy, reinforces the reoccurring happy thoughts in relation to past events with her brother. This is one of the only times she brings in happy details surrounding her brother’s birth, which reinforces its importance. Immediately after mentioning the knitting, she mentions all the half siblings and step siblings she has, but makes sure to mention Jeff, the brother the article is about, is her only full blooded brother (Straight). These details show how important her brother was to her and how much his death affected her.

Later Straight tells the reader that Jeff also left her “five pieces of orange firewood” that she had not used before he died (Straight). She then goes on to explain that she has not used the firewood in the ten years since her brother’s death and that she “vacuum[s] up the spiderwebs [sic]” from the firewood :at the end of the winter” (Straight). Bringing up spider webs growing on the wood shows how long it has been since her brother dies and how long she has kept the firewood.

When she finally gets into the tree her brother left her, she tells the reader that, “the last flowers fall just before [Jeff’s] birthday” (Straight). The reader is constantly reminded of Jeff, so the subject of the piece is not lost. The article is not meant to just show how Straight feels about her brother’s death, it is trying to convey what her brother is like.

Her lack of control over her brother is referred to several times throughout the piece, but when he dies, she chooses to tell the reader that “we were at basketball practice in the junior-high down the street” (Straight). This is a strong testament to how little control she had over her brother, because she was only a “down the street” from her brother and she was not able to help him. It also touches on the guilt she displays when she thought he was coming to see her.

Straight also uses imagery and sometimes lack of it to display the control issues Straight has as well as the nostalgic tone. The only time Straight physically describes Jeff, she describes him relative to herself by telling the reader they share “eyes the color of year-old jeans” (Straight). “Year-old” jeans bring comfort and the past to mind for the reader and set up a sentimental mood. It makes Jeff seem like a kind and comforting person, while still displaying the tone of Straight. At times, Straight uses very little description or imagery to describe her feelings. For instance, she simply says, “I’m so sad” when she talks about repainting her house after her brother dies (straight). This lack of imagery, which she uses several times to convey her relationship to her brother, shows how self-aware she is of her feelings for her brother in that moment. She is simply sad and that is that; there are no words to hide behind here and she does not need any. This is the start of her certainty of her feelings and really only comes at the end of the article.

Imagery, detail, and syntax all add to the feeling of nostalgia as well as the uncertainty, that eventually leads to more understanding for Straight.