LITERATURE ANALYSIS #4

The book I chose to read was The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy.

1) This novel is about fraternal twins and their journey through the death of their cousin and the imprisonment of their mother's forbidden lover following. When the twin's grandparents learn that their daughter is having a love affair with an "Untouchable," they try to do everything in their power to keep them apart by accusing him of kidnapping the twins and their cousin, who dies from drowning.

2) The two major themes are "social tensions" and "forbidden love." One of the major problems in the novel is the relationship that Ammu and Velutha have, which their parents are strongly against because of their different social rankings. Their parents' anger leads to a chain of events that seriously changes the lives of everyone in the novel.

3) The tone of the novel is both childlike, brooding, and mature. The switches between when the children are younger to their adulthood shows a contrast in how they see the world. At times, the writing often takes on a rhyme-y, sing-songy tones in the moments in which  serious information is being conveyed.The narrator darkly rhymes that 31 is "Not Old. Not Young. But a viable die-able age". The author also describes Sophie's coffin in a sing-songy manner: "Satin lined. Brass handle shined." Another example is "A wake/ A live/ A lert."

4) 

Symbolism- The History House was used as a symbol of the India and the family's actual history. "Estha and Rahel had no doubt that the house Chacko meant was the house on the other side of the river, in the middle of the abandoned rubber estate where they had never been. Kari Saipu's house. The Black Sahib. The Englishman who had "gone native." Who spoke Malayalam and wore mundus. Ayemenem's own Kurtz. Ayemenem his private Heart of Darkness." (2.92)

Allegory- Pappachi's Moth is more of an allegory of his life. "his life's greatest setback was not having had the moth that he had discovered named after him" (2.73). 

Imagery- Rahel's watch is used as imagery for her desire to make everything right. "The wristwatch] had the time painted on it. Ten to two. One of her ambitions was to own a watch on which she could change the time whenever she wanted to (which according to her what Time was meant for in the first place)." (2.12)

Allusion- The novel uses allusions to connect with the audience. F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (2.15)/ Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness (2.92, 5.17)/ Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book (2.152)

Writing Style-

Setting- The God of Small Things for the most part takes place in a town called Ayemenem, in Kerala, India. One of the trademarks of the novel is the way it jumps back and forth in time between 1969 and 1993.

Flashbacks- The author uses a lot of flashbacks to switch between the two settings of the novel. 


Characterization: 
1) 

LIT TERMS: LIST 4

1. Interior Monologue: A type of stream of consciousness in which the author depicts the interior thoughts of a single individual in the same order these thoughts occur inside that character's head. EX: In the "Lestrygonian" episode of James Joyce's Ulysses.
2. Inversion: Inverted order of words or events as a rhetorical scheme. EX: Shakespeare speaks of "Figures pedantical".
3. Juxtaposition: The arrangement of two or more ideas, characters, actions, settings, phrases, or words side-by-side or in similar narrative moments for the purpose of comparison, contrast, rhetorical effect, suspense, or character development.
4. Lyric:  A short poem (usually no more than 50-60 lines, and often only a dozen lines long) written in a repeating stanzaic form, often designed to be set to music and that may not have a plot. EX: William Wordsworth's "The Solitary Reaper."
5. Magic(al) realism: To mingle and juxtapose realistic events with fantastic ones, or they experiment with shifts in time and setting, "labyrinthine narratives and plots" and "arcane erudition" (135), and often they combine myths and fairy stories with gritty Hemingway-esque detail. This mixture create truly dreamlike and bizarre effects in their prose. EX: Gabriel Garcia Márquez's short story, "A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings."
6. Metaphor (extended, controlling, & mixed): Extended- A comparison between two unlike things that continues throughout a series of sentences in a paragraph or lines in a poem./ Controlling- a symbolic story, where the whole poem may be a metaphor for something else./Mixed-A succession of incongruous or ludicrous comparisons.
7. Metonymy: Using a vaguely suggestive, physical object to embody a more general idea. EX: Using "crown" in reference to royalty. 
8. Modernism: A vague, amorphous term referring to the art, poetry, literature, architecture, and philosophy of Europe and America in the early twentieth-century.
9. Monologue: An interior monologue does not necessarily represent spoken words, but rather the internal or emotional thoughts or feelings of an individual. EX: William Faulkner's long interior monologues within The Sound and The Fury.
10. Mood: a feeling, emotional state, or disposition of mind--especially the predominating atmosphere or tone of a literary work.
11. Motif: A conspicuous recurring element, such as a type of incident, a device, a reference, or verbal formula, which appears frequently in works of literature. EX: "Loathly lady" who turns out to be a beautiful princess.
12. Myth: A traditional tale of deep cultural significance to a people in terms of etiology, eschatology, ritual practice, or models of appropriate and inappropriate behavior. The myth often (but not always) deals with gods, supernatural beings, or ancestral heroes. EX: Greek Gods.
13. Narrative: the story or account itself.
14. Narrator: The "voice" that speaks or tells a story. EX: Huck Finn.
15. Naturalism: A literary movement seeking to depict life as accurately as possible, without artificial distortions of emotion, idealism, and literary convention.
16. Novelette/novella: An extended fictional prose narrative that is longer than a short story, but not quite as long as a novel. EX: Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness.
17. Omniscient point of view: Where a narrator who knows everything that needs to be known about the agents and events in the story, and is free to move at will in time and place, and who has privileged access to a character's thoughts, feelings, and motives.
18. Onomatopoeia: The use of sounds that are similar to the noise they represent for a rhetorical or artistic effect. EX: Buzz, rattle, quack.
19. Oxymoron:  Using contradiction in a manner that oddly makes sense on a deeper level.  EX: Jumbo Shrimp.
20. Pacing: Rate of progress; specifically :  parallel rate of growth or development. 
21. Parable: A story or short narrative designed to reveal allegorically some religious principle, moral lesson, psychological reality, or general truth. EX: The Prodigal Son.
22. Paradox: Using contradiction in a manner that oddly makes sense on a deeper level. EX: "Without laws, we have no freedom." 

