Today we went over our thesis statements. They looked great! I can’t wait to see how the essays turn out. Remember, you’ll be writing your essay in class on Monday from a detailed outline. Don’t forget the following:

• Your thesis statement should not simply be a statement of the similarities of and differences between the two works. It should point out the relevance of the comparison. As I looked over each of your thesis statements I pointed out things you could focus on. If you have any questions, post them below or send me an email.
• The topic sentence of each paragraph should support your thesis, and the paragraph sentences should support the topic sentence with cited quotations.
• Include all necessary quotations in your outline (especially if you’re using a film), as you won’t have time to look up quotations.

But it may ours.

We’ll be reading/journaling through chapter six for Monday. Find a quiet corner of the house (not too far away from safety, though) and curl up. If you haven’t popped into the story yet, devote a little more time than usual to get into it. Once you’re there, it’ll be smooth sailing.

You’ll need your journals for the discussion on Monday, so make sure you have it then.

Welcome back! (So it’s only been three days, but with the new semester and all…)

We began Frankenstein in a bit of a roundabout way today—with a discussion of what it means to be Gothic. While the first image that came to many of you was a pale kid in black with eyeliner ((BTW, did you know there is a Goth Day at Disneyland? Something about all that black and the CA sunshine gives me images of streaking makeup…)), we eventually came up with this:

  Flying buttresses. It’s a good start.

Basically, things (be they art, architecture, literature, or music) that fall under the “Gothic” heading are eerie, ominous, looming, grotesque, and sometimes monstrous. ((There’s a great gallery of 19th century Gothic architecture at Boston College’s website.)) Coming out of the realism and social commentary that dominated the Age of Enlightenment (think Gulliver’s Travels and “A Modest Proposal”), authors writing Gothic literature in the 19th century turned away from such practical views of the world and focused on settings and the emotional experience of events.

This is exemplified perfectly by Schubert’s Erlkönig (1815) ((You can thank your band teacher for this connection)), a piece based on Goethe’s poem (1782) of the same name, which in turn was based on a creature from Danish folktales. ((I found this information, along with an English translation, on the wiki page.)) The Leid tells the story of a boy and his father traveling through deep dark woods, with the son becoming more and more frightened by a supernatural presence. Of course, the father doesn’t seem worried, and by the end of the journey, he finds he’s carrying a dead child. Emotional, terrifying, grotesque, sublime: Gothic.

Architecture, art, and music at the time emphasized these emotions and attempted to elicit feelings of awe and the sublime in their audiences. (Remember our awe discussions with the Existentialists and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead?)

As you read Frankenstein, keep this in mind. Shelley was certainly commenting on the effects of the Industrial Revolution (a solid insight by a few of you). But more than anything, she elicits a feeling of the sublime and grotesque in her audience.

Things to Journal:

• Scary, beautiful, sublime, etc. scenes
• Connections with the Prometheus myth
• Connections with Milton’s Paradise Lost (we’ll be looking at that in class tomorrow)
• Questions (and answers as you come up with them). Here’s a few to get you started:
  • How does the author view her work?
  • Why do you think she wrote it, after reading her foreword?
  • Why did she hide her authorship the first time around?

Before Class Tomorrow:

Read everything within and around the book (cover, title page, notes at the back, and foreword) that isn’t the story itself. Journal as you have with previous works. (See “Things to Journal” above if you need a kick-start.)

We will begin discussing Lord of the Flies by Wm. Golding when we return from Fall Break. You may pick up a copy at Gardener’s on the cheap (though they may not have many copies in stock) or at any other fine bookseller in the area.

We will be journaling as we go, so start as soon as you open the book. We’ll be focusing on themes of power and democracy, as well as social interaction. Keep in mind our discussion of money in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead:

PLAYER: Everything has to be taken on trust; truth is only that which is taken to be true. It’s the currency of living. There may be nothing behind it, but it doesn’t make any difference so long as it is honored. One acts on assumptions (51-52).

Here’s our schedule for the remainder of the semester. Of course, this is subject to change with advance warning:

All missing or reworked assignments must be turned in by Monday, the 26th of this month—there will be no exceptions.

We finished Hamlet today in fifth hour (we’ll finish tomorrow in third). Your completed journals are due the day after we finish (tomorrow for fifth hour, Wednesday for third). If you elected to write the essay, a draft is due before Thursday.

I’m very excited about how things are going. Journaling, like essay writing, is a skill that takes time and practice to master. For those of you with questions, I can offer practical advice: “Write your reactions to and questions about the work. Quote nearly as often as you react or question.” My longer answer can be found in the previous post.

I can also offer more experimental advice: “Play around with your journal. After all, it is yours. I’m only grading on coverage (did you write about the whole story), so the rest is up to you. Choose a cool notebook; use page tabs; use colors for different ideas, themes, characters, questions/responses, or vocab; draw pictures… I may look over it, but your only audience is you. Literature means nothing without a reader; it’s just words on a page, but a good journal can make a dusty work relevant and alive. Make yourself proud; it’s your education.”

I’ll follow this up tomorrow in class, before we begin our foray into existentialism.