Summary and Analysis of "The American Dream"

     So basically, when reading through The American Dream for the first time, I had absolutely no idea what it was about. I just kind of sat there like, "hm...this...this is really weird" So I was pretty interested to hear what we were going to discuss in class. Lo and behold, the point of it all was consumerism. And, from an essay we read in class, it was a sort of "grotesque sitcom" (Philip C. Kolin, "Ablee's early one-act plays: 'A new American playwright from whom much is to be expected'").
     Mommy and Daddy's function in the play was the reversal of gender roles, with Mommy constantly emasculating Daddy by pointing out his faults and calling him a woman, and then by manipulating him with her supposedly seductive language of "oh...you were so masculine.." to get him to do what she wanted. She wore the pants in the relationship, where Albee was mocking the traditional roles of the male being the head of the household and the woman just being on the side to cook and clean. If you think about the stereotypical sitcom, pictures should come up in your mind of a father and mother and son/daughter sitting around a television set, with the father talking about work and the mother knitting or preparing dinner. Here, the role of the child is altered as it is used again to show America's obsession with consumerism. When talking about how their baby disobeyed their wishes, Grandma tells Mrs. Barker that Mommy and Daddy "wanted their money back" (Albee). They mutilated the child as if it weren't a human being at all, because it was doing things that they didn't want, meaning that when something or someone isn't satisfying, you can just get rid of or replace it.
      Grandma is treated similarly to the baby. She raised Mommy, packing her lunches every day and making sure she had a home to stay in, and then once Mommy was grown up and found a rich man to marry and live off of, Mommy began to treat Grandma as a burden, talking in the play about the "van man" taking Grandma away and trying to falsely compliment her with comments such as "look how nicely she wrapped those boxes"(Albee), treating Grandma like a helpless child and making her out to be a fool who was good for nothing, and so when she does something like wrap a box she must be praised. All the while, Grandma is uttering to herself how "old people never..." or "they think old people are..." referring to how once Grandma was done being useful to Mommy, she wanted to be rid of her, thinking there was nothing satisfying that Grandma had to offer anymore, so they could call "the van man" and have her taken away to a nursing home just like that. Grandma and the baby in this way were both just treated as two objects that, once their usefulness seems to have gone, are just replaceable items that have run their course and should be thrown out.
     The Young Man toward the end of the play is the symbol of "The American Dream", seen when Mommy asks who is knocking at the door and Grandma answers with, "it's The American Dream!" (Albee). The Young Man, when asks by Grandma, talks about how he is out looking for work, for anything that pays. Being young, good looking, and working for pay is part of The American Dream.
     Between the beginning of the play with Mommy obsessing over the color of her hat and wanting satisfaction knowing that it was a beige hat and not wheat, with the mindless mutilation of the "bumble" and the careless, "you're-just-a-crazy-old-woman" attitude toward Grandma, the emasculation of Daddy and the appearance of The Young Man as the picture of the future of America, Albee's play was just a huge mock on consumerism and obsessiveness with material goods and the typical gender roles in America. "The American Dream" is classified as a play in the "Theater of the Absurd" because of its strange ("grotesque") plot, extravagant humor, and such themes as "the sterility and lack of values in the modern world" and "the absurdity of man's position in the universe through a series of ridiculous situations that render man's position more absurd".

Close Reading Oct. 21rst

     Okay, I'm going to be perfectly honest and start out by telling you that I have no idea who wrote this essay. I literally just typed "persuasive essays" into Google and clicked one of the random links that came up. However, I feel like since it IS a persuasive essay and I AM still analyzing it...well it still counts because I'm getting the practice...uh, right? Okay. That said, when quoting I'll be using "Anonymous".

     "Why Exercise is Wise" began with quotes, drawing the audience in and making this essay personal by having it begin with '"Come on!" your gym teacher bellows. "Just one more lap!"

"Why don't you head outside - it's a beautiful day, perfect for getting some exercise," your mom says' (Anonymous). It's imagery. It brings to mind those days in elementary school running laps and rock climbing on one of the walls and doing that thing where all the kids lift that rainbow colored blanket up and then quickly sit down inside the dome it forms. Nostalgic. Then the picture of a sunny day with joggers listening to their iPods while their dog trots along side them. Then the author plunges into the article with "Exercise is a word you hear everywhere - and for good reason. Exercise is a very important part of life..." (Anonymous). It was a fantastic opening and a nice way to transition into the informational part.
     Again in the next paragraph, the author  begins with "'So what? How does that affect me?' you may be thinking" (Anonymous). Acknowledging that whoever is reading the essay may not really particularly be caring or believing his/her point that exercise is important for a healthy lifestyle is important in getting those readers to listen. Getting them to think, "Well, yeah, that is what I'm thinking, so..?" and having them be more attentive to the details. The author moves into the transition for the next paragraph by telling how exercise is important for all parts of the body, but that "probably the best place to start is your heart" (Anonymous). He/she then describes in what ways the heart is the strongest muscle and how exercise makes your heart stronger. Finally, the author ropes in other types of readers - teens, people who are more artistic than athletic, etc. by giving examples of how they can get their exercise in a way they enjoy as well as a way that will be beneficial to them.
     I think the only problem I had with this article was the same problem I had with the last one I read for a close reading...the fact that this author stated once that "doctors have done studies..." to show how exercise is important, but he/she did not give any specific statistics or studies that had been done. Details like those are really what makes the words on a page become reality to most every day Americans. Overall, I thought for how short the essay was, the structure was nice, and the transitions were really well done. This anonymous author did a good job as well, as I said, in using examples to interest different groups of people.


