Literary Analysis #4: The Color Purple

GENERAL:
1. Celie is abused and raped by her Pa, who takes away her children after they’re born. Eventually, Pa marries Celie off to a man who is just as abusive as Pa. Celie’s new husband looks after of his house, and work in his fields. Celie is somewhat happy to marry him because she can now remove her younger sister, Nettie, from Pa’s household. However, after Nettie lives in his household for a time without encouraging his sexual advances, he kicks Nettie out. Though Nettie promises to write to her sister, Celie doesn’t hear from her. Celie’s life gets worse and worse, as she’s now separated from the only person in the world whom she loves and who loves her back. Celie’s life changes when he brings his deathly ill mistress home for Celie to nurse back to health. His mistress, Shug, is everything that Celie isn’t: sexy, sassy, and independent. Celie quickly falls in love with Shug, and Shug falls in love back. For the first time in Celie’s life, she has a chance to enjoy sex, romance, and friendship. Together with Shug, Celie discovers the mystery of Nettie’s silence for so many decades: he has been hiding all of Nettie’s letters in his locked trunk. When Celie finds her sister’s letters, it unlocks a new world for her. Instead of being submissive and downtrodden, she realizes the full extent of the abuses she has suffered from him. This knowledge gives her the strength to leave him. Celie heads off to Memphis with Shug to start a new life. Nettie’s letters transform the way Celie sees the world. From Nettie, Celie learns that Pa isn’t actually her biological father. Celie also learns that Nettie is living with the Reverend Samuel and his family, working as a missionary in Africa. The Reverend Samuel had also adopted Celie’s two children from Pa many years back. Nettie, Samuel, and the children plan to return from Africa soon. Celie learns that Pa has died. She also finds out that the house that Pa lived in actually has belonged to Celie and Nettie since their mother passed away. So now Celie owns a home, which she prepares for Nettie’s arrival. Now an independent woman, Celie remains close friends with Shug, although Shug is not faithful or constant in their romantic relationship. Celie also gains a new friend. After she left him, he became a changed man. He’s reformed and is now a pretty decent guy. Although Celie isn’t remotely romantically interested in him, they now enjoy each other’s company. After several decades abroad in Africa, Nettie returns with Samuel, who is now her husband, and with Celie’s two children. The sisters have a blissful reunion, and although they’re now old women, we get the sense that they’ve just begun the best years of their lives.
2. The theme of the novel builds a huge significance around female relationships. Female ties take many forms: some are motherly or sisterly, some are in the form of mentor and pupil, some are sexual, and some are simply friendships. Sofia claims that her ability to fight comes from her strong relationships with her sisters. Nettie’s relationship with Celie anchors her through years of living in the unfamiliar culture of Africa. Samuel notes that the strong relationships among Olinka women are the only thing that makes polygamy bearable for them. Most important, Celie’s ties to Shug bring about Celie’s gradual redemption and her attainment of a sense of self.
3. The tone is very serious and honest. This is not a funny novel. In fact, though there may be one or two funny moments in the novel, we can’t remember them right now. This is a novel about utter hardship, sadness, tragedy – and a woman who finally figures out how to beat the odds no matter how badly they are stacked against her. Celie, the primary narrator, takes a serious look at her life through letters to God. She’s not joking around, she’s expressing the sadness of her life in the healthiest way she can. Her letters to God, and later to Nettie, are very honest. She doesn’t hide the hardship that she’s been through, her embarrassment, or shame. Essentially, the novel is intended to be like the unedited thoughts that go through a person’s mind.
4. Symbolism: The color purple represents all the good things God created in life for man.
Imagery: The pants are an image of how Celie transforms from a woman under a man's hand to her own self.
Allegory: The letters and conversations that Celie has with God is a story throughout the whole novel where she is able to maintain her sanity.
Setting: Georgia in early 20th century; small African town in early 20th century
Syntax: helps describe the time period in the early 20th century

