For this portion of my summer assignment, I read Between the Lines by Jodi Picoult and Samantha VanLeer. I have selected twelve important and meaningful passages from the novel as well as a “Quote of the Book”. Between the Lines is about a girl, Delilah, and a book character, Oliver, that despite the limits of the story, connect and can even speak to one another. Oliver had never felt as if he’d belonged in his book and dreaded living the same plot over and over every single time someone opened his book. So, he asked Delilah to help him get to her world and leave the book. After many failed attempts, Delilah, with the help of a boy named Edgar, is able to get Oliver out of the book, but only because Edgar willingly switches places with Oliver. Finally, the passages I have selected are ones that are important, if not necessary to the book, and it was difficult to only select thirteen total. My first selected passage is from pages nineteen and twenty. “I did not write the lines I speak; they were given to me long before I remember. I mouth the words, but the actual sound is in the Reader’s mind, not coming from my throat. Similarly, all the moves that we make as if we’re performing a play somehow unravel across someone else’s imagination. It is as if the action and sound on our tiny, remote stage are being broadcast in the thoughts of the Reader. I’m not sure that I ever really learned this information - it’s just something I’ve known forever, the same way I
“Passing,” by Nella Larsen is a novel all about pretending to be something that you are not. It is about giving everyone the impression that everything is in order when in reality everything is falling apart. Passing in this novel refers to the ability of a person to be classified as one thing, normally a social group, while belonging to a different group. Passing is usually done to gain class or acceptance by groups other than one’s own. The primary focus of the novel is on racial passing which is the ability to look white and belong to a white group when in reality the person is an African-American in order to gain privileges that were unavailable to them. Although racial passing is the main focus, another major theme in this novel is sexual passing and identity.
In the article Skin Deep written by Nina Jablonski and George Chaplin, they discuss and look deeper into the diverse differences in skin color. Our skin color has developed over the years to be dark enough to prevent the damaging sunlight that has been harming our skin and the nutrient folate that it carries. At the same time out skin is light enough to receive vitamin D.
Through my understanding of the book, Homeward Bound by Elaine Tyler May explores two traditional depictions of the 1950s, namely suburban domesticity and anticommunism. She intertwines both historical events into a captivating argument. Throughout the book, May aims to discover why “Post-war Americans accepted parenting as well as marriage with so much zeal” unlike their own parents and children. Her findings are that the “cold war ideology and domestic revival” were somewhat linked together. She saw “domestic containment” as an outgrowth of frights and desires that bloomed after the war. However, psychotherapeutic services were as much a boom then as now, and helped offer “private and personal solutions to social problems.” May reflects her views on the origin of domestic containment, and how it affected the lives of people who tried to live by it.
One morning a band of three brothers awaken from a night of mischievous activities, but only two stand up to find the last’ clothes on the ground with their owner nowhere in sight. They then see movement from the shirt moving up to the neck, then a frog appears in place of the last brother’s body! This occurred after the day the brothers were entranced by three sirens. Similar to Homer’s “The Odyssey,” “O Brother Where Art Thou” has many events that relate the Odysseus and his adventure.
“Love on the B-Line” by Adam Kraar gives us an understanding of how to write a play. He gives us great examples of structure, character development, and dialogue that can help young or novice writers understand the basics of making a play.
Girl Interrupted is Susanna Kaysen 's memoir a series of recollections and reflections of her nearly two year stay at a residential psychiatric program at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts. She looks back on it with a sense of surprise. In her memoir she considers how she ended up at McLean, and whether or not she truly belonged there. Each chapter focuses on one aspect of her experience. Founded in the late 19th century, McLean Hospital had been a facility for troubled members of wealthy and aristocratic families. By the late 1960s, however, McLean had fallen into a period neglect. This was a time of great change in the mental health care field. Kaysen grew up in a wealthy and prestigious family. Like most teenagers, she was rebellious at times, confused and unsure about her future. She didn’t want to go to college and slept with her high school English teacher. She witnessed firsthand the widening generation gap that was developing in the late 1960s. Older generations looked at Kaysen’s generation 's world with alarm.
In the book Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen, Susanna Kaysen was only 18 years old when she agreed to enter a medium security psychiatric facility in Boston, McLean hospital in April 1967, after a failed suicide attempt. She insisted that her over dose on aspirin was not a suicide attempt, but after a 20 minute interview the doctor decided she needed to be admitted to a hospital. During her prolonged two-year stay at the hospital Kaysen describes the issues that most of the patients in her ward have to deal with and how they all differently deal with the amount of time they must stay in the hospital for. While in the hospital Kaysen experienced a case of depersonalization where she tried to pull the skin of her hands to see if there were bones underneath, after a failed escape attempt. Soon, after going to therapy and analysis she was labeled as having recovered from borderline personality disorder. After her release she realizes that McLean Hospital provided patients with more freedom than the outside world, by being free responsibility of parental pressure, free from school and job responsibilities, and being free from the “social norms” that society comes up with. Ultimately, being in captivity gave the patients more freedom then in society and created a safe environment in which patients wanted to stay in.
