Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress Test

Choose one of the following, copy the choice on to your blog, and post your response by Thursday, Dec. 13th by midnight. Your grade is based on how specific and detailed you are in your explanation.

1) How is the power of imagination a major theme of the story?

2) Why do you think the author chose to end the novel this way? (Please don't say " to make it more interesting and keep us guessing.")

3) There are many ironies present in the story. Choose one major irony and explain how/why the irony shapes the meaning of the story.

4) If you choose the following and answer the question well, you will receive 10 points extra credit:
In the early chapters of Pere Goriot by Honore Balzac (the same author that the guys read in the novel you are reading), the narrator describes the setting and conditions of early 19th century Paris where the main characters live.

"...in that famous valley of ever-peeeling plaster and muddy black gutters, that valley where suffering is always real and joy very often false, and the everyday turmoil so grim that it is difficult to imagine any castastrophe producing more than a momentary sensation there... A Parisian losing his way here would see nothing but lodging houses and institutions, penury or boredom, old age declining into death, bright youth pressed into drudgrey."

In what ways does Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress relate to this passage from Pere Goriot?

Othello test - Tragic vision

"According to critic Northrop Frye,'Tragic heroes are so much the highest points in their human landscape that they seem the inevitable conductors of the power about them, great trees more likely to be struck by lightning than a clump of grass. Conductors may of course be instruments as well as victims of the divine lightening.' Select a novel or play in which a tragic figure functions as an instrument of the suffering of others. Then write an essay in which you explain how the suffering brought upon others by that figure contributes to the tragic vision of the work as a whole. Avoid plot summary."

Be careful to respond to the prompt--that of tragic vision-- and not just the quotation. You should focus your answer not on Othello, but those effected by his actions and why they are so. What is it in their respective characters that make them part of the tragic vision? Make sure you define in your thesis statement what the tragic vision of this play entails.

Post by Thursday at midnight. I will grade them on Friday. If you don't post, you don't get a grade. Remember, if you use any other source or you paraphrase another source, you will receive a zero.

Evil Blog #12

Do you believe that people can be born innately evil or is evilness something that is learned? By evil, I mean any act that is mean-natured, cruel, and/or intentionally harmful either physically or mentally.

Post is due by Nov. 28th.

What's love got to do with it? Blog #11

Song of Solomon is all about love. What makes love so complex?

With knowledge comes suffering Blog #10

Song of Solomon is a novel about many things. For the main characters who are young when the story begins, the novel is a coming of age story. Milkman, Guitar, Corinthians, Lena, Hagar all must grow-up whether they want to or not.

In this blog post, write about one or several difficulties in growing-up and about being a teenager in general. What are some of the paradoxes, the pathos of being a teenager, and/or the difficult lessons you may have had to learn--or may still be learning.

All in the Family Blog post #9

In this blog post you should write about your family. You can choose a certain person, a certain family ritual, activity, something that may be annoying to you about your family, something you may be proud about, something that is quirky or weird, or maybe something that significantly changed your family.

This is not the opportunity to have a teenage rant about your annoying mother, but rather an opportunity to think about your family and write as if you were explaining to someone you just met about your family.

After it's all said and done Blog #8

After all the discussions in class about Oedipus, Harold Crick and the seemingly endless circle of fate and responsibility, what do you walk away with knowing, understanding, doubting, or wondering?

The ultimate question Blog #7

Do you believe that you have a freewill, or do you believe in fate? You must choose one or the other and explain why.

Live or Die in LA --Blog post #6

If you had to choose between #1 or #2, which would you choose?

1) Live a long life, but remain known only to a small group of people. (be an average Joe)

2) Or live large, die in your early twenties, but be insanely famous for the next 1,000 years?

Explain your choice and post by Saturday, the 22nd.

Remember when.... assignment #5

Think back to when you were younger and you had a favorite book, story, or video. Anything from Dr. Seuss to Batman to the fairy tales. My little five year old best friend, Jane, loves the princesses. I think it's Ariel right now, but she changes once in a while What do you remember about yours and why was it your favorite?

For example, I remember all The Cat in the Hat books, but mainly that first one. I remember how worried I got when the cat started causing trouble for the kids. I was worried for them because I didn't want them to get in trouble because of the cat. The characters in the books were so weird and funny looking that I just would stare at the pictures for minutes at a time. But mostly I worried about the kids getting in trouble for all the things that the other characters did. Like Thing One and Thing Two. Why name a character that? Now I know that they are just symbols for all the things kids can get into, but back then, I thought that those were perfect names for them. I particularly like their clothes with circles with their respective numbers in them. Sometimes, I think I was afraid of the Dr. Seuss books, too. Some of those characters looked pretty weird, though, so I wouldn't read some of them.

Post by Thursday, Sept. 13th

The Western World

"The world, friend Govinda, is not perfect or on a slow journey toward perfection; no, it is perfect every moment; all sin already bears its forgiveness within itself; every little boy already bears the old man within himself, every infant bears death, every dying man bears eternal life. No one is able to look at someone else and know how far along on his journey he is; in the highwayman and dice player lurks a Buddha, in the Brahman lurks the highwayman." p. 77 Siddhartha

The passage above reflects one of the core axioms of the allegory(the story). Sometimes what makes this passage and the book difficult for westerners to understand is the philosophy behind it. What can you surmize about this philosophy and how is that philosophy distinct from our western mentality?

Blog due on Thursday.

The conundrum of high school

This week's blog takes you out into the metaphoric wasteland of high school. T.S Eliot wrote in "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"

"In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all:
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how shall I presume?"


What is paradoxical or metaphorical about your high school experience, or your experience as a teenager in the early 21st century? What do you "measure out [your] life with"?

Blogs are due on Aug. 31st.

Assignment #2 Icons

This week and all last week we've been looking at symbols, paradox and metaphor. The blog for this week is to write about an icon that you think pervades our lives. This blog is the first musing that will eventually become your first essay. If you start the blog and find that you don't have much to say about the chosen icon, you should probably choose another one. If you are having trouble writing much about it, perhaps you've chosen one that is too small. Choose a big one.

This post should be done by Monday night, August 27th.

In the beginning...

Post a couple of passages from a novel, quote, short story, song lyric, etc. that you enjoy, find interesting, or reflects you in some way. Next, in a brief, but specific way, explain your items in relation to you. Please avoid stating the obvious. For example, "I like this song because it has a good beat and I can get crunk with it" is pretty generic and not particularly specific to who you are. Try to avoid going to quotable quotes websites and finding some random quote. Think about the world which moves around you and your understanding of it. You should post something today to make sure your blog is up and running, and complete the post by Wednesday of next week. Below, I've chosen two passages from two novels:

"'Listen, every object's in flux. The Earth, time, concepts, love, life, faith, justice, evil -- they're all fluid and in transition. They don't stay in one form or in one place forever. The whole universe is like some big FedEx box." -- H. Murakami Kafka on the Shore

"When the mystery of the connection goes, love goes. It's that simple. This suggests that it isn't love that is so important to us but the mystery itself. The love connection may be merely a device to put us in contact with the mystery. It is contrary to the nature of mystery to stand still. We glimpse it when we stand still." -- T. Robbins Still Life of Woodpecker

I chose these two passages because, at heart, I think about things metaphysically. I like looking at the nature of things, and why we are the way we are. I often read novels that are, at heart, metaphysical. Sometimes, though, a good Harry Potter novel is the best. The picture is Edward Hopper's "Nighthawks." It's probably my favorite painting. Just as in music, I have an eclectic taste in art. I think the older I become, the more diverse my interests become. Old age isn't so bad after all.