IB English A1 HL/SL

etm June 29th, 2009

. . . is here: http://www.ericmacknight.com/wordpress/?p=167.

• Info: Homework Assignments , Mr. MacKnight
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andrewt June 27th, 2009

Reading both Yuan’s and Luke’s responses to ‘The Awakening’ has sparked a few ideas in my head, not to mention the amusement at seeing debates and rebuttals practically fly across the computer screen. It reminds me of a quote that the Joker of Batman Comics once stated, “This is what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object”.

It is difficult not to take a side when it comes to Edna. Did you like her? Or not? A middle ground seems almost near impossible but I intend to make an attempt at this in this commentary. So read on. I warn you, this is a long read.

There must be a reason for that huge, bold, thickened line that has separated most males and females upon their opinions of Edna. Whilst most of the females in the class took the sympathy role, the males felt dislike, and were even offended at the thought of Edna committing such acts. The answer lies within the basis of family stereotypes. The father would be the bread-winner of the family, and thus the leader and the head. The mother would be the passionate and caring housewife who would look after her children with tender loving care. The funny thing with Edna’s story is, is that there is no extreme pain (physical that is), conflict or desecration. And yet, even in this normal family there is much difficulty and complication. We react to this because ‘The Awakening’ shows that even in a perfect situation, things can go horribly wrong. Now we look for answers. And this is where the opinions begin to diverge.

I think the guys mainly took the offensive role because we think Edna has been given all she needs. Mr. Pontellier is not only a provider, but an immensely caring and loving father to his wife and children. What a great father and husband! And yet she remains so unappreciative and defiant to all the things he could possibly give her: money, love, and children. “What more do could you want?” we ask. I feel this upsets the males because we ourselves feel that we can do nothing more than what Mr. Pontellier has offered, and yet the wife remains unhappy and sad. It horrifies the males because the disturbing situation now happening on paper and ink can happen to us in the real world, where we are utterly unable to prevent a similar situation from going out of control. We are also upset at Edna because we feel that Mr. Pontellier himself has sacrificed a lot to be a typical family man, only to be met with what we see as complaints and disobedience to the roles in which a typical family wife should fill, the responsibilities she should have taken just as her husband has when the wedding vows were made. This leads us to question Edna’s love for her family, for does it exist? For a mother who loves her children and husband does not mind the sacrifice she has to offer. This concurs with my initial opinion of Edna being selfish and unjust.

On the other hand, most of the females have taken a sympathetic position with Edna, because they feel the oppression and restriction of her situation which I feel we males fail to recognize. They are able to better place themselves in Edna’s situation because they just simply are females. They have a closer bond to Edna because she stood up as a female for what she wants and desires, instead of what her husband, children, and society desires. In that sense, they admire her actions as brave and daring as she has taken a step against the stereotype of male empowerment, which in their mind weakens the ability for females to think, act, and want for themselves. Additionally, Edna has not completely ignored her duties as a mother and a wife, caring for her children and her husband as a mother should. However, they feel that she should not be stuck into doing something she does not love or have a passion for just because society states that she does. Who has the right to say who you are, what you have to do, how you should feel, what you will become, where you will be? The females have reacted to Edna in the same calibre as the males due to the probable horrifying truth of realizing one day that you aren’t happy with your life, and you want it to all go away. What you thought was what you wanted, turned out to be the last thing that you ever desired, but you been permanently glued to it because the rules of society and life forbids you from breaking away. This is why the females regard Edna’s suicide as a form of escape, not cowardice or self-centeredness, but escape from everything that binds and suffocates her to the ground, escape from her unhappiness and misery, escape to be free.

The people of a century ago debate for the very same reasons we argue about now when ‘The Awakening’ was first published. It is so difficult to come with a middle ground because there hardly is any! The differences between males and females are just too great, which is the reason why we disagree over a myriad of things. However, even with the great difference, we should try to understand the other gender’s position and thoughts, for we might just realize that they aren’t just bickering over something that you think is completely straightforward to yourself.

