Invisible Man MOR

Hi Julia! I am going to talk about the first chapter of Invisible Man.

The first chapter has six main scenes. (1) the grandfather's deathbed scene, (2) the narrator's arrival at the hotel, (3) the naked blonde women dancing, (4) the battle royal, (5) the narrator's speech, and (6) the narrator's dream.

The grandfather scene represents the narrators feeling towards slavery and establishes his want to forget the past and move on with his life. The arrival at the hotel represents the beginning of lies and betrayal. The woman dancing represents the messed up view of the american dream and what is supposedly expected of women.  The battle royal represents a struggle for life and it has "no rounds [and] no bells at three-minute intervals". It also shows the social and political struggle of mankind. The narrators speech introduces irony and a sense of duality. He does a lot of what he does without the approval of others, just because he wants to and thinks he is right. The narrator's dream symbolizes the myth of the American Dream, holding that Americans can achieve their dreams, if only they are willing to work hard and pursue their goals. Clearly, the narrator's experience has taught him that this is not true for black Americans.

What do you think about the book so far? How do you feel about each of these main scenes in the first chapter? Do you think any of the narrators thoughts and judgments will ever change?

Julius Caesar

William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar is a tragedy as it shows how the hero of the play rises from a humble position to popularity and power, but ultimately meets a tragic end due to a flaw in his personality; their tragic flaw. The play Julius Caesar shows how being in politics and curiosity, motivated by jealousy, of close friends of a noble person may lead to the tragic end of the hero. The tragedy Julius Caesar is a drama of how the blind trust in the persuasive words of close friends proved to be fatal for Caesar.

Though Shakespeare's play is called Julius Caesar, the main character is Brutus. He is the play's tragic hero. The tragic hero must be a great man who is honorable of deeds and character. Second, the tragic hero has to die. Last, the hero's death is his own fault, brought on by his poor judgment because of a tragic flaw in his character.

Brutus is a great man in Rome. Brutus is admired by everyone. He is not a man who openly complains even if he worries about the fate of Rome in the hands of Caesar. Brutus believes in doing the honorable thing, even if it means his death.

Cassius lies to Brutus as he speaks of  the will of someone even as noble as Brutus as he tricks him to believe there is more of a threat than there may really be. Brutus will join Cassius.

Being naive is Brutus' tragic flaw. He too easily believes Cassius and he gives in with Cassius' plot to kill Caesar. From one meeting to next, Brutus has allowed himself to be swept into Cassius' conspiracy. Brutus will not know how this friend tricked him. At the end of the play, he honors Cassius.

Brutus does die in this tragedy. He fights like a lion and is a good leader to his men. Rome is his only concern. He risks, and loses, his life for the good of his country. When he thinks about all this, that he and Cassius may be defeated, he declares he will no longer allow himself to be captured and paraded through the streets in ignominy. Brutus chooses a soldier's death. To die by his own sword rather than be taken prisoner.

Death of a Salesman Biographical Criticism

There are many parallels between Author Miller and some of the characters in the play “Death of the Salesman”, specifically Willy and happy. Miller did not live a very glamorous life at first. His family lost everything in the great depression and from that he acquired a hard working attitude. Miller was consistently faced with failure, but his perseverance was what led him to success. He was rejected from the same college twice and that led to many downfalls in his life. After he finally graduated, he got a job as a playwright for a radio station. He was later laid off and had to go on welfare to support himself. In 1944 it seemed that he was finally seeing his dreams comes true when one of his plays was performed on Broadway. Unfortunately, it closed early and left Miller devastated with yet another disappointment. He did not let this get him down. Three years later a different play of his won a Tony. Even though Willy Loman did not end up achieving the same amount of success as Miller, his determination was evident. After years of continuing to face challenges in his life and career as a salesman, Willy was not ready to give up. He fought for another chance to prove himself.

Happy Loman parallels a different side of Miller. He shows more of the womanizer and ladies’ man side. Happy is portrayed as arrogant and all about the ladies. He tells Biff, “I get that any time I want Biff. Whenever I feel disgusted. The only thing is, it gets like bowling or something. I just keep knocking them over and it doesn’t mean anything” (32). Happy says while talking about women. Happy is wondering about getting a steady girlfriend and getting married, be he can’t seem to do this. He does not respect women enough to stop sleeping around to reach his goal. Miller relates to this because he was kind of a player as well. He went through three different divorces due to dissatisfaction and boredom with his wives. He even married Marilyn Monroe, but that marriage only lasted five years. A little over a year after their divorce, Miller had already moved on to another relationship.     

My photo walk was pretty cool. I was in Palm Springs California at the time and it is always beautiful and warm there. While I was on my walk I was just very appreciative to be in such a gorgeous place that God has created. The palm trees and sun just make me happy and the mountain views were to die for. Even though these pictures were taken in the resort, the true beauty of the nature shows through. Between the blue sky, glistening water, and mountain peeks, it really just makes you say, "wow".

November MOR: Medea

Medea lines 1-130:
So far Medea is about a woman and her husband. It starts by discussing Medea's husband Jason and his voyages at sea looking for the legendary golden fleece. Medea helped Jason With her magic in order to find the fleece. They then both went back to Lolcus which is where Jason lived. They had two boys and earned "citizens 'welcome" (line 12). This was a big deal in that culture. In the story, this is an honor that is conveyed with great pride and joy. Later, unfortunately, Jason leaves his wife and kids to go marry the daughter of Ceon. he wanted to play the system for a possibility of becoming the king. Greed is a huge theme so far in the story. Medea goes into a great depression and wants to curse her kids and family. She is only doing this out of spite and greed. Throughout this whole time of despair Medea has only one person who is really sticking with her; the nurse. What do you think about the nurse? What about her loyalty to Medea? What do you think about Jason's decision to leave Medea?

Antigone Trial Reflection

              In my opinion the Antigone trial went really well. It was a great experience to actually play out a Greek court. I learned a lot about how the system worked. I also realized how hard it is to be a lawyer and come up with questions for wittiness to help prove your point. Of course I am really glad that the jury declared Antigone innocent but I felt that Patsy had some really good arguments. I understand that we had a some what of a bias jury due to our Christian demographic, but I feel that both sides made some really good points. I was really proud of how prepared and well spoken my witnesses were. It really helped with my case.  Overall I am really glad that we preformed this trial and I hope we can do more things like this in the future.    

Quote: "What is, Antigone? Black news? I can see already"

Question: What is black news in this context? Is it an insult?