Book Summaries

THE AMERICAN DREAM

Author: Edward Albee

Setting:  An apartment

Major Characters

·         Mommy- Mommy is an overbearing and odious woman, who plays the most violent and despicable role in the play.  She frequently emasculates her husband, and is suggested to have mutilated her child.

·         Grandma- Grandma serves as the voice of reason and the narrator of the play.  She is the only character to break the 4^th wall and speak directly to the audience.  She is also the only character who is even remotely likable.  Grandma represents the image of the “old” American Dream.

·         Daddy- Daddy, after years of living with Mommy, has been beaten into a former pulp of a man.  He relies completely on his berating wife, no longer able to act for himself.

·         Mrs. Barker- Mrs. Barker comes from an Adoption Service to Mommy and Daddy’s apartment.  Although attempting to do good, Mrs. Barker is a bit slow to pick up on what is really happening.

·         Young Man- The Young Man represents the idea of the “new” American Dream.  He is beautiful on the outside, but lacks anything deeper.

Plot Overview

                The play begins with Mommy and Daddy, sitting in their apartment, discussing a mystery “they” who has been keeping them waiting.  Finally, Mrs. Barker arrives.  Mrs. Barker is from an adoption agency.  Mommy and Daddy have called her to their home in order to get some “satisfaction”.  Grandma enters, constantly bickering with Mommy, who often threatens to have her taken away if she does not behave, and garnering occasional weak support from Daddy.  Eventually, Grandma tells a story to Mrs. Barker suggesting that Mommy and Daddy once had a baby, and killed it, in an attempt to prevent the same fate from befalling another child.  The Young Man enters, toward the end of the play, looking for some kind of work.  He talks about a feeling of emptiness that he has felt his whole life, suggesting that he may be the twin of Mommy and Daddy’s original child.  Mommy decides that the Young Man will do nicely in place of a baby, and Grandma decides to end the story, while everyone is satisfied.

Style/Theme

                Since The American Dream is a play, it is difficult for Albee to inject his own voice into the story as a novelist could.  He is not a hands on playwright, avoiding the extensive use of stage directions.  The tone of the play is a bit sarcastic.  It is as if Albee is mocking our way of life, especially given his symbols.  Grandma and the Young Man are symbols representing contrasting views of the American Dream.  The Young Man is the concept we accept today.  He is attractive on the inside, but empty below the surface.  He represents an ideal that is based only on surface appearance.  Grandma, though weathered and old, is deep.  She has meaning.   The tone and major symbols work with some rather graphic images of the horrors Mommy and Daddy committed as well as the general feeling the characters give off to aid the theme.  Albee is pointing out how meaningless our goals, and therefore our lives are.

Quotes:
“You just can’t get satisfaction” – Nobody in the play can be satisfied, because they are living lives without depth or meaning

“you are the American Dream” – Grandma says this to the Young Man, acknowledging that a shiny exterior with no depth is what the American Dream has become.

“I am incomplete, and I must therefore… compensate” – Our new way of life is worthless.  We cannot be complete simply buying things and not working hard

DEATH OF A SALESMAN

Author: Arthur Miller

Setting: Willy’s house, in 1940s Brooklyn

Major Characters:

·         Willy Loman- Willy, a salesman, is past his prime.  As his mind decays, Willy is further at odds with his family.  Willy’s strained relationship and failed attempts to attain the American Dream lead to his eventual demise.

·         Biff Loman- Biff is Will and Linda’s son.  Although he longs to work outdoors in California, he returns home to help his parents, who are struggling financially.  Biff and Willy have a very strained relationship.

·         Linda Loman- Linda is married to Willy, and constantly tries to make peace between her husband and son.  She loves her husband fiercely, and will do anything to avoid embarrassing or hurting him.

·         Happy Loman- Happy is Willy’s other son.  Happy is chiefly ignored by his father, and frequently tries to gain attention by claiming he is going to get married and settle down.

