AP Lit Review

I think that I was very prepared for the AP Lit Exam this year. Although we had a lot of work and endless reading and projects, the book choice we read was very helpful for the open question part of the exam. The multiple choice practice each monday also helped a lot because I used to be horrible at multiple choice and feel like I did pretty well on the exam. One thing I still find as busy work is blogging. I don't think it influenced my score on the exam at all.  The most help for the exam however was the timed writings we seemed to be taking every other week. My writing obviously improved through out the year and I was able to analyze the passages on the exam easily. The plays that we read in class (Hamlet, Doll House, and The Importance of Being Earnest) were the most help of all the books because they covered many of the possible questions the exam could ask, and since we read them in class the analysis was a lot deeper and I could recall the events in the book more easily. Overall the class was very hard but also very helpful and prepared me greatly for the AP exam.

Earnest Act III

The conclusion of The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde was not one that surprised me. It was quite obvious how Gwendolen and Jack would stay together and how Algernon and Cecily would get together too. It was however a little bit of a surprise that Miss Prism worked for Lady Bracknell and that Lady Bracknell ended up being related to Jack. I also did not think that Algernon and Jack would end up brothers I did however know that Jack would become Earnest when he discovered his actual name and origin. The third Act overall was a huge change up from the rest of the book mainly due to a change in character relationships. The third chapter begins with the girls away from the guys after they have just ended things with them because their names were not Earnest. It seemed from the first two acts that these two girls were very confident and had everything in their own control; however, in the third chapter we see how they become very self-conscious. This is seen when Gwendolen says “They don’t seem to notice us at all”. This shows a shift in the women’s power because the men were about to change their name for the ladies, but are now doing whatever they can to make taking them back seem acceptable. They justify the massive lies that Jack and Algernon have been telling because they claim that it was in the name of love even though both of them started lying before they met Gwendolen and Cecily. Even Miss Bracknell lost all of her power over Jack when she is discussing the marriage of Jack and Cecily. She voluntarily gives her leverage over Jack and Gwendolen’s marriage so that Jack will let Algernon marry Cecily. This reveals that all the major women in the play lose all of their power in less than an hour. This shows how little power Wilde thinks that women have. We also see a shift in what Oscar Wilde is making fun of in the play. In the first two acts Wilde was making fun of society but in the third act he even makes fun of those who complain about society, like himself. An example of this shift is when Miss Bracknell says “Never speak disrespectfully of Society, Algernon. Only people who can’t get into it do that”. This quote shows how Wilde does not think people who question society are any better, he simply makes fun of everyone in society. In the third chapter Oscar starts to show Jack understand the importance of important things when Jack says “this is a matter of no small importance to me”, when talking about discovering his who his parents are. This brief understanding of what is actually important is destroyed by his curiosity to discover his name instead of ask about his true parents. He then also places an importance on things you would not expect such as lying. He finally discovers the “importance of being earnest” which has no importance at all but is also the most important discovery of his life.

The Importance of Being Earnest Act I

The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde is quite different from his other works that we read such as The Picture of Dorian Gray. The Picture of Dorian Gray was a very dark and serious book, which is the exact opposite from The Importance of Being Earnest. The Importance of Being Earnest is a very funny comedy in which Wilde makes serious things seem like jokes and small things seem very serious. Wilde does not waste any time breaking out the jokes or his sarcasm; since the first line of the play he uses his unique style of contradictory phrases and puns to make fun of society. The opening conversation between Lane and Algernon is about Algernon playing the piano and he makes the funny remark “I don’t play accurately anyone can play accurately but I play with wonderful expression. As far as the piano is concerned, sentiment is my forte. I keep science for life”. This already presents a contradiction because usually the goal of most people is to play accurately but here Algernon tries to make it sound like a bad thing. He then says “speaking of the science of Life, have you got the cucumber sandwiches cut for Lady Bracknell”, which shows that he does not take science very seriously either. Both science and art are very important subjects in society and in the first line Algernon already makes a joke out of both of them. This idea of making important things seem dumb continues throughout the entire first act. Wilde also uses Algernon to play with the ideas of pleasure and business. When Jack comes in and talks to Algernon he says that he has “come up to town expressly to propose to her”, and Algernon replies “I thought you had come up for pleasure?... I call that business”. Usually your love life and business life are separate aspects of your life but here Wilde states that marriage is a part of your business life, which sheds a very poor light on marriage. Wilde not only makes important things seem simple but also takes small things and makes them a big deal. For example when Gwendolen is talking to Jack about why she loves him she says “The moment Algernon first mentioned to me that he had a friend called Earnest, I knew I was destined to love you”. Gwendolen is clearly putting way to much importance on the name Earnest which is very ironic because his real name is not Earnest but it is actually Jack. The problem that this creates is part of the reason the play has its title. The title is a very ironic pun on Earnest which means very serious, when in fact nothing important seems to be taken seriously and Earnest as a name because without the name Earnest, Jack would lose the love of his life. So far the play is full of these funny puns and contradictions and is quite a humorous satire. The play may however get confusing because it is hard to predict what the characters will actually think is important and not important.