• Andrew , The Awakening
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etm June 25th, 2009

Over the summer I’d like you to study the 15 sonnets by Shakespeare that we will be reading as one of our Part 4 works. Please go to the my Public Folder page and download the three documents concerning sonnets: an introduction to the sonnet, the 15 sonnets you will be responsible for, and a set of 20 questions about them for you to answer in writing over the summer holiday. The path is Handouts / IB English A1 / Shakespeare’s Sonnets. Please note: your computer must have a copy of Adobe Reader installed for you to open and read the handouts. If you don’t have Adobe Reader, download it for free from www.adobe.com. If you have trouble downloading the documents, see me at school before July 3 and I will give you hard copies.

Please submit your answers to the 20 questions as a post on this blog.

Before you can post to this blog, you will have to send me an email message so that I can enrol you as a contributor. My email address is ericmacknight AT mac DOT com.

We will use these sonnets as an opportunity to practice literary commentaries, both written and oral, to prepare you for the commentaries that together count for 40% of your final grade for the course; and to practice writing comparison-contrast essays, which you will need to do on World Literature Assignment 1. It’s very important that you complete your answers to the 20 questions and post them to this blog before the 2008-09 school year begins.

If you have any questions or problems with this assignment, leave a comment on this post and I will respond to it.

Along with this assignment, you should read as much as possible over the summer, as once the school year begins (and until May 2011) you will have no time to read beyond what you are required to read. If you are not familiar with the Olympian gods of Greek mythology and the major stories from Greek myth, doing some reading in this area will certainly help prepare you to read The Odyssey and the three Greek tragedies we will read for World Literature.

Finally, if you are planning to do English A1 Standard Level, there is no official summer assignment, but reading these sonnets and answering the questions will certainly help prepare you for next year’s course.

Cheers,

etm

• Info: Homework Assignments , Sonnets
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Yuan June 25th, 2009

Understanding this response requires heavily on reading Luke’s response.

Firstly, your summary of Medea is, as you note, a drastic simplification of a complex system of events that drove her to do what she did. But yes, I digress.

I think you are overly harsh on Edna. When she died, she was 29, so her marriage to Mr Pontellier couldn’t have happened before she was 25, probably much younger. She was young, inexperienced. There is a reason people in modern-day society usually frown on marriages that occur at an early age. How can you possibly have the life-experience necessary to determine that the person that you are marrying is somebody you can be with for the rest of your life? In fact, scratch that, how can you ever be sure that the person you are marrying will still be by your side when the going gets rough, when things change? The fact of the matter is, people change. It is inevitable, inexorable. Without the constant change and maturation of the human spirit though self-exploration, we would have the mindset of an infant throughout our life. How can anyone be certain that the person that they are marrying will be the same person in 20 years; how can anyone be certain that they will be the same person as they were when they made that solemn vow? There’s a whole other argument that human’s are not naturally monogamous, and though its for a different setting and different argument, it provides an ample example right now. Who determined that it is human nature to just stick to one person for the majority of your life? And how are we supposed to know any better if we cannot even begin to comprehend what the future might hold? To bring it closer to home, Luke, you’ve had girlfriends and break-ups before. Well, why did you break-up with the girl? According to you, in agreeing to be in a relationship with her, you should have stayed in that relationship you agreed upon till the end of time. Didn’t you perform the very act you so detest in your passage – ending an agreed-upon relationship – by breaking up? Obviously, something changed, which caused the relationship to be no longer fitting in the revised situation. Similarly, though perhaps on a more extreme level, when Edna agreed to marry her husband, she was young, inexperienced, uncertain of what the future was to hold. How was she to know any better? In addition, the social conventions of the time expected a girl of a certain age to marry. So if you mix all that together, I do feel that it appears to be unfair that you criticize Edna so for being unhappy in her marriage. Do you oppose divorce as a whole? Or are you against marriage?