Plot

                Willy comes home from a business trip, and Linda tells him he is too old to travel.  He resolves to ask his boss to give him more work at home in New York, so he won’t have to drive so much.  Meanwhile, Biff and Happy, both now living at home, discuss the old days and their plans now that they are home. The story is told through flashbacks to Biff and Happy’s childhood, when Biff was a football star and Willy was more successful.   It is revealed, as the story moves forward, that Willy did not reach his position through work, but by sleeping with secretaries of clients.  Now that he is older, this system no longer works.  We meet several secondary characters, such as Willy’s brother Ben.  Willy tells us that Ben went to Africa and made his fortune there.  We also meet Charlie and Bernard, Willy and Biff’s opposites.  Charlie works hard, and encourages his son to do the same, leading to the success of their family.  Willy, on the other hand, gets fired from his job.  Biff tries to straighten out his life, visiting an old boss with a business proposal, but panics, steals something, and leaves.  Biff and Willy fight so much that it almost destroys the family.  Finally, Willy sees that the only way out of his debt is to die.  He crashes his car for the insurance money, freeing his family from the burden of his debt, and himself.

Style/Theme

                Arthur Miller is more controlling than Albee.  He provides a lot of stage directions, leaving less up to the actors and director.   Miller’s tone is honest.  He does not tiptoe around painful subjects in Willy’s life, keeping his audience as informed as possible given the unreliable protagonist.  An important symbol is that of the seeds.  Willy is constantly talking about planting seeds in his empty garden.  This simple desire is symbolic of Willy’s need to put down roots and have something meaningful in his life.  Although he strives desperately to reach the American  Dream, part of him realizes the emptiness in his existence.  His desire for meaning manifests itself in the simple planting of seeds.  Overall, Miller is pointing out the uselessness of the current American Dream, and the improper methods we use to achieve it.

Quotes:

“Nothing’s planted.  I don’t have a thing in the ground.” – Willy’s desire to plant some trees reveals his need for something real.  They have no roots, nothing real to hold onto in their lives, because of the fruitless and fake American Dream the Lomans have been chasing.

“well liked” –Willy seems to think you do not need to work hard or be smart to succeed. All you need is to be popular.  This shows how meaningless the new American Dream is.

CEREMONY

Author: Leslie Marmon Silko

Setting:  The story jumps around in time, but is mainly set right after World War II

Major Characters:

·         Tayo- Tayo is the protagonist of the novel.  He is half white, and half Native American.  Because of this, Tayo is never fully accepted in either world.  After coming home from war, Tayo is sick and confused.  He must find himself in order to save his people.

·         Betonie- Betonie is the only medicine man who is capable of helping Tayo.  He uses a combination of the new world and old world to help his patient.

·         Ts’eh- Tayo meets and falls in love with Ts’eh.  It turns out, however, that she is a manifestation of the spirit of the land, and not a real person.  She represents the necessity of man’s connection with nature.

·         Auntie- Auntie is Tayo’s caretaker, and a staunch believer in old-world Native American society.  Anything new or pertaining to whites is wrong.  She has treated Tayo as an outsider in his own home throughout his entire life, because he is half white.

·         Emo- Emo represents all that is wrong with the world.  He is simply an evil man, who enjoys killing and hatred.  He is the main tangible antagonist in the story.

Plot

                Tayo is just returning home from his time in the hospital after his tour of duty during World War II.  Through a series of flashbacks and circular stories, the audience learns about Tayo’s childhood and family.  His brother, Rocky, the light of his Aunt’s life, is killed in the war.  We also meet some other Native Americans who fought in the war with Tayo.  There are those that are Tayo’s friends, such as Harley, and those that are not, namely Emo.  All are alcoholics, using liquor to quell the sickness they and Tayo are struck by.  It seems like nobody can help Tayo.  The white doctors did nothing.  The Laguna elders cannot help him.  Finally, Betonie, a medicine man combining elements of white society and Laguna culture tells Tayo he must complete a ceremony in order to get better.  In the process of the ceremony, Tayo meets Ts’eh.   The only times Tayo seems truly content are when he is with this woman.  Although not directly stated, it is accepted that Ts’eh is not a real woman, but nature.  The story ends with Tayo completing the ceremony, ending the drought in the Laguna land and restoring order to the world.