LIT TERMS: LIST 3

1. Exposition: The use of authorial discussion to explain or summarize background material.  EX: Susan was angry when she left the house and climbed into her car outside.
2. Expressionism: Literary movement of the early 20th century  that represented external reality in a highly stylized and subjective manner, attempting to convey a psychological or spiritual reality rather than a record of actual events. EX: Murderer, the Hope of Woman.
3. Fable: A brief story illustrating human tendencies through animal characters. EX: The tortoise and the hare. 
4. Fallacy: An argument using false or invalid inference. EX: Red Herring, Either or, etc. 
5. Falling Action: The sequence of events that follow the climax and end in the resolution. EX: In "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone," by J.K. Rowling, the falling action occurs after the climax of Professor Snape's apparent hex upon Harry during the Quidditch match/
6. Farce: form of low comedy designed to provoke laughter through highly exaggerated caricatures of people in improbable or silly situation. EX: The Taming of the Shrewd by Shakespeare. 
7. Figurative Language: A deviation from what speakers of a language understand as the  standard use of words in order to achieve some special meaning. EX: Simile or metaphors. 
8. Flashback: A method of narration in which present action is temporarily interrupted so that the reader can witness past events--usually in the form of a character's memories, dreams, narration, or even authorial commentary. EX:   "But back when King Arthur had been a child. . . .")
9. Foil: A character that serves by contrast to highlight or emphasize opposing traits in another character. EX: The angry hothead Hotspur in Henry IV, Part I, is the foil to the cool and calculating Prince Hal.
10. Folk Tale: stories passed along from one generation to the next by word-of-mouth rather than by a written text. EX: The sotry of George Washington cutting down the cherry tree. 
11. Foreshadowing: Suggesting, hinting, indicating, or showing what will occur later in a narrative. EX: The conversation and action of the three witches in Shakespeare's Macbeth.
12. Free Verse: Poetry based on the natural rhythms of phrases and normal pauses rather than the artificial constraints of metrical feet. EX: The translations of the Psalms. 
13. Genre: A type or category of literature or film marked by certain shared features. EX: Murder mysteries, dramas, etc.
14. Gothic tale: A type of romance wildly popular between 1760 up until the 1820s that has influenced the ghost story and horror story. The stories are designed to thrill readers by providing mystery and blood-curdling accounts of villainy, murder, and the supernatural. EX: Dracula.
15. Hyperbole:  The trope of exaggeration or overstatement. EX: "His thundering shout could split rocks."
16. Imagery: The "mental pictures" that readers experience with a passage of literature. EX: "The fog comes in / on little cat feet."
17. Implication: Indirect suggestion: something that is implied or involved as a natural consequence of something else. 
18. Incongruity: strange because of not agreeing with what is usual or expected.
19. Inference: the act or process of reaching a conclusion about something from known facts or evidence
20. Irony: Saying one thing and meaning another. EX: The situation facing Oedipus in the play Oedipus Rex.