You ask if Edna has the right to walk out of her family. Firstly, who are we to judge what rights Edna has? And on what basis are we evaluating this ‘right’ against? In relation to her family, or to herself? It occurs to me that if Edna had been the father, then maybe your reaction to her abandonment of her family would have been different. Society seems to place huge significance on the role of mothers. In becoming a mother, Edna’s society requires a woman to discard her identity as a human being and instead fully devote her life to her role as a mother to her children. This example can be seen commonly at work. Men who become fathers are given a pat on the back and allowed to carry on. Career women of a certain age, however, are expected to put their careers on hold to become mothers. Most of the time, after becoming mothers, career women are expected to quit their jobs and stay at home with the kids. Men don’t seem to have this problem. They can continue on with their careers as before, and very few people will whisper at the water-cooler in the work place about a man not having children at 50. A 50-year-old career woman, however, without a family, creates gossip of ‘What’s wrong with her?’. This isn’t to say I hate children and think all mothers should stop being mothers. I’m just trying to say that there seems to be a heavy double standard of what is expected of mothers and what is expected of fathers. Is Edna expected to completely abandon her identity as a human being and devote her whole life to being a dutiful mother and wife? Males aren’t expected to – so why are women?

Also, Edna loves her children. Perhaps not the Stepford Wife way, but she does, indisputably, love her children. A quote in page 89 - 90: “How glad she was to see the children! She wept for very pleasure when she felt their little arms clasping her; their hard, ruddy cheeks pressed against her own glowing cheeks. …She Lived with them a whole week long, giving them all of herself, and gathering and filling herself with their young existence…It was with a wretch and a pang that Edna left her children. She carried away with her the sound of their voices and the tough of their cheeks. All along the journey homeward their presence lingered with her like the memory of a delicious song.” The above quote clearly illustrates that Edna loves her children, whatever love may be. The passage continues on to note that ‘But by the time she had regained the city the song no longer echoed in her soul.’ Now, I can see some people having problems with this – as a mother, shouldn’t Edna constantly miss her children, think about them, obsess over them? I think that this belief is very unrealistsic. Yes, Edna loves her children very much, but that doesn’t mean that she’s going to let her children determine the course of her life, the nature of her existence. It is, after all, her life we are talking about here.

I also don’t believe that Edna’s suicide was completely selfish and without regard to her children. On page 105, she remarks to the Doctor: “I donb’t want anything byut my own way. That is wanting a good deal, of course, when you have to trample upon the lives, the hearts, the prejudices of other – but no matther – still, I shouldn’t want to trample upon the little lives’. Here, though Edna clearly desires to live her life according to her own terms and the way she desires to, the well-being of her children still comes into play. Previous to her drowning, Edna is present at the birth of Madame Ratignolle, who cries “Think of the children, Edna. Oh think of the children! Remember them!”. This cry reverberates through Edna’s mind during the suicide. She is thinking of her children. In her suicide, she is attempting to compromise by trying to stay true to herself while at the same time remembering her children. She doesn’t go back to her husband, because that would be betraying herself and living a life that wasn’t hers – and honestly, life’s too short to live a life like that. Edna doesn’t stay alive and leave her husband either, because that would mean causing a huge scandal and irreparable damage to the reputation or her family and her children. Thus, she is both being selfish, and selfless.

My selfless=selfish argument was more about the fact that everything that we do has an impact upon us. And anything that has an impact on us may be deemed as selfish, correct? (there are, of course, exceptions). Therefore, even the most selfless act in the end will come back to have an impact and effect which would make it, in some sense, a selfish act. Does that make sense?

Lastly, in your last paragraph, you criticise Edna for refusing to live the life she signed up for. Oh dear, ‘signed up for’, really? And you think I’m cynical? Since when do we sign up for life! That suggest that life is predetermined and packaged, delivered to those who have signed up for that partifular life. It sounds like a mail-order service.You make choices that ultimately dictate the type of live you lead, you follow through the motions of life, you go where the forces of nature sweep you. You do not ‘sign up for life’. How depressing would that kind of existence be?

• The Awakening , Yuan
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Luke June 24th, 2009

I say the girls because there seemed to be a rather gender-based divide among the people who were sympathetic towards Edna’s ‘plight’ and those of us who were a bit less emotionally attached.

