Lit Analysis #2

1. There is so much to the plot of this book, so I can only hope that I do it justice. Huxley sets the book in A.F. (after Ford) where the point of A.F. is that people are created by mass production, are trained to be in castes, trained to know only what they are told, and are matured by the age of four. And sexual activity is encouraged. The story is about Bernard, an alpha who does not fit in physically or mentally to the "brave new world". He rebels, meets "savages" outside of his world, brings them back to live in the world he disgusts so much, and soon one of the savages, John, gets too overwhelmed by the non-feeling, twisted world of not-so-free thinking.

2. The theme of the novel that I caught was freedom of the mind, and the ability to think and feel freely. Everyone takes something different from a book they read, depending on their standpoint and personal experiences. In my mind, while reading, Huxley proves how important our own humanity and feelings are to society, and how nothing would be normal without it. It occurs over and over in the book, so it just makes sense.

3. The tone that Huxley carries throughout the novel changes sometimes, but he is pretty dramatic and wise about most of the situations. “I am I, and I wish I weren't.” “No social stability without individual stability.” “...most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution.”

4.
Personification: “I ate civilization. It poisoned me; I was defiled. And then," he added in a lower tone, "I ate my own wickedness.”
Allusion: "You got rid of them. Yes, that's just like you. Getting rid of everything unpleasant instead of learning to put up with it. Whether 'tis better in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows or outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them...But you don't do either."
Parallelism: “I want God, I want poetry, I want danger, I want freedom, I want sin.”
Rhythm and rhyme: “Ending is better than mending.”
Alliteration: "Mustapha Mond"
Oxymoron: “Pain was a fascinating horror”
Simile: “Words can be like X-rays if you use them properly -- they’ll go through anything. You read and you’re pierced.”
Verse: “The more stitches, the less riches.”
Imagery: “A squat gray building of only thirty-four stories.”
Amplification: “Words can be like x-rays if you use them properly - they'll go through anything.”


Characterization
1.Indirect: “All alone, outside the pueblo, on the bare plain of the mesa. The rock was like bleached bones in the moonlight. Down in the valley, the coyotes were howling at the moon. The bruises hurt him, the cuts were still bleeding; but it was not for pain that he sobbed; it was because he was all alone, because he had been driven out, alone, into this skeleton world of rocks and moonlight. At the edge of the precipice he sat down. The moon was behind him; he looked down into the black shadow of the mesa, into the black shadow of death. He had only to take one step, one little jump.. He held out his right hand in the moonlight. From the cut on his wrist the blood was still oozing. Every few seconds a drop fell, dark, almost colourless in the dead light. Drop, drop, drop. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. He had discovered Time and Death and God.”
Direct: "A squat gray building of only thirty-four stories."

Huxley uses the indirect to build up the feeling that you are actually there, while using direct characterization to paint an image for you in your head.

2. Huxley's syntax stays constant, and his diction changes based on the situation at hand. During the beginning of the book, he used bugs at one point to describe the dystopia and the people that were living in it. Different characters called for different words and descriptions. He described Bernard as a too-small-for-his-own-good Alpha who doesn't belong as much as Hemholtz does.

3. The protagonist, Bernard, is definitely a round dynamic character. He changes throughout the book from someone who is closed minded with his thoughts to someone who is capable of speaking his mind and setting forth his feelings about the twisted world they live in.

4. After reading this book, I feel like I understand the constant breakdown of emotions and feelings encompassing John and his constant battle against the confusingly robotic world that Bernard resides in. It made sense to me from the very beginning how frustrating the dystopia was without common ideals and differences of opinion.
"He was obscurely terrified lest she should cease to be something he could feel himself unworthy of." Here, Huxley is describing what John is feeling as Lenina seduces him; he feels so lost in himself and the world he is living in. But somehow, he conjures up the power of resistance.

