eleventh grade honors

1.  The real reason for a
quest is always self-knowledge
 The quest consists of
5 things
 A. quester
 B. place to go
 C. a stated reason to
go there
 D. challenges and
trials en route
 E. the real reason to
go there

2.  A. Whenever people eat or drink
together it is communion
• -sharing of the peace
• -particular about who we eat with
• -community
• -shared experience
 bond, drugs, ritual, tradition
• Failed is a bad sign
 -don't harm the mouth that feeds you

3.  Sex and Evil
 Vampirism
• -selfishness
• -exploitation
• -refusal to respect the autonomy of other people
• -using people to get what we want
• -our desires over someone else
 Literary Ghosts
• -lessons, morals, warnings
 Ghosts and Vampires are never only about Ghosts
and Vampires
• -not only visible
• -psychosocial imbalance
• -dysfunction of something

4.  -pattern recognition
 -learning to look
 -literature grows out of literature
 There is no such thing as a wholly original
work of literature
 -stories cannot be written in a vacuum
 There is only one story
• -mythos
 Literature Makes Comparisons, parallels
 -intertextuality-the ongoing interaction
between stories
 Nothing ever changes
 -using other stories gives topical resonance

5.  -makes authors
smart and gives
them authority
 a. Romeo and Juliet
 b. Ten Things I Hate
About You
 c. She's the Man
 d. O
 e. Hamlet
 g. Macbeth

6.  -every step about the loss of innocence is really
someone's private reenactment of the fall from
 grace
 -proves everything is ages old
 -the great tribulations to which human beings
are subject to are all detailed in scripture
 -gives modern stories the power of
accumulated myth
 -archetypal
 a. The Flood
 b. Moses
 c. The Messiah
 d. Miraculous Birth

7.  -most drawing power
 -lost
 -loss of control
 -hopelessness, helplessness
 -temptation
 -fend for themselves
 -belongs to the one big story
 -why use this parallel?
• -because of how much it covers the human
experience

8.  -myth is a body of story that
matters
 -aren't we all descended from
Gods?
 -legendary heroes are normal
 -no form of dysfunctional
family or personal
disintegration of character for
which there is not
 a Greek or Roman archetype
 -myths are an explanation for
natural phenomena
 -potential for greatness
resides in all of us
• a. Icarus
• b. Prometheus
 THESE ARE THE 4 GREAT
STRUGGLES OF THE HUMAN
EXPERIENCE
 Homer
 -need to protect the family
 Hector
 -determination to remain
faithful and to have faith
 Penelope
 -the struggle to return home
 Odysseus
 -maintain one's dignity
• Archilles

9.  Due Wednesday 100 points
 Pick a myth that attempts to explain an element of nature or
reasoning for behavior. You may also choose a creation myth.
 In a response essay, you will analyze the following elements of
your myth:
 A. what does it attempt to explain
 B. Brief synopsis of the myth
 C. How/Why do the gods intervene?
 D. Literary Devices
• Symbols, motifs, themes, allusions, conflicts
E. You will need to look up another culture’s explanation of your
topic and go through steps A-D with that one and then analyze
how they are similar and if there are any repeating archetypes
and signs of intextuality.

10.  -water/floods
 -wate is trying to reclaim us
 -pulling down our improvements
 -big eraser that destroys buut also allows a brand new start
 It is used as
 a. plot device
 b. atmospherics
 c. misery
 d. democratic
 -falls on the just and unjust alike
 -it's clean
 -paradox
 clean coming down but mud created when it lands
 -cleansing characters symbolically
 -transformation
 -stain is removed
 -restorative
 -Spring, new growth, return to the Green World
 -rain and literal ailments it causes
 -Spring means revival, renewal, new awakenings

11.  Fisher King Figure
 -hero as a fixer
 -something in society is
broken and a hero emerges to
put things right
 -agricultural fertility is
important to sustain life
 a. wastelands to restore to
fertility therefore need rain
therefore what does the
absence of rain mean
 -rainbows
 -divine promise
 -fog
 -confusion/can't see clearly
 -snow
 -same as rain
ALWAYS CHECK THE WEATHER
IN A BOOK

12.  Violence
 -most personal and intimate act between humans
 a. can be cultural and societal, symbolic, thematic, biblical,
Shakespearean, romantic, allegorical
 b. it is a means beyond mere mayhem
 Two Categories
 1. specific injury that authors cause characters to visit on one
another or themselves
 2. narrative violence that cause characters harm in general
 plot advancement
 thematic development
 -What is the motive?
 -What does it represent thematically?
 -What mythic death does it resemble?
 -Why this violence and not some other?
 -What is the motive?