Style/Theme

                The story is mostly told in the 3^rd person, with a solemn tone.  There is a somewhat dark air hanging over the novel, although its relatively optimistic ending helps it to appear a bit hopeful.  Images are an important part of this novel, as vivid descriptions of nature are common.  Silko emphasizes the importance of a connection to nature through her portraits of natural scenes.  Symbolism is also heavily used, especially in reference to color.  Yellow often references the sun, an important part of Laguna culture.  Ts’eh herself is also a symbol, once again referencing nature.  The connections to the natural world combined with these other techniques all help Silko to make her main point.  We must embrace the past as well as look forward to the future in order to succeed. 

Quotes:

“Sunrise” – The novel begins and ends with this word.  It shows that everything comes full circle, and that stories just begin again.

“’It seems like I already heard these stories before- only thing is, the names sound different’”- Once again, everything comes full circle.  Everything and everyone is related because they have all experienced the same stories.

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE

Author: Jane Austen

Setting: around 1800 in England

Major Characters:

·         Elizabeth Bennet- Elizabeth is smart and attractive, although not as pretty as her sister, Jane.  She is the most independent of the novel, and decides that she would rather not marry at all than marry for a reason other than love.

·         Jane Bennet- Jane is known for her beauty, and is softspoken.  She is the oldest girl in her family, and maintains a romance with Mr. Bingley throughout the novel. 

·         Mr. Darcy- Mr. Darcy is very, very rich.  He is Elizabeth’s love interest, although at first the two do not get along.  He is very smart, but also very judgmental, not unlike his future wife.

·         Mr. Bennet- Despite loving all of his daughters, Elizabeth is clearly Mr. Bennet’s favorite.  He has a good sense of humor, and enjoys riling his wife up. He is a rather hands-off father.

·         Mrs. Bennet- Mrs. Bennet is a seen as a frivolous character, whose only concern is marrying her daughters off.  She is flustered easily and is frequently upset about something or other.

Plot

                The story begins when Jane and Bingley’s courtship does.  As the relationship between Bingley and Jane blossoms, Elizabeth meets Mr. Darcy.  The two immediately dislike each other. Elizabeth thinks he is too proud, and Darcy refuses to dance with her, only confirming her suspicions.  As Jane and Bingley continue to spend time together, Mr. Collins visits the Bennet household.  He proposes marriage to Elizabeth, who, much to her mother’s chagrin, declines.  Elizabeth meets and develops a crush on Mr. Wickham, an enemy of Darcy’s.   Bingley and Darcy return to London, and Mr. Collins marries Charlotte, a friend of Elizabeth’s.  Later, suddenly, Darcy proposes to Elizabeth, who angrily refutes him.  She believes him to be the reason for Jane and Bingley’s deteriorating relationship.  Darcy writes a letter to Elizabeth, explaining his background, which changes her mind about him. On a visit to Darcy’s estate, Elizabeth and Darcy are able to get along well.  Lydia runs away with Wickham, and Darcy is able to convince Wickham to marry her, in order to prevent the Bennet family from being humiliated.  In the end, Jane marries Bingley and Elizabeth marries Darcy.

Style/Theme:

                This novel is written in the 3^rd person, with a comedic tone.  Jane Austen is commenting on society, but in a light, funny way.  There are vivid descriptions in this novel of some of the most pointless things.  Austen could describe the decoration of a room for pages on end, highlighting the frivolousness of the society the Bennets live in.  Pride and Prejudice is not heavy on symbolism.  It does not play into theme as much as other aspects could.  Everything is focused on social standing and money.  Austen is trying to convince us through the ridiculousness of the images and the actions of her characters that love and happiness should be the pursuits of life, not social validation and wealth.

