Reminders:
- Homework: One initial comment on Part One, chapters VI-VII / Part Two, chapters I-II (pp. 65-129) by Wednesday 3/22 and two additional comments by F 3/24.(can be found on the schedule)
- Continue the reading on Nineteen Eighty-Four.
Class Discussion:
- LBJ’s ‘Daisy’ ad
- Analysis of the video, the quick change from the girl to a nuclear bomb explosion. How the video manipulates its audience.
- There Will Come Soft Rains
- Picking up from last week, the setting is post-apocalyptic, following an automated house in a nuclear fallout.
- Free writing questions on Nineteen Eighty-Four:
- What is the tone of the novel? why?
- What stood out the most? why?
- Questions you have about the text.
- Nineteen Eight-Four (chapters I-V)
- Winston’s rebellious action, keeping a diary.
- Winston’s paranoia of society and government.
- Doublethink, able to have two contradicting thought, idea, or opinion at the same time. (pg 36)
- New language “newspeak”, destruction of language.
- Winston’s diary/memories/dreams.
- The tone of the novel; dark, gray, depressing.
Vocabulary:
- Melancholy: causing or expressing sadness; depressing.
- Dilapidated: in a state of disrepair or ruin as a result of age or neglect.
- Visceral: relating to deep inward feelings rather than to the intellect.
- Surveillance: close observation, especially of a suspected spy or criminal.
- Panopticon: a circular prison with cells arranged around a central well, from which prisoners could at all times be observed.
(please feel free to add to the class note, I might have missed some important details.)
Thanks for these notes Jorge!
One additional thing that I had asked the class to start thinking about is the novel both through the lens of its historical context (when it was written/published) and through our contemporary context. In particular, I asked students to think through ideas of surveillance, and ideas of doublethink/Newspeak/alteration of facts & history in relation to current hot-topic issues like “alternative facts” and “fake news.”