(In addition to this post, remember to print the Crucible Organizer under Downloads above, and fill in as much as you can for Abigail Williams, Betty Parris, Reverend Parris, Tituba, and John Proctor.)
One person in your group should post a comment explain your group's initial ideas about the play. Then each individual in the class should post on at least one of the group explanations with a comment or suggestion.
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Block 2A: Sorry I was absent today - I asked you guys to blog, and here's what I want you to discuss in your post:
Below I'm going to explain the ideas of our final critic, cultural theorist Rene Girard, who relates to all the lenses, but has a special resonance with the Theological analysis of literature. His theory will guide our reading of The Crucible because it resonates with the events that inspired it: the Salem Witch Trials, and the 1950's "Red Scare." After reading the explanations/watching the videos below and taking notes, please post the following: a. Explain how Girard's theory is reflected in the story "Dr. Heidegger's Experiment." b. Identify a connection between this theory and the "Red Scare" described in the videos. c. Give another example from life, history or fiction that reflects Girard's theory. (Examples - Bullying, The Holocaust, Clarisse from F451 . Now you can't use any of those!) ___________________________________________________________________________ Girard's basic idea is this: Human beings are imitative creatures, which lets us form groups, but also makes us hate and fight each other. (Read the summary linked above first, then my explanation below - links there are helpful videos/images) You read "Dr. Heidegger's Experiment," a story in which three men compete for the same woman, each made jealous by the previous one's flirtation with her. Eventually, their rivalry turns into a fistfight, which destroys the pitcher full of precious magic water. Rene Girard thinks this is essentially how humans are - competitive, violent and self-destructive. Most of us feel a nagging sense of lack (psychoanalytic influence of Lacan) and think if we had what someone else had, it would make us "whole" like them. So we desire what we see those we wish to be like desire, which means we end up wanting and fighting over the same things (which can be objects, or lovers, or positions of status - anything that we think will make us as cool, special and popular as that person). Sometimes this jealousy becomes contagious, because everyone starts to want the same thing (Mean Girls), or everyone lines up on two sides of a rivalry (World War I). This can only be solved by "sacrificing" a scapegoat figure who everyone can agree to blame (Cady in Mean Girls, Germany after WWI). That is the "hidden" truth of every society: the sacrifice of some Other to maintain social cohesion, either in the past (like Oedipus in Greek tragedy) or in an ongoing way (like the child in the basement of Omelas). Notice that this relates to... -PSYCHOANALYSIS: Girard is describing the human id as fundamentally imitative ("mimetic desire"), and therefore competitive/violent - hence he agrees with Freud that humans will always need a superego. He thinks societies' superegoes are structured to prevent the outbreak of id-driven rivalry that can tear a society apart. -FEMINIST/POSTCOLONIALIST: Girard describes how the murder of a scapegoat is justified through some kind of social construction or "cultural narrative" that makes them into a dangerous Other. In The Crucible, Tituba is the first scapegoated, and the vast majority of the accused are women. -STRUCTURALIST (SEMIOTIC): This NEW lens sort of does to a text what Freud did to the mind: creates a unique, structured framework of elements to analyze it. The Archetypes, though based in Psychoanalysis, represent an early Structuralist approach to lit-crit. Structuralists are especially concerned with lanuage and patterns, possibly across a genre (ex. the short-story plot triangle approach) or within a text (deciphering the "logic" of symbols or repetition of certain words). Girard offers the structure of Triangular Desire (desiring subject-desired object "mediating" model). He also looks into myth for examples of the "scapegoat mechanism," which recur throughout traditional literature ("motif"). In most cultures, such sacrifices are woven into religion, like the murders of Salem Witches. Of course in our recent history, scapegoats have been mostly political. One such situation led Arthur Miller to write The Crucible in 1952: the infamous "Red Scare," aka "McCarthyism"... Videos on the Red Scare (they are short - watch all three) -Overview (words/images, no narration) -Footage of Hearings (with narration) -Arthur Miller discussing the Red Scare (from 1971) -Simpsons Parody of Salem Witch Trials (similarities?) -I will check your notes on this next class. I'd also like to see that you have basic notes on the Puritan religion. There are clear connections between these