Significance of Emma

The book Emma by Jane Austen was a very uniquely styled book because it did not seem to have a lot of action in it, and it seemed to be only about everyday life. This unique style of plot seemed to bring up a lot of questions about what the literary significance of a book that simply talked about the love life a rich girl and a bunch of her local friends. When you analyze the book further however it is a lot more than just a chick novel about girl gossip. In reality the novel actually uses the interactions between all the characters to reveal human fallibility and how all humans are wrong and often in considerate. To show how these traits are present in all the characters Austen creates a special character that is kind, considerate, thoughtful, and usually right as a comparison to reveal their flaws. This character is Mr. Knightley. Mr. Knightley is often seen correcting Emma on all her assumptions to show how she is way to overconfident and wrong most of the time. This trait of overconfidence can be attributed to the majority of the human population. Her over confidence gets her into a lot of trouble and we often see Mr. Knightley there to warn her before it begins and in the end to say I told you so. Despite the countless fights and arguments that Mr. Knightley and Emma have he always forgives her and tries to make it right. Forgiveness is another ideal quality that humans often lack. We saw many times Emma hold pointless grudges against people that never really did anything to her and yet she hated them anyways. Jane is a great example of this, and so is Mr. Elton. Another poor quality of man kind is that we find our selves much too often doing things that are most beneficial to us and disregard how it will affect other people. At the ball that Frank and Emma planned Mr. Elton and Harriet are the only ones left with out dance partners and Mr. Elton refuses to dance with her because he doesn’t want people to think that he has feelings for someone of the lower class. When Harriet is left embarrassed it is know surprise that Mr. Knightley is the one to sweep by save the day. Mr. Knightley doesn’t even like dancing and yet he disregards his own feelings so that Harriet wont feel left out or embarrassed. This again shows how he is used as a comparison to show the flaws of Mr. Elton, who exemplified that social standards and guidelines are more important to us than what we think is morally right. Another example of this is when Emma makes Harriet decline Mr. Martin even though she is obviously happy with him and wants to be with him. She insist she go for Mr. Elton because then she would be right and could rub it in to Mr. Knightley. From interactions like these it is clear that all of the characters besides Mr. Knightley exemplify traits of human fallibility, which makes the significance of the book a lot more easy to find and understand.

Conclusion to Emma

Although the book Emma had many twist in it that I did not see coming I must say that the ending was very predictable. Of course Emma ended up marrying none other than Mr. Knightly. He was an obvious match for her because he seemed to be the only one that could match her in wits and was also the only one who dared to argue with her. Throughout the book almost all the characters admire Emma or at least fail to challenge her very often; it is only Mr. Knightly who ever challenges her opinions and proves her wrong multiple times. This is a very important trait of Mr. Knightly because it makes him superior to all the other men that grow fond of Emma. Mr. Knightly serves as the father figure that Mr. Woodhouse is unable be due to his lack of control over Emma. By challenging all of Emma’s crazy assumptions and proving her wrong Mr. Knightly brings Emma back into reality from the fantasy world that she seemed to be living in. Ironically when she finally gave up the fantasy role that she was playing as the match maker who was too good for everyone else she finds that settling down and admitting love for Mr. Knightly proved to be better than the fantasy that she created. Another predictable conclusion at the end of the book was Harriet’s sudden reunion with Mr. Martin. In volume one it was very clear how much Harriet really liked Mr. Martin even when it seemed that Emma had brain washed her into thinking that she is much too good for him. Emma attempted to set her up with Mr. Elton which would obviously not work out because of what Mr. Knightly pointed out which was that he would only marry someone who was wealthy. Emma then tried to get Harriet with Frank even though she actually had feelings for Mr. Knightly. It is a very funny relationship between Harriet and Emma because Emma is constantly trying to set Harriet up with someone who would be very good for her, and finally when Harriet finally decides that she loves Mr. Knightly Emma doesn’t want her to be with her. All these mismatches made it obvious that Harriet was not right for a relationship with any of these people from the higher class, so obviously in the end she must end back up with Mr. Martin. One relationship that did surprise me however was that of Frank and Jane. Frank did a really good job of selling his affections for Emma as well as talked poorly of his own fiancée. It is no wonder that in order to trick the reader from guessing that he is secretly with Jane that he had to act crazy enough to almost lose Jane. It seems that in the end everyone finally found their soul mate and lived happily ever after; however what made this book good was that the happy ending was not one you would usually expect throughout the book.

