APLit2012

Argument: Carter Kaplan's "The Advent of Literary Dystopia" argues the similarities and differences of Dystopia and satire in the form of literature. Relates to the dystopian society of The Hunger Games. Claim: The idea of dystopia Kaplan discusses come from menippean satire although they differ when it comes to humor. Menippean satire and dystopia are forms of mythology in which both ideas are not likely to occur in reality but emphasizes orthodoxies in society. Kaplan argues that dystopia creates prophacies based on fictional circumstances that relate to society. In other terms, predictions of the future that are usually in a negative manner; the idea of dystopia portray negative mood in literature. Evidence: "Both forms are converned with intellectual mythology, which they critique by exploring the interrelationships that exist between ignorance, intolerance, conflict, brutality, euphemisn, passivity, scientism, and various modern orthodixies" (Kaplan). "The mood of dystopia is usually dark, pessimistic, and often reflects paranoia, alarm or hysteria" (Kaplan). "Dystopia uses fiction to portray institutions based on intellect mythology and essays prophecy and prognostication" (Kaplan). "The literature of dystopia examines the possible effects intellectual mythology can have on individuals and society" (Kaplan).

Argument: A comparison of Jane Austen's writing and Charlotte Bronte's. Claims: Charlotte Bronte creates educated characters to play her female roles so that they can excercise reason. Her uneducated women are foolish. Her female leads are all reasonable and rational -two characteristics she probably appreciated in herself. Evidence: "Jane Eyre dramaticizes its manifesto that women must be educated to excercise their reason, with Adele Varens and Blanche Ingram proving that uneducated women become coquettes," (Harris 102).

Argument: Asimov uses character motivation to progress the story by having the purpose behind the characters shift in reaction to events in the plot. Claims: He changes his characters from rational to reactionary and impulsive to indicate the climax and the rising anxiety of action. Evidence: Highlighted

Dawson, Janis. "Literary Relations: Anne Shirley And Her American Cousins." Children's Literature In Education 33.1 (2002): 29-51. Academic Search Complete. Web. 12 Jan. 2012.

Argument - Ray Bradbury's main goal is to employ the ideas of the goal and joy of living. Claims- Bradbury holds a hopefullness for humanity. -Bradbury's interest with the stars and other worlds is the depiction of his interest in the unknown and new fronteirs. -Bradbury is only acutely aware of the evil nature of humans and their potential to cause destruction. -Bradbury seeks to depict a rebirth in society representing his trust in mankind to destroy the bad and create new. Evidence - Fahrenheit 451 - The destruction of the city as symbolized by the phoenix, depicts rebirth of a new phoenix from the ashes. - "Charles points out, however, that humanity is not free of temptation, for the desire for empty impossibilities is in them all, and there will be many other attempts to exploit this desire in their long lives" - By the pricking of my thumbs,! something wicked this way comes." In William Shakespeare's Macbeth (c. 1605), the witches speak these lines as Macbeth approaches for his second meeting with them"

In a literary criticism by Charlotte Hadella, she states that the Eden biblical allusion plays a major part in the development of characters and the American Dream. Nearing the end, the Eden myth haunts Lennie and George because of Curly's wife, a woman dictates the failure of their dream. Hadella claims that even before they enter the ranch that their dream begins doomed. While in the ranch, the fact that the land owners that he wants to buy from have to sell raises a red flag on their dream, that if they could make it off the land, how could they possible accomplish that same feat. Yet, that breaking point fact gets overlooked in the pursuit of their dream because if they think on their plan George will see that they are banished from Eden before they can enter. Usable Quotes: "When George talks about the actual farm that he intends to buy for himself and Lennie, he explains to Candy that he can get the place for a really cheap price, "for six hundred bucks. The ole people that owns it is fiat bust." Apparently, the present owners of George's dream farm are not able to live "off the fat of the land," a detail that both he and Candy conveniently overlook,"(Hadella). "The Garden of Eden myth "looms large" in Of Mice and Men, and Steinbeck appropriates Edenic elements to convey his personal interpretation of the American Dream,".

Review of Burned

Argument: Asimov's knack for story telling relies on the style with which he presents his characters, and the way he makes the cosmic story of the book as much a relevent character to the plot as the humans. Claims: That his style is a very plain yet very clear one, that his characters are often plain with a touch of peculiarity, and that he can weave a story that is both surprising and not unexpected in the least. Evidence: Highlighted.

