Ceremony Summary/Analysis

• Summary: Tayo returns to Laguna from a veteran's hospital after partially recovering from post-traumatic stress after WWII. His trauma was brought on by the death of his brother Rocky when they were overseas, his visions of Josiah's death during the war, and the draught he brought upon his people while cursing the rains in the Philippines. He socializes with his old friends who are also veterans; they bury their emotions with drink and reminisce about the war most of the time. As Tayo's condition begins to deteriorate after he gets home, his Grandma sends for Ku'oosh, a Native American medicine man who performs an ancient ceremony for those who have killed others in battle. However, Tayo's situation is very different from anything the Native American culture has ever experienced, due to the white people's involvement in WWII, and the ceremony does not completely cure Tayo. Ku'oosh then sends Tayo to another medicine man in Gallup, a nearby town where racism against Native Americans is very prevalent, named Betonie. Betonie in a way encompasses the collective consciousness embraced by the Native Americans in that his home is filled with collected calendars, phone books, and other various objects. Betonie creates a new ceremony for Tayo, but the ceremony is not all the way complete when Tayo leaves Gallup. Tayo must find the cattle that his late uncle Josiah was encouraged to buy by Night Swan, an older cantina dancer both Josiah and Tayo slept with. Finding these wild cattle was integral to the completion of Tayo's ceremony. Before he begins his journey to find the cattle, however, Tayo momentarily lapses back into the drunken lifestyles of his friends, Harley and Leroy. He then travels to the ranch in search of the cattle, but instead he finds Ts'eh. After a night spent with her, Tayo is able to find his cattle on a white man's ranch and free them. When Tayo collects his cattle and returns home, the drought still harasses his land, and he knows the ceremony is not over. He goes back to his family's ranch and finds, Ts'eh; they spend the summer together. At the end of the summer, Ts'eh warns Tayo that Emo is coming for him, and Tayo is able to escape in time. He hides in an abandoned mine, and it is there that he realizes this is where his ceremony is completed. He must endure the torture of Harley by Emo in order to complete his ceremony. Afterwards, Tayo returns home and Ku'oosh, after hearing about his ceremony, declares Tayo cured.
• Basics:
• Author: Leslie Marmon Silko
• Setting: jungles of south Pacific, American Southwest (Laguna Pueblo)
• Plot:
• rising action: Tayo's search for cattle, his ceremony
• climax: night at the uranium mine, Harley's torture
• falling action: return home, death of many of his friends
• Significant Characters: Tayo (WWII veteran, struggles with inner demons, requires Native American ceremony), Ku'oosh (medicine man of Tayo's village, unable to cure him using traditional ceremonies), Betonie (medicine man of Gallup, creates new ceremony to cure Tayo), Ts'eh (mysterious woman highly associated with nature, not necessarily a single being, but rather someone from Native American belief incarnated as her), Emo (Native American greatly influenced by white evil from the war, kills many of Tayo's "friends")
• Narritive Voice:
• POV: Ceremony is told from a third person POV. The narrator is limited in its omniscience, however, and really focuses on Tayo's inner thoughts and emotions.
• Tone: Silko takes a cultural approach to this story, structuring it with poems from the Native American culture as the backbone of this story. Therefore, the tone conveys the image of sitting with people of Silko's community, sharing stories as part of their tradition.
• Imagery: Silko has filled this book with imagery of nature. She describes every nook and cranny of the arroyos and mountains, and this contributes to the importance of nature in the book and to the Native American culture as a whole. It helps to highlight the theme of the destruction white people bring to the earth.
• Symbolism:
• yellow: important color, symbolizes life in its entirety; can be representing something at the beginning of its lifecycle, or at the end
• hazel eyes: Tayo, Betonie, and Night Swan all have hazel eyes, which seem to represent the mixing of cultures, these characters are the ones who veer away from the very traditional Native American culture, they also seek to be accepted completely by the people of the tribe
• the cattle: show the persistent wild spirit of nature, even though white culture is seeking to destroy it
• stories: show the resilience of the Native American culture, very important for keeping the culture reminded of earlier events; war stories, which infuriate Tayo, are like Native American stories, but mutated by white violence and destruction
• cardinal directions: these directions are associated with almost every natural process or story in the Pueblo culture: weather, seasons, colors, supernatural worlds, ect.
• southwest: direction cattle run, trying to return to roots
• west: associated with the white war (Tayo returns from east Asia/ west coast hospital)
• Quotes:
• " "We've been gathering these things for a long time- hundreds of years. She was doing it before I was born, and he was working before she came. And on and on back down in time." " (111)
• This quote shows the importance of history to the Native American culture. Here, history is collected as stories as well as objects, like calendars and phonebooks. Betonie uses these things to help create a ceremony for Tayo.
• "The old GMC pickup was crushed around them like the shiny metal coffin the Veterans Office bought for each of them." (240)
• Here the destruction of white culture can be seen. The use of "crushed" in reference to the car as well as the coffin suggests the effect of white culture on Native American culture.
• Theme: Ceremony shows us that while there are many powerful evils in the world, adherence to traditional conventions can be used as a guide to return safely to one's roots. While Tayo doesn't use the ceremony that was used in the past, he is able to find one that works for him. This is able to solve the problems that the Native American culture had never experienced. By adding this knowledge to their collective consciousness, they will be flexible enough to withstand the onslaught of white culture. Failure to use traditional conventions is evidenced in death of several of Tayo's friends. Emo is truly evil and actually tortures and kills Harley, which can be seen as a parallel of the destruction of white culture. Leroy dies in a car crash; note the elements of white culture that are used in describing his death (quote above).

