Sunday, September 21, 2008

The Scarlet Letter Study Guide Ques.

  1. By definition, an introduction is a preliminary part, as of a book, musical composition, or the like, leading up to the main part (dictionary.com). Within most novels, an introduction, or preface, is provided. An introduction is the foundation of the novel, and the rest of the novel builds upon it. It gives the reader history on the novel and prevents the reader from blindly walking into a story. Introductions give descriptions on the story that follows. They also allow the reader to gauge the difficulty level of the book and to get to know the author of the novel. Nathaniel Hawthorne's purpose is to give background information on the important events that will occur in the story.

  2. Hawthorne admits to changing the story contained in the diary. He adds his own fictional elements to the story in order to make the novel more interesting. In his opinion, the fiction in the story will keep the reader's attention better than stated facts, which is what the novel would have been without his changes. He also believes that the changes he made would better his writing career, because the novel would attract more attention. Although he makes changes to the original document, he makes sure that he gives credit where credit is due. "The main facts of the story are authorized and authenticated by the document of Mr. Surveyor Pue" (Hawthorne, 32). He wants his readers to know that, even though he added a lot to the original story, that it was not only him who contributed to it, and that the credit for the original story should go to Mr. Surveyor Pue.

  3. The change that is made will accomplish Hawthorne's goal of making the story more interesting to his readers. With the original documents simply being facts, there was a good chance that the book wouldn't have caught the attention of its present audience. Adding his own words to the novel helped to widen the range of readers, thus giving the book more publicity. Nathaniel Hawthorne, in a sense, brought the story of Ms. Hester Prynne to life.

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Scarlet Letter Vocabulary (Crossword Puzzle)

Across
3. botomless hole, a vast expanse or depth
4. to move upward, to rise from a lower station
5. sharpness of perception
7. one who leads a life of self-denial and contemplation; absent of luxury
10. a dislike, distaste, or enmity
13. to add in a supplementary manner
14. capable of floating; cheerful
15. a likeness, a natural relationship, a kinship
17. strict; stern; unadorned, ascetic
18. to degrade, to humiliate
19. to reduce in intensity or amount
Down
1. very difficult to accomplish or to achieve, very demanding (task)
2. excessive boldness, rashness, daring
3. a substance that is a mixture of metals
5. favorable
6. open to or willing to follow advice or suggestion, tractable, malleable
7. one who practices medieval chemistry or tries to change metals into gold
8. not causing harm, of gentle disposition, beneficial
9. destroyed or caused by decline or decay
11. prompt and cheerful response
12. a soothing substance or one that gives relief
14. to give a sign of
15. an omen or prophecy
16. kindness, generosity, charity
17. difficult to understand, recondite, concealed

Sunday, September 14, 2008

Anne Bradstreet Poem Response

Anne Bradstreet was a 17th century poet who published many works during that time period. She was an amazing writer and related many of her works to her own personal life. “The Author to Her Book”, for example, spoke figuratively of her poems that were published into a book, which are symbolized as her child. “To My Dear and Loving Husband” also relates to her life. In this poem she was describing how she felt towards her husband. Bradstreet uses many rhetorical devices in her poetry.

“The Author to Her Book” contains a rhetorical trope within the title itself. The title is ironic, because one would expect for the author to her book to be herself. This, however, is not the case. Her poems were taken from her without her permission, and then published in a book for all to see. Thus in fact, the author of Anne Bradstreet’s book was someone other than herself. The poem also contains very many metaphors. “Thou ill-formed offspring of my feeble brain,” (line 1) compares her roughly drafted poems to a child who is not properly formed. Bradstreet relates the poem to her life by using the metaphor of a child, for she had 8 children of her own.