circumstances and Girard's ideas, which I will leave you to explicate. But first, there is one more twist to his theory: Girard, a Catholic, explicitly moves into THEOLOGICAL territory and upholds Jesus as the solution to our problem. This is not meant in the Protestant sense, where simply having faith in Jesus is enough to save your soul. Instead, Girard upholds Jesus as a model of nonviolence. If we are going to imitate someone by nature, then we should imitate His refusal to resent, be rivals with, or pursue revenge against others (meaning, He made no other person into "the Other"). This is why some Catholic Saints described Christian ethics as "the imitation of Christ" (imitatio Dei). Do any characters in the Crucible do this? "History, you might say, is a test for mankind. But we know very well that mankind is failing that test... We must face our neighbors and declare unconditional peace. Even if we are provoked, challenged, we must give up violence once and for all" - Rene Girard (quote links to summary F.A.Q.) ALSO: We'll be starting The Crucible next class, so think about whether you'd be willing to play a part! Ministers - Reverend Parris, Reverend Hale Powerful Men - Putnam, Gov. Danforth, Judge Hathorne Lower-Class Men - John Proctor, Giles Corey, Francis Nurse, Cheever/Herrick Girls - Abigail Williams, Betty Parris, Mary Warren Women - Mrs. Putnam, Elizabeth Proctor, Rebecca Nurse, Tituba ______________________________________________________________ PREVIOUS NOTE: Last class, I forgot to add that the 5 Sentence Patterns sheet I handed out at the end of class requires you to come up with a simple sentence and then write it in the style of the sentence patterns here. So come up with a simple subject/verb statement, and then write it in each of the 5 styles on the front, then with the variations on the back. This shouldn't take very long at all, and if it is and is confusing you, then just do the front and you can fix the back part in class. So, in addition to the two Puritan pieces to SOAPSTone ("Sinner in the Hands..." and "Wonders of the..."), please complete those sentences. If you didn't hand them in today, please drop them off anytime tomorrow. Our next unit studies Arthur Miller's 1952 play The Crucible, a semi-fictionalized account of the Salem Witch Trials. Miller wrote it during the "Red Scare," a period when Senator Joe McCarthy led a modern-day "witch hunt" through Hollywood and the U.S. Government in search of "Communist spies" (a fantasy which seemed all too believable during the terror of the Cold War). Miller intended the play as a protest against McCarthy's policies, and it proved effective, helping bring him down. As always, our goal is to closely read this work, critically think about it, and produce a piece of carefully-constructed writing defending an original PSYCHOANALYTIC, FEMINIST, THEOLOGICAL or POST-COLONIAL interpretation (in the form of a 4-6 paragraph essay with a secondary source). In the process, we'll learn a bit about Puritanism and theology. Historical Sources:
Anne Bradstreet: "Dear Loving Husband"/"Burning of our House" Governor John Winthrop: "City on a Hill" Rallying Speech Jonathan Edwards: "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" Sermon Excerpt from Cotton Mather's Wonders of the Invisible World Contemporary Articles: "Are You Now or Were You Ever?" by Arthur Miller "The Disadvantages of an Elite Education" by William Deresiewicz Modern-Day McCarthyism Pieces from Politico, Inquistr and Business Insider The Crucible Critical Analysis Essay (Choice) In her interview with the New York Times, philosopher Judith Butler responds to some Americans' concerns about the Black Lives Matter movement using an argument similar to W.E.B. DuBois's criticism of the American "color line." Dubois wrote that "the problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color-line,—the relation of the darker to the lighter races of men in Asia and Africa, in America and the islands of the sea." DuBois thought that the color-line persisted even after slavery was abolished, because black Americans were still perceived as Other in some fundamental way (and so experienced themselves as Other, too, in the "peculiar" sensation DuBois called "double consciousness"). In the same vein, Butler says, "When we are talking about [the history of] anti-black racism in the U.S., we have to remember that under slavery black lives were considered only a fraction of a human life, so the prevailing way of valuing lives assumed that some lives mattered more, were more human, more worthy... But when and where did black lives ever really get free of coercive [violence]? One reason is that it states the obvious, but the obvious has not yet been historically realized. So it is a statement of outrage and a demand for equality, for the right to live free of constraint. [It] also links the the history of slavery, of debt peonage, and a prison system geared toward the containment, neutralization and degradation of black lives, [plus] a police