It’s hard to know where to start. I explained a lot of my ideas in class, but I don’t know who other than Yuan and (of course) Paul were listening. It’s a bit late already because believe it or not, I spent a lot of time writing this!

Without trying to sound overly judgemental, I don’t like Edna. It’s not the same as my feelings towards Medea; when reading that I felt fear, even disgust, at her actions. Maybe it’s just me being a product of a flawed social system, but I find the thought of murdering your own children utterly despicable, especially just as a means of settling a petty score with her husband. I may be overly simplifying the complex emotions going through her head; in fact I know that I am. However, whatever excuses there may be are, to me, invalid. But I digress. With Edna I find that she seems simply not to care about anyone other than herself. But before you bring out the blaster rifle, read my reasoning.

I hinted during class about Edna’s unenthusiastic love for her family, and I have found the section I dimly remembered on page 19: “She grew fond of her husband… no trace of passion or excessive fictitious warmth coloured her affection, thereby threatening its dissolution”. From this we can take that she tolerates him, the man she married and promised to love forever. And even further: “She was fond of her children in an uneven, impulsive way. She would sometimes gather them passionately to her heart; she would sometimes forget them… She did not miss them except with an occasional intense longing. Their absence was a sort of relief… It seemed to free her of a responsibility which she had blindly assumed and for which Fate had not fitted her”. Call me normal, but doesn’t being a mother mean you accept the responsibility of raising children? And in what world are you allowed to walk out on your responsibilities just because they are becoming too much? She had a steady and even relationship with her family for eight years; she has the power to walk out at any time, but does she have the right to?

Yuan has spelled this argument out already in her response to Andrew. She states that we are all selfish all the time, even when we are being selfless. However, this is a rather cynical view. I refuse to believe that people do all good things for a feeling of self-worth. This would turn all ideas of people committing acts goodwill and charity into those of greedy selfishness. I may be naïve, but I like believing in human beings from time to time. We’re not that bad when worst comes to worst. For example, what about the men and women who volunteer to man lifeboats? In England there is a group called the RNLI (Royal National Lifeboat Institute), my aunt works for them. When a boat is in danger out at sea, the RNLI sends a page to all the volunteers who have normal jobs as hairdressers, cab drivers, you get the picture. They drop what they’re doing and rush to get on a lifeboat in order to save the lives of whatever fisherman happens to have had his boat capsize. Are these ordinary people risking their lives to feel good about themselves? Sailing in dangerous conditions to get a rush? I believe they’re doing it out of the goodness of their hearts. They truly care about their fellow man, enough to risk their lives in horrible weather for someone who may or may not give them a handshake and a thank you.

Edna simply refuses to live the life she signed up for. Maybe she had ‘blindly assumed’ it, maybe ‘Fate had not fitted her’ for it, but she made a vow. I believe that ‘I didn’t know what I was doing’ is an unacceptable reason for walking out on the responsibilities that accompany a rash decision made when you have your fiftieth crush on an older man and take this one too far. ‘People change’ is the mantra Yuan has been shoving in my face just about all day. It’s a true statement; indisputable even. However does that give you a right to call off everything? Don’t make promises you can’t keep, and not just that. Ignoring my gender bias, don’t parents have responsibilities towards their children? Mr Pontellier is an exemplary example of these responsibilities. He makes money, spends time with his friends and still finds time for his children who love him. Maybe he was ‘awakened’ long ago. Maybe he would like to explore the world, leave his family, join a circus even. But he remained with his family, fulfilled the promises he has made to his family. He still hasn’t killed himself. However, Edna, thinking she’s the only one with these troubles, takes her own life, thinking she’s helping everyone. And the thing is, she thought herself completely justified. I don’t think she was. I think she’s selfish.

• Luke , The Awakening
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etm June 24th, 2009

I’ve uploaded two new podcasts relating to Virginia Woolf, both of them interviews by Leonard Lopate.