13. SYMBOLIC POLITICAL
 sure it is
 -cannot be reduced to
meaning just one thing
 Allegory
 -if a symbol stands for one
thing it is an allegory
 -one for one basis
 -convey a certain message
 -actions can be symbolic
 -meant to change society
 -addresses the rights of
persons and the wrongs of
those in power
 -nearly all writing is
political on some level
 -part of the social problem
or part of the solution
 -the social and political
milieu out of which the
writer creates to help us to
 understand the work

14.  Why? The writer wants to express a
specific theme
• Make a parallel to deepen the comparison, the
sacrifice, their redemption, a miracle, or just to
be ironic
 Culture is influenced by its dominant
religious systems
• These values and principles of those religions
will inform the work

15.  Human beings cannot fly
• 1. a superhero
• 2. a ski jumper
• 3. crazy
• 4. fictional
• 5. a circus act
• 6. suspended on wires
• 7. an angel
• 8. heavily symbolic
 -uninhibited
 -freedom
 -defy gravity then you can
defy laws
 In Myths
 -flying Africans
 -Quetzalcatl the Aztec
God who looks like a
snake with wings
 -Icarus
 -angels
 -dragons
 -witches

16.  FLIGHT IS FREEDOM
• -of soul/spirit
• -unbound by earthly
cares
• -escape
• -journey
• -return home/soul
ascends to heaven
 but . . . Irony Trumps Everything
• -reversal of the expectations
of flight and freedom
 -caged
 -enslaved
 -trapped
 -burdened (Peter Pan)
 -or chooses not to fly
 -reduction of power
 -crash and burn (and then maybe
live would be symbolic of a
rebirth)
 -thrilled by flying but fearful of
falling

17.  There is an ugly rumor
circulating that English
professors have dirty minds
• Phallic Images
• Yonic Images
 -depending on the
society/censorship sex does
not have to look like sex
 -sexuality may be encoded in
their reading, while writers
are learning that they can
encode sexuality into their
writing
 the actual act is very plain
forward
 -when they are writing about
other things it really means sex,
and when they write about sex,
they really
mean something else. If they
write about sex and mean strictly
sex it is called pornography.
 -the sexiest thing a writer can do
is show everything but the sex
 -about exploring a character's
personality
• -is really about
• pleasure, sacrifice,
submission, rebellion.
resignation, supplication,
domination,
• enlightenment, power

18.  To drown or not to drown has profound
plot implications
 Many writes have meet their deaths in
water
 Tossing characters in the river
• Wish fulfillment
• Exorcism of primal fear
• Exploration of the possible and not just
• A solution to messy plot difficulties

19.  What does the
character do?
• The after is symbolic
 Rescued
 Swim out
 Rise up and walk
 Driftwood just appears
 Luck
 The character should
have died, but didn’t
• Rebirth and baptism
through the medium of
water
 The old identity dies
 Being born is painful

20.  Symbolic
• Submersion=Baptism
 Have to be ready to
receive it
 Cleansing
 The flood
• Suicide=Choosing
 Exerting control in a
society that has taken
control away from them
 So. . .when they
actually drown?
• They die
• Serves its own
purpose
 Character revelation
 Thematic development of
violence
 Failure
 Guilt
 Plot complication
 Denouement

21.  -is setting, but it's also psychology,
attitude, finance, industry, anything that
place
 can forge in the people who live there
 -create mood,atmosphere,tone
 -can alo define or even develep a
character
 -only by leaving home, and travelling to
his real home can he find his real self
 -geography can be a character

22.  General Rule
 When writers send characters south, it's so they can run amok
 The Sublime Landscape
 -the dramatic and breathtaking vista-has been idealized,
sometimes to the point of cliche
 -mountains, overgrown vegetation, large mansions
 as opposed to
 The Places Where We Call Home
 -the flat or gently rolling ground, farm land, water, non-threatening
 IN THIS WAY THE GEOGRAPHY BECOMES NOT ONLY A WAY BY
WHICH THE AUTHOR EXPRESSES HIS PSYCHE BUT ALSO A
CONVEYER OF THEME

23.  Why did Jack go up the hill?
 -what goes up must come down and things go up and go down a
hill
 Down
 -swamps, crowds, fog, darkness, fields, heat, people,
 Up
 -snow, ice, purity, thin air, clear views, isolation, the gods
 it's place and space and shape that bring us to ideas and
psychology and history and dynamism.

