Prompt Revision #4

2008. In a literary work, a minor character, often known as a foil, possesses traits that emphasize, by contrast or comparison, the distinctive characteristics and qualities of the main character. For example, the ideas or behavior of a minor character might be used to highlight the weaknesses or strengths of the main character. Choose a novel or play in which a minor character serves as a foil for the main character. Then write an essay in which you analyze how the relation between the minor character and the major character illuminates the meaning of the work.

In the play, Death of a Salesman, by Arthur Miller, there are many contrasting characters. When comparing these characters, we see that they really bring out the good and bad qualities in one another. Without Miller juxtaposing certain characters, a lot of their flaws or good deeds would go unnoticed. The minor character that serves as a foil to one of the major characters, Biff, is Bernard. Miller used Bernard as a foil to Biff to show the reader how Biff should have ended up as an adult, and how Willy, Biff's father, dreamed of Biff to end up like. We see Bernard as a foil to Biff all throughout their high school and adult lives. 

One of the most obvious foils in this play is Biff and Bernard. Miller juxtaposes these two characters right from the beginning of the play. We see these two characters growing up together as high school friends, only Bernard is the "nerd" that focuses on his studies, and Biff is the popular athlete, that couldn't care less about school. Willy is fine with the fact that Biff doesn't care about school, because Willy thinks that the only thing that will get you far in life is being well-liked, and Biff was certainly well liked in high school. Bernard was not as well-liked, but he knows that what is really going to help him out in life is education, not popularity and this works out for him in the end. The differences in Biff and Bernards actual characters is seen here too. Biff is the typical jock character, and Bernard is the typical nerd, at the end of the food chain. Little did they know, that it would be the opposite in their adult lives. 

One key difference between Biff and Bernard is that Bernard becomes successful after high school, and Biff doesn't. Biff was too brainwashed by his father that everything was going to be great in his life as long as people liked him. This was probably the reason that he didn't do well in school, like failing math. Bernard on the other hand worked hard, because he knew that it didn't matter whether people liked him or not. He was not caught up in that. And ironically, Bernard turns out to be everything Willy wanted Biff to be. Willy made fun of Bernard for studying so much, but it turns out that they had the right idea all along. Bernard was studious, determined, and had a head on his shoulders, while Biff had his head in the clouds, thinking that he could get anywhere.

Towards the end of the play, Biff ends up lost, insecure and wondering how to be happy in life. Bernard, on the other hand, is happy, mature and adjusted to adult life. Biff says himself in the play that he has had many jobs after high school and he lost all of them, unsure of how to be happy with what he is doing. At this point in the play, Biff was finally starting to figure out what Bernard already knew about life. You need to find yourself first and do what makes you happy, instead of worrying about becoming the wealthiest man in the city, or being the most well-like man around. That is how Bernard being a foil to Biff illuminates the meaning of this entire play, as well. The whole play is focused on how being well-liked and wealthy gets you respect and happiness, when in all reality, you should find your place in the world and do what you were always meant to do.

Bernard being a foil to Biff is important to the play as a whole because it shows Bernard being the son that Willy always wanted. Even down to the smallest things, like Bernard being married with two sons of his own, something Willy had said that he wanted Biff to be. It all comes down to the fact that Willy won't be able to accept Biff for how he is. Bernard was made a foil to Biff to show how Willy would have wanted Biff to end up in life, and how they would all be happier if Biff really was like Bernard. 

Ceremony Summary and Analysis

Author: Leslie Marmon Silko
Setting: Most of the time, the novel is set in and around the Laguna Reservation, but there are also parts of the novel where it is set in the Philippines, a town called Gallup, and in the mountains.
Significant Characters:

