Extra Credit

Oh, English.  Oh, Townzen.  Through nothing less than a miracle, I have finished the class.  However, looking back on this year, it does seem that I have in fact learned a lot more than I actually thought I did, despite the many times I have insisted on how I hadn't learned anything, and that the course was pointless.  I by the end of the course, I feel like I have learned how to analyze text for techniques much better than I did coming out of Advanced Sophomore English.   Although it's a funny thing, pretty much all through this English class, as I would be reading one of the books for the first time, I felt as if there were no literary elements, and no reason to be reading it.  I would think "this is stupid, why am I reading this?" and this only impeded my ability to look deeper into the text and find deeper hidden concepts.  I feel like if I had been told beforehand, "Yes, despite your insistent attempts to believe that there is nothing here, there is stuff in here, just look harder." that I may have searched a little more.  I know, this is an English class and there would be no point in you giving us a book to read that had nothing of importance in it.  I guess it's just that reassuring element that would have given me a reason to look harder because I would know for a fact that there was interesting concepts and techniques used in the book before going back through it in class to talk about what concepts were coming up.

Looking forward to Senior Year, I believe that in order to succeed in English, I will need to learn how to further analyze quotes, and learn how to build my analysis' upon one another better in order for them to further strengthen my point and connect to my theses better, and I feel like that is one thing that could have been taught a little better in the class.  Writing an essay I wouldn't really know where I was going at the start, and I would only really start to understand what I was trying to say and how to effectively put it into writing until I had maybe half of the paper already written.  Although I know you specifically said in class that it is extremely difficult to tell people "how to think" and how to instruct them to have the right thinking process, I feel like there is some way that this problem could be helped, like having specific questions that people should ask themselves when they are looking at a piece of writing that could help themselves along with interpreting the text better.  That may seem kind of unrealistic, its just something to put out there.  Anyways, I do feel like I have improved as a writer, and as a thinker to some degree, and I think that the rigor of IB English has contributed to that.  

Lorca Journal #3

#1  Walls in Blood Wedding represents is boundaries and restrictions.  These boundaries keep the bride from being able to be decisive in her marital/relationship affairs.  On one hand, she would marry the bridesgroom, and she would get the protection of his stable household and his wealth.  But on the other hand, she would marry Leonardo and be truly happy, despite his lack of wealth and social class.  The walls symbolize the internal struggle within the mind of the bride.

I think the symbol of flowers represents flourishing, and passion.  The orange blossom encased in wax that the bridesgroom gives to the bride represents how the loveless marriage between the bride and the groom will restrict the bride's passion and cause it to be held inside, however with leonardo, her passion will flourish.

#2  I think one of the things the horse represents is internal struggle.  The horse is worked all day, and it needs water to survive, yet it will not drink the water.  Lorca describes the water as dark and black showing that it is impure.  The water is impure, or unholy, which could represent the brides passion towards leonardo.  She would run off with leonardo, but she would be married to the groom, and this passion would probably eventually turn into adultery, making the unholy water being representative of these sinful passions.

#3 To Jack:  I liked how you mentioned independence, and individualism with the horse, it does seem like there is some kind of choice/sacrifice being made with the horse, maybe this could connect to how the bride is sacrificing wealth and security to be happy with leonardo?

To Cassi T: I thought it was interesting how you connected the horse to being something negative and how you connected it with the grim reaper.  The quotes you used seem to show that it is in fact something that the mother fears.

Blood Wedding Journal #2

Symbols:
Walls
Knives/Daggers
Flowers
Water
Horses
The Vineyard

Archetypes:
One archetype that Lorca displays is the Archetype of a mother.  Lorca displays the mother as being protective and worrisome.  We can see that this is the way she is portrayed by looking at the quote: "How I wish you had been a girl!  You wouldn't be going down to the stream now"(7).  This shows that she is worried that something might happen to her son if he goes down to the vineyard with a knife, she wants to protect him from the dangers that overcame her husband.  Lorca embodies the archetype of a mother because he uses quotes into the book that display her concern for her son, and her protectiveness against potential harm or pain.

Blood Wedding Journal #1

Anouilh:
Well, there they are. Those economically useless bundles of clothing, curled up under the Burnside Bridge. They are thinking this: Some will live; some will die in this winter wonderland.


Ibsen: 
Jack: Why are you telling me all of this?
Jill: I'm not sure.  I don't want you to have uncertainties.
Jack: Uncertainties!  And you think that telling me will all this will cause me to not worry?
Jill: None of it really matters anyway, you needn't keep all this on your mind.  Wheres Johnny?
Jack: He went to the fairgrounds to see the animals– how could you have possibly thought that telling me this would give me peace of mind!


I enjoyed working with both of the writing styles.  I liked writing in the style of Ibsen because of the subjects that seem to wander to different places and the interrupted train of thought.  I also liked using ambiguous words and sentences.  I liked writing in Anouilh's style and just reading Anouilh in general because of the sardonic tone and colloquialism of the chorus.  It seems like the colloquialism towards the reader/audience makes them feel more engaged because they are: 1. being directly spoken to, and 2. the word choice and phrasing of the chorus like Well, So, etc.