Since the last Response to Course Material we have talked a lot about Death of a Salesman.  I found it really interesting to watch the movie as a first close reading and then read the play.  There are things that I noticed viewing the movie that I may not have if I had just read the story.  Movies help to emphasize certain aspects of a play that I wouldn't have placed such importance on. For example, in the movie, I noticed that the walls of Willy's house were not really walls.  The family obeyed them as if they were strict, conventional walls, except during Willy's flashbacks.  Then they passed through the "walls" freely.  This is mentioned briefly in the stage directions, but I'm not sure I would have noticed had I not seen the film. Of course, the movie is just one director's interpretation, but I think it is helpful to gather as many different views on a story as possible.

"How About Better Parents?"
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/20/opinion/sunday/friedman-how-about-better-parents.html?_r=1&ref=opinion

This article, by Thomas Friedman, attempts to convince the readers that we place the blame for American children's low test scores in the wrong place.  Friedman establishes a confident and matter of fact tone, and through diction, details and syntax is able to make the reader see that teachers are not the only factor in education.

Diction:  Friedman uses strong word choice.  Words such as "thrive" and "achievement" show that the author is intelligent. They are strong, 5 dollar words that make Friedman seem trustworthy.  Obviously he must know what he is talking about, after all, he is using such smart words.  The readers are suddenly open to whatever it is Friedman has to say, because they trust him.

Details: Friedman proves very specific numbers that prove his point.  He includes that children who have parents who read to them score 14 points higher on their PISA tests.  That seems like quite a significant chunk to the audience.  Though we have no scale by which to measure how much 14 points really is, that number seems significant in its own right.  It gives clout to the author's point.  Though we know nothing about the study except what Friedman tells us, the fact that he has any sort of physical data makes us believe what he tells us.

Syntax:  Friedman uses rhetorical questions such as "How do we know?" to make his readers really THINK about what he is saying.  It helps to involve the reader, in the author's argument, making the audience really feel as if it is a part of the article.  When Friedman makes a suggestion, the reader almost feels as if he came up with the idea himself.

Overall, Friedman is very successful in conveying meaning.  He establishes a matter of fact, competent tone, and weaves the reader into his argument.  All of this helps him to convince us that parents are just as important, if not more so, as teachers in a child's education.

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.  However, in the play Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller, the conflict between Willy and his son, Biff, is more extreme than most.  Although a Biff’s discover of his father’s infidelity triggers the downfall of the relationship, the two have problems that are much deeper and date back much further.  Miller uses literary techniques to describe and give reason to the father-son rift, and then uses the broken relationship to show his audience what is wrong with how we live our lives.

                Miller provides his audience with details and makes good use of a foil in order to show just how terrible of a father Willy is.  It is not that he doesn’t love his sons.  The problem, however, is that Willy is always giving his sons terrible advice, as made evident through use of a foil, Charley.  Willy tells Biff to blow off school, and to be well liked.  Charley tells his son, Bernard, to study hard.  Willy laughs at his son’s theft.  Charley teaches Bernard right from wrong.  Willy and Charley are quite obviously opposite.  These differences shown in the past culminate in the lives Biff and Bernard created for themselves.  Miller provides us with very impressive details about Bernard’s life.  He is clearly successful, and Miller tells us he is off to argue a case in front of the Supreme Court.  Clearly, Charley’s advice was good advice.  It follows naturally that Willy’s, being opposite, was not.  Biff resents his father for allowing him to feel so entitled.  He did not think he had to work, and now that he realizes he does, it is almost as if he can’t.  This is the root of the strain on Biff and Willy’s relationship. 

                Miller uses Willy’s incorrect parental guidance to show is what is wrong with society.  Willy believes that the key to success is being well liked.  The reader is forced to examine the world we live in to find the root of this belief.  Miller is telling us through Biff and Willy’s dysfunctional relationship that our society is superficial.  All we care about is popularity, and about things looking nice on the outside.  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 a far greater number of people than just himself.  American society as a whole believes that you don’t have to work hard, you can simply skate by if people like you.  Miller sees something inherently wrong in this fact, and highlights it through Wily and Biff’s dysfunctional relationship. 

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 come back to the United States every day from Afghanistan with scars, both mental and physical.  Jake Barnes in Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises must deal with both the physical handicap his service has left him with in addition to exceeding 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, and is unable to move forward.  Hemingway argues through use of detail, language and diction that war holds us back from progress.

                Hemingway begins by creating an air of uselessness surrounding everything in his work.  He is particularly famous for his language in conveying a sense of hopelessness.  The dialogue between Hemingway’s characters, especially in this novel, is very basic, and very ambiguous.  It sometimes appears as if Jake and Brett are talking about nothing at all.  They go around in circles, talking about what appear to be the most mundane and ordinary topics.  This creates a feeling for the reader that nothing matters.  Details or, more specifically, lack of details contribute to this established feeling.  Though we know Jake cannot be with the woman he loves, we are never actually told exactly what his injury is.  This is because Hemingway never tells us.  This deliberate vagueness is essential in adding to the illusion of uselessness.  It once again makes the reader think nothing matters.  Lacking details and specific language confuse and upset the reader.   