• Tayo: The protagonist of the novel. He is also a veteran of the war in Philippines, and is suffering from PTSD as a result of this. He is half Indian and half white, which creates problems for him throughout the novel. He lives with his Auntie, Grandmother and Uncle Robert. Tayo often tries to drown out his feelings with beer with his friends, who are also veterans, at the bar. He eventually goes on a journey to complete the ceremony by having many encounters with animals and people that help him. 
• Betonie- an old wise medicine man, who helps Tayo on his journey. He has many stories to tell and knows a lot about spirits. He made the great point that the ceremonies are always changing as time goes on. 
• Auntie- Tayo's aunt who he lives with in the novel. She seems like a very negative character in the book. Auntie is very concerned about what people will think of her and her family, and always worries about gossip about her through her church. She is Rocky's mother and even though she took Tayo in, she views him as a burden. 
• Rocky- Tayo's cousin, but they are more like brothers because they basically grew up together. He died serving in the war with Tayo, and he was different from Tayo in the sense that Rocky seemed to want to conform to all of the white traditions that he had seen.
• Josiah- one of Tayo's father figures in the story, but Josiah is really Tayo's uncle. Him and Tayo often took care of the cattle together, and that is really how Tayo remembers him. 
• Emo- the antagonist in the book. He is a very negative character, and seems to bring out the worst in people. He is very influenced by the white people, and he tries to stop Tayo from completing the ceremony. 
• "The Woman"- otherwise known as the yellow woman in the novel. She represents all females and their power in society and she helps Tayo complete the ceremony. 
• Grandma- she knows all of the stories that have been told, including the one about Tayo and the ceremony at the end of the book.

Plot: The story goes back and forth between flashbacks of the present and past of Tayo's life. The book basically starts out with it being explained how Tayo had to kill these Japanese soldiers in the war, and this was an important event because when these soldiers were being killed, he saw them as his uncle Josiah and was very scared and traumatized because he thought he just saw Josiah die, but Rocky tries to assure him that he was just hallucinating because they have been outside for so long and they are tired, and that Josiah was thousands of miles away on the reservation. A short while after, Rocky is killed. Tayo seems to feel this tremendous amount of guilt for coming home without Rocky, Even though he promised everyone back at home, like Auntie, that he would bring Rocky home safe, even though it wasn't his fault. Tayo is sent to a hospital where the white doctors diagnose him with PTSD. All Tayo feels in this hospital is emptiness and all he sees is white everywhere. When he gets released from the hospital, he goes back to Auntie's house, where she takes care of him. She seems to resent him and continues to let him feel the distance between him and the rest of the family and how he is different from everyone because of his mother and how she put shame on the entire family. Grandma decides that she is going to call a medicine man, Ku'oosh to try to preform a ceremony to help cure Tayo, but this fails and we know why later; because it is always staying the same. Meanwhile, there are a lot of scenes about him with his friends at the bar and getting drunk, and there was also an incident where Tayo and Emo were in a fight and Tayo stabbed Emo, almost killing him. We also hear about the Night Swan, Josiah's girlfriend and how she is like Tayo in some ways. Tayo soon meets with Betonie, another medicine man, who helps Tayo on the journey to completing his ceremony. He tells Tayo that as time goes on, the ceremony is continuously changing, and they need to let this happen. Tayo learns many things from Betonie, and since he meets him, he encounters many people along the way that help him learn lessons and complete the ceremony. This includes the mountain lion that leads him to the lost cattle, and the yellow woman who helps him in the end. There is also a long poem that runs throughout the story and this runs parallel to the characters and their actions in the novel. At the end, when Tayo has finally finished the ceremony, he realizes that he didn't just do this for himself, but he was chosen to complete this to help all the men who went to war, and for all of his people who were affected by the mixing of these cultures and by the drought that has been there for many years. Tayo must also accept that loss is apart of life, and we see the book come to an end in a full circle when the novel ends with "sunrise" just like it started in the beginning.
Narrative Voice:
In this particular novel, I saw a lot of symbolism and imagery. The author described everything from the stories to the setting in such great detail, you could imagine it as if you were there. Some of the symbolism I saw was: 1. The woman, who represented the yellow woman, 2. Emo, who represented the gambler that was in the poems running throughout the novel, 3. The number four, this was in the book a lot mainly because of the four main directions and the directions were a huge part of the book. The author's style was interesting because the story went back and forth between different time periods in Tayo's life, and at times it could be hard to follow, but in the end you could see it all come together as part of one big story. I also found the poem that was running parallel to the novel very interesting and unique because I haven't seen this type of writing in any other book, and it was nice how it connected to the main characters in the book.
Quotes:
1. "I guess I must be getting old, " she said, "because these goings-on around Laguna don't get me excited any more." She sighed, and laid her head back on the chair. "It seems like I already heard these stories before—only thing is, the names sound different." -Grandma
 -This seems to be the quote that wraps up the entire novel. Basically what this means is that everything is connected, even though things might have different names and slightly different variations, they all came from the same place and connect. An example of this would be the poems running throughout the story, and how they connect to the story as a whole and the characters even though they have different names. This shows that everything is apart of a cycle.

