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. 

Response to Course Materials #6

After weeks and weeks of reading, annotating, and watching numerous versions of the film, we are finally finished with Hamlet. This play was probably the most challenging we have had to annotate, and because of that I think it helped us with our analyzing skills. There were a lot of little details that we could have missed if it hadn't been for the many discussions we had about it (such as all of Hamlet's double meanings), so it has definitely made me more aware of details that I may be missing in a piece of work.
Something different that we have been doing to start off the new semester was practicing multiple choice questions for the AP exam. After our first round a couple of weeks back, it became clear to me that I would need to practice this a little more. I found that I had more trouble with the long passages than the poems in this practice set. One main problem that I had was that I couldn't decide between two of the four answer choices, because it seemed like a few questions could have more than one answer. So I am going to have to work on that!
Another thing that we started doing during this new semester is editing our old Open Prompt blog posts. Looking back on the old posts that I did, I can definitely see how I have improved over the months. I find it easy to go back and revise the old posts and being able to pick out bits and pieces that need to be worked on more. Now that we started doing this, I can see the types of errors that I am making over and over again, and I can try to remember to stop doing that. I think that slowly my writing will improve a lot with this.
This past week, I was gone as a counselor for seventh grade camp, but I am assuming that we started a new play in class called Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. When reading Hamlet, I saw these characters are shallow, and not trustworthy. They betrayed their long time friend, as well. When these things happened in the play, I didn't care much for these characters anymore, so I am interested to see how this play goes!