English 123: Blog 5

Today the question, What does it mean to be free? was asked......

What does it mean to be free? We think we are free from our parents when we venture off to college to, we think we are free of our childish years when we get our license, and we think we are free heartache when we find the special one. We are never free; there exist only slight happenings that cause to think we are free from something when we actually never are. For example, an individual is never free because there is always a "master plan" going on that was determined at birth. What we may perceive as freedom is just another momentous occasion in our lives that made us grow and mature as human beings. Freedom does not exist. Parents and rules will always accompany our lives in some form or another whether it be from our parents, school, or the work world. I am glad our childish years never leave us; the ability to be a child is what returns the small joys of life to us. Heartache will be a part of life for as long as their is attachment. If you are attached to something, when that leaves heartache will encompass your thoughts and feelings. The ability to deal with heartache causes us to grow and deal with pain caused from loss.

I found the Found Poem to be surprisingly easy to write, maybe that means I did it wrong. Poetry is everywhere it is just a matter of putting the words in the right order to make it sound melodious. Poetry brings a sense of art to a world of sharp corners and concrete buildings.

Just a last note the two types of sonnets are Shakespearian and Italian.
I provided a web address that I found insightful, intelligent, and education information on sonnets.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonnet

Introduction to Literature Notes (7/9/2008)

NOTES FOR WEDNESDAY JULY 9TH

• Make sure to include in your blog a vocab list as well as class notes with various links to websites relevant to the material being taught.
• Great Expectations has two endings. There was the original ending and the second ending. This website talks about the different endings.

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Expectations

• Mr. Sexson talked about people such as Don Quixote and Madam Bowvrey who are unhappy with their lives and immerse themselves in the stories of books, almost to the point of insanity. It then led to the topic that it seems very few people are happy with their lives and tend to lead un-insightful and boring lives.
• There are two types of characters: Round and Flat. Flat characters only act the way we expect them to. Round characters are much more fleshed ou and more developed, they come full-circle.
  

VOCAB WORDS

• Accovcheur- male midwife
• Biled- could not find the definition
  
• Mangle (noun)- a machine used to press and clean clothes
• Ablutions- a washing or cleansing of the body especially as the religious right
• Epiphany- a great realization, divine intervention
• Trenchent- vigorous or insightful in sound
• Rimy- covered with frost mainly in a literary way (ON TEST!!!!!!!)
  

HOMEWORK

• Begin memorizing Wallace Stevens' poem
• Tell a story to a friend using one of the words from the chapter where Ann Fadiman talked about sesquepedalians.

GREAT EXPECTATIONS REVIEW

• TEST QUESTION!!!!!!! The word abulation applies to which character in Great Expectations??? Answer: Jaggers
  
• Pip seems two faced, ashamed of his past, once he becomes a gentleman he forgets his past, gave 1/2 of his fortune to Herbert, set up parents with Miss Havisham's will, confused about his identity.
  
• Molly (Jaggers maid) and Abel Magwitch (convict) are Estella's parents.
  
• Abel gave Pip money because Pip was the only person to treat him like a person instead of a criminal.
• Miss Havisham teaches Estella to hate men and realizes her mistake before she dies (she literally goes up in flames). Compeyson conned her so she wants to have the ultimate revenge on man kind, which is played by Pip.
• Miss Havisham like Mrs Joe asks for forgiveness before she dies. Mrs Joe says, " Pip....Joe....Pardon"

OTHER HELPFUL WEBSITES

• 
  

  http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/greatex/characters.html