In ‘Virginia and Vanessa’ he speaks with Susan Sellers, a British academic who has written a novel about the relationship between Virginia Woolf and her elder sister Vanessa Bell, who was (like Lily Briscoe in To the Lighthouse) a painter. I found Ms. Sellers’ voice hard to listen to, but what she said was quite interesting and made me want to read her book.

‘The Bolter’ is an interview with Frances Osborne, who has written a biography of her great-grandmother, Idina Sackville, who scandalized British society in the years following WWI. Sackville was about ten years younger than Virginia Woolf, and the podcast sheds an interesting light on the effects of WWI on British society, among other things. You may be surprised at some of the things those folks got into.

Both podcasts can be downloaded from my public folder, under Podcasts / English Podcasts / Fiction.

• Podcasts , TTL
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Yuan June 24th, 2009

Some initial responses to our discussion of The Awakening today in class. Not an essay, just some random thoughts.

Riccardo found it difficult to believe that Edna, given a home, money, and a loving family, was still able to be unhappy. Though Edna was given all the textbook ingredients for a ‘happy’, ‘content’ life, I don’t’ believe that what may sound good on paper necessarily translates so in real life. Edna was like a beautiful bird, the cherished belonging of some proud owner. Provided with shelter, food, a home – all the things that should have added up to happiness – all she was required to do was to perch prettily in her cage and act as the perfect pet, to behave a certain way according to her owner’s wishes. But though she should have been perfectly happy in her cage, she was not. A bird is meant to soar free and high, sail with the rifts and falls of the winds, go wherever the forces of nature may take her. Similarly, Edna, though given all the proper ingredients for a happy marriage, was trapped, stifled, unable to be content in a world where her everyday actions were penciled out beforehand. A young woman isn’t meant to be confined within the barricades of social expectations. Edna’s gradual ‘awakening’ illustrates her shift from a life lived mechanically, a life which is coloured neatly within the lines, to a life lived for herself, a life where the colors are wild and free, unconfined to the dark outlines set forth on the paper.

Andrew raised an interesting point when he mentioned that he felt that Edna was being very selfish through her drowning, leaving her children without a mother and her husband without a wife. I admit that yes, Edna’s act can be seen as selfish in the sense that she seems to be only thinking of herself and her happiness, and not the well-being of her children. First of all, I think that the negative spin of the word ‘selfish’ (in this sense) isn’t warranted. Aren’t we all made to be selfish? Isn’t it a bit ludicrous to blame Edna for being so? As cliché as it sounds, we only have one life to live, and the consciousness that is so fully ours is the only that we will ever know. In our lives, most people flit in and out in the blink of an eye; some linger long enough to make an impression in our memories; and a special few will have permanent fixtures that define the way we live or life and how we view the world. But even these permanent fixtures will eventually fade. The only relationship that we have which lasts forever is the one we have with ourselves. Thus, I believe that being selfish is not only natural and validated, but that it is necessary as well. Though acts of selflessness are all very well for bettering the world and increasing our own evaluation of personal self-worth, we cannot be expected to make selfless acts constantly throughout our lives. We must be selfish, and ensure that the personal relationships we have with ourselves are healthy and fulfilled before even thinking of making a positive impact on others. Besides, I believe that the motives behind supposed acts of selflessness for the happiness of others are innately selfish. Call me cynical, but when one does a selfless act, one inadvertentley, or perhaps purposely, does so to feel as if they are a good person, to feel better about themselves. Though it’s a nice idealistic idea, there are no selfless acts in the world; they all, in some way, are created from a selfish desire. Thus, I believe that Edna’s ‘selfish’ act of drowning herself in the sea should not only be seen in a negative light, but also a positive one as well. In fact, one could argue that Edna’s ‘selfish’ act is in itself a great act of heroism, for Edna refuses to keel in to artificial social conventions, but rather is determined to stay true-to herself – and shouldn’t such an act be lauded, not criticized? Interestingly enough, this question is also raised in Sophocole’s Antigone. Secondly, one could argue that Edna’s suicide is in fact not selfish at all, but rather the ultimate selfless act of a mother. Perhaps this is exaggerated, but in killing herself, Edna is preventing herself from living a life which would bring shame and irreparable harm to her children. Edna once said to Madame Ragnitolle, that she would sacrifice her life to her children, but not herself. This is exactly what Edna is doing here – she is ready and willing to sacrifice her life for the sake of her children, but is unwilling to live a life where she would stop being true to herself for her children. Can we really expect Edna, even though she is a mother, to sacrifice every fibre of her being so her children may be ‘happy’, to force herself to be somebody she is not for the sake of someone else?