Volume 2 reflection

So since the end of volume 1 a lot has happened in Emma. The first volume left off with an awkward proposal from Mr. Elton to Emma, but in the second volume a lot has changed. Mr. Elton is no longer an eligible bachelor anymore; instead he is married to a Mrs. Hawkings. This however is not the main action of the second volume. Jane Fairfax has come to town and seems to have caught the eye of Mr. Knightley which makes some very interesting reactions from Emma. Emma dislikes Jane I think because she seems to get just as much attention as Emma does but does not seem to work for it. Jane is often described as too “reserved” which is a distasteful characteristic and yet everyone seems to still have their eyes on her. Another big change up in the plot is that Frank Churchill comes to town and Emma grows very fond of him and even says that she might be a little in love with him. This is a weird relationship to see progress because Emma fantasizes that he will propose and she will deny him because his affections are “changeable”. This fantasy that she has about frank reveals a major theme in the book of Emma’s fantasy world that she lives in. It seems that she controls everyone she is acquainted with as if they are dolls, and I believe one of the reasons that Emma hates Jane is because she does not fit the fantasy role that Emma has in mind for everyone. I also think that Emma sees Frank Churchill as a sort of prince charming or at least she wants him to be a prince charming but others like Mr. Knightley see him as an immature young man. Emma decides that she would refuse his proposal because if she chose to get married to him her fantasy world could come to an end with the reality that he is not everything that she thought him to be. Towards the end of the second volume Ms. Hawkings is finally introduced to everyone and it seems that she is much disliked. She is seen as very materialistic and always talks of the things she has back home. Emma dislikes this about her which is ironic because she too is a very materialistic person. In this way Ms. Hawkings serves to give Emma a taste of her own medicine. Ms. Hawkings also decides that she will take Jane under her wing which is very similar to how Emma takes Harriot under her wing. By showing this comparison Austen essentially makes you like and dislike the same character because they have the same personality and situation, and even the same lover. This is a very interesting approach and reveals that there are many more parallels between other characters that we should look out for in the rest of the book. Some of these important relationships include Jane and Harriot, Knightley and Emma, Knightley and Mr. Elton, and Jane and Emma.

Sonnet 67 Edmund Spencer

For my blog I wanted to analyze the Spenserian sonnet, “Sonnet 67, Like as a huntsman” by Edmund Spencer. His sequence of sonnets was called Amoretti, which means “little cupids” or “little love poems”. The poems were addressed to Elizabeth Boyle, who later became his wife in 1594. The Spenserian sonnets that he created were very original and known as the most intricate of all the sonnet forms. The usually featured interlocking rhyme schemes that link the lines of the poem together. So “sonnet 67” begins by creating a metaphor comparing chasing his love to hunting which seems to be a very common theme for love poems of that time. It starts with “like as a huntsman after a weary chase”, which emphasizes the struggles, hardships, energy that the speaker has to put into this love chase. Using words like “weary”, “panting”, and “rest” reveal the hard work that the speaker is putting into the chase for his love. The woman is compared to a “gentle deer” which gives imagery that she is a very beautiful and elegant lady, yet she is able to escape him throughout his “long pursuit” and his chase is in “vain”. The deer seems to show dominance over the hunter because the hunter puts so much effort into the chase and comes up empty handed, and the deer “returned” on her own accounts which shows that the actions of the hunter did not really change her plans. The fact that the deer returns to the hunter alludes to the idea that if you let something go and it is meant to be then it will come back. This could show that the “huntsman” and the “deer” are meant to be together. This reveals that all though his lover is very elusive she is destined to be with him in the end. In the sestet at the end of the poem it appears that the deer is giving herself up to the huntsman. She captures his attention with her “milder look” and then she decides “not to fly” which shows that she is letting her self be captured by the “huntsman”. The dear is waiting for him to claim her so that they can be “firmly tied” which could mean together forever and allude to a possible marriage or some sort of engagement. In the couplet at the end the hunter seems to come to a conclusion about a “strange thing”, she was in control of “her own will” the entire time which kind of makes her the hunter who is in charge and running the show and makes him the hunted. So when she is captured by him in the end she “won” not him. This shows that they both had similar goals but she is elusive and multiple steps ahead at all times. We can conclude that she wanted to be captured but was simply playing with him the whole time.