system that more and more easily and often can take away a black life in a flash, all because some officer perceives a threat..." Before you give your opinion on Butler's statement, you might want to re-watch these videos from class: -DuBois Biography (3 minutes - consider his debate with Booker T. Washington's "accomodationist" ideas) -Butler's Philosophy of Gender (4 minutes - is her point about "social constructs" a. true? b. applicable to race?) You might also want to check out any of these videos which provide additional background on the issue: -An interview with the Black Lives Matter movement's co-founder -Report on the Tamir Rice shooting that Butler mentions - is the forensic expert And here are two pieces of commentary, one against and one defending Butler's view: -Black Seahawks player Richard Sherman criticizes the BLM movement -ESPN's "His and Hers" hosts criticize Sherman's comments as harmful to black Americans Continue the discussion from class (which was our most popular so far) using the comments below. Consider the following questions which came up, and try to provide links in your responses: -What is privilege? What is racism? We talk about -What does it mean to blame individuals vs. "systems" for social problems? -How much responsibility do citizens have to obey authority figures? -Everyone agreed we should, ideally, take everyone as individuals. But is that possible? Why/why not? -To what extent is the history of slavery/segregation still with us? -Does political correctness have ANY value? If so, what? If not, how has it become so prominent? -Are all group treated equally in America today? Most racial minorities say no in surveys. Don't simply agree or disagree; consider where these perceptions come from. If you tend to disagree, try to see their point of view; if you tend to agree, try to see the point of view of white Americans who do not perceive things the same way. Also, please remember to be respectful! We all have different social and political views, but we are all part of the same class, community and country, and we need to remember that. If you really want to develop intellectually, you'll try to understand the mindset of those with whom you disagree, and always look for the bigger picture. Read and complete SOAPSTONE analysis for this non-fiction piece about the slave trade:
-Excerpt from The Interesting Narrative of Olaudah Equiano (1798) - On the Middle Passage Then do the same SOAPSTONE analysis for this modern-day Washington Post article on race relations: -"America's Racial Divides are So Deep, We Can't Even Agree on what the Civil War was About" On the first day, I told everyone we would spend the year developing three crucial skills:
CRITICAL THINKING – Using Literary Criticism and making Real-World Connections to today CLOSE READING – Finding specific examples in the text and analyzing diction/syntax IMPACTFUL WRITING – Translating your ideas into clear, concise, and classy prose that Since then, we have used the first few classes to explore a number of works using three literally theories, practicing closely reading and then critically thinking about literary works to develop original theses: Psychoanalytic Lens (Internal Power Struggles) -F451; “The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock”; Emily Dickinson’s “Much Madness,” “Wild Nights!,”; Whitman's "Learned Astronomer," Rilke's "The Grown Up," Flannery O'Connor's "A Good Man is Hard to Find" Feminist Lens (Power Struggle between Genders) -A Streetcar Named Desire; Emily Dickinson's "It Was Not Death; Updike's "A&P", Adrienne Rich's "Aunt Jennifer's Tigers," The Crucible Post-Colonial Lens (Struggles of the DIsempowered) -One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest; Whitman’s “I Hear America Singing”/ Hughes’s “I Too Sing America”; Maya Angelou’s “Africa”; Ursula K. Leguin LeGuin’s “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”] Now you will be writing an analysis of one of short story and one poem, bringing in the skill of Impactful Writing to add express the ideas we’ve developed through Critical Thinking and Close Reading. Each will be a single paragraph with two pieces of textual evidence. The short length of the assignment means that you will be able to edit these into Perfect Paragraphs, following the rubric I will distribute and using some of the techniques we discuss. For Homework (9/21-A, 22-B), write your draft of the POEM paragraph, using a certain lens throughout. _____________________________________________________________________________________ Download the Editing PowerPoint here Here is Willow, Ash and Arianna's Feminist Lens analysis of Dickinson's poem, "It Was Not Death," for you to respond to. Read their thesis and question, then their explanation. After that, reply to their question in the comments. You can challenge their thesis or question using ideas from the Psychoanalytic lens, but you can't simply reject it - you have to produce an alternative interpretation and relate it back to theirs.