  http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/greatex/themes.html

  http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/greatex/quiz/html

English 123: Blog 4

Today in class it was mentioned my Mr. Sexson that in some way or another it seems the majority of people are unhappy with their lives. He used examples such as Don Quixote and Madam Bowvery (not sure how to spell the name) as two people who were so entirely bored with their lives that they became immersed in novels and characters. They lived vicariously through the lives of the characters that they read about in the books; somehow their lives were not anywhere near their expectations of what they should be so they sought lives of others. I return to the word expectations and I think well Pip was not happy with the life he was going to lead involving being an apprentice to Joe. It was not until he learned of the fortune he was gifted that he became excited to live his own life rather than someone else's .
So I ask the question.....why is everyone so unhappy with their lives??? I think it is because most of someones life is not how it appears to be in movies and books. In many movies, as we watched with the ending in Great Expectations, the two lovers always end up together; the conflict is always resolved; and the good guy gets the good girl. By watching movies and reading people become obsessed with the stories and become almost depressed that their lives are not that interesting or romantic. SO WHAT! It irritates me when people complain about how boring their lives are when they do not take any action to change it. In my personal opinion, life is what you make of it...if you want to make your life all about laying on the couch eating eating cookies watching the Simpson's then that is a choice but if you do not want your life to be like that then you have the ability to change it.
I was reading everyone else's blogs and I agree with what Ryan wrote about how Great Expectations and the lessons and issues dealt with allow the story and the novel to remain relevant. A good novel takes into consideration the issues at the time and thinks about if they will still be issues centuries later. Take for example Romeo and Juliet, two lovers whose parents do not want them to be together. Although today their might not be the death of the two lovers but the underlying issue still exists. Great Expectations is able to do that through Mr. Dickens genius. He confronts the issues of "the importance of holding friendships high and not the root of all evil, money and greed. Another theme is kindness and genuineness. To value people for who they are and not what they can do for you financially" (from Ryann's Blog). All of these issues are the reasons Great Expectations is still relevant to people in the 21st Century.

English 123: Blog 3

"Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth, overlying our hard hearts."
- Charles Dickens, Great Expectations
Pain is part of the everlasting journey that every human being goes on throughout their life; the best part of life is not the end result but instead the trials along the way that help an individual to grow and become strong. My very first memory of pain happened when my father's mother passed away when I was 5 years old. She was my best friend and we would invent games such as eagle and snake where I would hide under the couch from the "eagle". When I was told she had passed away in the nursing home I did not know how to react. For some reason I did not cry, but the pain I felt in my heart I have never forgotten. The moment I did cry was when I first saw my dad cry. I knew what pain was and what pain could cause at that moment.

When we were talking in class today about every human being is telling and living their own story. I believe it is somewhat chosen, but I think that people can change their stories and journey's based entirely on effort and determination. "In a word, I was too cowardly to do what I knew to be right, as I had been too cowardly to avoid doing what I knew to be wrong."
(Charles Dickens, Great Expectations). If someone is determined to make a change in his or her life then I fully believe that change will happen.

Coincidences are one of the best parts of life. I love when something seemingly random happens and turns out to be linked to some aspect of your life. Coincidences make the story and journey of your life exciting and keep you alive for one more night; when death happens the story is over, so every story should be as entertaining and insightful as possible.

Introduction to Literature Notes (07/07/2008)

Introduction to Literature July 7, 2008

Found Poetry – find poetry in unlikely source

Alliteration – the repetition of the initial word

EXAMPLE: Peter piper picked…

Coincidence – 6 degrees of separation; random happening that occurs to actually have some relation to each other.

-Happen all the time without many people knowing it; 1:3 chances

-Possibly not random, but actually “meant to be”

BLOG

-Coincidences in Great Expectations and what links everyone in the classroom

Email blog to teacher!

Very earliest memory involving pain

SALUTARY – promoting or conducive to some beneficial purpose; wholesome.

-beneficial aspect

Create a common place sight on blog!

COMMON PLACE READER – someone who reads for pleasure

-try to put quotes in blog

MEMORABLE – try to put memorable passages into blog

“There are no accidents”

-James Joyce

-coincidences happen all the time; miracles are events that DO NOT happen often

SYNCHRONICITY - Coincidence of events that seem to be meaningfully related, conceived in Jungian theory as an explanatory principle on the same order as causality.

-everything happens for a reason but what are those reasons?

FRAME – stories within stories, best exemplified by a box

EVISCERATE – take what is inside out (the guts)

We are all in the process of metamorphosis

-when frame stories are handled well, it is not a tangent but a story within a story

Arabian Nights

-Sherry tells frame stories in order to keep the story going and stay alive.

“Shaggy Dog” Story

-story that lasts a long time and reaches no conclusive moral idea; pointless; causes the point of the story to not matter, but to the experience of the story.

“ANYTHING WORTH LEARNING IS BESIDE THE POINT”

-The point of the journey is the journey -John Barth

-There are 2 alternate endings to Great Expectations

BIL DUNGSROMAN – a coming-of-age story; Great Expectations is a bil dungsroman

PRIG - a person who displays or demands of others pointlessly precise conformity, fussiness about trivialities, or exaggerated propriety, esp. in a self-righteous or irritating manner

-death means no more stories; you live and you tell; you live to tell stories

“The Magus” great book with G.E. in introduction

Create an imagination that there is nothing that is boring.

