Question on Great Expectations

In Chapter 4, one of Mr. Wopsle's statements puzzled me greatly. It says that "'Swine,' pursued Mr. Wopsle, in his deepest voice, and pointing his fork at my blushes, as if he were mentioning my christian name; 'Swine were the companions of the prodigal. The gluttony of swine is put before us, as an example to the young.'" (Dickens, pg. 25)

Prodigal generally means gifted, or at the very least intelligent, yet Mr. Wopsle says the word as if it is a bad thing. Either he is saying that young men should be gluttonous, or his meaning of "prodigal" is entirely different from what I know the word as.

Group Essay Collaboration

     Overall, my essay has not changed very much. I have modified some word choice issues, fixed some grammar, and rectified a bit of punctuation, but my concrete details and commentary remains the same. Assuming all of the others are also unchanged, we shouldn't have too much work to do on Monday.
     Do you think we need to fix up the conclusion? I checked over it again and it looks like it needs to flow a bit better, possibly by adding more transitions. Also, I'm not entirely sure whether one of my concrete details is correctly embedded, as I am unsure how to include dialogue from multiple characters when the source material is a script. Is it all right to just put a set of quotes around each and transition or does that count as two concrete details?

Thanks,

Sherwin

The Dishonesty of Being Earnest

     Throughout The Importance of Being Earnest, all of the characters, Jack and Algernon in particular, lie in the pursuit of pleasure or simply whenever is convenient, with no apparent regard for the sanctity of the truth. Humor, mostly from the perspective of the audience, anyway, is one of the most common reasons for this. The Importance of Being Earnest is a comedy, after all, and the antics of the characters are certainly entertaining. At the same time. Many of the epigrams, particularly Algernon's in regard to Bunburying, are demonstrative of this. Lying is viewed as a sort of pastime. On a more serious note, Wilde does use this lying to skewer the social institutions of the time. Marriage, for example, is not quite the holy matrimony it is viewed as traditionally. Rather, the upper classes see it as a possible business opportunity that must be managed with care. Even the title of the play is a joke upon this. While Earnest means "truthful", Ernest, the false name adopted by both Jack and Algernon at various times, is anything but. And this particular untruth is used in the pursuit of pleasure, the common goal of all the lies. The characters are not lying to help the common good; they are in it for themselves. Their dishonest world is also a rather lonely one.

     Wilde seems to be telling two different messages about lies, if one wishes to read something deeper into his play which entertains on the surface. On one hand, the characters are not apparently punished by their lies. By the end of the play, all of the characters are married off, a butler, or Lady Bracknell, the nominal villain of the piece. However, Jack and Algernon, whose lies are the greatest of the lot, and Miss Prism, who has her own secrets, do not achieve their goals until each has come clean about their untruths. Wilde might be interpreted as saying that lying, while not a deadly sin, is still an obstacle in the way of true communication.

Animal Farm Project Evaulations

Conor Mcavity
Artwork
 I thought his artwork was moderately effective at conveying the points, particularly the modified commandments. On the other hand, it was difficult to tell the pigs apart and the use of X's seemed rather heavy-handed in conveying a message.

Aaron Burress
Artwork

Aaron's use of a continuous cycle and some of the more subtle references he used (Monty Python peasants, for example) gave it a humorous air. The only negative comment I might have is how the image borders look rather badly edited, creating a collage effect.

Leah Dornfeld
Comic

I liked how the comic literally translated the subtext behind the pig's messages and how the art used portrayed the animals effectively without overdoing it. My only criticism is that the text size is a bit difficult to read.

Reagan
Poem

I liked how the poem incorporated all periods of the cycle of Animal Farm and how it ultimately spelled out tyranny. The poem itself had a bit of flow problem at times, but this was not a major problem.

Will and Paul
Comic

The visuals in the comic were very well drawn, but the "shutterstock" label and a very short strip were rather annoying.

Poop. (There's no name on the blog, so I have no idea)
Artwork

There appears to be a Paint drawing of a sideways farmhouse being rained on, but it's kind of difficult to tell, and there's no explanation given anywhere.

Kayla
Artwork

The project was very original in comparing the pyramid of the animal awards vs. the actual classes used. The only complaint I might have is the image size, which is a bit small.

Katie
Artwork

There was a bit more thought put into this Paint drawing, but once again it's really hard to tell what's going on through the picture alone.

Sean
Comic

Sean seemed to have put a lot of effort into making such a long comic strip, and the image and flow is very good. However, the comic doesn't appear to reflect anything more than exactly what the book says.

Ting
Poem

The poem was moderately well done, but there did not seem to be much structure to the poem. The ideas were presented fairly well, but the poem seemed to be almost trying too hard in an attempt to fit everything in without saying much about any particular topic.

I think that I did fairly well with my project. Overall, it appeared that the presented projects were a bit better than the various form of artwork in ability to speak ideas. I think that, given a bit more time, I could have added more to the project or incorporated a few more musical effects, but the idea at its core was good, so the project turned out well. I definitely put in the time and effort; my project took at least three hours, and probably more.

