Used in a Derogatory or Joking Manner?

As a child, most are taught that there are some words that they might hear around them that are not appropriate to use, from words like "stupid" to simple expletives.  For example, everyone in my family knows the story about how my uncle used to tell his big brother and sisters that "Stupid's a naughty word".

However, everyone has their own idea of what sort of language is acceptable.

In "A Raisin in the Sun", Lorraine Hansberry employs the "N" word multiple times.  Now, every critic has their own idea about this word being used in literature: some think it should be taken out, others think it should be censored, and many think it should stay in the literary work like it originally was.

The thing is, African-Americans call each other this frequently, so why is it socially unacceptable for people from other races to call them that?  If they found it that offensive, NOBODY would call them that even if they were also from African descent and using it in a joking manner.  I don't mean to affront anyone here, however it seems hypocritical to me for whites to be criticized if they were to use a word such as that.

There really is no definite line between joking around and actually trying to offend someone by using that word.  So what's the solution?  The best thing to do would be for everyone to refrain from using words that most people would find offensive, leaving the world a much friendlier and positive place.

Unrequited Love

We've seen it before: someone falls in love with someone outside their grasp and it makes that person absolutely miserable when they aren't loved back.  From Romeo and Juliet to Gone With the Wind, there have been countless books, movies, plays, and songs dealing with this.  But now, we can relate it to Jay Gatsby's situation in The Great Gatsby.

Fitzgerald portrays Gatsby as a character who has been longing to have Daisy, the love of his life, back for years.  When Gatsby went off to the war, Daisy decided she could not wait for him to get back so she ended up dating, and eventually marrying, Tom instead.  He has longed for her, the part of the American dream that he seemed to be missing, and this longing is even represented in the book by the scene where Gatsby reaches out towards the green light.  The feeling of unrequited love wore on Gatsby for 5 years before he finally made a move to see if Daisy would take him back.  However, she said she could not leave her husband Tom, leaving Gatsby hopeless.

A lot can be taken away from what happened to Gatsby.  Although he did not end up getting Daisy, the persistence he showed by having feelings for her for so long is commendable.  It showed that he was not going to give up on his dream until he did his best to try to get her back.  Also, the fact that he did whatever he had to do in order to get her attention is laudable.  Sure, he didn't attain his wealth in an honorable way, yet that isn't the point; he still did what he had to so he could throw the extravagant parties in hopes of Daisy seeing and deciding to stop by.

While some of Gatsby's actions in the book definitely are not respectable, you have to consider that the feeling of unrequited love can change a person into something that they are not: It can annihilate any confidence you have.  It can make you bitter and cynical.  It can hurt your feelings more than almost anything. So no matter what you think about Gatsby, one thing is for sure: his commitment to trying to win Daisy back is admirable and more people in real life should be committed to love as much as Gatsby was.

Right of Interpretation

Any piece of literature can be interpreted in countless ways, as we learned about The Great Gatsby by reading articles that explained different "lenses" that can be "looked through" while reading the novel.  We focused on five distinct interpretations: psychoanalytic, African-American, feminist, historical, and queer.  By reading about these, we gained insight into the novel and learned about different ways that Fitzgerald might have intended to portray characters and topics.

Many of us have said that we think the critics who wrote these articles about The Great Gatsby are just reading into what Fitzgerald wrote too heavily. While some of the textual evidence could support these viewpoints, in my opinion, the only possible realistic interpretation was the historical one that related Gatsby to a self-made man, but even that might not have been a conscious effort. In reality, however, Fitzgerald could have subconsciously included phrases or scenarios that reveal his opinions of these topics.  Because we can't just call up Fitzgerald and ask what his intentions were with this novel, the only thing we can do is believe what we want to believe, as long as there is support for it. It's open to our own interpretation.

No matter what, many things are going to be subjective. How many feet does someone mean when they say something is "long"? Or what is the real definition of "pretty"? Both of these words are abstract; there is not only one "correct" answer to those questions. This is like many things in life. There is no way to define beauty, love, success, or hope since they aren't concrete objects.