*This version takes into account the peer comment.

Death of a Salesman Summary/Analysis

• Summary: Death of a Salesman begins with an exhausted Willy returning from an out of town business trip. Upstairs, Happy and Biff, who are in their 30s but still living with their parents, reminisce about their younger years. Back downstairs, Willy daydreams about the earlier years, when Biff's life still held promise and money didn't seem so tight, however, we can see that things are starting to unravel: Biff is failing math, Willy's mistress makes an appearance, and Linda gets Willy to tell her the truth about his sales trip, which wasn't so successful after all. He lapses into another daydream about a younger Linda. Here Willy expresses his regret of not going with Ben, his older brother, on an adventure to Alaska and Africa, where Ben became rich. In the present, Linda and the two boys come downstairs to try and console Willy, and that is when Happy and Biff discuss going into business together and Willy tells Linda that he will ask for a New York, instead of travelling, sales job in the morning. The act ends on a happy note, with everyone going to bed full of promise. In the morning, Willy visits Howard, his boss, and attempts to ask him for a New York job, but Howard is too preoccupied with a new piece of technology, the wire recorder. This suggestion that Willy is too old fashioned in his methods is only solidified when Howard refuses Willy the job and instead fires him, because he and his job have been eliminated by call centers within the office. After this incident, Willy goes to Charley's office to ask for money before meeting up with Happy and Biff at a nice restaurant. At the restaurant, it is revealed that Biff failed to get a salesman job that day, and after fighting with them, Willy reverts to daydreaming about his mistress. We find out that Willy's affair is the reason for Biff not going to summer school and therefore failing high school. Back at their house, Willy is found in the backyard, in a state of daydreams, planting seeds, which suggest that he wants to start again, or return to nature to "be free". Biff decides to leave the house, and when he tries to bring Willy inside and say goodbye, Willy becomes mad with him. The motif of $20,000 culminates in Willy's suggestion that that amount would be useful to the family, and they could get it from insurance money if he were to die. With that, Willy crashes his car and kills himself. At the funeral, Linda apologizes for not being able to cry, and ends with telling Willy that they are now "free".
• Basics:
• Author: Arthur Miller
• Setting:  Brooklyn, late 1940s
• Significant characters: Willy, Linda (the coddling mother, trying to keep the family together), Happy (searching for his father's approval, even as an adult), Biff (even though he was brought up as a god figure, has failed to live up to expectations), Bernard (realistic, voice of reason, understated success)
• Title significance: the title on the surface obviously suggests Willy's death, but deeper, it shows Willy's desire for a well-attended funeral, which he thinks shows that he was well liked. Unfortunately, his funeral is exactly opposite. His death also represents the death of his dreams as the result of an evolving, capitalistic society.
• Symbolism:
• The flute music: this occurs whenever Willy is having a daydream, suggests peacefulness (at least at the beginning of these daydreams), could also represent the only memories Willy has of his immediate family (i.e. his brother)
• Ben's travels: daring risks that Willy was never able to take, paralleled by Biff's decsion to leave in the end
• New technologies, methods: suggest that the old styles (represented by Willy) are no longer useful, leads to Willy's job loss, commentary on society
• Quotes:
• "Like a young god. Hercules--something like that. And the sun, the sun all around him...and the cheers when he came out--Loman, Loman, Loman! God Almighty, he'll be great yet." (68)
• Here Willy is reminiscing about Biff playing in a football game when he was younger. The God reference calls to attention the fact that, even though he was raised as a Jesus figure, it is too late in life for Biff to fulfill that role. One also questions how valid Willy's declaration of Biff's popularity, seeing as his own popularity is a lie.
• "How the hell did I ever get the idea I was a salesman there?...I realized what a ridiculous lie my whole life has been! We've been talking in a dream for fifteen years." (104) or "The door of your life is wide open!/Pop! I'm a dime a dozen, and so are you!" (132)
• These quote show Biff's disillusionment as he realizes what he was raised to do, and what he has acutally done. However, he fails to get his dad to see the truth he sees.
• Theme: In Death of a Salesman, Arthur Miller is commenting on the evolving and unjust American capitalist society. As a man who put his entire life into his work, Willy loses everything when he loses his job as the result of new technologies. These technologies are brought about by the competitive nature of a capitalist market. With the loss of Willy's job, his dream, essentially the classic American dream, is lost as well. On top of that, his supposed reputation does not recieve conformation, as there is hardly anyone at his funeral. The fact that he dies just for money enforces the power of the capitalist system to control people's lives. Biff represents a character who wants to return to his roots and go back to being a farmer, which still leaves a sense of hope for morals sometime in the future.