Animal Farm Project

The video is a radio drama created to reflect the events leading up to and the banning of Beasts of England. The animals sing the song in a depressed, melancholy tune, reflecting how reality is not living up to their ideals of revolution. However, they are cut off by the pigs and Squealer propagandizes an explanation of why the song has been banned, hiding their true reasons. Following this, Minimus recites the replacement, the poem "Comrade Napoleon." In the background, a beat may be heard, representing the frustration of the animals towards their new dictators and about their readiness, which never comes to fruition in the novel but is hinted at the end, for a second revolution.



Sherwin

My Brother, The Artist, At Seven

is the title of the poem, by Richard Levine, which I have chosen. Of all the poems I looked through for Poetry Out Loud, many were interesting and well written, and many more were not. However, none of them quite connected the way this poem did. So as to not confuse the reader, here's the poem in its entirety:

As a boy he played alone in the fields   

behind our block, six frame houses   

holding six immigrant families,   

the parents speaking only gibberish   

to their neighbors. Without the kids   

they couldn't say "Good morning" and be   

understood. Little wonder   

he learned early to speak to himself,   

to tell no one what truly mattered.   

How much can matter to a kid   

of seven? Everything. The whole world   

can be his. Just after dawn he sneaks   

out to hide in the wild, bleached grasses   

of August and pretends he's grown up,   

someone complete in himself without   

the need for anyone, a warrior   

from the ancient places our fathers   

fled years before, those magic places:   

Kiev, Odessa, the Crimea,   

Port Said, Alexandria, Lisbon,   

the Canaries, Caracas, Galveston.   

In the damp grass he recites the names   

over and over in a hushed voice   

while the sun climbs into the locust tree   

to waken the houses. The husbands leave   

for work, the women return to bed, the kids   

bend to porridge and milk. He advances   

slowly, eyes fixed, an animal or a god,   

while beneath him the earth holds its breath.

 

     It's a bit lengthy, which is why I initially wasn't sure whether I wanted to read it, but it strikes a deep chord 

with me. Where I originally lived, we had a large (or so it seemed when I was five or six, anyway) backyard 

built on a gently sloping hill, with a small lawn and a gazebo at the bottom. This backyard was the subject of 

the many adventures my brother and I conducted exploring this strange, alien landscape. We had named almost 

every conceivable part of the landscape: the small downhill between the trees was a waterfall, the gazebo had a 

giant oracular snake inside, the small stone chair was a portal to another world, the sandy, secluded, part of the 

hill was a cliff prone to rockslides, the climbing tree granted powers to us small children, and the front yard was 

in reality a massive maze filled with strange creatures. We would craft elaborate morality plays in this landscape, 

mostly concerning random elements of whatever we had read or seen recently. And so the boy in the poem who 

the author describes with such fondness could really be myself, looking back on my childhood in the backyard.

     Another element of the poem which I felt fondness for were the lines about the immigrant families and their

neighbors. Like the poem's author, my parents immigrated, in his case from Russia, in mine from Iran, but I have

had the experience of having to translate what my parents heard into names that others understand enough times 

that it has become almost whimsical for me. These shared experiences form the reason why I have chosen "My 

Brother, the Artist, at Seven" for Poetry Out Loud.

Poetry Out Loud

Medusa, by Louise Bogan
Anne Rutledge, by Edgar Lee Masters
It was not Death, for I stood up, by Emily Dickinson
In Praise of Pain, by Heath McHugh
Famous, by Naomi Shihab Nye
Fairy-tale Logic, by A.E. Stallings
My Brother, the Artist, at Seven, by Philip Levine

Out of these poems, I liked "Fairy-tale logic," "It was not Death, for I stood up," "in Praise of Pain,"  "Famous," and "My Brother, the Artist, at Seven." I liked these as they communicated a unique emotional meaning that I could relate to myself.


I did not like "Medusa," or "London" as they seemed overly archaic, or "Anne Rutledge," as I thought it tried to be too patriotic.

Out of these, I would probably choose My Brother, the Aritst, at Seven, as it was most interesting to me and was long enough that I would consider reciting it. Personally, this poem reminded my of time in my backyard, exploring imaginary worlds. The imagery of immigrants speaking gibberish without their children to translate also rings especially in my memory.

Looking at the audience and avoiding over-acting will probably be fairly easy for me, as my eyes tend to wander naturally when I am speaking, and because hand motions are not something I use subconsciously.

Proceeding at a natural and fitting pace may be difficult for me, as I tend to speak quickly. Also, relaxing and enjoying the poem may also be hard, because I become nervous fairly easily.

I watched Danse Russe, recited by William Farley, and was impressed by his facial expression, as it matched the tone of the poem extremely well, as well as his occasional but fleeting use of gesture, which provided accentuation without overdramatising the poem.
I also watched I Am Waiting, recited by Madison Niermeyer. The recitation was successful in large part because the reciter's tone maintained a balance between ironic and expressive.


     I think I will choose to recite My brother, the artist, at seven, and am also looking forward to the competition and hearing the poems everyone has chosen. I chose my poem because of its meaning to myself, length, and vivid imagery. As for the website where I found it, I found it well-designed and easy to navigate, thankfully. A descriptor of the poems by category or subject matter may have helped with finding a poem, however.


 - Sherwin