Just as the articles about different interpretations of The Great Gatsby show different analysis of the text, these words are up to your own interpretation. No two people are going to interpret text, abstract words, or pretty much everything else in the world in the exact same way, but everyone is entitled to giving their own take on them.

Preserving Innocence or Setting Back A Child's Education?

In general, children tend to be portrayed as angels who are always happy and innocent. But do children fight on the playground?  Do they tease one another if they don't own the newest fad?  Do they argue over irrelevant things?  Of course they do.  So are they really that innocent?

Recently, we read "The History Teacher" by Billy Collins for English class. As far as the poem itself goes, it was wonderfully written; however, its topic is extremely controversial.  It is about a history teacher who, rather than telling the truth, teaches his young students incorrect information about historical events in order to preserve their "innocence".  He tells them that "the Enola Gay dropped one tiny atom on Japan" and "The War of the Roses took place in a garden" so they won't be exposed to the cruelties and casualties associated with actual wars and fighting.  But by doing this, is he really helping?

Children aren't as fragile as adults seem to think; they can grasp bigger concepts than most grown-ups realize.  Although telling them about the millions of people who died during World War II and other traumatic experiences that the world has experienced probably isn't a good idea, telling them blatant lies about what happened isn't the right thing to do either.  Children deserve to know the truth, no matter how young, and teaching false information would just confuse them when they grow up and are forced to learn the correct information.

What happened happened. It is what it is.  There is no justification for teaching the children false history since it isn't going to change what actually went on.

Style vs. Rules

Style can be referred to when talking about music, clothes, literature, and almost everything else in the world.  Style is a way of expressing yourself and setting yourself apart from others.

When reading poetry by Emily Dickinson, a few unusual techniques stood out quickly in almost all of her pieces that we read.  She utilizes dashes, irregular capitalization, and inverted syntax frequently, as well leaves her poems unnamed, which all add to the style and character of her poems.  However, at the time that she wrote these pieces, it was unheard of to break the equivalent of writing "rules", or what had become the norm.  Nevertheless, these rules didn't keep her from writing the way she thought was best to express her feelings and thoughts.

The fact that she wrote differently from the famous poets of her time is what sets her apart nowadays in the minds of anyone who has studied other pieces from that same time.  During Emily's life, only a few of her pieces were published, of which the publishers changed drastically in order to fit the "mold" for proper poetry.  This is why she wasn't known for being an outstanding poet until a while after she died, when in 1955 her poems were finally published without being altered. If her poetry had been just like every other poem in the mid-1800s, people today probably wouldn't know about her poetry; they'd miss out on all of the pieces about death and immortality that Dickinson so beautifully wrote.

This shows that if you want to leave a lasting impact on your community, state, country, or even the world, you can't just act like everyone else.  Although it may be more comfortable for you to just blend into society and never stand out, you probably won't leave a very strong impact on those around you.  What I'm trying to say is that you should dress however you like, voice your opinion even if it's the complete opposite of what everyone else is saying, get involved in things that interest you, and DO NOT be afraid to be different from the "rules" that society makes about how you should look and act.

Do you think that Martin Luther King Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi would have accomplished the profound things they did without strongly asserting their beliefs?  Let me make the answer clear: No.

Self Punishment vs. Public Punishment

Punishment can be enforced in countless ways, such as being "grounded", getting yelled at, or even being physically hurt.  However, the most terrible punishment of all is merely being upset with yourself.

As seen in The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, self punishment happened to be more effective than that of the public.  As a result of the adultery that she committed, Hester had to wear the scarlet "A" on her chest so everyone that saw her would know that she is the one who did this terrible thing.  In addition, she had to stand on the scaffold in front of the whole community for three hours and suffer from the public ridicule that came along with that.  Dimmesdale, the man who committed this infidelity with her, however, only had to deal with the guilt that accompanied his actions since the public had no idea that the man who impregnated Hester was him.  Although it seems like Hester's public punishment would have a more profound negative effect on her, she somehow coped quited well with it and forgave herself.  Dimmesdale, on the other hand, suffered miserably which contributed to his death on the scaffold.

