Blog #2
Blog Question #2
A. Reflection: In the story "Boys and Girls," look very carefully at the descriptions of the areas where the father and mother work, and where the children sleep. How does the narrator feel about each of these areas, and how can you tell? Do these descriptions illustrate one or more binaries?
The girl describes the areas where her father and his companions spent time as the warm, safe, brightly lit downstairs world, where as she describes the upstairs as the lost and diminished, floating on the stale cold air
The narrator (girl) says “we were afraid of inside, the room where we slept. When the light was on, we were safe as long as we did not step off the square of worn carpet which defined our bedroom-space; when the light was off no place was safe but the beds themselves. I had to turn out the light kneeling on the end of my bed, and stretching as far as I could to reach the cord.”
The narrator (girl) hated the hot dark kitchen in summer, the green blinds and the flypapers, the same old oilcloth table and wavy mirror and bumpy linoleum.
But when she grew up she had been trying to make her part of the room fancy, spreading the bed with old lace curtains, and fixing myself a dressing table with some leftovers of cretonne for a skirt. She planned to put up some kind of barricade between her bed and Laird’s, to keep her section separate from his. In the sunlight, the lace curtains were just dusty rags. “We did not sing at night anymore.” as she said
The binaries in this story are: light and dark, men’s and women’s work, child and adult, indoor and outdoor, downstairs and upstairs, and girls and boy. The most obvious binary in this story is the childhood and adulthood and the transition the narrator went through. Begging of the story "We were afraid of inside, the room where we slept." Whereas at the end of the story "There was not so much need to anyway, we were no longer afraid."
B. Looking Ahead: Next week, you're going to learn something about another literary element known as "intertextuality," or the use of previous texts in a work. To help you recognize some of the intertextuality in "The Boat," do a little "googling." Three important allusions are to the Thomas Hardy character Eustacia Vye, to Moby Dick, and to David Copperfield. Find out something about Eustacia Vye (pay particular attention to her character and how she dies), look up a plot summary of Moby Dick, and find out something about the character Ham Peggoty ( where does he live, and how does he die?) in David Copperfield. You may use Spark Notes or Wikipedia for this, all I want is for you to get a little background. Summarize the main points of what you find in your blog.
The Return of the Native is Thomas Hardy's sixth published novel
Eustacia Vye-A raven-haired young beauty who chafes against her life on the heath and longs to escape it in order to lead the more adventure-filled life of the world. Some of the heathfolk think she is a witch. Hardy describes her as "the raw material of a divinity" whose "celestial imperiousness, love, wrath, and fervour had proved to be somewhat thrown away on netherward Egdon.
Eustacia is a queenly woman who feels sadly out of place on Egdon heath, where everyone considers her an oddity and some of the women are sure she is a witch. She longs to become a 'magnificent woman' and, in pursuit of this goal, persuades herself to fall in love with Clym Yeobright simply because he's a gentlemanly sort who has lived in Paris and, she hopes, might take her there after they are married. However, Clym does not take her to Paris; instead, he goes half-blind through too much study and turns to the lowly occupation of furze-cutting, thus dashing proud Eustacia's hopes. Worse, when she inadvertently helps bring about his mother's death, he turns on her and accuses her of murder and adultery. Unable to bear the identity (whore, murderess, and witch) that her husband and all Egdon Heath seem determined to foist on her, Eustacia drowns herself.
Eustacia dies because she has internalised the community's values to the extent that, unable to escape Egdon without confirming her status as a fallen woman, she chooses suicide. She thereby ends her sorrows while at the same time-by drowning in the weir like any woman instead of floating, witchlike-she proves her essential innocence to the community
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Moby-Dick, also known as The Whale, is a novel first published in 1851 by American author Herman Melville. Moby-Dick is widely considered to be a Great American Novel and a treasure of world literature
Ishmael is the narrator (and arguably the protagonist) of the 1851 novel Moby-Dick by U.S. author Herman Melville. It is through his eyes and experience that the reader experiences the story of the ship Pequod, and the fight between Captain Ahab and the white whale. He is a central character in the action in the early part of the novel, essentially fulfilling all the requirements of being a conventional protagonist. After the Pequod leaves Nantucket, he increasingly recedes into the background as a commentator, with his voice approaching that of an omniscient narrator at times, able to see into all parts of the ship and into the private motivations of other characters.
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David Copperfield
Ham Peggotty - A good-natured nephew of Mr. Peggotty and the fiancé of Emily before she leaves him for Steerforth. He later loses his life while attempting to rescue a sailor, who happens to be Steerforth, from a shipwreck. His death is hidden from his family due to the fact that David does not want them to worry on the brink of their journey.
Ham is Peggotty's nephew, the son of her brother Joe Peggotty, who drowned when Ham was a child. So, Ham is an orphan who has been raised by Mr. Peggotty to follow in his footsteps as a fisherman. Oddly, Ham is also present at David's birth as a young boy: Peggotty had asked her nephew to be on hand to run errands during Mrs. Copperfield's late pregnancy.
Ham dies trying to save the lives of the people stranded on a boat off the coast of Yarmouth during a terrible storm. He dies saving people. And one of the people he tries to save, even though this man has done him nothing but evil, is James Steerforth. It's tough to get more self-sacrificing than this.
