Meet Medea...

Where do you find your sympathy so far?  With Medea or against her?

Sheet of the Week 10/25

Hi class,

I hope you're enjoying your break so far.  A far cry from the misery of Claudia's Autumn, wouldn't you say?  I've been eating apples and prancing through leaves, myself (okay, maybe not prancing...)  Hope you've done the same.

A few reminders about what's coming up next week:

For Monday, finish reading A Room of One's Own, chapters 1 and 2.  By now the meal metaphor should be clearer to you, as should the progress of our narrator's "fish." 
Please also read: pages 336-344 in Medea.
We'll do some writing in class on Monday to get things started, then talk more about Medea.

For Wednesday, please finish your BE/ PB essays.  Nearly all of you have shown my your outlines, in hard copy or on email.  If you haven't, please make sure you do this immediately!

Please also read to page 352 in Medea for Wed.

Thursday, we will concentrate on otherness in non fiction so please bring Thoreau, King and ROO.

Note: we will do an in class close reading of non fiction the week of November 1st.
We will also be doing orals on passages in Medea the week of November 15th.

Enjoy the rest of your break!!

Quote of the day

I order to change the WORLD you must first change YOURSELF

Sheet of the Week 10/11

Hi all,
Hope you're enjoying your long weekend and have recovered from the SAT, if you happened to take it. (!)
I must say I was surprised not to see more of you on Sunday at the college essay writing workshop, but I'll save my scolding for tomorrow....

In the meantime, a few reminders/updates about this week.  On Tuesday (which is Monday), we'll work on both MLK's "Letter from Birmingham Jail" and Henry David Thoreau's "Civil Disobedience."  PLEASE make sure you've read both carefully and be prepared to do at least a little writing in class.

On Wednesday, we'll start Woolf and do at least part of the first chapter of A Room of One's Own.  We'll continue this on Thursday.  Plan to read the first part of Medea over the break.  We'll have an in-class RR on the Monday we return.

Remember that your Free-ish Choice essays are now due the Wednesday we get back (10/27).  I'd like to see an outline from each of you before the break, however -- just so I can make sure you're headed in a strong direction.  These will be due in class this WEDNESDAY -- remind me to remind you tomorrow!

Letter from Birmingham Jail

Click here for some important images and footage of Martin Luther King and civil rights...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knFojb020bY

Pecola's rape scene

Hey everyone (L-A & Camille),
so i just wanted to prove a point on how mr cholly duz not feel luv or express any sort of luv in the passage we've been studying the past 2 dayz.

rape ¹ |rāp|

noun

the crime, committed by a man, of forcing another person to have sexual intercourse with him without their consent and against their will, esp. by the threat or use of violence against them.

I think it would be necessary to point out that yes, it is true that just because is violent towards someone does not mean they do not love them but if we were to take the relationship that Mr. Cholly has with his family as a whole instead of only analyzing his psyche at the moment in the passage, then we'd realize that that relationship has been deterred because of him. That familial bond is no longer existant.

His relationship with Pauline has become purely sexual and abusive yet only for him. We could even suggest that the rape scene with Pecola is only a way for him to remember what he and Pauline used to have, which is why she is compared to her mother, which is why the narrator says he did feel love. It was in no way a love that he was feeling for Pecola but in fact it was a feeling of love that he was trying to remember through the image Pecola was projecting in his mind.

Mr. Cholly, as frustrated with his life as he was, saw no other option but to seek some sort of escape from the reality he was living in. Because of the one instant that Pecola reminded him of what he used to have with Pauline he jumped onto what he saw as an opportunity of escape, which in a sense just puts him in the same situation as so many characters in the The Bluest Eye - he's just another character trying to escape by grabbing onto something that is only fictional, in his head, and surreal - a dream.

Winter Notes

Ohai peoples of Ms. Hollow's class

Winter notes

Winter brainstorming: cold, barren, unfriendly, brutal weather, discomfort, dark, death, depression, ill health. :)

Opening of winter passage:  "My daddy's face is a study." 

Claudia and Frieda's father emulates the winter season.

Claudia describes his features: 

- eyes= "cliff of snow threatning to avalanche"

-eyebrows="bent black limbs of leafless trees"

-skin="pale cheerless yellow of winter sun"

-jaw="edges of snowbound field"

-forehead="frozen sweep of the Erie, currents of gelid thoughts in the darkness".

 "vulcan" 

The narrator describes her father as a hardened man only in the face of the foul winter. He struggles to keep his family safe and protected during the harsh season with an intensity that earns him the title of "wolf killer", "hawk fighter", "night and day".

The passage with Maureen Peal

Maureen Peal is a huge source of envy for Claudia although she is determined to hate her. 

This wealthy café-au-lait girl with "fluffy yellow sweaters", "pink cupcakes", and "egg salad", represents a fake spring that contrasts with the harder lives of the other children. 

Freida wears ripped brown stockings, and hates her for the fact that Maureen reminds her constantly of where she comes from.

-If there were to be a scale that meant your happiness was determined by how dark you were, Maureen would be happiest (spring) , Claudia and Frieda figuring somewhere in the middle (autumn?) , and Pecola on the very bottom (winter). 

