Sunday, October 23, 2011

The Joy Luck Club

1. Plot Summary:
The novel begins when Suyuan Woo just passed away.  She is an elderly Chinese woman who grew up in China and later moved to the states after she remarried.  Suyuan is the founder of The Joy Luck Club, this is where a few close friends get together to eat, drink, and gamble.  It began during the war to lift spirits.  Suyuan was then married and had twin daughters.  Her husband died in the war and she had to abandon her daughters in hopes that someone would save them.  She then remarried and moved to the states where she had another daughter, June. The one wish Suyuan had was to find her lost daughters and she had not fulfilled this in her life.  Once June’s mother passed she took her mothers place in The Joy Luck Club, and in the first meeting found out that her twin sisters were found alive and still lived in China.  June’s aunties, the women in The Joy Luck Club, saved money to give to June so she could fulfill her mothers dream.  June struggles with coming to terms with this task because she wants to tell her sisters all about their mother but feels that she never really knew her mother herself. The book has sixteen chapters and each of the women and their daughters have a chapter dedicated to themselves where it goes more in depth about their personal life and struggles.  In the end June goes to China and finds her sisters and feels like she grew closer to her mother in the process.

2. Theme:
The major theme of The Joy Luck Club is how to cope with the cultural differences, especially with in their own families. The elder women in the novel were all raised very differently then they raised their children.  Because of this is caused tension in the mother daughter relationships.  In the Chinese culture it is extremely important to respect and obey your elders and this is how the older women were raised, and then they have their daughters that they believe are not respectful enough and in a sense, to American.  On the contrary, the daughters view their mothers as to traditional and a little up tight. The four mothers want their children to have, how Lindo puts it, “American circumstances and Chinese character.” By this she is saying how she favors the American opportunities, especially the role of women, but wishes her daughter would hold the Chinese value of respect and honesty.

3. Tone:
Amy Tan’s tone for the novel is reflective.  In each chapter the different characters take time to look back on their life and see what they wish they could change and what they wouldn’t change for the world.
a.       “When I was in love with Marvin, he was nearly perfect…”

b.      "I was no longer scared. I could see what was inside me."

c.       "Even though I was young, I could see the pain of the flesh and the worth of the pain."
4. Literary Techniques:
 Imagery: She uses descriptive sentences and makes you really connect with the characters.
            Style: Tan’s style is unique because of the way she structures the novel. Each paragraph has a different narrator and focuses on the current narrator’s life.
            Metaphor: She uses metaphors through out the novel, it is a phrase that is applied to something it is not literally talking about.
                        Ex: “We were a city of leftovers mixed together.”
            Simile: To compare two things using like or as.  She brings interest to her writing by using this.
                        Ex: “My heart felt like crickets scratching to get out of a cage.”
            Personification: Where you give human characteristics to a nonhuman thing.  Tan uses this frequently to describe the many different places in the novel.
                        Ex: “The hills would suddenly become monstrous elephants marching toward me.”

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Tools That Change the Way We Think

I believe that the internet has made our generation dependent on technology. But it has also helped us become more informed because of the convienence of the internet and search engines such as Google and DuckDuckGo. We have a world of information at our finger tips. Since the internet incldes social media such as facebook my concentration has gone way down. Its hard to focus on an essay when the internet tab is blinking with facebook updates. It was not that long ago when while writing a research paper included going to the library checking out a book and actually searching through it to find the information needed. Now we can read the link and know if we want to look further into reading it or move on to the next link. This has created a lazy and impatient generation.

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

In Search Of

While watching “Filter Bubbles” it was interesting to find out that when you search for something on a web site like Google, it looks at 57 different signals and tailors the results based on other connections its made. This made me wonder what isn’t showing up when I search for something.
            This time I went to Google and typed in, “who is Shakespeare really”. By adding the word really I got a completely different result list.  One of the links was http://www.urbana.k12.oh.us/699/oh/authorship%20controversy.html. This was a web site that wasn’t trying to persuade me on who to believe wrote Shakespeare’s plays but informed me of why people believed really wrote it and the evidence they use to back up with beliefs. One thing that I thought was interesting was how on his birth certificate his name is spelled like “Shaksper”. Although this is an interesting fact, he is defiantly not the only author who has changed their name, also it talks about how both his parents were illiterate so who would ever teach him how to write his name? There were many facts about the different groups who believe others are the true authors of Shakespeare’s works that I never would have found if I hadn’t taken in to account how the filter bubbles work and it’s very interesting to see the different results.

Notes on Hamlet

Since the beginning of the play things have changed dramatically.  When people first started to think Hamlet was crazy I defended him and blamed his actions on the unfortunate occurrences in his life such as his father dying and his mother remarrying his horrible uncle a month later. When Hamlet found out that his Uncle Claudius was the one who killed his father and wanted revenge I thought it was completely normal especially after reading Beowulf, which is all about avenging those who killed your loved ones.  Now with the resent events such as Hamlet killing Polonius and not even feeling remorse for the guy cause he thinks he deserves it I think Hamlet is not all there. Maybe it was the events in his life that drove him to be this way but I don’t believe he will stop at anything until his uncle is dead.