“Made thee in rags,” (line 5) was another metaphor that Bradstreet used in “The Author to Her Book”. This metaphor compared the words of her poems to rags, because to her, neither is good enough. It wouldn’t be acceptable for her child to be seen in rags, nor is it acceptable for her poems to be seen written the way they are. It can be inferred that when she saw all the faults within her poems that had been shown to everyone, she immediately became embarrassed: “At thy return my blushing was not small” (line 7). “I washed thy face, but more defects I saw,” (line 13) gives another example of Bradstreet referring to her poems as her child. She said she “washed her poems’ face” the way a mother would wash the face of her dirty child. She saw even more blemishes after she got finished cleaning up the poems, because Anne Bradstreet was being quite critical of herself. She wanted each poem to be absolutely perfect, and if it wasn’t she wasn’t satisfied with it.

“I stretched thy joints to make thee even feet, yet still thou run’st more hobbling than meet” (lines 15 and 16). Bradstreet continues to give her poems human-like characteristics. She did all she could to try and fix the poems, but there are still flaws in them. She is very unsatisfied with the job she is doing in perfecting the imperfections of her poems. “In better dress to trim thee was my mind, but nought save homespun cloth i’ th’ house I find” (lines 17 and 18). Anne Bradstreet wanted to dress her child, or poem, in better clothes than she did. It would be her aim for her child to look nice, much like it was her aim for her poems to look nice. This is a metaphor because Bradstreet compares the unsatisfying words used within her poems to homespun cloth. It was all she could find, although she wanted to make the words better. Another rhetorical element Bradstreet used was similes. “I cast thee by as one unfit for light,” (line 9) Bradstreet used “as” to compare her published poems to something so terrible that it isn’t fit to be seen in the light. This means that Bradstreet didn’t want the poems to be seen by anyone.

Rhetorical tropes are also used in another one of Anne Bradstreet’s poems, “To My Dear and Loving Husband”. “I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold or all the riches that the East doth hold” (lines 5 and 6) is a metaphor. Bradstreet compares her husband’s love to gold and riches. In comparing his love to these things, Bradstreet gives the idea that his love is worth very much to her, like gold and riches are worth a lot to other people.

All in all, Anne Bradstreet portrays many rhetorical elements in her poetry. In her poems “The Author to Her Book” and “To My Dear and Loving Husband”, she mainly shows forms of comparisons of one thing to another.

Anne Bradstreet Biography Link

http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/webtexts/Bradstreet/bradbio.htm

Anne Bradstreet's Biography Summerization

Biography by Ann Woodlief, Illustrations by Ladonna Gulley Warrick

Anne Bradstreet was born to a nonconformist former soldier of Queen Elizabeth, Thomas Dudley. He traveled in 1630 for America with the Massachusetts Bay Company, his family and son-in-law, Simon Bradstreet. When he married Anne Dudley, his childhood sweetheart, he was 25 years old and she was 16. The voyage to America was difficult and many people died from the experience. Life on the journey differed greatly from the beautiful estate that Anne Bradstreet was used to, because it was rough and cold. Anne told her children in her memoirs that "I found a new world and new manners at which my heart rose [up in protest.]" Anne did, however, decide to join the church at Boston. White writes that "instead of looking outward and writing her observations on this unfamiliar scene with its rough and fearsome aspects, she let her homesick imagination turn inward, marshalled the images from her store of learning and dressed them in careful homespun garments."

Historically, Anne's identity is mainly linked to her prominent father and husband. They both were governors of Massachusetts who left portraits and many records. She appreciated their love and protection, but "any woman who sought to use her wit, charm, or intelligence in the community at large found herself ridiculed, banished, or executed by the Colony's powerful group of male leaders." The role she was expected to play was in the home. She was expected to be separated from the affairs of church and stat, even "deriving her ideas of God deom the contemplations of her husband's excellencies," according to one document.