2. "The word he chose to express "fragile" was filled with the intricacies of a continuing process, and with a strength inherent in spider webs woven across paths through sand hills where early in the morning the sun becomes entangled in each filament of web. It took a long time to explain the fragility and intricacy because no word exists alone, and the reason for choosing each word had to be explained with a story about why it must be said this certain way."
 - This ties into the idea of the spider woman and how important she is in this culture. It also shows how important story telling is and without it how there would be no traditions.

Theme:
Storytelling and tradition throughout the generations must be maintained.
-Storytelling is a long time Native American tradition that helps generations and generations of people understand the world and how it works. There is a lot of repetition in these stories, just like we can see first hand in the novel with the poems and what Grandma said in the end. There was even a part in the book where it was said that stories are needed to guide the people that are trying to accomplish the ceremony, like Tayo and the woman he met. Also, it seems like Tayo reenacted some of the stories that we heard in the poems, so it is essentially like a guide for him. Without the stories and tradition, everyone would be lost.

Response to Course Materials #8

In the last few weeks, we have done a lot in class. We finished up the book Ceremony, and we started a new book this week called Fifth Business. Ceremony was a good book, in my opinion. Although it took way too long to annotate, I was amazed at the amount of details and symbols the author put in the book to create a message. That really kept the book interesting, although I didn't fully understand all of the references until we had our class discussions. I also feel like I learned a lot of some of the Native American traditions, which was cool. We are reading Fifth Business now, and I'm not finished with it yet, but so far it seems like a good book.
Something that has been helpful in class that we've been doing more and more is practicing essays. I can definitely see that I need more work in this area before we take the AP exam, which is coming up way too fast. I think the after school help sessions with Mrs. Holmes would be a great time to get more help on these essays.

Prompt Revision #3

1990. Choose a novel or play that depicts a conflict between a parent (or parental figure) and a son or daughter. Write an essay in which you analyze the sources of the conflict and explain how the conflict  contributes to the meaning of the work. Avoid plot summary.

One very famous play that comes to mind when thinking about conflicts between a parent and their child, is Death of a Salesman. Willy Loman doesn't approve of his son, Biff's, actions, and Biff doesn't believe that Willy, Happy, his brother, and he can make it out in the business world. These father-son conflicts began at a young age, and have become worse since then. The conflict between Willy and Biff puts a huge weight on the rest of the family, and forces them to see the truth about who they really are.

Willy and Biff's problems started after Biff graduated high school when Biff went to Willy, who was on a business trip in Boston, about failing his math class. This was when he caught Willy having an affair. Things weren't the same since. It wasn't just the fact that Willy was cheating on Linda, Biff's mother, though. Biff felt betrayed by the person he loved most in the world. He looked up to his father so much, and on that day when he found out his father's secret, he realized that everything his father had told him since he was young, was a lie. Willy was not as good a man as he talked himself up to be.

The affair was definitely a source of the conflict, but another source would be how Willy tried to teach Biff and his brother, Happy, his superficial idea of the American Dream since they were young. Willy always told them that as long as they were well-liked, then everything would work out for them in life, and they would be rich. He also told the boys that they were the best out there and no one could tell them what to do. Biff believed this, but it backfired on him. He realized that he is nothing special, he is just an ordinary man like everyone else in the world. No one can make it to the top without working hard. Biff even says to his father in the play that what Willy had been telling him was all wrong, and that this dream of his should stop before someone gets seriously hurt.

Biff and Willy disagreed on a lot of things, but the main one, was about Biff going out West and working. Willy had always dreamed that his sons would both become big, successful businessmen; just like he imagined himself to be. Although Happy did go into business, he wasn't too successful, but just like his father, he thought he was the best. When Biff came back from out west, he tried to please his father by trying to get a job in the city, but when it didn't workout, it blew up in every one's face. The whole family was forced to face the truth that the Loman men, were indeed "low men" and there was no escaping it. This put a lot of pressure on Linda too because she was constantly trying to mend Biff and Willy's relationship, but ended up just getting pushed to the side.

All in all, Biff and Willy's relationship, or lack of relationship, put a tremendous amount of pressure on the family, and pushed them to the breaking point. It showed how wrong Willy's idea of the American dream really was, and how he had unrealistic expectations of life. They shouldn't have tried to be what they were not just to be well-liked, because that clearly did not help any of them in achieving their ideal American Dream, or becoming a closer family. 