When Pecola is being bullied by the other children at the playground, she is once again in the center of all the violent cold in the world, impugned for her father's "sleeping habits". Even the other children seem to regard her as more "black" than they ("black e'mo"). It seems that Pecola might even attract hatred or brutality.

Geraldine is another character who reminds the reader of a fake spring, but hers is warped. She finds no contentment in endlessly arranging her house with "fake flowers" and doilies, she has no goal to reach other than to seem more "white". She is never happy, because she can only be satisfied by knowing she is "whiter" than other blacks....which isn't going to happen.  

She calls Pecola a "little black bitch".

She's brainwashed, running away from the truth.

As for the whores that Mr. Henry is entertaining at the Macteers, they seem to be the only sturdy characters that can last through any winter, and have lasted so far. They seem fearless and strong and wise.

update!

Hi all,
See below for Claire's notes on Autumn (thanks, Claire!!) and further below for the "sheet of the week."  I've also copied Claire's notes on the Bluest Eye page.  For future note posters, let's try using the page -- just let me know if it works.

Till tomorrow --

Ms. Hollow's Terminale OIB English class -- 2010-2011: Bluest Eye / Notes

Ms. Hollow's Terminale OIB English class -- 2010-2011: Bluest Eye / Notes

AUTUMN

-warmth

-shelter

Page 38-39:

The Breedloves ugliness: “it came from their conviction”, their self-understanding.

Page 20-21:

Doll passage: she is searching for the understanding of white beauty.

Doesn’t understand why people think that, she wants to see what’s inside, not satisfied, wants to find why whiteness is considered beautiful -> doesn’t find anything. She feels the need to question it, she’s not understanding the main stream yet

Different Claudias -> Claudia/child character + Claudia-as-narrator: adult?/older retrospective

Page 22-23:

She hates the whites so much, she realizes how horrible her thoughts are: disgusted by her thoughts -> convinced herself it would be better to lover her than to want to kill her. Hate becomes worshiping: “fraudulent love”. She doesn’t feel improvement just adjustment, doesn’t feel better about it: She is just accepting, hates them because they are considered beautiful, and she is not. To go to acceptance seams like a step back. Easier to go along with others and to not understand than to deal with hatred.

Claudia is very observant, forces by the norm to lose this quality: regression.

She can raise question of white beauty: she is a child and can

Emotion slipping into another

Page 49-50: Pecola feelings shift

Pecola: sees dandelions and finds them beautiful, doesn’t need society, but then feels fear and shame. Satisfaction comes from Mary Janes

->Shifts between anger & shame

Why sex in this passage?

Mr. Yacobowski is disgusted by her, doesn’t want to touch her. Anger comes out in Pecola then she feels shame.

She thinks it is better to be angry than to feel shame for there is “a sense of being in anger. A reality and presence. An awareness” : Metaphor with puppy, thirst for anger quenched -> anger runs out and then only shame is left.

To console herself from shame, to stop from crying: she thinks of the Mary Janes : seams beautiful but blue eyes are “petulant, mischievous”

Association of whiteness with “clean comfort”

To Pecola: eating Mary Jane=satisfaction

-> wants whiteness in her : “Love Mary Jane, Be Mary Jane” wants to become Mary Jane, white, she needs love

-> she feels alone, needs comfort from candy

-> feels pleasure from eating candy -> relates it to sex (she can’t separate moral from physical) loving her, internalizes her by eating her.

-> Idolization, she wants to be like her: blonde, blue eyes. Becoming fantasy

-> Desire to see what’s “underneath”

She feels shame more than anger because then she would be alone, she has to accept norm before rejecting it to not be completely alone.

She suffers silently, (page 43): she knows she can’t get what she wants

Other example of shifting emotions:

-Cholly comes home drunk and sees Pecola washing dishes: feels confusion, guilt, pity ->turns into arousal, desire (rape) PAGE 161

Whores:

Connects to issue of violation.

They transform want for company to physical please (Pecola & Mary Jane). They turn prostitution into companionship, and into being ones own. They want to be beautiful but in their own terms->rebel to society.

Out of all characters, they are the most socially unaccepted, but are the happiest ones. They complain about past but not about presence. They make their won money now, enough to support themselves.

They appear as the most dysfunctional, but all families are dysfunctional. It makes the people calling them that feel better about themselves. Whores are however the most down to earth.

Pecola can get her fix of the desire she wants through their stories, she lives through their stories and their companionship.

Slowly we slide into spring, a season with new ways to whip and new sorrows in bloom.  We have a lot to talk about on Monday, including Pauline and Cholly's pasts (and his "dangerous freedom"), the rape, the rage of Soaphead and more...  Come prepared to share your thoughts as we head toward the novel's end.

A few quick reminders in the meantime.  A few of you still haven't sent me your paper topics.  Get them to me asap, so I can return them Monday with my comments.  Don't forget DST rewrites are due Thursday -- thanks to those who've already come to see me in dialogue.  (I still have places left this week!)

Please also take time this week to re-consider the AP question.  Remember it will HELP you by looking strong on your transcripts and will be included even for those of you doing Early Decision.  Once you commit, though, you must actually take the exam -- and a few sessions to prepare in March -- so make sure you're sure and then let me know.