LIT TERMS: LIST 2

Lit Terms: 

1. Circumlocution: the use of an unnecessarily large number of words to express an idea to avoid getting to the point.
2. Classicism: a traditional style of art, literature, music, architecture, etc., that is usually graceful and simple with parts that are organized in a pleasing way and are common of  ancient Greece and Rome
3. Cliche: A hackneyed or trite phrase that has become overused.
4. Climax: The moment in a play, novel, short story, or narrative poem at which the crisis reaches its point of greatest intensity and is thereafter resolved
5. Colloquialism: A word or phrase used everyday in plain and relaxed speech, but rarely found in formal writing
6. Comedy: any play or narrative poem in which the main characters manage to avert an impending disaster and have a happy ending (humor is now associated with comedy as well)
7. Conflict: The opposition between two forces (such as a protagonist and an antagonist) that can be internal or external
8. Connotation: The extra tinge or taint of meaning each word carries beyond the minimal, strict definition found in a dictionary.
9. Contrast: describes the difference(s) between two or more entities
10. Denotation: The minimal, strict definition of a word as found in a dictionary, disregarding any historical or emotional connotation. 
11. Denouement: refers to the outcome or result of a complex situation or sequence of events, an aftermath or resolution that usually occurs near the final stages of the plot. It is the unraveling of the main dramatic complications in a play, novel or other work of literature.
12. Dialect: The language of a particular district, class, or group of persons (spelling, grammar, and diction.)
13. Dialectics:  discourse between two or more people holding different points of view about a subject, who wish to establish the truth of the matter guided by reasoned arguments
14. Dichotomy: A division into two opposing parts
15. Diction: The choice of a particular word as opposed to others that contributes to the author's style and tone
16. Didactic: writing that seeks overtly to convince a reader of a particular point or lesson
17. Dogmatic: Characterized by an authoritative, arrogant assertion of unproved or unprovable principles
18. Elegy: any poem written in elegiac meter (alternating hexameter and pentameter lines) or any poem dealing with the subject-matter of complaints about love, sustained formal lamentation, or somber meditations
19. Epic: genre of classical poetry that includes  a long narrative about a serious subject that is told told in an elevated style of language and focused on the exploits of a hero or demi-god who represents the cultural values of a race, nation, or religious group in which the hero's success or failure will determine the fate of that people or nation. .
20. Epigram: a short verse or motto appearing at the beginning of a longer poem or the title page of a novel, at the heading of a new section or paragraph of an essay or other literary work to establish mood or raise thematic concerns
21. Epitaph: final statement spoken by a character before his death
22. Epithet: A short, poetic nickname--often in the form of an adjective or adjectival phrase--attached to the normal name
23. Euphemism: Using a mild or gentle phrase instead of a blunt, embarrassing, or painful one
24. Evocative: tending to evoke

HACKING MY EDUACATION

#1- What do you want to know by the end of this course that you don't know now? 
By the end of this course I hope to have gained knowledge on how I can best use the Internet to my advantage. Obviously it was not only made for social networking sites and asking questions on Google
and I really hope I can find a way to use the Internet as a new way to spread and share ideas.

#2- What skills do you want to be able to demonstrate on your blog? 
I want to be able to demonstrate my passion for experiencing new places, people, and ideas and my ability to clearly document my journey through this years curriculum, which has been different than anything I have encountered yet.

#3- What experiences do you want to have under your belt before you graduate?
I would really like to do more peer-to-peer editing and evaluating and learn more about how people in this class view me so that I can take that information and somehow improve myself. I would also like to do more interactions with professionals and other outside sources so I can get a taste of what it really takes to impress people outside of high school.

What's In This For Me?

As we wrap up our final semester in this class, coincidentally my final semester of high school, I aim to focus on using this class to help me achieve greater things than an A in English. For starters, though it also relates to "grades," I hope to do what it takes to prepare myself for the AP test in May and to hopefully earn a 3 or better. Of course I will be shooting for a 5, but even to pass the test will feel like a great accomplishment to me. Another direction I'd like to go with this course is to possibly start a collaborative working group focusing on all the beautiful hikes and sights that the Central Coast has to offer. Lastly, I hope to use what remaining time I have in this class to really sharpen my skills as a writer and set myself up for a future that I'm pretty sure will include a good number of essays and research papers.