*This version takes into account the peer comment.

The American Dream Summary/Analysis

• Summary: This play is basically an afternoon in Mommy and Daddy's apartment. They begin with childish conversations about what Mommy did the day before, and they keep mentioning that they are expecting a visitor, who is late. Grandma is also present, and offers contrast to the Mommy/Daddy characters. Their visitor arrives, and it is Mrs. Barker, a professional woman. Everyone seems to have forgotten key facts about the others, including names. They remain fixated on the subject of Grandma's boxes and the conflicts that branch off of that, including the imminent fact that they will need to have Grandma taken to a nursing home soon. It is evident that Daddy is being harshly emasculated by Mommy. Finally, they begin to remember a story from long ago about Mommy and Daddy's baby that they mutilated, and that is when the Young Man shows up. The Young Man displays a hollow aspect that was created in him when Mommy and Daddy murdered his twin. Grandma ends the play after Mommy and Daddy have decided to take the Young Man into their household by breaking the fourth wall and speaking her final lines to the audience directly.
• Basics:
• Author: Edward Albee
• Setting: average middle-class American living room, mid 1900s
• Significant characters: Mommy (very controlling, demeaning towards Daddy, but still immature and childish), Daddy (even more childish than Mommy, submissive), Mrs. Barker (a professional woman), Young Man (hollow shell left from the murder of his twin), Grandma (relative voice of reason in the play)
• Symbolism:
• Throughout the play, Grandma contrasts heavily with all of the other characters in that she represents the ideals of the old American dream.These ideals include:
• reverence for past experiences
• respect for the elderly
• connection to personal experience
• Mommy, Daddy and Mrs. Barker serve as transition individuals between the old and new American Dreams, and the Young Man represents the new American dream.  New ideals include:
•  materialism
• conformism
• arrogance
• feminism
• Mrs. Barker symbolizes the system to which society adheres. Her role causes the audience to reevaluate if the system should be blindly accepted.
• Quotes:
• "Most people think that when you get so old, you either freeze to death, or you burn up. But you don't." (19)
• Here Grandma can be seen as interpreting the demise of the old American dream. The treatment of Grandma throughout the play is analogous to how the old ideals are being treated by newer societal conventions. The possible Hell reference brings in the fate of the old American dream.
• "I don't know why I bother to take them with me. They don't have much in them... a few images, a little garbled by now... you know... the things one accumulates." (84-85), "I have been drained, torn asunder... disemboweled. I have, now, only my person... my body, my face. I use what I have... I let people love me." (78)
• These two quotes highlight the ideals of the old and new American dreams. While the old focuses more on intangible things such as memories, the new is fixated with material things, like the human form.
• Theme: Albee is offering a commentation on the state of American society and a call for the return to older, less radical values. It is evident that the older values are to be seen as preferable when their characteristics are listed and compared to eachother. Grandma, while an absurdist character, is able to show Albee's point by continually talking about the mistreatment of old people, i.e. the old American Dream. The emasculating and destructive nature of Mommy pushes the negative responses towards the new American Dream.

