Literature Analysis: My Antonia

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Literary Analysis: My Antonia

1. My Antonia is the story of a boy who is orphaned and forced to move in with his grandparents. He meets a bohemian family, and becomes close to their daughter, Antonia. They grow up together and become good friends, but they grow apart during high school, the boy, Jim, goes through college, and ends up a successful lawyer in New York. He goes back home to visit and sees Antonia again. They reconcile and the circle of his life is complete.
2. Similar to the Disney story, The Lion King, My Antonia’s theme is the circle of life. Through a persons life, they experience highs as well as lows. Through these challenges though, life always goes on. Whether you are orphaned like Jim, or left by your fiancé like Antonia was, life always continues.
3. The author’s tone played off of the new frontier and immigrants in the United States. Quote one: “Why aren’t you always nice like this, Tony?”
“How nice?”
“Why, just like this; like yourself. Why do you all the time try to be like Ambrosch?”
She put her arms under her head and lay back, looking up at the sky. “If I live here, like you, that is different. Things will be easy for you. But they will be hard for us.”
The second quote: During that burning day when we were crossing Iowa, our talk kept returning to a central figure, a Bohemian girl whom we had both known long ago. More than any other person we remembered, this girl seemed to mean to us the country, the conditions, the whole adventure of our childhood.
The final quote: “I never know you was so brave, Jim,” she went on comfortingly. “You is just like big mans; you wait for him lift his head and then you go for him. Ain’t you feel scared a bit? Now we take that snake home and show everybody. Nobody ain’t seen in this kawn-tree so big snake like you kill.”

4. Five literary terms that helped me better understand the novel motif, symbols, character, plot.
5. A motif is a reoccurring element in the story. An example would be the huge contrast between childhood and adulthood, and also the obvious sign of immigration to the united states. : “Why aren’t you always nice like this, Tony?”
“How nice?”
“Why, just like this; like yourself. Why do you all the time try to be like Ambrosch?”
She put her arms under her head and lay back, looking up at the sky. “If I live here, like you, that is different. Things will be easy for you. But they will be hard for us.”

Socratic Seminar Questions

1a.These concepts can enhance my learning as I arrive at the time when my grades no longer matter because it has taught me that my learning process should begin with first understanding the “system” and the way things work. Once I completely understand the building blocks of the society or problem, then I can begin to add my own so-called “pizzazz” to it. The grades will no longer matter because I am not in school, but I will then be measured by my success and understanding.

1b.These concepts that we spoke about in our Socratic seminar have enhanced my ability to master content for the AP exam because I know that now I must master the multiple choice section. I know that I have to work on my literary terms and their direct definitions because that is where I have trouble. I have an easy time writing the essays, but I need to add more of my personality into the content

1c. I can use these concepts to better collaborate with and inspire other to improve the information exchange and overall value of our learning work by sharing what I know. I think now I will conduct meetings in a softer environment where people feel comfortable to share their ideas and point of views.

NOTES:

• adults find it harder to be imaginatice
• 1st walk and talk.. then sit and be quiet
• play can be anything, but with no rules
• free play and free learning
• we are all built for a purpose and if we work hard and diligently we can accomplish many things.
• some people associate all learning with school
• understand the building blocks before youwant to try and change the system

Poetry Remix

The Chimney Sweep by William Blake

-Dramatic situation- young poor orphan boy who lived during the age of chimney sweeps

-Poems Structure- 4 lines. 6 stanzas. AABBAABBAABB

- Theme- a poem of hope

-Grammer and Vocab- shortened words such as ”shav’d”

-Images and Figures of Speech- paints a bald sad young boy dirty from soot. Then a perfect heaven

- Important Single Words- names of the boys: Tom

-Tone- sad and hopeless in the beginning, then happy, bearable, and hopeful

-Lit. Devices and Techniques

-Procody- rhymes AABBAABBAABB rhyming scheme

The Tyger by William Blake

-          Dramatic Situation- the speaker sounds like a person who is interested in and respects the tiger

-          poems structure- parallel lines. 4 lines and 6 stanzas

-          theme- curious and interested person who enjoys tigers

-          grammer- tiger is spelled tiger

-          images- a strong dangerous but disrespected tiger.

-          Important single words- tiger. Symmetry repeates

-          Procody- rhymes

The Lamb by William Blake

-          The lamb not knowing its creator

-          Every 2 lines rhymes AABBAABB

-          Theme- knowing ones origins

-          Diction- simple

-          Tone- curiosity

-          Lit techniques- personification and repitition

Literature Analysis: The Loved Ones

1. The Loved One by Evelyn Waugh is a story about a British poet who moves to Hollywood, California trying to pursue a career as a poet. Unfortunately for his dreams, he is forced to take a job as a mortician at a local pet cemetery. One day he is planning a ceremony and meet a girl named Aimee Thanatogenos. She is a cosmetician, and he tries to woo her by reciting British poetry that he claims is his own. The conflict arises when Mr. Joyboy enters the picture and both men have to compete for Aimee’s love and affection.
2. The theme of the novel is disillusionment and dreams. The protagonist, Dennis, is an expatriate from Britain who moves to Hollywood trying to fulfill his dream of being a poet. He does not know that Hollywood is also known as the “City of Broken Dreams” and is disillusioned by his naive hope.
3. The author, Evelyn Waugh, had a comedic but dark tone in this novel. She spoke grimly of death and painted detailed pictures using grotesque adjectives, but displayed it in a comic way. For example when she described Dennis, “A young man of sensibility rather than of sentiment. He had lived his twenty-eight years at arm’s length from violence, but he came of a generation which enjoys a vicarious intimacy with death.” The second example is, “As he said this there came vividly into Dennis’s mind that image lurked there, seldom out of sight for long; the sack or body suspended and the face above with eyes red and horribly startling from their sockets, the cheeks mottled in indigo like the morbid end-papers of ledger and the tongue swollen and protruding like an end of a black sausage.” In this last example, the author describes Dennis’s first thoughts of Aimee. “Her hair was dark and straight, her brows wide, her skin transparent and untarnished by the sun. Her lips were artificially tinctured, no doubt, but not coated like her sisters’ and clogged in all their delicate pores with crimson grease; they seemed to promise instead an unmeasured range of sensual converse. Her full face was oval, her profile pure and classical and light. Her eyes greenish and remote, with a rich glint of lunacy.”
4. Five literary elements in this novel include protagonist, minor character, plot, setting, and narrator. The protagonist in this novel is Dennis. He is the hero and main character of this novel.