A. Reflection: In the story "Boys and Girls," look very carefully at the descriptions of the areas where the father and mother work, and where the children sleep. How does the narrator feel about each of these areas, and how can you tell? Do these descriptions illustrate one or more binaries?
The girl describes the areas where her father and his companions spent time as the warm, safe, brightly lit downstairs world, where as she describes the upstairs as the lost and diminished, floating on the stale cold air
The narrator (girl) says “we were afraid of inside, the room where we slept. When the light was on, we were safe as long as we did not step off the square of worn carpet which defined our bedroom-space; when the light was off no place was safe but the beds themselves. I had to turn out the light kneeling on the end of my bed, and stretching as far as I could to reach the cord.”
The narrator (girl) hated the hot dark kitchen in summer, the green blinds and the flypapers, the same old oilcloth table and wavy mirror and bumpy linoleum.
But when she grew up she had been trying to make her part of the room fancy, spreading the bed with old lace curtains, and fixing myself a dressing table with some leftovers of cretonne for a skirt. She planned to put up some kind of barricade between her bed and Laird’s, to keep her section separate from his. In the sunlight, the lace curtains were just dusty rags. “We did not sing at night anymore.” as she said
The binaries in this story are: light and dark, men’s and women’s work, child and adult, indoor and outdoor, downstairs and upstairs, and girls and boy. The most obvious binary in this story is the childhood and adulthood and the transition the narrator went through. Begging of the story "We were afraid of inside, the room where we slept." Whereas at the end of the story "There was not so much need to anyway, we were no longer afraid."
B. Looking Ahead: Next week, you're going to learn something about another literary element known as "intertextuality," or the use of previous texts in a work. To help you recognize some of the intertextuality in "The Boat," do a little "googling." Three important allusions are to the Thomas Hardy character Eustacia Vye, to Moby Dick, and to David Copperfield. Find out something about Eustacia Vye (pay particular attention to her character and how she dies), look up a plot summary of Moby Dick, and find out something about the character Ham Peggoty ( where does he live, and how does he die?) in David Copperfield. You may use Spark Notes or Wikipedia for this, all I want is for you to get a little background. Summarize the main points of what you find in your blog.
The Return of the Native is Thomas Hardy's sixth published novel
Eustacia Vye-A raven-haired young beauty who chafes against her life on the heath and longs to escape it in order to lead the more adventure-filled life of the world. Some of the heathfolk think she is a witch. Hardy describes her as "the raw material of a divinity" whose "celestial imperiousness, love, wrath, and fervour had proved to be somewhat thrown away on netherward Egdon.
Eustacia is a queenly woman who feels sadly out of place on Egdon heath, where everyone considers her an oddity and some of the women are sure she is a witch. She longs to become a 'magnificent woman' and, in pursuit of this goal, persuades herself to fall in love with Clym Yeobright simply because he's a gentlemanly sort who has lived in Paris and, she hopes, might take her there after they are married. However, Clym does not take her to Paris; instead, he goes half-blind through too much study and turns to the lowly occupation of furze-cutting, thus dashing proud Eustacia's hopes. Worse, when she inadvertently helps bring about his mother's death, he turns on her and accuses her of murder and adultery. Unable to bear the identity (whore, murderess, and witch) that her husband and all Egdon Heath seem determined to foist on her, Eustacia drowns herself.
Eustacia dies because she has internalised the community's values to the extent that, unable to escape Egdon without confirming her status as a fallen woman, she chooses suicide. She thereby ends her sorrows while at the same time-by drowning in the weir like any woman instead of floating, witchlike-she proves her essential innocence to the community
------------------------------------------------
Moby-Dick, also known as The Whale, is a novel first published in 1851 by American author Herman Melville. Moby-Dick is widely considered to be a Great American Novel and a treasure of world literature
Ishmael is the narrator (and arguably the protagonist) of the 1851 novel Moby-Dick by U.S. author Herman Melville. It is through his eyes and experience that the reader experiences the story of the ship Pequod, and the fight between Captain Ahab and the white whale. He is a central character in the action in the early part of the novel, essentially fulfilling all the requirements of being a conventional protagonist. After the Pequod leaves Nantucket, he increasingly recedes into the background as a commentator, with his voice approaching that of an omniscient narrator at times, able to see into all parts of the ship and into the private motivations of other characters.
-------------------------------------------------------
David Copperfield
Ham Peggotty - A good-natured nephew of Mr. Peggotty and the fiancé of Emily before she leaves him for Steerforth. He later loses his life while attempting to rescue a sailor, who happens to be Steerforth, from a shipwreck. His death is hidden from his family due to the fact that David does not want them to worry on the brink of their journey.
Ham is Peggotty's nephew, the son of her brother Joe Peggotty, who drowned when Ham was a child. So, Ham is an orphan who has been raised by Mr. Peggotty to follow in his footsteps as a fisherman. Oddly, Ham is also present at David's birth as a young boy: Peggotty had asked her nephew to be on hand to run errands during Mrs. Copperfield's late pregnancy.
Ham dies trying to save the lives of the people stranded on a boat off the coast of Yarmouth during a terrible storm. He dies saving people. And one of the people he tries to save, even though this man has done him nothing but evil, is James Steerforth. It's tough to get more self-sacrificing than this.