I find that the symbolism of the sea in this book to be fascinating. I believe that in this book, the mainland symbolizes the social regularities of life expected upon Edna, while the sea represents the epitome of what Edna is striving for – freedom and escape. Her gradual awakening can be traced towards her attitude towards the sea. During the hot summer days at Cheniere Caminada, the coolness of the sea beckons to her. She enjoys bathing in the water, which allows her to rid herself from the insufferable heat of the mainland – she finds escape within the sea. In addition, we learn early on that Edna cannot swim. Though she desires to – and indeed, many people attempt to teach her – she is unable to discover a harmony with the forces of the sea that would allow her to glide among its waves. Later on, however, she finds that suddenly, without the instruction of anyone else, she is able to personally master swimming. Once she does, it comes natural to her, and she finds it ridiculous that she was once unable to grasp the concept of swimming with is now so easy and enjoyable for her. During her first swim, she swims what she feels is a relatively long distance away from the mainland. Alone in that vast expanse of sea, she experiences a panic of fear, a brush of death where the waves might have engulfed her whole and swept her into their depths. Terrified, she finds the strength to fight the forces of the sea and swim back to shore. Once she returns, she mentions the incident to her husband, who remarks that she has nothing to worry about because he was watching her on the mainland. Edna, though experimenting with the uninhabitedness of the sea, is still unwilling to let herself be fully engulfed by its freedom and immensity, instead fighting against her forces. Here, she still has a link with her husband, who by watching her from the mainland has created a link which connects her from the sea to the mainland. However, at the end of the story, Edna has finally found inner harmony with the ocean, willingly embracing it, walking into its depths, allowing herself to be swallowed by its immensity and freedom, allowing herself to finally escape the mainland forever. Thus, her suicide, rather as being viewed in the conventional way as tragic, can therefore be seen as the moment where she is finally emancipated from social regulations and the pre-determined how-to-guide of her life. With her drowning, she is at last at one with nature, tantalized by the seductive voice of the sea which is at once alluring for its promises of freedom and seemingly borderless immensity, and dangerous for its unrestrained wildness and complete disregard for the social conventions so carefully constructed by human society. The representation of the sea in this novel in fact shares similarities with the motif of the sea in Woolf’s To the Lighthouse, where the sea, powerful and dangerous, represents the forces of nature and the insignificance of one human life in its vast and seemingly endless expanse.

• Reading & Writing , The Awakening , Yuan
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etm June 19th, 2009

• Info: Homework Assignments , Mr. MacKnight
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etm June 12th, 2009

When someone I am getting to know says to me, “Wow, you read a lot, you are well-read,” I have to laugh.  And when a student asks me how to become a writer—not in those words, of course, but by showing up to class, they are essentially asking me this—I say: read.  Read good books.  Read them all.  (This is the most worthwhile impossible goal you can set for yourself.)  And read them with your whole self.  If you do not read, and with your whole self, you will not become a writer; you will never ever ever become a writer. Not a real one.  Not a good one.

http://sonyachung.com/stories-essays/how-to-become-a-writer-or-not-a-memoir/

There are important truths here. Comments welcome!

• Mr. MacKnight , Reading & Writing
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etm May 22nd, 2009

Please note these important dates:

• World Literature Assignment 1 Final Due Date: Monday, 12 October 2009
• World Literature Assignment 2 Final Due Date (HL only): 30 November 2009
• Oral Exams (IOCs): Saturday-Sunday, January 16-17

• Info: Homework Assignments , Mr. MacKnight
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