ASSIGNMENT

-find a poem from unsuspecting place

PANDER – from Shakespeare character Panderous; sexually elicit to something

GENRE - a class or category of artistic endeavor having a particular form, content, technique, or the like

ARCHETYPE - the original pattern or model from which all things of the same kind are copied or on which they are based; a model or first form; prototype.

-most of us are always in a story

Great Expectations Characters

MAIN SUB

Pip Pumplechook

Convict (Magwitch) Wopsle

Joe Gargery

Miss Havisham

Estella

Herbert

Compeyson

Jaeggers

Wemmick

Molly

Biddy

English 123: Blog 2

Having being almost finished with Great Expectations and finished with Ex Libris I wonder about a couple points brought up in each novel.
In Ex Libris the story that sticks out to me in my head is "Never do that to A Book" starting on page 37. Reading this story made me think about how I treat my books and how I treat other people and items as well. I treat books in a harsh manner; doggy ear the pages, write in the margins, underline sentences with good quotes for later use, and completely bend the spine. If a book looks like it has been beat up, that usually means I have read it and enjoyed it. However, the books that look brand new means I do not want anything to do with them. With other people in my life it is completely different most of the time. I realized that I treat my friends and family with lots of love and compassion, but occasionally the hurtful scenarios exist (doggy ears and highlighting) that help in making the relationship stronger. These scenarios make the relationship with a friend or family member have a history, a past, a story. Without tough situations I would have trouble trusting anyone and therefore lack one of the most important aspects of life; friendship.
Great Expectations has a lot of different elements that I could analyze and reflect on with my life. The main part of the story that has grabbed my attention is Pip's relationship with Estella. Having gotten out of a 4 year relationship I remember all of the hardships and feelings when you are constantly being put down by someone, only to be broughten up when they say your name or act slightly decent to you. It is an awful thing to allow another person control your emotions. But it is hard to stop when there is something about that person that you are completely head over heels for. Like the saying always goes, " Love is blind". Love is blind until you step out and realize the love you have for a person is based upon infatuation from an earlier time. The hardest thing to do is walk away from the relationship that has consumed your thoughts and feelings for years. Pip is so infatuated with Estella and her beauty that he will let her treat him like crap. But with the mere mention of his name he feels on top of the world. His emotions depend so much on the actions and words that come out of her mouth that she controls him and she knows it. Miss Havisham knows it and encourages her to string him along like a puppet since she got left at the alter by a man she thought was the love of her life. The circle of revenge created by Miss Havisham will destroy Pip I predict because of the time and emotions he has invested in Estella. Investing all of your time into someone else's feelings about you is dangerous and leads to one thing; heartbreak. Pip reminds me of myself in the fact that he cannot recognize that the person for him, in my opinion, is not Estella but Biddy. Estella causes him to be a snobby gentleman, whereas Biddy keeps him grounded and respects his needs and emotions. A person should always be with someone who grounds them without taking away from their dreams, not someone who tears their aspirations down little by little.

English 123 Notes (7/02/2008)

ENGLISH 123: INTRODUCTION TO LITERATURE NOTES 7/02/2008

• It is important to think about how one thing is related to another in the world of literature
• Mr. Dickens presents the convict in the first chapter not for the mere purpose of having a convict but because this character will become important later on in the novel. Rarely does Mr. Dickens put in useless information that is not needed in the future.
  
• Myths are perceived as something untrue that is not fundamental.
  
• Logos is the word meaning the truth, fact, or reality while the word Mythos means fictional; the opposite of logos
• Make sure to bookmark everyone's blog on your own blog site by creating a link. If you need help you can e-mail questions to either kimberly.hart@myportal.montana.edu or amber.bjorndal@myportal.montana.edu

MAKE SURE TO READ THE FOLLOWING STORIES IN EX LIBRIS:

1. Preface
2. The Joy of Sesquipedalians
3. My Odd Self
4. Scorn not the Sonnet
5. Never do that to a Book
6. The Literary Glutton
7. Nothing New Under the Sun
8. The Catalogical Imperative
9. My Ancestral Castles
10. Sharing the Mayhem

MAKE SURE TO READ THE FOLLOWING POEMS IN STEVENS BESIDES THE ONE ASSIGNED:

1. Sunday Morning
2. The Idea of Order at Key West

Good quote: " How do I know what I think until I see what I say?" WH Auden

In the novel Arabian Nights it is important to know the two girls' names on page 10.