I’ve managed to break the downloads section. If you need the short story for AP tomorrow, you can download it here.
Update: Fixed. Let me know if you have any more problems.
Archive for year: 2008
Tonia Jordan:
Critics Gretchen Schulz and R.J.R. Rockwood state that Arnold is
"created in the mind of Connie . . . exist[ing] there only (520). They
further suggest that Connie created Arnold in order to have an
opportunity to pass into womanhood. Schulz and Rockwood also note "that
Connie, like all young people, needs help as she begins to move from
the past to the future, as she begins the perilous inward journey
towards maturity" (152).
Marilyn Wesley:
In "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" fifteen-year-old
Connie is engaged in the tentative process of defining herself through
a counter-ideology — made up of popular music, shopping center
trinkets, and youthful sexuality — that opposes the belief system of
her parents and her "plain" and "steady" twenty-four-year-old sister (
The Wheel of Love 29) until mock-heroic Arnold Friend introduces her to
the unapprehended corollary to heady independence: that in abandoning
family norms she also loses family protection. To read the moral of
this story as a disparagement of tasteless teenage defiance is entirely
possible. In fact, critics generally interpret "Where Are You Going,
Where Have You Been?" as Connie’s initiation into evil, and in the
ending of the story they discover Connie’s capitulation to the shallow
values of a debased culture (Norman 168, Creighton 118, Wegs 92).
Gretchen Schulz and R.J.R. Rockwood:
Arnold ”is created in the mind of Connie … and that it exists
there only,” they still persist in having Arnold as a demon and Connie
as doomed: "But we know that he is still the Wolf, and that he still
intends to ‘gobble up’ this ‘little girl’ as soon as he gets the
chance. Connie is not going to live happily ever after. Indeed, it
would seem that she is not going to live at all."
Mike Tierce and John Crafton:
While all of these critics insist on seeing satanic traces in
Arnold, they refuse, on the other hand, to see that these traces are
only part of a much more complex, more dynamic symbol. There are indeed
diabolic shades to Arnold, but just as Blake and Shelley could see in
Milton’s Satan a positive, attractive symbol of the poet, the
rebellious embodiment of creative energy, so we should also be
sensitive to Arnold’s multi-faceted and creative nature. Within the
frame of the story, the fiction of Arnold burns in the day as the
embodiment of poetic energy. The story is dedicated to Bob Dylan, the
troubadour, the artist. Friend is the artist, the actor, the
rhetorician, the teacher, all symbolized by Connie’s overheated
imagination. We should not assume that Arnold is completely evil
because she is afraid of him. Her limited perceptions remind us of
Blake’s questioner in "The Tyger" who begins to perceive the
frightening element of the experiential world but also is rather duped
into his fear by his own limitations. Like the figure in Blake, Connie
is the framer, the story creator—and the diabolic traces in her fiction
frighten her not because they are the manifestations of an outside evil
but because they are the symbolic extrapolations of her own psyche.
Rena Korb:
There are still others who read the story as a feminist allegory
which suggests that young women of today, like the generations that
have come before them, are headed into sexual bondage. When Connie, the
innocent female, walks out of the house to meet what may be her demise,
she also represents the spiritual death of women at the moment they
give up their independence to the desire of the sexually threatening
male.
It just keeps getting easier. 🙂
If you are one of the people who has struggled mightily with Google Docs and the old briefcase system, I offer a third option: upload to the forum.
Just follow this link . (You should make sure to be logged in)
AP Students,
Don’t forget to read The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World for class tomorrow.
Heart of Darkness/Things Fall Apart
|
||||
|
Heart of Darkness
“The scrupulous and the just, the noble, humane, and devoted natures; the unselfish and the intelligent may begin a movement – but it passes away from them. They are not the leaders of a revolution. They are its victims.”–Joseph Conrad Novel Resources Heart of Darkness Reading Guide is under construction, but offers some insight into the beginning of the novel.
The Heart of Darkness Character Guide is a look at the relatively small number of characters in the novel. Heart of Darkness E-Text The complete text of the novel. Other Resources
Woe to the man whose heart has not learned while young to hope, to love – and to put its trust in life.”-Joseph Conrad Coming Soon Scholarly Writing
“Being a woman is a terribly difficult task, since it consists principally in dealing with men." –Joseph Conrad
A Literary Critique of Imperialism Cultural Psychosis on the Frontier by Tony Brown. The Horror of Good Intentions by Carola Kaplan Heart of Darkness and late Victorian Fascination with the Primitive and the Double by Samir Elbarbary An Interview with GGM, in which he discusses his writing, the cultural of Central America, and his writing.
|
Things Fall Apart
“People go to Africa and confirm what they already have in their heads and so they fail to see what is there in front of them. This is what people have come to expect. It’s not viewed as a serious continent. It’s a place of strange, bizarre and illogical things, where people don’t do what common sense demands.” –Chinua Achebe Novel Resources Study Guide and Reading Questions — A comprehensive set of reading questions, organized by chapters of the book. Another Things Fall Apart Study Guide — An excellent site devoted to the novel, including some thought-provoking questions. Things Fall Apart Cyber Guide — An incredibly comprehensive guide to the novel by English teacher Tchaiko Kwayana. Character Map –A visual chart of the characters in the novel. Achebe’s Technique and Personal Background — A look at Chinua Achebe, his writing technique, and purpose of his writing. The Wikipedia entry for Things Fall Apart is basically only useful for plot summary now, but you can make it better. Mr. Pogreba’s Introductory Notes Post-Colonial Criticism Random House Novel Summary and Study Questions –– A good set of thought-provoking questions about the novel. Other Resources
“Art is man’s constant effort to create for himself a different order of reality from that which is given to him.”–Chinua Achebe The Second Coming –The Yeats poem that inspired the title of the work.
The Hollow Men The Congo –– the Vachel Lindsay poem made famous by Dead Poets Society. Curious George and Colonialism looks at how Western culture, even in children’s works, often constructs Africa as the other. What about Babar? explores the same theme. An Image of Africa by Chinua Achebe
Scholarly Writing
“The only thing we have learnt from experience is that we learn nothing from experience.”–Chinua Achebe
Said and Achebe: Writers at the Crossroads of Achebe’s Sense of an Ending by Richard Begam
|
|||
|
||||