Quotes:

“Vanity and pride are different things”- This makes an important distinction among characteristics Darcy and Elizabeth share.  It is important to take pride in yourself.  We just should not care about what others thing of us

“The business of her life was to get her daughters married”- This quote exemplifies the time.  Women were to be married, and their mothers where to orchestrate it.  They saw nothing else that could even compare in importance.

HAMLET

Author: William Shakespeare

Setting: Denmark

Major Characters:

·         Hamlet- Hamlet is famous for not doing anything.  He agonizes and debates throughout the play, but never actually acts, making him one of literatures most indecisive heroes.  As an audience, we are never sure if Hamlet is insane, or just pretending. 

·         Gertrude- Gertrude is Hamlet’s mother, and the Queen.  Although she loves her son, she eventually chooses her husband over him, and pays the ultimate price for her corruption.

·         Claudius- Claudius, now the king, killed his brother and married his widow.  He is a rather sympathetic villain, with an entire monologue about his regret and worries.  Still, he also pays for his corruption and attempts on Hamlet’s life.

·         Ghost- The Ghost is the spirit of Hamlet’s father.  He tells Hamlet to go and avenge his death.

Plot

                Some guards and Hamlet’s friend, Horatio, see the Ghost, but cannot speak to it.  They tell Hamlet, who follows it the next night.  The Ghost tells Hamlet that he is Hamlet’s father, and that Hamlet must avenge his death.  He claims to have been murdered by his brother, Claudius.  Hamlet promises he will do as the Ghost says.  Meanwhile, Polonius, the King’s advisor, is sending his son, Laertes, back to school.  Before he leaves, Laertes warns his sister, Ophelia, against Hamlet and his intentions.  Polonius does the same.  Ophelia returns gifts Hamlet bestowed upon her to him, and he yells at her.  Hamlet organizes a play to be put on, reenacting his father’s murder to test Claudius.  As predicted, Claudius is alarmed and runs out of the room.  Hamlet then goes to see his mother, and, thinking the King is spying, accidentally kills Polonius.  Claudius organizes to have Hamlet taken away to England and killed, but Hamlet outsmarts the messengers escorting him and is taken back to Denmark by pirates.  Ophelia, possibly pregnant and mad, drowns herself just after Laertes returns to Denmark.  Laertes and Claudius devise a plan to kill Hamlet, but Laertes realizes the King’s wickedness and reveals the plot.  In the end, Hamlet, Claudius, Gertrude and Laertes all die, leaving Denmark to the outside, pure rule of Fortinbras.

Style/Theme

                The tone of Hamlet is very dark.  The element of uncertainty that is prevalent throughout the play makes the reader very uneasy, adding to an overall ominous feeling.  An important symbol in the novel is Hamlet’s friend’s skull.  In the graveyard, as it is dug up, Hamlet grabs it, and then begins contemplating death.  Death is something we are all uncertain about.  Nobody knows what happens when you die.  This further elaborates on the idea of uncertainty hovering over the play.  All of the elements can relate to this uncertain theme that Shakespeare was so interested in.  Shakespeare asks us how we can ever be certain of anything, casting doubt on what exactly is right and what is wrong.

Quotes:

“Something is rotten in the state of Denmark” – This line foreshadows the corruption and uncertainty that is to follow.  It also projects an image of death, as in, a corpse rotting, another theme in the play.

“All that lives must die” – Death is inevitable.  Nobody can avoid it, and nobody understands it completely.  This is a common bond we all share, and a fear we all maintain, a fear of the unknown.