Thesis: The poem, “It was not Death, for I stood up,” by Emily Dickinson, when viewed through a feminist lens, depicts the noxious circle, masked by the euphoria of romance, that traps women in the confines of the patriarchy. Question: Is the narrator’s fate truly final? Can she still escape the patriarchy, and if she can, why has she given up? Explanation: In this piece, the narrator, a woman, comes to realize how, through romantic relationships, mankind entraps women in the prison of the patriarchy, just as her lover has just done to her in the poem. The narrator describes her wedding day, and as her lover kisses her, sealing their marriage, she “taste[s]” something like death. This “death” is not literal, for she “stood up,” alive. Instead, this this “death” is symbolic of the that of her independence and individuality. By letting this man marry her, she has allowed him to assert his superiority over her. While she had initially believed that their roles would be equal in their marriage, she now realizes that her role as the wife is inferior to that of the husband, at least in the society she lives in. As a wife, she will be forced to submit to her husband’s will, relinquishing her freedoms as an individual in order to conform to the criteria of wifehood. Instead of living her own life, following her own pursuits and personal will, she will act purely to fit the social standard of what a wife should be. However, this realization came too late for in her relationship for her to escape it. As her lover courted her, she was swept up in the hot passion of love, the “Siroccos,” and failed to note the precursors of the patriarchy’s looming triumph over her. And now, according to the narrator, her fate is as sealed and final as the permanency of death. Another depiction of the patriarchy’s cycle in literature can be found in Tennessee William’s play A Streetcar Named Desire. Stella DuBois, a victim of the patriarchy, once was a strong, young woman, who even prided herself in her independence, as she had stuck out on her own, leaving the family estate to make her own life. However, after this display of the strength of her personal will, Stella falls for a man named Stanley Kowalski. He woos Stella, especially through sexual pleasure, and through love blinds her into ignorance. With love clouding her mind and logic, Stella allows herself to become the submissive partner in an abusive relationship. She later in the play even gives birth to the child of this male chauvinist, conforming to the social belief of what women are meant to be, wives and mothers. We have now introduced three theories or "lenses" for analyzing literature, each of which looks emphasizes a type of power struggle which can occur within individuals, relationships or societies:
I. PSYCHOANALYTIC LENS: Inner Conflicts between Desire (ID) and Law (SUPEREGO) II. FEMINIST LENS: Interpersonal Conflicts between Male Power ("Patriarchy") and Women's Freedoms III. POST-COLONIAL LENS: Social and Political Conflicts between Oppressors and Oppressed Groups. Your job is to take these three lenses and apply each of them to a literary work. So, you'll be reading three works, and then finding a quotable example from each. Type it up, then write write a 2-3 sentence analysis of each quote, applying one of the literary lenses to each. Here are the links and prompts to get you thinking:: 1. Flannery O'Connor's Short Story "A Good Man is Hard to Find" -Psychoanalytic Lens: How does the Misfit exemplify the Id? The Grandmother sees herself as a defender of proper behavior, and so the representative of the Superego, but is she? And why does the story focus so strongly on these two characters? (This is a really good story to bring in the unconscious archetypes of Jung). 2.Walt Whitman's poem "I Hear America Singing" -Feminist Lens: Women appear near the end of the poem. How are they portrayed in relation to the men? Should a poem about America be equally divided between men and women? Or, on the other hand, is including women in the scene a powerful defense of their equality (considering this was written at a time when they could not vote and therefore were not considered "citizens")? 3.. Langston Hughes's "I ,Too Sing America." -Post Colonial Lens: Hughes, an African-American poet and playwright, wrote this almost 100 years after Whitman's poem as a response to it. Why do you think he did that? How does he present his position in society as a member of a colonized and devalued race? How does he try to take back his identity and define himself through the language and imagery in the poem? Post your quotes/analyses in the comments section as a single comment (please number them 1,2 and 3). If you have any questions, let me know via email and I can help. I'll also post replies to one or two comments - Hello, 2A and 2B classes! Here are your syllabus and assigned reading in a Word document Make sure you print the whole thing and bring it to your next class:
Your assignment is to read and blog T.S. Eliot's long narrative poem, "Love-Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." Think of it a story told through a sometimes-vague poem that you have to interpret for yourself. An "interpretation" doesn't have a right or wrong answer, so don't look one up online - I already know what it says about the poem on Sparknotes and Shmoop and GradeSaver. I want to know what you think: who is Mr. J. Alfred Prufrock, the speaker? Why does he use such weird images and metaphors (anesthesia, lobster claws, hair, Michelangelo)? He keeps saying he can't say what he's trying to say - but can you? What's on his mind? Your post doesn't need to be very long, as long as it's quality. You can build off others' comments as long as you give them credit by name. |
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August 2016
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