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead Summary and Analysis

Author: Tom Stoppard
Setting: The setting in this play alternates between basically the middle of nowhere, to Hamlet's castle and a boat when they are going to England.
Significant Characters: 

• Rosencrantz- In the play Hamlet, he was Hamlet's long time friend. He usually went in and out of the scenes, as he does in this play. Rosencrantz seems like a happy person most of the time, and he doesn't look too much into things. He is a go with the flow type of person. He goes through the play with his friend Guildenstern, who appears to be smarter than him. 
• Guildenstern- Just like Rosencrantz, he was also one of Hamlet's long time friends in that play, and went in and out of the scenes with Rosenctanz. He doesn't seem to be as happy as Rosencrantz and he looks very deep into things. He always wants to know the underlying meaning behind everything and isn't satisfied until he finds it. Guildenstern acts like he's the smartest one around. 
• The Player/Tragedians- They also have a minor role in Hamlet, going in and out of scenes. Usually when Rosencrantz and Guildenstern hear their music, it means they are entering the play Hamlet. They understand their role in the world and accept what they are. They are constantly seeking an audience because they say that without an audience they are nothing. 

Plot: 

The play starts out with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern playing a coin game, and every time the coin is flipped, it lands on head. Rosencrantz seems to be okay with this and finds it amusing that he keeps winning. Guildenstern finds it disturbing and questions what is reality and what isn't and starts to get very paranoid and questions everything. The coin is referred back to in many other parts of the play. Soon, they meet the player and the tragedians. They want Ros and Guil to be their audience, and make sexual jokes. This is when they figure out that they were sent for by the messenger and try to get together what they are supposed to be doing and where they are when they see Hamlet and Ophelia run by them. This is when they enter a scene in Hamlet. The king and queen come out to talk to them about how they should try to find out why Hamlet is acting mad. After they leave, Ros and Guil practice talking to Hamlet, but ultimately get no where. When they finally do talk to Hamlet, they get upset and annoyed because they didn't find out enough info. After this, Hamlet and Ros and Guild are talking to Polonuis, just like the scene in Hamlet, and the tragedians come in to announce that they will be having a play with Hamlet. Ros and Guild report this back to the King and Queen. This is when Hamlet has his famous, "To be or not to be" speech and Ros and Guil over hear this as well as his convo with Ophelia. Meanwhile, the tragedians practice the play they are going to put on for the king and the queen. The next major thing that happens is Hamlet killing Polonius, and Ros and Guild are instructed to find the body, just like in Hamlet. They try to make a plan to trap Hamlet, but as usual it fails. Since nothing they do is stopping Hamlet, the king ships them all off to England. While on the boat, Ros and Guil read the letter the King sent with them trying to find out what they are supposed to do in England. They find out that they are supposed to lead Hamlet to his death. They are shocked, but soon get over it. When they fall asleep, Hamlet steals the letter and changes the letter so it says Ros and Guild are supposed to die. When Ros and Guild wake up, they find that the play and all of the tragedians are on board and hiding in barrels. The next scene is when Hamlet is gone and Ros and Guild find out that they will die soon. The player talks a lot about death and the meaning of them being actors and acting out death. Ros and Gild have now disappeared from the stage and the play ends with the last scene from Hamlet, Horatio saying the final words.

Author's Style:

There is no narrator in this, since this is a play. Some lines in the play are taken right from Hamlet. The tone a lot of the time seems to be like they are confused. It also isn't too serious most of the time, and some anxiousness is mixed in there as well. They always seem to be trying to figure out something, but never quite get there. There is no imagery in the play, but there is some symbolism with the coin.

Quotes:
1. "Ros: What are you playing at? 
     Guil: Words, words. They're all we have to go on." 
-This is an important quote in the book because it talks about how important language is, but also shows how we have trouble expressing ourselves with words and ultimately get no where with it, just like in this entire place. Most of the time, Ros and Guil were confused, and nothing anyone said really helped them. They spend a great deal of time playing with words and trying to find the meaning of it, and this basically shows how words just don't help all that much.
2. " Audiences know what to expect, and that is all they are prepared to believe in." -Player
- This is a powerful quote from the book, that connects to both theatre and personal lives. The player is basically saying that people have this hyped up version of reality and how things should go, and if things don't go the way they see it going, they don't believe it or something must be wrong. Just like when he talks about death in this scene, he says that people have a vision of how a death should look on stage, and if it is not played out a certain way, then they don't believe it. They will only believe it if it  happens "realistically" on stage, but you need to decide for yourself what "realistic" really is.