Lit Terms #6

Simile: comparing two things using the word "like" or "as"

Soliloquy: a long speech given by a character in a play to the audience that reveals their thoughts

Spiritual: a folk song, usually on a religious theme

Speaker: the person who is speaker; narrator

Stereotype: a fixed idea of a character/idea which does not allow for any individual prejudices

Stream of consciousness: a style of writing that portrays the inner workings of a character's mind

Structure: framework of a work of literature

Style: the distinctive way in which a writer uses language; use of diction, tone, syntax

Subordination: words, phrases, and clauses that make one element of a sentence dependent on another

Surrealism: movement that replaces conventional realism with the full expression of the unconscious mind

Suspension of disbelief: suspended not believing in order to enjoy it

Symbol: a person, place, thing or event that had meaning in itself and also stands for something more than itself

Synesthesia: to present ideas, characters, or places in such a manner that they appeal to more than one senses like hearing, seeing, smell, at the same time

Synecdoche: a figure of speech in which a part represents the whole

Syntax: the way an author chooses to join word into phrases, clauses, and sentences

Theme: the insight about human life that is revealed in a literary

Thesis: the sentence or group of sentences that directly express the author's opinion, purpose, or meaning

Tone: the attitude a writer takes toward the subject of a work, the characters in it, or the audience

Tongue in cheek: cleverly amusing in tone

Tragedy: any literary composition dealing with a somber theme

Understatement: the ironic minimizing of fact; presents something as less significant than it is

Vernacular: everyday language; slang

Voice: the author's style that makes his or her writing unique and conveys the author's attitude, personality, and character

Zeitgeist: the general cultural, intellectual, or spiritual climate within a nation or even specific groups

LAUNCH/DRAFT

Since I have decided this will be my last year being a competitive gymnast, I want show my passion for gymnastics in my masterpiece.

I can use the internet to help guide me and promote myself.

I need to stay on top of my work and not let myself get behind so that I may have a less stressful last semester of high school.

What will impress others in my life and my field is showing others my dedication and hard work and how it pays off.

I have to put forth the effort from my idea and actually make it work and not let myself hold back at all.

I want people who will help guide me in the right direction in my personal learning network and people that have always been there guiding me and helping me.

HAFTA/WANNA

I think that high school and college are two completely different places in life. I feel that I will be doing a lot of growing up when college starts because it is so much more independent based compared to being in high school. In high school you constantly have teachers reminding you to study, requiring that you take notes from the power point, when in college this is all on you and and you must stay on top of yourself and your work. Having said that we have learned to have to keep up with work in high school, especially myself when I began taking AP classes which require similar independence of that in college. So in many ways I feel prepared for college. I think that it's definitely going to take some time to adjust to not having someone there to stay in too of myself and that it definitely doesn't just magically happen the day you graduate. I think the key balance will be putting my school priorities first before anything else, because I think so many people in their first year of college get overwhelmed because they don't put their college education first and worry too much about the "college experience" (partying). I expect there to be challenges I am going to be facing in college, but I am looking forward to being able to work towards my dreams.

Literature Analysis #4

1. Bless Me Ultima takes place in Guadalupe, New Mexico, during World War 2. The main character Antonio Marez. His curandera Ultima tries to stop the madness between the daughters of Tenorio (antagonist). Antonio struggles throughout the story when he witnesses the death of people. He ponders religious questions as well as moral problems. He has to choose between two lifestyles: crazy and wild or calm and sane. Religion becomes and issue in this decision because Antonio tries to figure out who he is and what religion he chooses to follow, if any at all.

2. Theme: Influence on family and religion: Antonio has to make a lot of decisions throughout the story when it comes to religion and how his family tries to make decisions for him. Different cultures try to mess with his identity and that had a big impact on who he was in life.
Personal Values: Antonio has to decide what he wants to value in life whether it is family, religion, or morals. He has to make his own decisions and balance them out with the ideas of others. He has so many people trying to change who he is that it becomes a challenge to keep his identity.

3. The tone the author used was very casual.
"God! Why did Lupito die? Why do you allow the evil of the Trementinas?"
"Hell, Andy,' Gene said softly, 'we can't build out lives on their dreams."
"Why did you allow Narciso to be murdered when he was doing good?"

4. Literary Elements/ Devices:

Tone: The author used a very casual tone that was easy to understand.
Direct Characterization: The author did a great job of directly describing characters with enough detail where I was able to imagine what the characters were like as people as I was reading.
Indirect Characterazaion: Antonio is a good example of a character that was indirectly described. He was described through actions, but in such a strong way that I felt like I knew him just as well as the other characters.
Imagery: The description of setting made me think of where it was and when I closed my eyes I felt like I was there. I felt a sense of imagery within the characters as well, and it helped with my imagining of their character.
Syntax/diction: "we can't build out lives on their dreams."
Implication: "He knows nothing; and he thinks he knows everything. That points clearly to a political career."
Narrator: "Sometimes I felt like Jason, like I wanted to shout and cry, but I never did."
Metaphor: "The sun was good. The men of the llano were men of the sun. The men of the farms along the river were men of the moon. But we were all children of the white sun."