CEREMONY
Author: Leslie Marmon Silko. It is worth noting that she is part Laguna Pueblo, part Mexican, and part white, giving her a unique perspective on the mixture of cultures in the south west as well as a personal connection to her hero, Tayo.
Setting: Laguna Pueblo Reservation, in Arizona. This is close to Route 66, where towns such as Gallup are located. In my notebook there is a nice map of where everything is in relation to each other.
Narrative Voice: Third person limited. We share Tayo's feelings and perceptions, though the language is not in the first person. The standard narrative is sometimes interrupted, or rather intertwined, with a Laguna legend, presented in closer to the form of oral tradition, as well as other stories told by characters we've been introduced to.
Theme: This is a story about limenal spaces and finding a way to bridge cultures and connect old and new. (that sounds cheesy. obviously there is a lot more to Ceremony but I don't know how to articulate it).
Characters:
Tayo - Half Laguna, half white, he has always been slightly shunned by his Laguna community. He returns from the war with PTSD and needs to complete the ceremony and bring the earth back into balance.
Rocky- Foil to Tayo. Tayo's "brother" who rejects Laguna culture and aspires to make his place in the white community. He is killed in WWII and his ghost haunts Tayo.
Josiah - Tayo's uncle and father figure. Completely accepts him and teaches him to respect the Laguna culture. He dies mysteriously while searching for his hybrid cattle and his ghost also haunts Tayo.
Auntie - Tayo's aunt who take care of him so she can look like a martyr. She has always ostracized him for being half white, and shamed him because of the shame her sister brought upon the family. We hate her.
Emo- he's a witch. He uses stories for evil and tries to kill Tayo and his friends.
Harley - one of many unemployed veterans who is always drinking. Yearns for the war times.
Night Swan - Josiah's almost-yellow woman. She also sleeps with Tayo. She is a powerful woman who begins Tayo's journey.
T'seh - Tayo's love. She inspires him and helps him find the cattle (she is sort of magical ). Yellow Woman.
Beautonie - Navajo medicine man who tries to cure Tayo using new ceremonies. Gives him a good start.
the Hunter - A spirit of the North, helps Tayo on his quest. Also, he can turn into a mountain lion.

Summary
Tayo returns to Laguna very sick with PTSD. He can't stop throwing up (its a metaphor for purging guilt and memories) and constantly cries for the loss of Rocky and Josiah - it might be ghost sickness.His friends are no better off, though many turn to alcohol as fake medicine. Still, they do their best for him, except Emo who is really scary and carries around human teeth as witch charms. When the Laguna Scalp ceremony fails him, Tayo meets with Betonie to see if he can heal him. He makes a good start, but predicts something greater in Tayo's future. Finally, Tayo embarks on a journey to find Josiah's hybrid cattle and return the rain to Laguna. He does so with the help of T'seh, and The Hunter (oh, they were stolen by a white man who fenced them in). When Tayo brings the cattle back, he finds that Emo has been spreading rumors about him, and its trying to stop him from completing the ceremony. This is where I get really confused....he spends the night in a Uranium mine (confronting white devils, I guess) and this...cures everything. What happens to Emo and the friends? I know a lot of them die, and I think Emo kills them, but then what happens to him? Anyway, the rain comes back at the end, and Tayo is better.

Quotes
" The jungle breathed an eternal green that fevered men until they dripped sweat the way rubbery jungle leaves dripped the monsoon rain. It was there that Tayo began to understand what Josiah had said. Nothing was all good or all bad either; it all depended."
Here is the start of a theme that everything, every person, every symbol, even every colour has two sides.

 "It seems like I already heard these stories before—only thing is, the names sound different."
So, I never understood this quote, but according to SparkNotes, she is talking about Emo killing Pinky, but also the cyclical nature of Laguna mythology and life. 

Response to Course Materials 4-14-13

AP is in about a month! This reality hit me as we started designing t-shirts on Friday (cardinal red!). I feel more prepared for this exam than any other, but a few more practice APs would not go amiss. We just finished Ceremony (Emily Laub has been telling me all year that it is her favorite book, and now I finally understand why). I loved learning about  another culture's symbolism and archetypes, though it makes Euro-American literature seem a lot easier to understand in comparison. I admit, I would probably never ever read American Dream in my free time, but maybe Ceremony.
I am really enjoying 5th Business. Especially since I thought it would be about a business man and I've had enough Willy Loman for one year. Maybe its just the knowledge that I don't have to annotate this one, or the peculiar voice of the main character, but I can't stop reading it! I'm afraid we won't have all the time I want to discuss it, because this is a book that I plan to keep on my shelf. Good choice Holmes!
So, thats about it....I am exhausted, so I'd like to take a moment to thank Holmes for giving us silent reading time in class several times in the past couple weeks. I really appreciate that :) Its going to be a rough month, but I feel ready. Bring it on!

  So, I got literally no criticism on this open prompt (I've run out of bad ones to re-edit), so I guess I'll just judge where it could be improved.

 

1984. Select a line or so of poetry, or a moment or scene in a novel, epic poem, or play that you find especially memorable. Write an essay in which you identify the line or the passage, explain its relationship to the work in which it is found, and analyze the reasons for its effectiveness.