FIFTH BUSINESS

Author: Robertson Davies

Setting: Begins 1908 in Canada, spans a lifetime

Major Characters:

·         Dunstan Ramsay- Dunstan is narrating the novel, attempting to justify his life to the headmaster of the school he taught at.  He acknowledges his role as a “Fifth Business” in life.

·         Mary Dempster- Dunstan is in love with Mary beginning at age 10.  She is not all “there”, and eventually is put in an insane asylum

·         Percy Staunton- Percy is Dunstan’s childhood friend.  Although he and Dunstan have their ups and downs, he does help Dunstan out of a financial crisis.

·         Paul Dempster- Paul is Mary’s son, and Dunstan feels responsible for his birth.  He eventually becomes a magician.  Dunstan taught him many magic tricks as a child.

·         Liesl Vitzlipützli- Liesl is a wise, but unattractive woman.  She plays the essential role of labeling Dunstan as a “Fifth Business”.

Plot

                The story begins with Dunstan ducking a snowball that hits Mary Dempster, inducing the birth of her son Paul.  Dunstan, Mary, and Paul are forever linked. Dunstan later becomes Mary’s caretaker, and travels with Paul when Paul grows up and becomes a magician.  Percy and Dunstan, although not always cordial, are locked together forever, each affecting the others’ life.  Dunstan describes his entire life in the book, chronicling numerous adventures and encounters.  Essentially, however, the novel is a search for self, something Dunstan never quite finds.

Style/Theme

                The novel is a 1^st person narrative, with a rather wry tone.  Dunstan is clever, and he knows it.  He does not hesitate to let that show in his descriptions of people, places, and events.  Mary Dempster is clearly a Virgin Mary-esque symbol. At one point, she sleeps with a tramp, and years later it turns out that this reformed his life.  She is small and child-like, and delivers a baby with a struggle.  Mary is a religious symbol that suggests a kind of synchronicity in the world.  History, stories, and myths are all the same.  Be it religion or a bedtime story, plot elements are eerily connected in a kind of way that cannot be an accident.  Davies suggests that the universe has an order, and morality can be guided by everyone having a place in the world.

               

Quotes:

“You must get to know your personal devil” – This is a quote dealing with the idea that we must all face the same challenges.  Whether you want to call it religion, coincidence, or synchronicity, we are all connected by the things that can lead us astray from our roles in life and morality.

“We all think of ourselves as stars” – Nobody wants to believe that he is unimportant.  Dunstan advocates, in a way, realizing when you are not important as a way of gaining meaning.

Open Prompt Revision 4

1990. Choose a novel or play that depicts a conflict between a parent (or a parental figure) and a son or daughter. Write an essay in which you analyze the sources of the conflict and explain how the conflict contributes to the meaning of the work. Avoid plot summary.

                Every family has conflict.  In Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller, the conflict between Willy and his son, Biff, is extreme. Miller uses literary techniques to describe and explain the father-son rift, and then uses the broken relationship to show what problems in society.

                Miller’s details and use of foils showcase Willy’s lack of parental skills.  Willy loves his sons.  The problem is that Willy provides awful advice to his children.  Willy’s foil, Charley, shows this.  Willy tells Biff to blow off school.  Charley tells his son, Bernard, to study hard.  Willy laughs at his son’s theft.  Charley teaches Bernard right from wrong.  These differences shown in the past affect the lives Biff and Bernard create.  Miller provides impressive details about Bernard’s life.  He is successful, and is even off about to argue a case in front of the Supreme Court.  Clearly, Charley’s advice was effective.  It follows naturally that Willy’s, being opposite, was not.  Biff resents Willy’s poor parenting. This is the root of the strain on Biff and Willy’s relationship. 