http://center.dordt.edu/266.543units/bodsquad/persuasive_article.html
^link to the article

Open Prompt Sun. Oct. 14th

1972. In retrospect, the reader often discovers that the first chapter of a novel or the opening scene of a drama introduces some of the major themes of the work. Write an essay about the opening scene of a drama or the first chapter of a novel in which you explain how it functions in this way.


     "I have to leave the curtains in the lounge and in the dining room, by the balcony, open to exactly the right width every day or I can't come back in the flat again. There are sixteen panes in each of the patio doors; the curtains have to be open so that I can see just eight panes of each door...If I can see a sliver of the dining room through the other panes...then I'll have to go back up to the flat and start again" (Haynes, 13).
     Elizabeth Haynes' novel, Into the Darkest Corner, depicts the horrifying memories of a woman named Cathy, who was in two separate abusive relationships in her life. That's what the back of the book says. However, neither the back of the book nor the inside flap say much of anything about how Cathy has Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (as seen in the above quote). You begin the book expecting the plot line that was written on the back, the one that drew you in to buying it, but are not aware of the twists in the characters and the overall themes. Beginning with quotes that tell how she's usually late for work because she checks her flat before leaving several times, how she forces herself to take a different path home every night from work or from being out, and how she is so paranoid about not having anyone in her flat or going into anyone elses' flat makes the reader begin to see more into the reasoning behind the abusive relationships. Does her disease attract her to dangerous people in some sort of way? Did her OCD develop long before or shortly after the physical abuse?
     The format of the book isn't exactly in chapters, but in sections. Within the sections, each short narration of the small things in her life day to day are written underneath the dates in which they happened (ex. Thursday 1 November 2007). All of the sudden, a few pages later, the date will switch from 2007 to 2003, and there will be a different man in that passage. To me, that brought home the detail of Cathy's OCD, with the switching back and forth between the years. You aren't starting the book after she's been abused or while it's happening, but you begin with her regular life, with her working and going out to bars with friends at night. The first chapter (section) of Into the Darkest Corner introduces the reader to the deeper personal problems Cathy is dealing with, while foreshadowing what is to come.

Response to Course Materials Oct. 7th

     Now in class, we've covered a lot more of things that were talked about in Foster's. We've talked about the different time periods and how the literature changed, who the well-known authors of those time periods were, and what the major themes were. We talked about the story of Oedipus, read The American Dream, and did a group project where we split up things like the Old and New Testaments, and basically studied the stories/symbols/themes and presented them in front of the class. Every day we begin class with a student-led discussion with a different exercise that deals with DIDLS - Diction, Imagery, Details, Language, Syntax...we also have tone exercises. 
     I liked doing the last group project, because I've never really been one to go to church, and so I don't really know many Bible stories or their meanings. From what we've learned in class, the Bible stories  are important to know in literature, because almost all works in literature relate back to the Bible. I think starting every day with the student-led exercises is one of my favorite things. It makes me feel more...mature, I guess? I feel like by senior year, we as students are ready for a lot more responsibility in our classes, and I think the leadership we have through these exercises are not only helpful for the AP exam with helping us learn to annotate and read into poetry/prompts/etc. faster and more effectively, but it helps us just in general in the classes. We're going to be in college next year, so stepping up in taking control of your education is a big deal. What I'm mainly confused about right now is The American Dream. It's probably because I was gone for the two days we read it in class, so I read it on my own, but I didn't really understand the point of the play at all. Any of it, basically. I'm not sure if we talked about it in those days when I was absent, but I hope in the future before we do any assignments or essays over it, we can talk in depth about it so I can understand it better. The notes we took on the different literary movements were partially new and partially a review from BritLit last year. The other day we were handed a chart where we had to fill out for each movement/time period who the heroes were, what were the themes, things like that. The chart was really helpful to show us how we should be studying for tests. Not just taking notes and then reading them over or making flash cards, but taking the notes and rearranging them into groups and categories that help us to better understand and organize the information in our minds in a way that makes it easier to memorize and that makes sense to us.