Monthly Archives: October 2016

HW for October 26; Blog 5 instructions

Leave a reply

Dear class,

Thanks for those of you who contributed to the discussion today.  I hope that the reasons for coming prepared, with hard copies of the text, are clear.  It is unfair to your fellow students (as well as to me!), if class discussion slows down because people have to read over other people’s shoulders.  It also means that only a few students are doing the hard work of contributing to class discussion, while the majority sits back passively.  I expect this to change next class.

For homework, you should:

-read Ch.8-14. As you’re reading, I encourage you keep looking for passages or quotes that directly answer your own guiding questions, as well as questions we’ve discussed in class. I also encourage you to pay particular attention to the setting of the island.  At what parts of the island do specific events take place?  What details does Wells include when describing the island? Why do you think Wells chose to set this story on an island?

Heads up: there will be a basic reading quiz.

-upload a .jpeg of an annotated page from Ch. 9-11 to the appropriate dropbox (see Assignments Dropboxes) by 11 am on Wednesday.

–read the Essay #2 assignment carefully.  Be on the lookout for snapshots that might be relevant to the assignment description, as well as snapshots that help answer your guiding questions.

-either blog by 5 pm Tuesday (if in Group #5) or comment by 11:30 am Wednesday (if not).  Blog group 5, as usual, you have a choice of Clue, Connect, or Create posts, with the expectation that you should do a different category than you did in the first round of blogging.  Using notes from class + our own guiding questions, write a post that does any of the following:

–Clue: focuses on one “snapshot” from ch. 8-14 of Moreau, that features the physical environment in some important way; features an instance of fantastic hesitation; and/or seems to address one of your guiding questions.  (If it does all 3, all the better!) Referring to specific elements of fiction, explain how the scene might offer a clue to answering one of your guiding questions.

–Compares/connects any “snapshot” from ch. 8-14 to any snapshot we discussed from ch. 1-7.  Try to make one claim about why comparing those snapshots help you answer your guiding question.

–Create a paragraph-long monologue from the perspective of one minor character from ch. 8-14. In a second paragraph, briefly explain how your monologue offers insight into answers to one of your guiding questions.

 

Am I Dead? (Clue for The Island of Doctor Moreau)

3 Replies

Did Edward Prendick actually die when Lady Vain collided?

The story provides realistic details about events that took place along with things that can be deemed as supernatural and unrealistic. The physical traits that Edward describes of his encounter of the “black-faced man” shows there is something more to what meets the eye. The description of his physical traits of “..and the huge half-open mouth showed as big white teeth as I had ever seen in a human mouth. His eyes were blood-shot at the edges, with scarcely a rim of white round the hazel pupils.” (13) show that he is something Edward has never seen and possibly the supernatural. Perhaps he is in purgatory and is simply being transported to another place with people such who have an reason to being here like perhaps, the drunk captain who had lost his license due to putting people in danger or the doctor who has possibly done something with evil intent with his medical knowledge in London. The description of the “black faced man” and the constant barks from the animals being caged possibly display a bigger role in which Edward is in and a strong possibility of him dying on the boat and letting his mind wander before he finally dies.

Clue “The Evil Looking Boatmen”

3 Replies

Is Edward Prendick imagining everything that he sees or is it real?  When it comes to the story there is a combination of realistic details and just plain weird details. The way Prendick describe everything, it almost seems believable. “I looked steadily at them, and the impression did not pass, though I failed to see what had occasioned it. They seemed to me then to be brown men, but their limbs were oddly swathed in some thin dirty white stuff down even to the fingers and feet…I found afterwards that really none were taller than myself, but their bodies were abnormally long and the thigh-part of the leg short and curiously twisted… the face of the man whose eyes were luminous in the dark.” (24) just by this small section of the story we now start to get a better picture/idea on how the people of the island look like. And by the looks of it they don’t seem normal. Their legs are oddly shaped, their face and arms. We know that Edward has been stranded in a Didley for a long time which we can imagine that his mind might be making him sees things that are not there. Although the reader might think that, the way that Edward started to describe how the island looked like and the Islanders it makes it seem like its real. And that he is not making this up in his head. All the wired details start with how he describes how the islanders look like and how strange Montgomery and his companion is.

[Group 4] Create: The Black Faced Man

4 Replies

I am known as the Black Faced Man.

I laid my eyes on Montgomery for the first time on one of his hunting voyages. He was in search for some animals in which, at the time, I didn’t know what it was for. The way he caught these animals you could tell he had done this plenty of times before. He was in the woods alone and I happened to see him on my way back home from a camping trip. He seemed like a dangerous man with all the tools he held, so I stayed behind a tree as I observed him. I accidentally  stepped on some branches and he looked directly at me. I was scared. He walked towards me while asking, “Who’s there?” I walked away from my hiding and told him my name, “Goldman, Sir.” He asked me what I was doing in the woods and told me that I shouldn’t be there. I explained to him that I was on my way back home from a trip and happened to see him. He looked at me from head to toe with his had on his chin as if he were to be thinking of something. He asked me if I had a wife or any family. I answered, “No, Sir.” He then offered me a job. He didn’t explain well but he told me that it would something extraordinary and it would be very important to the future or our lives. Blindly, I said yes since I had nothing to lose. Montgomery took me on his ship and off we went. I had no idea what I had coming for me. We arrived and was immediately greeted by some man named Moreau. Moreau told me he was a scientist and that he was going to change the world but he needed by help.

I was one of his experiments. I am half wolf and half man. I am werewolf.

Now I am forced to be part of this island because I am a monster. The only place I can be accepted in is the land of experiements.

My explanation: The question I wanted to explore was the question of animals. The animals that  Prendick witnessed on the ship were obviously going to be used for either experimentation or reproduction. When “The Black Faced Man” was introduced as something so peculiar I automatically thought he was an experiment. But of what? I wanted to know more about this black faced man so I created a story about him. The description given by Prendick automatically made me think of a werewolf or some type of dog like a fox or a wolf. These animals are forest animals and went with that story.

“The Dead” Create Blog Post (Group 3)

1 Reply

“It is sad but true, that the new generation is over thinking and coming up with ideas that make the old way of living obsolete. This is serious because this new way of thinking will make that generation not have a good quality and it will somehow make it harder from them to function in some way. When I was listening to those great singers of the past I could tell that we were living in a less spacious age. Those days where without a doubt, very spacious and to think that it’s just going to get worse makes me depressed. That is why we must still cherish those who are “dead”, those who have wandered off the road and created a new path for themselves and hope that we can forgive them and treat them fairly or the same. To not ridicule and make fun of them based off of jumping to conclusions; fore it is this endless cycle that just makes things worse. The reason why is because the new generations are the ones who frame the world, generations change and if we can’t take responsibility for our mistakes, generations will suffer. We must not let them suffer more by willingly letting them be forgotten. We must not let our clouded judgement make decisions for us.” – Mr. Browne.

The way this monolog offers insight into Mr. Browne’s character is that it reveals that he is very brave for agreeing with Gabriel’s announcement because it seemed to me that Mr. Browne was the only one to acknowledge Gabriel’s speech by loudly saying “hear, hear” in the middle of it when no one else did. Mr. Browne is smart because it seems like he is the only one that made sense to what Gabriel was saying at the exact moment.