                Miller uses Willy’s incompetence to highlight societal problems.  Willy believes that the key to success is being well liked.  The reader is forced to examine the world to find the root of this belief.  Miller is telling us through Biff and Willy’s dysfunctional relationship that society is superficial.  All we care about is popularity, and about exteriors.  We don’t care what’s underneath.  That is why Willy’s appliances are always falling apart: quality.  Nobody in today’s world cares about quality.  Willy represents many people.  American society as a whole believes that you don’t have to work, you can skate by if people like you.  Miller sees something wrong in this fact, and showcases it through Wily and Biff’s dysfunctional relationship. 

Open Prompt Revision 3

2007. In many works of literature, past events can affect, positively or negatively, the present activities, attitudes, or values of a character. Choose a novel or play in which a character must contend with some aspect of the past, either personal or societal. Then write an essay in which you show how the character's relationship to the past contributes to the meaning of the work as a whole.

Soldiers return home with mental and physical scars.  Jake Barnes in Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises must deal with his physical handicap and feelings of hopelessness, each preventing him from being with the woman he loves, Brett.  Jake lives in the past, before his time in the army, unable to advance.  Hemingway argues through use of detail, language and diction that war holds us back from progress.

                Hemingway creates an air of uselessness surrounding everything in his work.  He is particularly famous for his use of language in conveying a sense of hopelessness.  The dialogue between Hemingway’s characters, especially in this novel, is very basic, and very ambiguous.  Jake and Brett appear to be discussing nothing at all.  They talk in circles, discussing the most mundane topics.  This creates a feeling that nothing matters.  Lack of details contributes to this established feeling as well.  We are never told explicitly what Jake’s injury is.  This deliberate vagueness contributes to the uselessness.  Lacking details and specific language are confusing and upsetting.   

                Once the reader is convinced nothing has meaning, Hemingway creates some, using the specific event that ruined his characters’ lives: war. The reader accepts this easily, desperate for something to cling to.   All of Jake’s problems trace back to the battles he was a part of.  After drawing a connection between the hopeless feelings and war, Hemingway can easily assert that war is bad.  The reader already feels pity for Jake and his friends.  Once a cause is given to the situations the characters live in, the reader has no problem despising it.  Hemingway makes the reader believe that war is wrong.

Open Prompt Revision 2

 1970 Also. Choose a work of recognized literary merit in which a specific inanimate object (e.g., a seashell, a handkerchief, a painting) is important, and write an essay in which you show how two or three of the purposes the object serves are related to one another.

People often lack appreciation for a simple portrait.  In The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, a portrait is central to the story, arguably as important as any of the characters. The title object serves to remind Dorian Gray of his moral decay as well as ultimately destroy him.  These purposes combine to convey Wilde’s message about the dangers of beauty.

The painting acts as a portal of truth.  In the world in which Dorian lives, everything appears fine.  Dorian is a young, handsome man.  He attends fancy parties, falls in love, and has good friends.  However, through Wilde’s use of imagery, the painting allows us to peel back the shiny exterior of Dorian’s life and see what lies beneath.  Really, Dorian’s “soul grows sick”.  Although he stays beautiful, his moral wrongs manifest themselves in the painting.  It grows old and hideous.  Wilde’s description makes readers shudder just thinking about the twisted lips and fiery eyes of Dorian’s portrait. 

                Even Dorian is unnerved by his painting.  At first, Mr. Gray hides his painting.  As time passes and Dorian grows more evil, he begins to delight in the painting.  The physical manifestation of his evil is something only a truly corrupt person can enjoy.  This signals that the innocent Dorian Gray is gone.  Finally, remembering the horror it had once caused him, Dorian decides not to let a painting control him.  Why had he not destroyed it years ago?    Diction gives the final scene an ominous air.  As Gray plunges a knife through the painting, the evil flows back into him.  Dorian is replaced by a dead old man.