In a teenager's life, especially from the city I live in, we are constantly being punished by our parents for things like not getting all A's, receiving a 36 on the ACT, or being first chair in band and/or orchestra.  It seems like for many of us, it's turned into a ritual to be yelled at each night because of a bad grade you received in one of your several AP classes; many of us are also grounded for what seems like eternity.  However, no matter how disappointed our parents are because of these things, nothing beats how upset we are with ourselves for not being as perfect as society expects us to be.  The guilt and sadness that accompany receiving something other than an A+ are profound; we think about how we could have stayed up an extra half hour and maybe learned a few more facts that would have helped us on a test, or not hung out with our significant other for a couple hours just so we could study.

There has to be a point where we are satisfied with ourselves for the things we have done.  Sure, we didn't get all A's on our report card, but it is what it is.  Being upset with yourself for how things played out doesn't help you at all; it puts you into a hole that is nearly impossible to climb yourself back out of.  You have to learn to be okay with the results of giving your best effort, even if they are not ideal, because in the end, that is all that you can do.

Learning to Embrace One's Mistakes

When you look around a room, it's usually easy to tell who is confident just by the body language he or she has.  However, people encounter plenty of situations each day that often can bring down their level of self pride.

In The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, confidence is taken to a whole new level by Hester Prynne.  Because she committed adultery and bore an illegitimate child, she is forced to wear a scarlet "A" on her chest so everyone she sees will know what she has done.  Although most people would be ashamed of this sign of indecency and try to hide it, Hester proudly wears the A on her dress as she steps into public view after leaving the prison.  She knows that there is no point in letting the criticism of the crowd surrounding her bother her and decides to just accept the past for what it is.

I feel as though everyone can learn an important lesson from Hester: Don't let actions of the past bring you down once they can't be changed.  Sure, we all regret things like doing so poorly on a test that we were just 1% away from failing (does the Babylon Revisited test ring a bell for anyone?) or liking someone that we end up realizing is a jerk, but at the same time, we cannot let that bring us down for the rest of our lives.  If you spend too much time reflecting on what you've done wrong in your life, you won't have time to do anything right.  People make mistakes that will haunt them for the rest of their lives, but they can't be taken back once they happen. The only thing you can do is embrace them and learn lessons along the way, as Hester did.

The Effectiveness of Anna Quindlen's Commencement Address-1999

All graduation ceremonies are comprised of the handing out of diplomas and a commencement address that is usually done by an alumni of the school. The address add a unique opportunity to hear a renowned speaker and force the graduates, as well as the families and friends in attendance, to consider the thoughts they hold in regards to life; however, they are seldomly remembered for long.

In Anna Quindlen's commencement address that she gave at Mount Holyoke College in 1999, she stresses trying to go against the homogenization of society and be your own individual.  She implores that each member of the audience leave his or her backpack "full of bricks" behind and follow the "small voice from inside [him or her], that tells [him or her] to go another way".  This correlates to the characteristic of transcendentalism that stresses individualism and self-reliance.

I was assigned Anna Quindlen's commencement address to read and annotate, and I honestly was not a fan of it.  When watching a video of her giving the speech, her body language did not come across as very strong since she kept looking down at the words, hence her point did not project as greatly as it could have if she knew how her speech was supposed to go.  Also, she included a couple remarks that were supposed to be funny, however the audience and I didn't seem to think they were.  In addition, her metaphors could have been much more convincing.  Lastly, her closing statement, "Every day feels light as a feather," was simply powerless and did not wrap up her speech very well.  While her idea of not letting society's idea of perfection mold you into that type of person is significant, I felt as though her writing did not live up to the standards of the commencement addresses I have had the honor of hearing live, such as Sanjay Gupta's 2012 speech at the University of Michigan graduation this year.

