Thinking back to the beginning of the year is a bit of a shock, not only because it seems
like such a short while that we have been in class, but we have already read a
play, and have learned quite a bit.
I think one of the biggest things
that I remember learning was how to (properly) annotate a book. I had never
actually herd of ‘DIDLES’ (is that the right acronym? I don’t know.) Thinking
of a work in several different lights and annotating it is so much easier than
reading a work once, and trying to note everything that you see, because there
is no way that anyone could catch everything the first time through. I’ve Read the American Dream at least four times
and I still go back and see things that trip me up. It’s like every time that I
go back and look at just one page, something catches my eye and it blows my
mind, because I had never caught it before.
The next important thing that I
remember learning (that kinda blew me out of the water) were the meanings of
symbols. I know the basics: if there’s water, they’re baptized, if its winter
it means death… blah blah. But once we started reading the play, I started to
notice some things from the ‘How to Read Lit. Like a prof.’ book. When I read
the chapter on symbols I thought that most of them were obscure, and I wouldn’t
need to actually remember them because, c’mon, how often do enemies break
bread? Not often. Their schedules are normally too full with plotting the
others demise. That being said, I caught small things that changed the play
drastically, and it really helped shape the way I viewed the play entirely.
Other than those two things, there
really wasn’t anything else that was completely mind boggling, I love when we
actually get to dig deep into the play and tear it apart shred by shred. And it
really helps when others point out things that I found unimportant before, because
it normally takes a second look to find things that are important. I think the
biggest thing we’ve learned as far as the play goes, it would have to be the
constant sexual tension being shut down by grandma, Because if you go back through
the play, there are several cases of this happening, not only with daddy but
with the young man as well.
Note before reading: (To those of you who I'm writing comments for) I'm sorry if anything I say is hypocritical. I realized after re-reading my post that I was lacking a lot of material and those corrections I've kept in my mind I may or may not mention in your comment. Please do not write HYPOCRITE all over my comment. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteHi Rachel.
I enjoyed reading your blog. I definitely could not agree more with you about learning to analyze literature in this class. Just as a heads up in the future, I'd recommend putting titles of books in Italics and to give the entire title for copyright purposes and correct formatting. I also understand that this is a blog, so it's nothing (grammar-wise) compared to a college essay, but I would pay a little more attention to punctuation and capitalization (ex: "...being shut down by grandma, Because if..."). I liked how you mentioned DIDLES, that was a big part that I had forgotten to mention in my blog and how really reading into the meaning of text was so fascinating to you. I would have liked to see examples of what was discussed in class since every hour has a different discussion and it would be nice to see other points of view. You could have also connected the ideas and applied it to your life now. (for example I added how this kind of analysis and the book itself changed my views. I connected ideas from class to my own life to better understand Albee's message. I'm not sure if that's what you were supposed to do though.) For me your blog was easy to understand, however it was a little vague for me. I would recommend adding more details and examples of analyses done in class.
Rachel,
ReplyDeleteI love your tone in your post and how articulate and casual it sounds at the same time. It’s very clear to read. What you addressed about reading The American Dream several times is very true. This play was so difficult for me to grasp it took about a week of class discussions and rereading pages over and over to figure out what it was all about. Your paragraph on symbols begins as a great analysis, but I wish you would've said the symbols you identified; even if you couldn't fully dissect them. This would have made your response deeper and I think depth is a big aspect in this class, as difficult as it is. In your final paragraph, you begin to discuss the sexual tension and once again I would have loved to have read your thoughts on it. In class you always bring up such brilliant ideas, and this response should have been full of them. It is difficult to address all the course-work in a few hundred words, and for the amount provided, you did a solid job.
ReplyDeleteRachel,
You analysis of the The American Dream is done well. I agree one of the main things we learned is how to properly annotate a book. I think a lot of us have done part of annotating but not the full blown thing. I think that your response could have been improved with more examples, like in your paragraph about symbols. There were other topics and concepts discussed in class such as Theater of the Absurd. Including more concepts would have also helped. I definitely think that this blog post is the hardest because of having to relate the different concepts. That being said I think this can really help us better understand what we are learning in class. Overall though on the things you discuss you do a through job.