Throughout their lifetimes, individuals encounter a variety of challenges that test their resilience. Sometimes it targets a person’s personality, beliefs, race or culture. It can follow an individual throughout their life or stay in it for a period of time. However, with a strong personality and a determined goal, these obstacles can be conquered. An example of an obstacle that can be a battle in everyday life is prejudice, mostly against the different types of race. Racism is the false conviction that one race is more unrivaled than the other which isolated the world to what it is today. It is a part of human nature, and unfortunately, many people don’t know their limits when it comes to it. Some other individuals, however, have internal conflicts with themselves which, in some situations, limits them from the world.
Sex At Dawn by Chrstopher Ryan and Cacilda Jetha, describes our current society as a sexual hypocrisy where monogamy is the norm and everything else falls under taboo. Based on prehistoric facts, they argue that we derive from a sexually free and promiscuous culture, and were never meant to be in lifelong monogamous unions. In Paleofantasy by Martha Zuk, looks at evolutionary theorists, like Ryan and Jetha, who use the Paleolithic Age for guidance on how our current society should live. Zuk’s argument is that people want to make our nature into one-form, but humans are not designed for one-way/form of life. As for our sexual system it too can not be put into one-form. Zuk shows various points on popular assertions, creating uncertainty to the reader. This therefore shows how difficult it is to determine a precise natural sexual practice from our past, and debunking Ryan and Jetha. For this reason, Zuk provides a better argument regarding how we should use prehistoric history in present day.
In John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, loneliness can be caused by race as shown in Crooks who is the only person on the ranch of color. When all the ranch workers left for the town Lennie stayed behind so he decided to walk around the ranch and he sees a man and wants to talk to him but, the man says he does not want Lennie to come in so they talk outside of his room. Lennie does not understand the idea of racism so he is different fromt the other ranch workers. Lennie starts to talk with Crooks and he says “well, I got a right to have a light, you go on get outta my room. I ain’t wanted in the bunkhouse, and you ain’t wanted in my room”(Steinbeck 68).
11. Point out some moments in the play when the playwright conveys much to the audience without dialogue
We have all heard the African proverb that says, “It takes a village to raise a child.” The response given by Emma Donoghue’s novel Room, simply states, “If you’ve got a village. But if you don’t, then maybe it just takes two people” (Donoghue 234). For Jack, Room is where he was born and has been raised for the past five years; it is his home and his world. Jack’s “Ma” on the other hand knows that Room is not a home, in fact, it is a prison. Since Ma’s kidnapping, seven years prior, she has survived in the shed of her capturer’s backyard. This novel contains literary elements that are not only crucial to the story but give significance as well. The Point-of-view brings a powerful perspective for the audience, while the setting and
Individuality is the quality that people that makes each person unique and distinguishable from each other. It is important to remain distinct from others, even among groups of people that are classified as either the same or very similar. While individuality is a concept that many people agree with and want to ensure, the pressure from most people’s lives, including their environment and the people around them, forces individuals to lose who they truly are and morph in order to fit in. I strongly agree that individuality, while important, is difficult to keep because of outside factors, a concept that was presented by Logan Fey.
The novel, Girl, Interrupted is a memoir of author Susana Kaysen’s life and her journey through early adulthood as she suffered with Borderline Personality Disorder. The novel captures her time at McLean Hospital, a psychiatric hospital located in Belmont, Massachusetts. Kaysen divides the novel into separate anecdotes of events and fellow patients she encountered during the two years she was admitted at Mclean.
The art piece I decided to write about is Woman in White Dress by Daniel Ludwig. 1988. Oil on canvas. 50 3/16 x 40 1/8. This painting is displayed in the University of Kentucky art museum and out of all the other pieces, this one drew my attention. This simplistic painting gave me serene vibes. As I gazed upon the painting, it immediately reminded me of a beach front home. It gave me a feeling of relaxation and reminded me of our family trips to the Bahamas. The hotel where we would stay was right beside the seashore. There were several occasions where I would simply sit on the balcony and absorb the cool crisp air and breathe in the scent of seawater. That 's how I perceive this piece to be. The woman in a striped summer dress, resting on the couch in front of the open landscape just relaxing in the getaway environment.