                The portrait of Dorian Gray serves to document evil and to kill it.  These meanings are not independent of each other.  Dorian destroyed the painting in an attempt to erase evidence of his evil.   In destroying it, he destroyed himself. Despite his external beauty, Dorian Gray was not attractive on the inside.  Wilde, through purposes created by diction and imagery, is saying that beauty really is only skin deep

Open Prompt Revision 1

2002. Morally ambiguous characters -- characters whose behavior discourages readers from identifying them as purely evil or purely good -- are at the heart of many works of literature. Choose a novel or play in which a morally ambiguous character plays a pivotal role. Then write an essay in which you explain how the character can be viewed as morally ambiguous and why his or her moral ambiguity is significant to the work as a whole. Avoid mere plot summary.

While watching shows such as Dexter or House, deciding whether to root for or to oppose the morally ambiguous main character is a struggle.  In Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, the reader enters a love-hate relationship with the protagonist, Raskolnikov.  Dostoyevsky first draws the reader into the complex mind of his main character, and then uses this conflicted individual to make the reader question the validity of a black and white world.

The reader finds Raskolnikov in two opposite situations, solidifying his status as morally ambiguous.  First, Raskolnikov murders an old woman and her sister. Dostoyevsky chooses words that make the reader cringe, almost able to feel Raskolnikov’s axe crashing down on the heads of his victims.  The reader is sure this man must be evil.  How could anyone who commits such a crime be anything short of a monster?  Then, Raskolnikov is shown in a new light.  After receiving a letter from his mother and sister, the softer side the protagonist comes out.   Though just pages before, the reader was sure Raskolnikov was not even human, now he seems capable of love. .

Raskolnikov’s moral ambiguity makes the reader question definitions.   Raskolnikov cannot be pigeon-holed into the category of “hero” nor “villain”, casting doubt on other labels.  What is wrong?  Yes, murder is labeled “wrong”, but who decides on these labels? Maybe the murder of Alyona Ivanovna, the old pawnbroker, was not a crime, but a good deed.  After all, this wealthy old woman was bitter and useless.  Raskolnikov states that he intends to use her money for good.  He could give it to the poor, or use it to finance his education.   Further, Raskolnikov justifies his action by asserting that all “great men” must remove obstacles in order to become great, often equating himself with Napoleon.  Christopher Columbus slaughtered large numbers of Native Americans, and modern society named a day after him.  How is this different than Raskolnikov’s “crime”?

Main Concept 4: Meaning

The ultimate question is the "so what?" question.  Everything we have done in class, and all of the previous main concepts feed into this one.  We are trying to figure out meaning and messages in literature.  It is what we do for every closed prompt, along with all of the open ones.  Meaning is what we search for in every novel, play and poem.  Everything  boils down to meaning.

Main Concept 3: Interpretation

We have spent a lot of time in this course discussing others' interpretations of texts.  Every time a director turns a book into a movie, he is interpreting it.  For example, we watched several different versions of Hamlet in class.  Although each movie followed the same basic plot line, little bits here and there were changed.  Shakespeare himself changed the original Hamlet, altering names and adding in concepts.  How each author or director chooses to interpret a text changes the message.  Additionally, during class discussions, each individual has his or her own interpretation of the text.  The goal of the course was to mesh all of the different interpretations of the texts into one conclusion.

Main Concept 2: Arguments

Learning about the structure of an argument has been a large part of this course.  There are two sides of this concept.  First, there are arguments that other authors write.  We had to learn to dissect an argument, finding the evidence and understanding what exactly the writer is trying to say.  Then, come arguments that we must write.  Our arguments must be clear and concise, without any excess words.  Plain style arguments are key on the AP, because there is so little time to construct an essay.

Main Concept 1: Techniques

This course focused majorly on techniques in writing, and what those techniques can express to a reader.  This includes DIDLS, novel terms, drama terms, comedy terms, and any of the other techniques authors use.  For example, we discussed multiple types of repetition in class.  Each of these types can express something different to the reader, and emphasize an alternate part of a sentence.  Being able to recognize literary techniques is an essential part of reading anything, and will be vital during the AP test, the test that the entire class aims to prepare us for.