Monthly Archives: March 2018

Acquiescence

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Acquiescence: noun: passive acceptance or submission.

Source: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/acquiescence

From “The Complete Fiction of Nella Larson” by Nella Larsen, Page 42

“Helga, on the other hand, had never quite achieved the unmistakable Naxos Mold, would never achieve it in spite of trying…Always she had considered it a lack of understanding on the part of the community, but in her present new revolt she realized that the fault had been partly hers. A lack of acquiescence.”

Acquiescence is used in this passage to explain why Helga hadn’t adjusted to life in Naxos. She didn’t adopt the Naxos way of life because she didn’t want to.

Introducing Helga Crane

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What do we know about Helga Crane?

  • likes nice stuff
  • likes exotic things? foreign? imports?
  • reads books
  • alone–>lonely?
  • chooses gloom, low light
  • as a teacher: enjoys it, gives “willingly and unsparingly”–but it’s taxing
  • forced isolation: doesn’t open her door to other teachers
  • 22 years old
  • blue-black hair, “skin like yellow satin” : attractive
  • is she crafting her appearance in a detailed way?

What do we know about the world she lives in?

  • her room is filled with her nice things
  • lots of books
  • she has a large room amid other people’s rooms
  • “soft gloom”
  • in the South
  • she’s in a metaphorical desert: big shift from day to night
  • her coworkers are unkind and gossipy
  • she’s insignificant in the huge institution
  • she lives on campus where other teachers live

Magnanimity

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noun

the quality of being magnanimous; a magnanimous act.

(This  word is a derivative of the word magnanimous which in turn means showing noble sensibility or high minded)

source: the free dictionary by Farlex

I stumble on to the word “magnanimity” while reading chapter one of the Quicksand. It was use in the context “the exemplification of the white man’s magnanimity” . I believe  the word was used to emphasize the idea of how highly the white man is portrayed in Naxos. (refer to chapter 1 of Quicksand by Nella Larsen).

Tapestry

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  1. Tapestry -( noun) a heavy handwoven reversible textile used for hangings, curtains, and upholstery and characterized by complicated pictorial designs

i found this definition on https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tapestry

I found this word in our new book Quicksand by Nella Larsen “In vivid green and gold negligee and glistening brocaded mules, deep sunk in the big high-backed chair, against whose dark tapestry her sharply cut face, with skin like yellow satin, was distinctly outlined she was—to use a hackneyed word—attractive.”

now I have a visual and a better understanding of tapestry. It can be considered a design that is put on your wall like a curtain and it has details and designs all over

K

Nasturtiums

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Nasturtiums (noun) – any of a genus (Tropaeolum of the family Tropaeolaceae, the nasturtium family) of herbs of Central and South America with showy spurred flowers and pungent edible seeds and leaves.

Source – https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nasturtium

In “Quicksand”, “Only a single reading lamp, dimmed by a great black and red shade, made by pool of light on the blue Chinese carpet, on the bright covers of the books which she had taken down from their long shelves, on the white pages of the opened one selected, on the shining brass bowl crowded with many-colored nasturtiums beside her on the low table, and on the oriental silk which covered the stool at her slim feet.” (Larsen, pg 35)

I now understand that the author is trying to set a seen with the description of the nasturtiums, which are colorful flowers that can be red, yellow, and white. These flowers are next to Helga Crane as she sits around a table.

Image result for define nasturtium

For Wednesday’s class

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Congratulations on completing the midterm exam! We’re moving ahead with work for Project #1 and with our next unit of literature. For Wednesday’s class, please do the following:

1-prepare as final a version of Part 1 and Part 2 of Project #1 as possible, and bring your work to Wednesday’s class. We will devote some time to peer review. If you have not already had your required meeting with me, please schedule one as soon as possible.

2-be sure to have bought/borrowed/rented a copy of The Complete Fiction of Nella Larsen, and read Chapter 1 of Quicksand, pp 29-44. Bring your copy of the book to class on Wednesday.

3-respond to this post by 10am Wednesday with a comment (100-150 words) about what stands out to you in the first chapter about the protagonist or about the world she inhabits. Include a relevant quotation from Chapter 1.

Nomadic

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nomadic;adjective

An appropriate definition to Nomadic is roaming about from place to place aimlessly, frequently, or without a fixed pattern of movement

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nomadic

From a hunger artist in the second paragraph

“The glaring light didn’t bother him in the slightest. Generally he couldn’t sleep at all, and he could always doze off a little under any lighting and at any hour, even in an overcrowded, noisy auditorium. With such observers, he was very happily prepared to spend the entire night without sleeping. He was ready to joke with them, to recount stories from his nomadic life and then, in turn, to listen to their stories—doing everything just to keep them awake, so that he could keep showing them once again that he had nothing to eat in his cage and that he was fasting as none of them could.”

Now that I have the definition and the context in which to put it,I can surmise that it means that hes never had a stable home.This could’ve also played apart in why he does the things he does.This also means that hes seen tons of things. Its possible that his nomadic lifestyle had a very profound impact on his psyche.

Preparing for Monday’s Midterm Exam

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Drawing from the themes and conflicts that we identified in our tagging activity in class yesterday, I have developed five prompts for the midterm exam (which is on Monday). On the exam, I will narrow down the choices to three, and you will choose one. As I have recommended before, if you prepare for at least three of these questions, you will be guaranteed to have at least one of your preferred questions on the exam.

You will not be allowed to bring the stories to the exam. Instead, you will be able to bring one sheet (typed or handwritten) that includes the quotations you would want to use in writing your essay. I will collect this sheet with your exam booklet.