CHARACTERIZATION:
1. Direct: The author is decribing her character's appearances; Describes the character's traits
Indirect: Celie calls Albert Mr.; Celie is explaining how she feels about Mr. The author uses more direct chracterization throughout the story because she is more of a descriptive author in the fact that she more describes the people and situations directly rather than have characters create the story by dialogue.
2. The author only uses one sort of syntax and diction because she only speaks really of Celie. The syntax is very loving and sweet when Celie is a little girl. And as she grows, so does the text.
3. Celie, the protagonist, is definitely dinamic. When she is a young child, she is scared and helpless and extremely sad. But as she grows she becomes this independent strong woman. The situations she goes through create her character and mold her into a passionate strong woman.
4. After finishing this book, I felt the deepest compassion for Celie. I felt as though I went through everything she did. I was there with her at an early age and grew up with her as she grew into this beautiful woman. She literally became a beautiful sight in my eyes. The book was no longer text, but almost like a dream. I definitely felt as though I lived through The Color Purple.

Thinking Outside the Box

Both Plato and Sartre describe the limitations of our thinking with very descriptive sort of "real life" senarios. They use descriptive stories-Plato with the prisoners in the cave unable to see around them, and Sartre with the three dead people in hell-to try and expand their reader's thinking. Plato uses the whole metaphor of the "cave" and "prisoners" to imply that our minds are covered by what we think we see and what we want to believe instead of seeing the reality of things. This really makes the reader think, may I say, "outside the box", because we don't necessarily think about this really at all. Sartre describes his hell as a typical place where three normal people meet. Yet, within the simple text, there is an extended allegory with a hidden message: we are not tortured by any specific labeled "torturers", but by the things and people around us that make us hate everything. There are things in life that just make us tick. With Sartre's story, he created a dinamic story to expand the reader's thinking into what our hell would really be. Both of there extended metaphors and allegories create a very broad range of thinking for their readers.

"Allegory of the Cave" Sonnet

When we see, what do we really see?
Is it all real or just make believe?
There's a fine line between the truth and reality
But our mind only lets us see partially.
We are trapped inside the "cave" of our minds unable to see past the dark.
We are prisoners within ourselves unable to see even a spark.
How we crave to imagine the full picture of what's real
Yet, our eyes deceive our minds and make us believe the unreal.
We ourselves are the creators of our world.
If we only see what we want, we only see a swirl.
A swirl of this vast wonderful place,
where the truth and reality are what we have to face.

Can you really stop companies from tracking you?

So we've been talking about filter bubbles and such in class and when I saw this article on my Yahoo, it looked like something good to share with y'all. We all think we are doomed when it comes to concealing our privacy on the internet but this article says otherwise. So here it is. Hope you find it interesting. :)

Literature Analysis #3: Wuthering Heights

GENERAL:
1. We learn that the story of Catherine and Heathcliff is told through the housekeeper of the Wuthering Heights esate. As young children, Catherine and her brother have to welcome in their newly adopted brother, Heathcliff. He soon takes up the job of their stableboy. Catherine grows extremely close with Heathcliff but her brother keeps him at an icy distance. As they grow older, Catherine and Heathcliff begin a romantic relationship, but soon Catherine decides she cannot marry Heathcliff because of his temper and attitude. Heathcliff overhears and leaves the estate without saying anything to anyone. Catherine soon enough marries Edgar Linton and lives with him. All is well until Heathcliff returns and starts to have a love affair with another younger girl. Catherine is outraged and starts to get sick while learning she is pregnant. She dies in childbirth and Heathcliff takes Cathy(her daughter) in and raises her. Isabella soon dies as well as Heathcliff.
2. When Heathcliff cannot have the woman he loves, he turns his attention to revenging his childhood tormenter, his adoptive brother Hindley. Because Hindley never lost an opportunity to demean Heathcliff, the "gypsy" grows up determined to destroy Hindley and become master of the two houses. The fact that Hindley already has a tendency to drink and gamble to excess makes Heathcliff's vengeance all the easier. Without this desire for revenge, Heathcliff would have had nothing to do but pine after Catherine, so revenge becomes a major motivator for his character. On paper, he succeeds in his revenge: thwarting property and inheritance laws, he manages to become owner of the two houses. But by his own admission, revenge loses its thrill in the end.
3. The attitudes of our narrators help shape the tone as the drama unfolds, so that Lockwood's initial curiosity and fascination convey a lighter feeling than after he realizes how sinister Heathcliff is. Whenever Heathcliff is around, the tone tends to grows darker. Likewise, you can tell Nelly Dean really enjoys storytelling, so she tries to sustain a tone of suspense and mystery – that way she keeps Lockwood's, and by extension the reader's, attention. This is what keeps Lockwood up late and what keeps us reading.
4. Symbolism: The old beaten down furniture is a symbol for the dark setting.
Imagery: The dark and stormy setting is an image for the dark tone and evil theme of the story.
Irony: It's ironic how Catherine marries Edgar for his money and status when she has feelings for Heathcliff before and now he has aquired lots of money.
Dialect: The speech of every character is rigid and dark just like the whole setting and story.
Frame story: This story the reader is reading has another story within it as the housekeeper is telling it.
Setting: Setting is very dark which describes the theme of revenge and is evil.