    My favorite line of poetry in the world goes "Since feeling is first/ who pays any attention/ to the syntax of things/ will never wholly kiss you" (cummings 1). This is the opening phrase in a poem by e.e. cummings.  It introduces the theme of impulse over mind. It also presents the premise of the poem, an appeal to his love. This short phrase is full of rich language and deep meaning, and works an an effective introduction.

    "Since feeling is first" is the first line, and it makes a powerful assumption, that feeling trumps all other senses (cummings 1). This condition holds true throughout the piece, as when he declares "kisses are a better fate/ than wisdom", valuing emotion and affection over reason (cummmings 8). He reasserts the power of small emotive motions, like kisses, in his line  "-the best gesture of my brain is less than/ your eyelids' flutter..." (cummings 11). This line, again, subverts rationalizing and reason in favor of spontaneity. Without an opening line to introduce and establish this theme of intuition and romance, the entire poem would be an argument, rather than evidence to an undeniable fact.

     

    When analyzing a poem, one of the most important questions is 'who is this written for?'. In the case of "since feeling is first", it is answered in the opening lines. As he explains "who pays any attention/ to the syntax of things/ will never wholly kiss you", he describes what he can offer her [the subject] that many men cannot (cummings 2). He is confessing and he is convincing, "my blood approves", as he woos the object of his passion (cummings 7). This line is more evidence for the motif of feeling - he seeks the approval of his own heart and soul rather than a society or authority. In the final stanza, he speaks the vow he has been working up to all along, "We are for each other: then/  laugh, leaning back in my arms" (cummings 13). 

    The opening and most memorable line from "since feeling is first" is effective because it introduces the themes and message of the poem with conviction. The claim in the first stanza is warranted in the following stanzas, as his message of love unfolds. These important functions of the opening phrase are expressed artfully and skillfully. The message comes across effortlessly, "for life's not a paragraph/ And death i think is no parenthesis" (cummings 15). In addressing the subject of the poem and the audience, the opening line affirms the meaning of the poem as a whole.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstren Summary

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

Author- Tom Stoppard: British. Absurd. Published his breakthrough show in 1967.

Summary:

ACT I.       Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are going nowhere fast, and they decide to take a break and flip coins. After about 99 heads, some players come along, offering to put on a show for them (or just have sex), and at this point, the impossible streak of heads finished and the coin toss turns up tails.  At this point, Ophelia and Hamlet, with his stockings ungartered, rush onstage and bring us into the show Hamlet. here, Ros and Guil have a script and a purpose and a direction (for now), as Claudius directs them to "glean what afflicts him". However, as soon as the other Hamlet characters leave the stage, they run out of dialogue and begin the exasperating circles that brought them back here in the first place. Sometimes they appreciate the diversion of Hamlet characters, but other times they feel put upon and mocked by the royalty who seem so sure of their place, "Don't let them confuse you". Act 1 ends with them finding Hamlet and attempting to talk to him: it has taken them this long to find their purpose, and thus the exposition is over.

ACT II.     It is traditional for the actors playing Ros and Guil to change places and even costumes, and begin reading each others lines. I guess this just adds to the absurdity and goes further with the theme of mistaken identities, putting the audience in the position that they recently mocked of not distinguishing between the two. After an unsuccessful confrontation with Hamlet and a reflection on their lack of direction, Ros and Guil are confronted by the players, who are devastated by their realization at the absurdity of a play that no one is watching, "There we were - demented children mincing around in clothes no man ever wore, speaking words no man ever said...every words vanishing into the thin, unpopulated air". In leaving them in the woods, Ros and Guil abandoned them to their own devices, and took away any measure of place, time and reason. This reflects how Ros and Guil feel, being scooped up and plopped down in one plot after the other. They break the fourth wall a lot, making the audience uneasy about their position and their sense of reality. It here becomes clear that the players understand their sense of entrapment, "We know which way the wind is blowing", while the eternally optimistic Ros and Guil still don't understand. now we get to an interesting scene where Ros contemplates his own mortality, "Its better to be alive in a box than be dead. Not that I'd like to be asleep in a box - for starters, you'd wake up dead!". He isn't quite there, but he is starting to realize what the title has told us all along. The new question raised is, are they already dead? Is the stage or the page of the book the coffin they are lying in, stagnant? They then watch the play, The Murder of Gonzago, and proceed to follow Hamlet in circles, a sense of dread becoming more and more apparent.

ACT III.    They wake up on a boat, "Do you think death could be a boat?", and contemplate their limited freedoms, "One is free on a boat" (except that you can't actually go anywhere) until they try to remember why they are there. A letter is meant to explain everything. It is their last piece of reason to hold onto. "Because it is written" they know it must be true and it must lead them to their fate. They believe that they will make it to England and figure out their next purpose there, they are hopeful, but then Shakespeare, acting through Hamlet, snuffs the light and switched the letters (Because it is written).  Then the players show up and Guil freaks out, again feeling the weight of eminent death, and goes to stab one of the players, to show him that he knows nothing of death, "But no one gets up after death - there is no applause....Who are we that so much should converge on our little deaths? Who are we?", "You are Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. That is enough." This line is so sad, because after so much, "they are denied explanation". At the end, they reread the letter, stating that they are to be executed, and then...they disappear.