Here is a draft of the exam, including the instructions:

In a well-developed essay, consider how two of the short stories we have read this semester compare in their approach to one of the following issues, topics, or themes. Compare (that is, write about similarities and differences in) two examples from each story, using quotations from your quotation sheet as evidence to support for your thesis-driven essay.

  1. the use of gruesome, macabre details to develop characters (i.e. characterization)
  2. the significance of setting details, including their symbolic significance
  3. patriarchy or oppression as a dominating force or as a force to be overthrown in the plot
  4. the intricate relationship between freedom and death
  5. marital or familial relationships as restrictive and/or empowering

(on the exam, this will be a list of three)

Guidelines and tips: (these will be on the exam instruction sheet, but it’s good to familiarize yourself with them before the exam)

  • You must use two stories we have read this semester for this essay, excluding the story you are writing about in Project #1.
  • Your essay should be 500-600 words—if you’re writing 5 words per line, that’s 5-6 pages in the blue book, fewer pages if you get more words per line. There’s no need to count all of the words: check to see roughly how many words you write per line on a few lines, then multiply that by 20 (lines per page) and the number of pages you have.
  • To get started, you should choose one of the questions and the two texts you will use to write the essay, based on the work you did to prepare for the exam.
  • Take time before you start writing the essay to think about what you want to write, and use the blue book to write down notes, lists, outlines, or other planning-writing before you start writing the essay.
  • There’s no need to skip every other line, but you might want to skip a line or two between paragraphs to give yourself space to add in any additional words or sentences when you re-read your essay.
  • When you include a quotation, even though it is already on your quotation sheet, please copy it into your essay.
  • Be sure to leave yourself enough time to proofread at least twice.
  • Rather than using whiteout or making a mess, when you need to make a correction, just cross out what you want to delete.

Getting Ready for the exam:

  • Re-read any stories you think you want to write about
  • Annotate the stories you think you want to write about as you re-read so you get the most out of reading them
  • Practice by drafting a thesis statement and outline for three to five of these topics
  • Prepare your quotation sheet for three to five of these topics
  • Ask questions by replying to this post
  • Share ideas by replying to this post
  • Get some sleep
  • Eat a good meal
  • Print (or write) and bring your quotations sheet
  • Come to class on time!

Brainstorming for the midterm exam

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To get us started:

If our readings were each posts on our OpenLab site, what tags would you add to them?

(we wrote these on the boards in class. I will collate from the photos I took of them to add them in here)

Stories we can write about for the midterm exam (and our tags):

“I Always Write About My Mother When I Start to Write”

relationship to parent, idolization, fairy tale motif, retrospection

“There Was Once”

fairy tales, partirarchy, oppression, storytelling

Cinderella Stories

relationship to parent, fairy tale, mentor, dreams, betrayal, good vs. evil, supernatural, true love, pain, inherently good, gruesome, dominance , oppression, happy ending, death

“The Story of an Hour”

reliance, obligation, pain, imagery, rebirth, freedom, marriage, patriarchy, death

“A Jury of Her Peers”

neighbors, strangers, details, ways of reading, marriage, unhappy, art: quilting, sewing, food preserves; dominance, oppression, death

“A Rose for Emily”

Gothic, morbid, sexist, racist, dominance, oppression, patriarchy, marriage, death, introversion, story of its time, dark, macabre, gruesome , horror

“The Yellow Wall-Paper”

mental health/illness, insanity, horror, art: writing, creative, introversion, freedom, dominance, oppression, patriarchy, dark, macabre, pain, medical treatment

“The Cottagette”

love, equality, idyllic setting, ideal love, women’s work, art: embroidery and music, marriage, down with the patriarchy, friendship

“Only the Dead Know Brooklyn”

cultural relativism, humor, slang, dialect, real, realism, geography

“Hills Like White Elephants”

relationships, imbalance of power, power, dominance, naive, tough choices, confusion, baby, dialogue, repetition

“The Hunger Artist”

asceticism, vanity, attention, anger, art: performance, starvation, suffering, suffering for art, short-lived popularity, pain, spectacle, death

Topics and Themes emerging:

dominance/domination/oppression/patriarchy

marriage/love/ false love vs secure attachments

dark/macabre

freedom

pain

death

The Plan:

I will post five questions on our site (this is in the works, but I need to think carefully about the language) based on topics/themes that emerged from our discussion. I will then choose three questions for the midterm exam. You will have to respond to one of the questions. The questions will each ask you to write about two readings from this semester so far. You will need to include quotations in your midterm exam essay. This is not an open-book exam, so you will be permitted one sheet of quotations that you prepare to bring in to the exam. Choose wisely! I will collect the page along with your exam.

Strategizing:

If you prepare for three of the questions, you can be sure that at least one of them will be on the exam. So prepare for three and you’ll be set!

To prepare, try to draft a thesis statement, write an outline, choose quotations that will support your argument (and add them to your quotation sheet).

Narration styles

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First-person: Uses I to refer to the narrator. SUbjective: only what the character thinks

  • homodiegetic: character-narrator:  a character narrates.
  • a subset of homodiegetic is autodiegetic: the protagonist is the character who narrates

Second-person

Third-person: not I; not a character in the story world.

  • omniscient: all-knowing. narrator can go into the heads of everyone
  • limited: can go into one character’s head
  • objective: does not go into anyone’s head. All based on what can be observed.

reliable vs unreliable narrator

defamiliarization