To be honest, maybe in some cases it is a good thing that graduates usually don't recall the commencement addresses for long after they are given.  I'm sure the graduating class of 1999 from Mount Holyoke College doesn't treasure her speech because even after listening to it and reading it twice, I did not feel attached to what she was trying to say.  In the end, these addresses will only be memorable if: 1) something embarrassing or awkward happens during the speech, or 2) the speech impresses everyone in attendance because it has a combination of compelling, humorous, and sentimental characteristics.  If it does the latter, the graduates are much more apt to try to follow the ideas that the speaker presents, making for a commencement speech that actually does its job.

Use of Appeals in Everyday Life

Whether emotional, ethical, or rational, everyone comes into contact with many appeals each day.  Commercials, junk mail, billboards, tv and radio shows, and many other types of media use a combination of appeals in order to make more people agree with the opinions of those who pay for them.

When reading significant historical writings from colonial times, the frequent use of appeals to persuade readers is evident.  For example, "The Crisis" by Thomas Paine was written to boost the morale of the soldiers and inspire them to keep fighting against the British.  In it, Paine incorporated such ethical appeals as, "...our homes turned into barracks and bawdy-houses for Hessians, and a future race to provide for whose fathers we shall doubt of," in order to remind the soldiers about how terrible it is that the soldiers and British in general are taking over every aspect of their lives.

The most common use of these different appeals currently is related to the upcoming presidential elections. By using these persuasive strategies, both the candidates and their political parties desperately try to gain more voters.  For example, in one of his speeches, Mitt Romney said, "Three years later, unemployment is still above 8%, a figure he said his stimulus would keep from happening,".  Using this statistic as a rational appeal, he hoped to gain support for him in the election.

While these appeals certainly do help change the minds of some indecisive voters, they do not necessarily affect those who already have their mind made up.  Appeals can only influence people to a certain extent; once that is reached, people have to make their own minds up.

Caution: Peer Pressure

What would you do if all your friends wanted to: Spread a malicious rumor?  Haze a new student?  Pull a disrespectful prank on a teacher?  Steal something from your favorite store?

Would you give in and do what they did just because you think they will alienate you if you don't participate or would you try to put an end to the madness?

In The Crucible by Arthur Miller, the friends of Abigail Williams have to make this decision.  Specifically when they are in the court room and Abigail begins pretending that there is a spirit overcoming her, these girls make the decision to follow along in her footsteps and do the same.  Once one other girl faints and pretends to feel the spirit, they all join in quickly.  They know that if they didn't go along with this absurdity, she would probably separate herself from them in the future, which leads them into doing whatever she wants so that won't happen.  By associating themselves with her when she is powerful, they also feel a sense of power, hence they don't want to break off associations with her because then they would go back to being powerless young girls in the community.  Particularly Mary Warren feels this sense of pressure when Proctor makes her come clean about the false witchcraft accusations in court, but then she changes her mind when she realizes how terribly it would affect her social standing with the others if she told on them.

This act of doing things because others around you do them correlates to what is known today as peer pressure.  Frequently, adolescents especially give in to this unspoken encumbrance and do what those around them are doing without even taking the time to question it.  This is a mentally dangerous place to be in because it takes out reason and logic from one's thought process.  The common paradigm "If all your friends jumped off a bridge, would you?" is often used by parents to warn against letting peer pressure overcome you.  It's important to make your own decisions and not let the actions of those around you decide what you are going to do in a situation.

Chain Reactions: Origins and Causatums

Uncontrollable panic, crazy madness, ridiculous accusations:  All of these correspond to times of mass hysteria.  Whether the chaos is due to economic, political, or social reasons, it spreads like wildfire throughout a community.

While reading The Crucible by Arthur Miller, we are exposed to the Salem witch trials of the late 1600s and the delirium that accompanied them.  In this dramatic piece, Miller describes how psychotic and paranoid people became when these accusations arose, along with how women in the community were unjustly being accused as being witches without any credible evidence.