Resposne to Course Materials - March

Well, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead....again. I wish we could have had more discussion time for Ros and Guil, because I have lots of unanswered questions on that one, but we had to move on. We wrote another closed prompt, and so far I have learned:

-Organize by effects not by techniques
-Talk about Meaning
-Write a strong thesis
-A good opening will be over-scored, and poor opening, underscored.
-Recommendations are not optional

So, that was super helpful, and I can't wait to write another one and redeem myself. Now we are starting Ceremony, and if there wasn't enough repetition and circular logic in Ros and Guil, well now we have Ceremony! I am very curious about how Tayo will get in touch with his Pueblo Side. I have a feeling it will be rather... mythological. I know that Latino authors use a lot of magical realism, so that could be it. The AP exam suddenly feels a lot closer and nothing is slowing down.  I am so tired. I need a break. Ms. Holmes, we need some story time (please? we've been so good!).... Good night.

  Open Prompt Revision

My peers commented that the language was too informal and my paragraph on diction was lacking, so I sought to improve that. 

The Bribery Aisle: How Wal-Mart Used Payoffs to Get Its Way in Mexico
Close Reading

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/18/business/walmart-bribes-teotihuacan.html?hp&_r=0

David Barstow covers a corporate maneuver south of the border in his article The Bribery Aisle. The New York Times writer used syntax, details, and diction to paint a picture of corporate greed and shady transactions south of the border.

The format of this article is much like a report - from the secret service. The introduction, "SAN JUAN TEOTIHUACÁN, Mexico — Wal-Mart longed to build in Elda Pineda’s alfalfa field. It was an ideal location..." took on the overly-intense tone of a secret service report, while some of his headlines would have been more appropriate as the opening credits to an action movie. Corporate transactions aren't typically headline news, but Barstow used his knowledge of spy films, and the knowledge that the average American is more likely to watch 007 than read his article, to bring this news story to the people.  He even divides the article into 'episodes', as it were, with flashy titles such as "City of the Gods, An Altered Map, A Helpful Mayor, Getting By the Guardians (my personal favorite), A Gathering Protest, (and last but not least) Open for Business".  This syntactic technique if effective, although rather inappropriate, as it is usually reserved for a DVD scene selection listing.

Specific details dehumanize Wal-Mart, and bring a rich sense of setting to the already well scripted narrative. "With its usual precision, Wal-Mart calculated it would attract 250 customers an hour if only it could put a store in Mrs. Pineda’s field." This personifies Wal-Mart as a cold, calculating figure, caring only about 250 faceless customers per hour, and no compassion for Señora Pineda. More crucial details, " Protesters decried the very idea of a Wal-Mart ... They contended the town’s traditional public markets would be decimated... Months of hunger strikes and sit-ins consumed Mexico’s news media" depict how opposed the local people are to Wal-Mart, making this a civil rights and culture issue as well as a business concern.

The specific words used to describe this 'operation' further paint a picture of a sneaky, greedy, merciless corporation 'exploiting' the local Mexican people. "The plan was simple..." is a line traditionally saved for James Bond movies, but Barstow uses it to make Wal-mart's pay off sound all the more sinister and interesting.The article describes 'out-muscling protesters', implying that Wal-Mart had, not right on its side, but sheer bulldozing force. Also, 'vanquishing' small town markets compares the company to an evil wizard. This diction villainizes Wal-Mart, and alludes to the fantastical evils that saturate our pop culture.

Rhetoric techniques like diction, details, and syntax can effectively engage a reader in an epic battle of zoning rights and technicalities, if done well. This article proved that, as well as used excellent work choice and detail to villainize Wal-Mart.

Response to Course Materials - February

Rosencratz and Guildenstern are waaay too post modernist for me. Don't get me wrong, I've loved playing Guildenstern... I mean Rosencrantz..... ugh. It is obvioiusly a well thought out play, but I'd like to flatter myself and say that if I am struggling so much as an AP student who just finished Hamlet, then who actually comes willingly to watch this show be performed? It seems to me it was written to be analyzed.I thought it was a little funny how Holmes told us she was going to step back and let us do the interpreting on this one... but we're so hopeless, she has to jump in and explain whats going on every few pages. The thing about absurd-ism is that there is no balance - it is all about shock and controversy and challenge, and less about content or reader satisfaction- but maybe I'm just not sophisticated enough (after all, there are a lot of loose ends from American Dream that I never tied up). Aside from reading the Confusing Play, we got back to the AP multiple choice, which I need some practice/strategies for. The AP looks a lot closer, this side of finals. I honestly miss Hamlet - we got into such great conversations, and I loved acting it out. Our final was so much fun, because there are so many different interpretations of Shakespeare (whereas Sheppard doesn't really leave room for other interpretations). I'm sure R& G will grow on me - I like the philosophizing, its just very bizarre.