Argument: An essay by Zaleski, summarizing the plot of "The Wedding" by Nicholas Sparks, and providing opinion on the likability of the text. Evidence: For the most part this paragraph summarizes the plot of "The Wedding", however the last few sentences express the authors opinion on how Sparks writes in a romantic, yet not too mushy type of way through use of his diction and plot twists. Claims:  "Sparks tells his sweet story competently, without sinking too deeply into the mire of sentiment; a gasp-inducing twist comes at the very end. Satisfied female readers will close the covers with a sigh and a wish that a little of the earnest, too-good-to-be-true Wilson might rub off on their own bedmates"      Though I would not include the whole quote, there is valuable substance within this quote that speaks of how SParks writes and develops a story, and audience reactions to his writing, plus this article is specifically relevant to "The Wedding" which is a text I read for the project.

Argument:  Ferguson writes to partially attack the diction and characteristics used in Spark's novel "At First Site" Evidence: Ferguson uses negative connotations to describe Spark's writing such as "corny" and "knuckle-bitingly bad" which are very negative. Justifies her criticisms by allowing some slack about the ending to surprise, but does not elaborate leaving an impression that she is not a fan of the story. Claim:   "Sparks's prose has the amiable, folksy rhythm of a rocking chair on a wraparound porch" Can be used to demonstrate Spark's use of slang and jargon when writing to give a southern characteristic among his characters in all his  literature.   "incurable weakness for corny characters" Can be backed up by actions or dialogue of characters from either book. This statement more personally attacks Sparks then his characters.

Argument: This essay examines how three centuries' worth of scientific and literary speculation led up to the creation of the book that set a new standard for fiction about other worlds. Evidence: Much of what the author does to point out ways in which H.G. Wells constructed the book has to do with his scientific background and the ways in which he juxtaposed certain literary approaches with every following chapter. Furthermore, he war of the Worlds achieves its special status by an effective combination of intimacy and generality, archetypal storytelling and open-ended allegorical possibility, a richly specific sense of time, place, and occasion, and an interrogative mode that transcends circumstantial detail. Claim: "It was a shrewd move on Wells's part, therefore, to build the famous first paragraph of The War of the Worlds on the global preoccupation with telescopic surveillance." "Those observatories and the dispatches emanating from them throughout the 1890s are mentioned repeatedly in the first chapter, but the dominant theme, at the outset, is of our world under scrutiny. " "The human role is displaced from the surveyor to the surveyed as Earth's inhabitants fall under the envious gaze of Martian observers"

In the literary critique Heroes of Our Time: The Stranger, written by Germaine Bree, the author discusses the characterization of Meursault as the "absurd" hero. She claims that he is content to live and ask no questions, refusing to make any concession to the norms of society. Meursault's development throughout the course of the novel is also tracked. Bree claims that Meursault's error lies in his disassociation from society. She describes him as an individual whose story is used by Camus to ridicule modern man's strive to put meaning to their lives, emphasizes Camus' absurdist philosophy. Furthermore, she tracks the development of Meursault's characterization in order to emphasize Meursault's innocence in the fact of society. "In L'Etranger Camus thus suggests that in the face of the absurd no man can afford passively just to exist. To fail to question the meaning of the spectacle of life is to condemn both ourselves, as individuals, and the whole world to nothingness"(Bree). "Meursault's attitude at first merely reveals how arbitrary and superficial are the codes with which we cover up the stark incomprehensibility of life" (Bree). "He is a stranger to society, because he refuses to make any concession whatsoever to its codes and rituals. He sees no relation at all between his mother's death and the fact that he goes to see a comic film two days later, and he establishes none" (Bree).

Argument: This article is about the second book I am reading. In this abstract it talks about religion. Sometimes religion can be controlling. Control is what I am writing about for my paper. Claims: Control can be found in many aspects of life. I would research different religions and find controlling things about them. Evidence: "The Grapes of Wrath has been read typically as a period of social activism". "...emerging from a self-satisfied and legalistic moralism into a new ethos of universal love in pattern of Christ".

Argument: Matthew Wynn Sivils argues that William Faulkner, in his novel "Sound and the Fury", uses ecological disturbances in his books from real life events. Claim: "The convict was bearing again that sound which he had heard twice before and would never forget-that sound of deliberate and irresistible and monstrously disturbed water." Sivils uses this quote from one of Faulkner's books, "If I Forget Thee, Jersualem", to mimic the forthcoming of a tsunami. Evidence: "The flourishing of Faulkner's literary career coincided with perhaps the worst period of environmental abuse the South has ever known, and it is unsurprising that he incorporates such desolation into his writing." "Faulkner's literary symbiosis between African Americans and the land helps reveal his environmental consciousness-his view of the South as a place of complicated racial and natural conflict." "Anyone who understands the effect of seasonal changes on the land and the relationships between animals, or knows the best place to hunt or fish is thinking not only environmentally but ecologically. This way of knowing the natural world is based upon an understanding of community, and few writers understood community, human or non human, as well as Faulkner"

Argument- Peters adequately portrays a teenager dealing with all the problems that come along with high school and family...Claim- holland is a teenager that struggles with identity. Evidence- "A lesbian? Is that what I was? I hadn't thought about a new self-identity. A label. All I knew was, I loved her." "telling the truth about yourself, to yourself and to others."