24.  Shall I compare thee to a summer's day
 Thou art more lovely and more temperate
 Now is the winter of our discontent/made
glorious summer by this son of York
 Fear no more the heat o' th' sun/Nor the
furious winter's rages

25.  Spring-childhood
and youth
 Summer-adulthood,
romance, fulfillment,
passion
 Autumn-decline,
middle age,
tiredness, harvest,
 Winter-old age,
resentment, death
 Pastoral Elegy
-written for a
young man who
died much too young
-typically he is a
shepherd from his
pasture at the height
of Spring or
Summer and instead
of rejoicing there is
mourning

26.  The human experience
 Stories are the explanation of us and the
world or us in the world
 Intertextuality
 Archetype

27.  Quasimodo
 Frankenstein
 Oedipus
 Grendel
 Harry Potter
 -these are all character who are as famous for their shape as for
their behavior
 -their shapes tell us something about them or other people in the
story
 -in real life, when people have any physical mark or imperfection
it means nothing thematically
 but in physical imperfections are understood to always be
symbolic
 All myths and fairytales that hero is marked in some way
 -scars, one fatal spot, a shorter leg, birthmark

28.  -Romanticism gave us the notion of the dual nature, that
in each of us, no matter how well made a monstrous
Other exists.
 -Concept of Duality/Dopplegangers
• a. The Prince and the Pauper
• b. The Picture of Dorian Gray
• c. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
• d. Beauty and the Beast
 So, if a writer brings up a physical problem or handicap
or deficiency, he means something by it.

29.  -usually can divine things "see things
from the other world"
 -can see the truth of what's actually
happened
 -most famous is Tiresias "the blind seer"
 -Every move, every statement by or
about a blind character has to
accommodate
 the lack of sight; notice, to behave
differently, if only in subtle ways

30.  In literature there is no better, no more lyrical,
more more perfectly metaphorical illness than
heart disease.
 the heart is the symbolic repository of emotion,
the center of emotion within the body
 when we fall in love, we feel it in our hearts and
when we lose love we feel heartbroken
 when overwhelmed by strong emotions, we
feel our hearts are full to bursting

31.  the writer uses heart ailments as a kind of shorthand for the
character
 -uses it as a social metaphor
 -the afflicted character can have nay number of problems for
which heart disease
 provides a suitable emblem:
 bad love, loneliness, cruelty, cowardice, lack of determination
 for something seriously amiss at the heart of things
 -emphasis is on the character's humanity
 -if heart trouble shows up in a novel or play, start looking for the
significance
 -if we see that characters have difficulties of the heart, don't be
surprised when emotional trouble becomes the physical ailment

32.  -need to ask what is their
condition telling us about their
character
 -paralysis
 physical, moral, social, spiritual,
intellectual, political
 There are certain principles
governing the use of disease in
works of literature:
 1. Not all diseases are created
equal
• TB is better than Choleria
• Syphillis is moral corruption
 but not grade A literary
diseases/devices
 2. It should be picturesque
• TB is sexy
 3. It should be mysterious in
origin
 4. It should have strong
symbolic or metaphorical
possibilities
 makes a statement about the
victim of the disease

33.  . . .and the winner is
Tuberculosis
 -the skin becomes pale, the
eyes sunken in and dark
 -anyone could get it, it would
wipe out entire families
 -love and tenderness gave the
disease to all
 -metaphorical wasting
away/frailty physically and
emotionally
 -joined cancer in dominating
the literary imagination
 i.e Moulan Rouge
 runner up is The Plague
 -individual suffering
 -societal devastation
 -damage to crops and
people/whole cities
 -Oedipus
 -biblical
 punishment/wrath
 -the confrontations with
devastation
 -the randomness
 -the despair

34.  3rd place-Malaria aka
Roman Fever
 -actually translates into
"bad air"
 gossip, hositle public,
frantic, FINE
 then comes Inherited
Diseases
 -symbolizes bad
parenting/dysfunctional
family
 -Syphilis
 4th place-AIDS
 -has a wasting quality
 -questions of morality
 -spreads easily and mutates
 -can lie dormant and then be
brought out
 everyone could be a carrier
 -100% mortality rate
 -young people, gay people,
artsy people
 -tragic and despair, but
courageous and resilient and
compassion
 -political

35.  HOW
 -how does the character react to others
 -how did they get the disease
 -how do they deal with their illness
 -how to they let others take care of them
 -how does the character accept or deny death?morality?
 All symbolize
 -randomness of fate
 -harshness of life
 -unknowability of the mind and of God
 -can say whatever the author needs it to say

36.  Last-Chance-For-Change
 how they work
 -the character, usually old, has experienced a number of
opportunities to grow, reform, to get it right-
 but never has
 -is presented with one last chance to educate himself in this most
important area
 -the reason why they are older is because his time for growth and
learning is running out
 -time is the imperative, a sense of urgency permeates
 -the situation itself is compelling
 -can this person be saved?
 -at the end of the day, these stories are about salvation and
redemption
 -if they can't be saved this last time, then they never will

37.  Irony Trumps Everything
 A sign is something that signifies a
message. The signifier doesn’t have to be
used in the planned way. Its meaning can
be deflected from the expected meaning,
 The Ironic Mode
• Characters who possess a lower degree of
autonomy, self-determination, or free will than
ourselves