Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Just Lather, That's All

Go to the link below and read the story...Afterwards answer the questions... http://www2.ups.edu/faculty/velez/LAS100/tellez.htm

  1. We learn from the comments in the beginning that the customers's presence is making him nervous. When does it become clear that the two characters are on opposite sides of a political struggle?

  2. Why does the barber feel it would be wrong to let Torres go? Why, on the other hand, does he believe it would be wrong to take the captain's life? In what way can the decision he makes affect the course of his own life?

  3. What, in the end, is the barber's reason for sparing Torres?

  4. Near the end of the story, the narrator makes a suprising suggestion that there is a fine linke between a reputation as a hero and a reputation as a murderer. Do you agree or disagree with this opinion? Can you give some examples form real life to support your view?

  5. Irony of situation. Which of the story's circumstances are the opposite of what would be expected or considered appropriate? Hint: barber and the executioner. Find support.

  6. Verbal Irony. Which characters says one thing and means another? What is ironic about the barber's claim that he is a revolutionary and not a murderer?

  7. Dramatic Irony. This is when a reader knows something that a character does not. Examples?? Last paragraph....how is that turned around or reversed?

Monday, March 14, 2011

Images II

DULCE ET DECORUM EST(1)

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares(2) we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest(3) began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots(4)
Of tired, outstripped(5) Five-Nines(6) that dropped behind.
Gas!(7) Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets(8) just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime(9) . . .
Dim, through the misty panes(10) and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering,(11) choking, drowning. (16)
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, (19)
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud(12)
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest(13)
To children ardent(14) for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.(15)

Wilfred Owen
8 October 1917 - March, 1918

1. What is the situation? Who is the speaker?
2. What images are especially concrete and vivid? Why?
3. What is the effect of placing 3 participles in a row at the end of line 16 that is bold.
4. How is the effect of colors green and white different than in "Calvary Crossing a Ford"?
5. Alliteration or assonance Line 19?

Images

Read the following and answer the questions:

A line in long array where they wind betwixt green islands,
They take a serpentine course, their arms flash in the sun---hark to the muscial clank,
Behold the silvery river, in it the splashing horses loitering stop to drink,
Behold the brown-faced men, each group, each person a picture, the negligent rest on the saddles,
Some emerge on the opposite bank, others are just entering the ford---while,
Scarlet and blue and snowy white,
The guidon flags flutter gayly in the wind.

Cavalry Crossing a Ford, Walt Whitman

1. Which words appeal to the sense of sight?
2. Which words appeal to the sense of sound?
3. Where does Whitman place the reader to view the scene?
4. What are the effects of the rhythm and sound of the lines?

Compare these two paragraphs

I had coffee and the papers in bed and then dressed and took my bathingsuit down to the beach. Everything was fresh and cool and damp in the early morning. Nurses in uniform and in peasant costume walked under the trees with children. The Spanish children were beautiful. Some bootblacks sat together under a tree talking to a soldier. The soldier had only one arm. The tide was in and there was a good breeze and a surf on the beach.

Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises


We had listened to it for years: the long legend of corncribs rifled, of shotes and grown pigs and even calves carried bodily into the woods and devoured, of traps and deadfalls overthrown and dogs mangled and slain, and shotgun and even rifle charges deliverd at point-blank range and with nor more effect than so many peas blown though a tube by a boy--a corridor of wresckage and destruction beginning back before he was born, through which sped, not fast but rather with the ruthless and irresistible deliberation of a locomotive, the shaggy tremendous shape.

William Faulkner, "The Bear"

Counterparts by James Joyce

http://www.readbookonline.net/readOnLine/11289/

This is the link to the story. I want you to post your immediate reactions to the story. I also want a written analysis of this story. This should be printed up. (double spaced, times roman, 12 pt). This will be due next Tuesday! (yes we have class). The length should be about 2-4 pages. I am looking for a lot here including, but not only, character. Dig deep...there are people that have done PhDs on his work, so there is a lot to talk about.

History:
Written in 1904. Joyce was from Ireland and most his writings were based on the culture of that time.

Glossary of words:
the tube a machine for communicating within a building.

an order on the cashier
official permission for an advance on wages.

snug a small private room or booth in a public house.

g.p. a glass (half-pint) of porter.

caraway a white-flowered biennial herb of the umbel familiy, with spicey, strong-smelling seeds. The seeds, when chewed, were thought to hide the smell of alcohol, and thus were offered to customers by turn-of-the-century Dublin bars.

manikin a little man; dwarf.

instanter without delay; immediately.

the dart the solution.

stood . . . a half-one bought a half measure of alcohol.

the eclogues short pastoral poems, often in the form of a dialogue between two shepherds; the most famous are by the Latin poet Virgil.

my nabs (slang) my friend or acquaintance.

Ballast Offices the location of the Dublin Port and Docks Board, where the father of Gabriel Conroy (protagonist of "The Dead") is said to have worked.

Irish and Apollinaris whiskey and soda.

too Irish (slang) exceedingly generous.

chaffed teased good naturedly.

tincture a trace; a smattering.

small hot specials whiskey mixed with water and sugar.

bitter bitter, strongly hopped ale.

stood to bought for.

smahan a smattering; a smidgin.

barracks buildings on Shelbourne Road for housing British soldiers.

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

Analyze the story. I want you to focus on the characters of the story. (Main characters, round, flat etc)