CHARACTERIZATION:
1. Direct: When the narrator first speaks of Heathcliff, she describes exactly how he is and how she feels about him; When the younger Catherine is explaining how much she loathes living with Heathcliff.
Indirect: Catherine is explaining to another character how she feels about Heathcliff and how she cannot marry him; The housekeeper describes the whole story and every character through her words to the traveller.
2. When talking of Heathcliff, the author's diction and syntax is evil and hard. When speaking of Catherine(both younger and older), the author's diction and syntax is sweet and sort of naive in a way.
3. The protagonist is definitely dynamic. At the beginning as a child, Catherine is in love with Heathcliff and only sees him as perfect. As she grows older, she becomes a lot more wise and actually sees Heathcliff for who he is.
4. I felt the complete hatred towards Heathcliff by the end, yet, I also felt sorry for him. Although he did some pretty mean and hateful things, he also did lose the love of his life-his "soul". After Catherine's death, his inner core was wripped out of him. Even though he was so easy to hate by the end of the book, deep down I felt the deepest hurt for him.

Vocabulary #11

1.Affinity- relationship by marriage
"After researching her family history, she discovered there is no affinity between her and her cousin."

 

2.Bilious- of or indicative of a peevish ill nature disposition

"Her bilious attack made her look almost pathetic."

 

3.Cognate- of the same nature
"The twins were cognate to each other."

 

4.Corollary- A proposition inferred immediately from a proved proposition with little or no additional proof
"His corollary proved the point of the other man's story."

 

5.Cul-de-sac - a pouch
"My friend lives around the cul-de-sac."

 

6.Derring-do- a daring action
"The woman's derring-do saved many people and made her the town hero."

 

7.Divination- The art or practice that seeks to foretell future events or discover hidden knowledge due

to the interpretation of omens
"Her divination made it possible for her to know what is going to happen next."

 

8.Elixir- A substance capable of prolonging life indefinitely
"The elixir in the fountain made people from all over seek to find it's magnificient powers."

 

9.Folderol- a useless accessory
"Her tons of jewelry are but a bunch of folderols."

 

10.Gamut- an entire range or series
"The gamut of the obstacle course is about 10 miles long."

 

11.Hoi polloi- the general populace
"The hoi-polloi is of African decent."

 

12.Ineffable- incapable of being expressed in words
"My feelings for him are so intense they are practically ineffable."

 

13.Lucubration- to study by night
"Once you attend college, it seems the only studying you get is of lucubration."

 

14.Mnemonic- intended to assist memory
"The mnemonic drugs were needed to access the woman's thoughts she forgot."

 

15.Obloquy- abusive language
"I tend to use a lot of obloquy when I am angry with something or someone."

 

16.Parameter- an independent variable used to express the coordinates of variable point and functions of them
"The parametic equations are always hard because you have to figure out what 'this is for that'."

 

17.Pundit- a learned man
"The man is a pundit for he went to school and got an education."

 

18.Risible- provoking laughter
"Her risible is what made the man fall for her so fast."

 

19.Symptomatic- having the characteristics of a certain disease but arising of a different cause
"The symptomatic disease not only tricked the patient but the doctors as well."

 

20.Volte-face- a reversal in policy

"The volte-face was put in order due to the fact that no one was abiding by the rules."