Argument: Respectability can be found in all men, regardless of social status and the stigmas of the Victorian era. Philip Pirrip, also known as Pip, is the protagonist in Dickens novel Great Expectations. As the protagonist, he grows from a young orphan raised by his sister and her Blacksmith husband to a 'good christian man' showing the positive transition that is possible for all men. Main Idea of Argument: Where one comes from does not limit where they can go- a major theme in most Dickens novels. All levels of Victorian society were respectable, regardless of money- or lack therefore of- religion, and disabilities. Evidence: 1)"Charles Dickens believed that his society wrongly valued economic transactions over natural human interactions, which resulted in a minous transference of commercial interests from the public sphere into the private" (Tobin 1). 2)"Dickens himself was conflicted about his right to respectability, and many of his characters suffer the strain of not knowing where or how they flt in. Dickens's father, John, was perpetually in debt, which led to Dickens's brief employment in Warren's Blacking Factory at the age of twelve. Dickens was so ashamed of having been forced to leave school and do manual labor that he never told anyone in his own family about the incident. After his father's debts were cleared and Dickens grew to manhood, he worked his way up the social ladder, initially applying his skills as a shorthand writer at the various courts of law in London and as a journalist" (Tolbin 3). 3) "Pip's transferring onto Joe his own feelings of inferiority as well as his desires to eradicate their outward appearances signal the young man's first step toward adopting an immoral and inhumane ideal of respectability" (Tobin 5). 4)"Over time, Pip comes to recognize Magwitch as a human being with emotions and the right to be treated in a decent, humane manner. However, Pip does not completely transfer the compassion he leamed during his own

Argument: Death is defined not only by what is causing it but how the individual handles the strides of it. Claim: The disease pales in comparison to how the person chooses to live their life. If a person is encouraged and allowed to act negatively, they will be so. Finding the passion in something to throw oneself in is more valuable then giving up or submitting. Evidence: "The real question, though, is whether any lasting strength can be gained from an account like this one--strength that derives from knowing ourselves (as Morrie and Mitch do not) to be the legatees of inviolable traditions, cultural and professional alike, as well as members of a vast and enduring human community that stretches back into history and forward into the experience of those yet to come."

Exploring the more violent side of the segregation between Jack's group and Ralph's tribes, a more ritualistic behavior breaks out in desperation to seek reasoning and in a sense a religion to be guided through in a situation in which order is lacking. The tribe Jack belongs to adopts a "God" figure in which a sacrifice must be offered to maintain peace and fortune to the tribe. Jack evolves and leads an elite group of warriors which are called pig- hunters who chant graphic and murderous statements and present themsleves as barbaric hunters. Gordon compares Goldings ideas to Homers workings using similarities such as disguise and the chant Jack's pig hunters use to Homer's soldiers' war scream. "Electra in Orestes: Murder! Butcher! Kill! Thrust your twin swords home! Slash, now slash again! foreshadows the brutish, imperative yell of Jack's pig-hunters: "Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood! Do him in!"" The idea of law and morality are replaced with the savage instinct of a berseker that Jacks tribe of followers live by.

Argument- This article basically discusses the treatment of children in fiction works such as Charles Dickens. It also compares the treatment to how children are treated today and how they are different, both in good and bad ways. Claims- This article focuses on the treatment of children, their welfare condition, psychological problems, and role as money earner for the family. It uses examples from authors from the 1830 on to the mid-19th Century including Dickens. It also discusses how the abuse stories written in the news could have been simply chapter headings in the books about the conditions in the past. Evidence- "Headlines and accounts of custody and foster care cases in newspapers read like episodes in fiction: "Escaping Abuse But Not Neglect: Languishing in Foster Care"; "Mom Would Pick Jail Over Giving Up Son"; "Mom Wins Long Fight for 2 Kids; Woman Regains Custody After Children's Services Gives Up 3-Year Battle"; "Mother, 24, Arrested After 6 Children Are Found Alone." Better funding and more vigorous implementation of the Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980 would probably help, but it is hard to believe that the stories will have happy endings as long as family poverty is compounded by lack of education, hopelessness, and drug and/or alcohol abuse, and the children's environment at home, school, and play is violent and unwholesome"(Bremmer 1). "Novels and stories depicting the social condition of children and exploring their psychological problems played an important role in arousing concern for children at a time when childhood was virtually without rights or protection. The works discussed are worth recalling because they reflected prevailing attitudes and practices in child care, inspired sympathy for and understanding of children, and contributed to a hostile stereotype of adult child welfare workers. The authors' favorite remedy for children's problems--keeping them with or getting them back to their own parents or, if that w