                Once the reader is convinced nothing has meaning, Hemingway swoops in to create some, using the specific event that ruined his characters’ lives: war.  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 claim war is bad.  The reader already feels incredible pity of Jake and his friends.  Once a cause is given to the terrible situations the characters live in, the reader has no problem despising it.  Hemingway convincingly makes the reader believe that war is wrong.

‘Hollywood on Wall Street”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/23/opinion/sunday/bruni-occupy-wall-street-and-hollywood.html?_r=1&ref=opinion

Nobody wants to think of his or herself as a “bad person”.  In particular, those in the public eye tend to make an extra effort to appear “good”.  Frank Bruni discusses celebrities visiting the Occupy Walls Street protests in his article “Hollywood on Wall Street”, suggesting that these people are hurting the movement with their good, rather than helping it.  Using diction and details, Bruni sets the rich and famous apart from the protesters, and then creates the aforementioned meaning using the idea of difference combined with syntax.

                The Occupy Wall Street protesters think of themselves as the 99 percent of the country, so Bruni does everything in his power to place celebrities in the other I percent.  Words such as “lavishly” and “extravagantly” help to convey the idea that celebrities have a lot of money.  These words give the idea not only of extensive wealth, but of excessive wealth.  Bruni creates the effect in the readers’ minds that these people have much more than they actually need.  This is a sharp contrast to the protesters, who base their arguments on a lack of control of money.  Details further isolate people like Kanye West, who made “$16 million or so last year”.  Bruni includes how much money each of the famous people he mentions make, looking very different from the well under $100,000 a year most Americans make.  These techniques force the reader to see the celebrities not as one-of-the-many, but as the hated 1 percent.

                Having established the difference of celebrities, Bruni goes on to couple this with strong statements, making the reader realize the true outcome of celebrities visiting the protests.  After describing the celebrity endorsement of a company that manufactures in China, Bruni asks “How does that serve the jobs-hungry young Americans in Occupy Wall Street’s fold?”  This question has punch, and makes the reader think.  These celebrities are role models.  If, for example, Jennifer Lopez, tells us to buy a certain brand, we probably will.  In this way, she, and people like her, are actually hurting the movement, since it supports an outside company. 

                Celebrities are not like us.  They get up every day and make movies.  They have paparazzi following them around wherever they go.  They have a lot of money.  Bruni does his best to establish this fact in his article.  Given this incredible difference, we see that by attending protests, though genuinely attempting to help, celebrities are doing the opposite.   Bruni leaves the readers thinking that their heroes are, unintentionally, cheapening the plight of the American people.

     In the past few weeks we have done a lot of close reading, particularly with regard to The American Dream.  I find it really interesting to go back and reread the play, because there are so many things that I missed the first time around.  Sometimes, things are brought up in class that I know there was no way in a million years I would have seen originally.  Focusing so much on this play will help me when I read others, along with novels and poetry, in the future.  For example, it was pointed out in class that Albee does not use a lot of stage directions, so the ones that he does add in must be very important.  Stage directions (or lack thereof) were never really something I noticed when reading plays.  Now, I can notice whether or not a playwright puts stage directions in, where he does so, and most importantly, why.  This applies to all the things we noticed while close reading.

 2006. Many writers use a country setting to establish values within a work of literature. For example, the country may be a place of virtue and peace or one of primitivism and ignorance. Choose a novel or play in which such a setting plays a significant role. Then write an essay in which you analyze how the country setting functions in the work as a whole.

The world relies on farmers to provide nutrition for our people and materials for anything from clothes to cigarettes.  In the novel O Pioneers!, Alexandra Bergson, the protagonist, feels a connection to the frontier land she calls her home.  Willa Cather, the author, uses this connection to comment on Alexandra and, eventually, on marriage.

Willa Cather uses literary technique to establish a strong link between her main character and the country setting.  This is done partly through skillful use of diction.  Though the same exact words are not used to describe the woman and her land, Cather chooses words with similar connotations.  These words give the reader a sense of stability and strength, while remaining quiet and calm, all with a positive tone. Imagery is used in a similar fashion.  Cather paints a picture in her readers’ minds of rolling hills and trees waving gracefully in the breeze.  However, imagery further serves to make sure the reader knows the land is not weak.  It can be threatening when mistreated.  Cather shows through vivid description that the land, if it chooses, can wipe out an entire population by refusing to yield crops or giving a particularly harsh winter.  Alexandra is painted in the same way.  She is tall and serene, but will not stand for being crossed. 

The undeniable connection between Alexandra and the land serves as a commentary on all people.  Since the land and Alexandra have been connected in the reader’s mind, any way Cather describes the land or makes it act is automatically translated to Alexandra.  Since Cather thinks of the land and Alexandra well, naturally choices that this character makes are portrayed well. Alexandra chooses self-sufficiency.  She never marries, instead continuing to farm the land and expand her holdings.  Since we as readers like Alexandra, we see this as the right decision.

As Alexandra progresses through life, we see her encountering success, furthering our confirmation that the single, isolated life, living off the land, is the correct choice.  Around Alexandra, husbands and wives struggle, even resulting in the death of Emil, Alexandra’s beloved little brother.  Yet Alexandra, and her beloved country, stand strong.    Cather uses the country setting to show that marriage is not the fairy tale we are told as children.  Self-sufficiency through cultivation of the elegant and sturdy land or some more modern alternative is a much safer, and better, choice.