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Who Was Shakespeare

                First I went to Google and typed in “who was Shakespeare”.  pbs.org is the first link that showed up.  In this web site it talked about how there is really little we do know about Shakespeare and even points out that his identity has been disputed over multiple times.  It stated that there are general facts that are widely accepted by people such as he was born in 1564.  Shakespeare married at the age of eighteen to Anne Hathaway, they had three children, one who died at age eleven. Around 1588 it is said that he and his family moved to London where his plays began to gain recognition.  Sonnets began to establish his career but it was the 38 plays that he wrote that got him the title as the “greatest dramatist who ever lived” He dies in 1616 and the age of 52.
                I stopped my search here because this web site had a lot of information and most of the others I looked at had repeating information. Also others I tried to look at when I typed in “was Shakespeare a fraud” were blogs of people arguing over who really wrote Shakespeare’s plays.   
                With so little known about his life we are left to wonder about who he was as a person and why he was inspired to write such depressing plays.
                From my experience Shakespeare is perceived by students as the most famous play writer ever and really interesting once you decipher what it is he is saying.  Over the years reading Shakespeare has become easier for the most part for me to interpret.  In Le’Clair’s class when we read Romeo and Juliet he explained to us what everything meant.  This helped me prepare for sophomore year while having to interpret parts of Caesar because we because we were more familiar with the style and language.  This year I am able to understand what Shakespeare wanted his audience to understand much more easily because it is much more familiar.  When there are parts I’m not quite sure about you can pretty much get the gist of it by the lines surrounding it.  

To Facebook or Not to Facebook

                Facebook can be a great way to keep in touch with old friends, distant relatives and much more but how safe is it really?  Although many people use it with nothing but good intentions in mind not everyone with a Facebook is like that.  For me the benefits of Facebook is to keep up with friends you don’t always get to see whether they live in another city or go to another school it is an easy convenient way to talk to them.  Also as seniors the majority of us will be moving away in less then a year, not only will we be able to keep in touch with close friends but family to.  The risks of Facebook are plentiful and honestly kind of scary.  In class we talked about how 7.5 million kids the age of 12 and under have a Facebook.  This is fine if their parents closely watch what they post but I’m sure many of their parents are oblivious to the fact that they even have a Facebook.  They can post anything their hearts desire and this can get them in a lot of trouble.  I never really thought about how many young kids had a Facebook before and now they we have read about it and discussed it in class I realize how dangerous it can be.  Especially to kids who think that just because their profile is set to private that no one that isn’t their friend can read what they’re posting.  

Monday, October 10, 2011

Don't Be Hamlet

“To be or not to be that is the question:” This is arguably one of the most famous Shakespearian quotes of all time.  But what is his soliloquy really saying?  Hamlet is torn on what he should do with himself, to live and face his troubles or take a cowards way out by ending his life.   In the end he chooses to live but not for any moral reasons but out of fear.  Although Hamlet chose what many would say was the right choice, he did not make this decision with dignity.
Hamlet’s soliloquy is his way of talking through his problems.  “Weather ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer… Or take arms against a sea of troubles and, by opposing, end them.”  He is talking about his life and if he should be the noble prince as expected of him or end his life.  He has enormous problems in his life, his beloved father passed away and his mother remarried to his uncle less then a month later.  Also, Hamlet feels as if his suspicion that his uncle murdered his father has been confirmed by what he believes to be the ghost of his father.  Overwhelmed by all the drama in his life, Hamlet is willing to do almost anything to make it go away.
Hamlet seriously considers killing himself because all of his problems.  But what, may I ask, would the world be like if everyone with, what seems to them like, a major problem killed themselves? The human race would cease to exist.  Just because you’re going through a rough patch doesn’t mean things should be ended.  It’s standing up against all the horrors of the world that makes people truly stronger.  Hamlet needs to learn this to be able to see past all the obstacles in his life so he can see the light at the end of the tunnel and have a reason to live that he is aware of.
In the end Hamlet decides against killing himself but he doesn’t do it for the right reasons.  Hamlet fears what death will bring with it, “For in that sleep of death what dreams may come”.  He is a coward, fearing death is normal for many people.  But choosing to stay alive, not because all the things you have to live for, but so you don’t have to deal with what may be to come is rather pathetic.  He lives in fear with a life full of conflicts; he seems to be too weak to fully enjoy the beauty of what his life could be.
 Although, Hamlet chooses the noble side of his dilemma, it is not for any gallant reason.  He is frightened of his life and doesn’t know quite what to do with it.  Live in pain and suffer because he feels he might be better off not living at all, or take a chance with death and maybe with is will come a silent salvation.  But if he is wrong there is no backing out once its over it’s over.  He chooses not to end his life but, with the way he lives, when the ending comes it will not be a happy one.