*This version takes into account the peer comment.

Synthesis IV

       Process of writing a prompt:

1. Analyze the prompt: look for goals, techniques, effects, and meanings; make sure your thesis answers the prompt.
2. Analyze the excerpt: identify meaning, themes, details, techniques.
3. Formulate thesis: should be able to act as topic sentences if the rest of your paper was suddenly "sucked out of existence" (-Holmes); answers the prompt.
4. Write! plain style: concise, direct sentences, not many adjectives/adverbs.

     

Wuthering Heights v. Thrushcross Grange, II

1991. Many plays and novels use contrasting places (for example, two countries, two cities or towns, two houses, or the land and the sea) to represent opposed forces or ideas that are central to the meaning of the work. Choose a novel or play that contrasts two such places. Write an essay explaining how the places differ, what each place represents, and how their contrast contributes to the meaning of the work.

(This version has taken into account the peer comments)

       Authors often emphasize differences in ideas throughout a novel by physically separating the two contrasting groups. In Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange are the settings of two very different series of events that contribute to the range of emotions associated with each place. These emotions, in turn, effect future events that take place at these same houses and reflect the influence of emotions on the course of a person's life.

       Thrushcross Grange is the more benevolent of the two houses. Here, Catherine is transformed into a young lady after gallivanting through the night with Heathcliff. This change shows the more sophisticated nature of Thrushcross Grange and the people inhabiting it, where Wuthering Heights is in a continual state of wild discontent. Later in the novel, Thrushcross Grange is the place where Catherine and Heathcliff carry out their secret love affair, even as Catherine is dying. This setting is where Heathcliff displays his more gentle and sane side, further contributing to the more agreeable nature of Thrushcross Grange.

       Wuthering Heights, on the other hand, is a setting full of drunken rage. All three of the dominating male figures at Wuthering Heights, Mr. Earnshaw, Hindley, and Heathcliff, give in to the lures of gambling and alcohol, leading to unthinkable violence and insanity. Wuthering Heights also plays the role of a prison for various characters; Isabella succeeds in fleeing after 'falling in love' with Heathcliff, and Cathy is able to leave only after being forced to marry Linton per Heathcliff's demand. In general, the emotions of many characters in this novel proceeds in a downward spiral when they spend any great length of time at Wuthering Heights. The imagery used with Wuthering Heights also tends to associate the house with dark weather or colors, furthering its impact on the reader.