Themes: 
No matter how hard you try, you will never be able to fully understand the world and how everything works.
-Ros and Guil pretty much spend the entire play trying to figure out what is going on around them. Whether it's what they should be doing, or how someone died, or where someone went, they're usually confused about it. We see this happen from the very beginning with the play with the coin toss, to the very end with the letter. Ros and Guil are ultimately confused by things like the role of chance in their lives with the coin tossing, and the motives and desires of other characters that they will never know about. As the play goes on, we see them fall into despair because of this confusion, and this shows that you never really know why something happens and they really seemed to struggle with that in the play. 

Response to Course Materials #7

After spending a while on the play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, we have finally finished. At first, I didn't really understand this play at all, and I didn't get any of the deeper meanings in it. As I looked at it more closely while annotating, though, I was beginning to see the underlying messages within it. The class discussions that we had helped a lot, along with the articles that we read about it. When split up into groups to read these articles, I got the Spectre article. Basically the point in that article is that Shakespeare controls everything. He decided Rosencrantz's and Guildenstern's fate, and they knew that. So I thought that was a really interesting and good point, and I definitely agree with that viewpoint.
Since we are now done with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, we started the book Ceremony. I think that this is going to be an interesting read, after learning about all of the background information that we talked about in class. But it's also going to be tough to figure out, so I'm interested to see how this goes.
To prepare for the AP exam that is quickly approaching, we have started practicing writing more essays by doing more closed prompts. After trying these in class, I now know that this is something I will need to work on before taking the exam in order to do well.

Prompt Revision #2

1988. Choose a distinguished novel or play in which some of the most significant events are mental or psychological; for example, awakenings, discoveries, changes in consciousness. In a well-organized essay, describe how the author manages to give these internal events the sense of excitement, suspense, and climax usually associated with external action. Do not merely summarize the plot.

One of the most controversial books of all time is The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. This novel is known for having many significant internal breakthroughs through the character of Huck Finn. Mark Twain shows the many internal conflicts of Huck as he is growing up and realizing that society does not always know what is best. Twain does a remarkable job of incorporating these internal conflicts and breakthroughs with exciting plot events in the story.
Huck had one of his biggest moral breakthroughs in the novel towards the end of the book when the duke and dauphin, two con men, had sold his trusty friend Jim, who is also a runaway slave. Huck, scared and alone, decides it would be best to tell the Widow what has become of her slave, but at the last minute decides not to. This was the biggest moment in the book because you really see how Huck has grown up and decides that society does not know everything. All his life society had been telling him that having slaves was normal, and that it was okay. At that moment though, Huck decides for himself that he was going to help his friend Jim get free. Twain gives some excitement to this moral breakthrough by sending Huck on a huge mission to get Jim back, which brings back another big character in the novel, Tom Sawyer. So not only so you see how Huck's morals have changed, but you are kept on the edge of your seat as Huck and Tom come to Jim's rescue. Twain's combination of a moral lesson plus an exciting mission makes this the novel's climax.
Another significant event that Huck learned from had to do with telling lies. Huck had told many lies to many different people in the novel. He always thought that telling lies were harmless until he met the Duke and the dauphin. He saw them lie to numerous innocent people and hurt a lot of them. Huck thought of them as horrible people for lying to everyone, but he does the same thing himself. He starts to feel bad for lying to a lot of people until he had to tell his biggest lie of all. One of the most notable lies that Huck told was to the slave hunter looking for Jim. Huck lied that his family had been exposed to smallpox and that it was highly contagious so that the slave hunter would not want to come near him or in that area to look for Jim, in fear of becoming infected with small pox as well. This was a big conflict for Huck because throughout the novel he has learned that lying and conning people was bad, but in this certain circumstance he had to. Although this was confusing for Huck, he learned that it was okay to lie depending on the circumstance. I think that this situation was Twain's way of showing how Huck is breaking out of society's shell, and he is learning things on his own; making his own decisions. If Huck had stuck with society's rules, he would have lost a great friend to the slave hunter. Twain also makes this moral lesson much more exciting by making the person that Huck was lying to the slave hunter, and if Huck had told the truth, it would have created chaos in Jim's life.
Overall, Twain incorporates an exciting story about Huck and Jim running away together with some serious moral lessons that Huck learns throughout the novel of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Twain is able to keep the reader on the edge of their seat, as well as get the main points across.