The situation she was in was made clear to her through the fate of her good friend, Anne Hutchinson, who was also intelligent, educated, of a prosperous family and extremely pious. Hutchinson was a mother of 14 and an incredible speaker, and she held prayer meetings in which women discussed and debated religious and ethical ideas. She believed that the Holy Spirit lived within justified people, therefore good works were not necessary for admission to the church. This belief, however, was considered heretical; she was then labeled a Jezebel and banished, eventually slain in an Indian attack in New York. This explains why Bradstreet was not so anxious to publish her poetry and liked to keep her more personal works private. Bradstreet wrote epitaphs for both of her parents. These not only showed her love for them, but they showed them as models of how Puritans should behave.

There is not much evidence of Anne's life in Massachusetts besides that given in her poetry: no portrait or grave-maker, although there is a house in Ipswich, MA. She moved many times with her family, always to areas in which Simon could get more property and political power. There, they would have been very vulnerable to Indian attack; families of powerful Puritans were often kidnapped and ransomed. Through her poems, we can see that she deeply loved her husband and greatly missed him when he left frequently on colony business to England and other settlements. On the contrary, though, her feelings towards him, as well as her Purtian faith and position as a woman in the Puritan community, seemed a bit mixed. Within about 10 years, she and her husband had 8 children, all of whom survived childhood. She was often sick and expected to die, especially during childbirth, but she lived to the age of 60.

The poetry Anne Bradstreet wrote seemed to be mainly for herself, her family, and her friends, many of whom were well educated. Her early poetry, taken to England by her brother-in-law (possibly without her permission), appeared as The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America in 1650 when she was 38 and it sold well in England. Her later works were more private, personal, and original than those in The Tenth Muse. These were not published while she was alive, but she shared this poetry with her family and friends.

Anne Bradstreet apparently took herself very seriously as a poet and an intellectual. She was well-read in history, science, and literature, studying her craft and developing a confident poetic voice. She "apologized" to Puritans who believed women should be silent, modest, and living in the private rather than the public sphere. Her apologies were quite likely mroe ironic than sincere.

Although she often questioned the power of the male hierarchy and God (or the harsh Puritan concept of a judgemental God), she was a Puritan. Creative conflict often arose in her poetry because of her love of the natural and the physical world, as well as the spiritual. She finds hope in the future promises of religion, and great pleasures in the reality of the present. According to the Puritan perspective, she realized that she perhaps should not indulge in the pleasures of the present. Anne Bradstreet's poetry was generally ignored until "rediscovered" by 20th century feminists. The critics found many artistic qualities in her work.

Cabeza de Vaca Picture Analysis

Two blind man are relying upon the guidance of a third blind man. What's wrong with this picture? This photo clearly depicts the blind leading the blind. Panfilo de Narváez led a Florida expedition in 1527. Those who accompanied him on the trip weren't completely sure of what they were getting themselves into, much like the second two men in the picture. They were relying on the knowledge and leadership skills of Narváez. Panfilo de Narváez was much like the man standing in front to the others in the picture. It was up to him to lead his follwers down the right path, but he, too, was blind. He was not a good leader and made bad decisions. "Against Cabeza de Vaca's advice, Narváez sent the ships farther along the shores in search of a rumored port where his army might rejoin them, but the ships were never seen again" ( Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca c. 1490-1558). This bad decision cost many lives. Narváez didn't know what he was doing and couldn't successfully lead a group of people, much like the leading blind man doesn't know how to successfully lead his followers.

Monday, September 8, 2008

Columbus Picture Analysis

This picture is a comical depiction of how Columbus pretty much demanded that the Indians give up their land. The caption is a witty phrase that lets the person who sees it know that the Indians didn't have a say in what is done with their land. The picture shows Columbus walking up to the Indians like he was on a mission, much like a persistant salesman. The caption shows that he would decide what would be done with the land. Columbus wouldn't have taken "no" for an answer. This relates to my essay because in the text that I read there was a part that talked about how Columbus went to the New World, demanded land, and had no opposition from the Indians from whom he took it.

Saturday, September 6, 2008

Willow Tree

The weeping willow tree was like a papered building.