       The intense, yet secret, love that Heathcliff displays towards Catherine at Thrushcross Grange explodes in insanity at Wuthering Heights upon her death. This love is a central fixture in Heathcliff's life, and its absence leads to his demise, however slow and violent it may be. The forced love between Cathy and Linton for the sake of Heathcliff's possession of Thrushcross Grange leads to an acceleration of Linton's illness and, later, his death. Note Heathcliff's motive for forcing the marriage: to regain the property where Catherine lived and died. His insanity leads to his extreme actions, all stemming from his acute love for Catherine. As a result of her forced marriage and the death of her father, Cathy retreats into herself, becoming very closed off to the outside world. However, towards the end of the novel, Cathy and Hareton plan to marry on New Year's Day, signifying a new love and new chapter in her life. These tumultuous events would not have occurred without the influence of Heathcliff's extreme emotions created by the two houses and the people who inhabited them.

Synthesis III

       We have spent a lot of time this year with literary terms. Here's some of the tricky ones with examples from Hamlet:

1. paraprosdokian: unexpected ending of a phrase
• "But now, my cousin Hamlet, and my son-" (I,ii,64)
2. paronomasia: use of similar sounding words, often etymological wordplay
• "That we find the cause of this effect,/ Or rather say, the cause of this defect,/ For this effect defective comes by cause" (II,ii,101-103)
3. anadiplosis: repetition of a word or phrase that ends one clause, at the beginning of the next
• "That he is mad, 'tis true: 'tis ture 'tis pity;/ and pity 'tis 'tis true" (II,ii,97-98)
4. chiasmus: crossing parallelism
•  "Thanks, Rosencrantz and gentle Guildenstern./ Thanks, Guildenstern and gentle Rosencrantz" (II,ii,33-34)
5. synecdoche: the use of a part to represent the whole
• "Let not the royal bed of Denmark be/ a couch form luxury and damned incest" (I,v,82-83)
6. epizeuxis: repition of words in immediate succession, for vehemence or emphasis
• "Words, words, words." (II,ii,189)
7. litotes: form of understatement in which the thing is affirmed by stating the negative of its opposite
8. non-sequitur: inference that does not follow from the premise

The Conch Shell, II

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.

(This version has taken into account the peer comments)

       Inamimate objects, such as a flag, can serve a variety of purposes: they can bring people together or represent specific values. In Lord of the Flies by William Golding, the conch shell is an important object discovered upon arrival on the island. The conch shell serves as a signal to bring the group of boys together, an object of power and control, and finally a symbol of order on the island. In this microcosm of society, the conch shell is analogous to money; the source of power in the real world.

       When Ralph and Piggy first arrive on the island, they know that some of the boys from the plane crash must also be on the same island with them. The conch shell serves as a auditory signal to bring the boys together. By blowing the conch, Piggy establishes a common meeting point for the group, which in turn creates a sense of community and identity among the boys. The boys begin to exhibit social tendencies found within the adult world, such as the need for a leader and the resulting tensions from the search for power.

       Piggy remains in possession of the conch because, as a stout boy with health issues, he realizes that his only source of power in that primal microcosm of adult society is the conch. The conch, which brought the boys together, continues to be an object of control. By establishing the precedent of the power of speech in anyone who holds the conch, Piggy hopes to create power for himself in a democratic way as the boys begin the deliberations to find a leader. This can be related to the situation within the adult world, where often the ones with most money and power are heard the most.

       The situation on the island remains relatively organized and orderly as the conch shell remains present. The group of boys go about choosing a leader, allotting specific tasks, and carrying out those tasks without any major problems. The conch, however, loses its vibrancy and power as tensions between groups on the island erupt. With the death of the conch's constant guardian, Piggy, the conch is also shattered and pure animal violence breaks out among the boys. The chaos that ensues is a testament to the conch's role as a symbol of order. We can see this circumstance in modern soceity when money is not of object, in third world countries, for example, and poverty and disease are seen. While money can be a source of corruption, it is also a source of order and growth.

       The conch begins the novel as a signal to bring the boys together through its ability to produce sound. It becomes a object of power, specifically for Piggy, and then is revealed as a symbol of order that, when destroyed, releases a wave of barbarity crashing down on the boys. Overall, the power the conch possesses manifests itself in different forms that create various reactions from the boys throughout the novel. This is unique ability is reflected by the role money plays in adult society.