A similar mass hysteria occurred in the 1940s and 1950s, when Americans were deathly afraid that Communists were among them.  During this Anti-Communist frenzy, referred to as the Red Scare or McCarthyism, people were randomly being accused of having affiliations with the American Communist Party without any actual evidence.  The author of The Crucible, Arthur Miller, was actually called before a congressional committee and questioned about having relations to the American Communist Party. He admitted to having attended a few of its meetings, however would not discuss who else was in attendance, leading to his citation for contempt of Congress.  That provided the basis for his piece, in which he tried to warn against mass hysteria by showing the absurdity of the situation.

The concept of mass hysteria relates to that of peer pressure.  Once one person does something, those around them are likely to do something similar, which can be both good or bad.  Say one person is at an event and sees litter on the ground and starts picking it up; if those around them do the same, that would be a positive chain reaction.  However, as was the case in the Salem witch trials and during the Red Scare, one stimulus can lead to a quickly expanding and horrific scenario.  By comparing these two types of situations, one begins to see the importance in making positive contributions to society, rather than ones that can tear apart communities.

The Effect of One Man on Society

With so many people in this behemothic world, it is very easy to think of yourself as just one more person living here.  Like a tiny fish in a huge sea, we sometimes feel hopeless and unimportant; like nothing we can do will ever be able to change the lives of those around us.  However, it has been proven numerous times in the past that just one man can transform society into something unlike it has ever been before.

While analyzing the sermon, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," by Jonathan Edwards in class this week, the idea of a single man being capable of changing the people around him was suggested.  In this sermon, Edwards explains his idea that all men have and must repent sins, otherwise God will do something terrible to them.  He makes frequent references to the wrath of God and how quickly and simply God can ruin the people here on Earth if he is not pleased with them.  During his speech to the congregation, it is said that many of the listeners wept, fainted, and prayed, showing that the words of Jonathan Edwards alone strongly influenced them in every way: emotionally, spiritually, and physically.

As history proves, one's effect on society is not always positive.  When reflecting upon the past, the most influential single person that comes to my mind is Adolf Hitler.  By leading the Nazi Party in Germany, he was at the core of Nazism, the start to World War II, and the Holocaust.  Although the idea of Nazism and thoughts of those events are always negative, they proved one major concept to the world: that just one man can start something that can terrorize endless amounts of people and scare the rest of mankind.

The Inescapability of Stereotypes in Society

Stereotypes: some of the most ridiculous and pointless thoughts about groups of people which usually have little, if any, validity behind them.

Already this school year, we have read a few pieces in English which deal with stereotypes and the effects they have on both those who hold them and those who they are held against. By focusing on some of the stereotypes which are held in regards to Native Americans, we see the absurdity of these ideas and reflect upon stereotypes which are still held today.

In the Sherman Alexie pieces which we analyzed this week, situations which involve the common thoughts that people have of Native Americans were presented. For example, in "Indian Education," Sherman writes that a teacher said, "'What's that boy been drinking? I know all about these Indian kids. They start drinking real young.'" This generalization about all Indians is twisted since just because someone is Native American does not necessarily mean they drink alcohol at a young age. Through this passage, the bigotry of society is shown, making the reader question how prejudiced he or she is in their life.  Also, in "The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven," Alexie pokes fun at the idea that Native Americans are shady and dangerous. By scanning the aisles as he walks by and acting suspicious in front of the 7-11 clerk, the main character is messing with the biased mind of the worker. Since the worker held this notion that the customer was baleful, in a way he deserved those few minutes of terror which he experienced because of his thoughts about his customer due to the customer's look.

While reading the short stories by Alexie, I was reminded of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, in which Jim was treated differently due to another stereotype: that African Americans were inferior to Whites because of the color of their skin. By making this connection, you can see that throughout history, many different groups of people have been treated unjustly for trivial reasons. Reflecting on those events makes me, as a reader, determined to never judge a person based on a stereotype that might make me subconsciously dislike them. Unfortunately, that would only be possible in a perfect society, which we do not live in. However, one can still do their best to treat everyone fairly and ignore stereotypes as much as possible.

Blogging Time!

It's finally time to begin our blogs for us 11AP English students. Yay!