Marginalised literature (2)

6th August 2009, Thursday

Today is another class of marginalized literature. We learned about ethnic minority people such as the Native Americans and the African Americans. I learned a word “indigenous” which is a better word for “aborigine”. In class, we are being introduced to marginalized literary works which are the indigenous people in America such as “The Noble Red Man” by Mark Twain and “Iroquois: The Girl Who Was Not Satisfied With Simple Things”. These literary works are richly describing about the culture, setting, attire and words used by the indigenous people in America. For example, “the eye of the night” refers to the moon, “the whisper of the Great Spirit” refers to wind and their attire “wampum”.
Besides that, we learned about a famous African American poet, James Mercer Langston Hughes. Both his parents were mixed-race and he was of African American, European American and Native American descent. He is known as the Black Literary Renaissance and the New Negro Movement. In class, we read some of his famous literary works such as “Theme for English B”, “Dinner Guest: Me”, “Harlem” and “Cross”.
Langston Hughes is one African American writer whom I admire because he is proud of his own race, Africans even though African’s are not respected by the white people society. In “Dinner Guest: Me”, he wrote “I’m so ashamed of being white”. He has his dignity of being black and is very satisfied. He said, “I had been thinking about my father and his strange dislike of his own people. I didn’t understand it, because I was a Negro, and I liked Negroes very much.” From here, I learned good value from Langston Hughes that is being proud of your own race even though other people may not like your race.

Marginalized literature (1)

21st July 2009, Tuesday

Marginalized literature is literature which related to a group of people that is in a margin, not experiencing much freedom as other literatures or welcome by everybody. Marginalized literature basically is about people expressing their opinions, thoughts, voices so that the society can understand their thoughts and feelings of being in the marginalized group. Literature which relates to feminist writings and writings that belong to ethnic minority groups are some examples of marginalized literature.
In class, we learned “For My Husband” and “The Rose” by Erica Jong, and “Becoming a Woman” and “Offering” by Hilary Tham. These are poems and are considered marginalized because they are female writers where their works are also about feminism. “For My Husband” is about a wife writing her feelings and thoughts of love to her husband. As for “Becoming a Woman”, it is a process of a woman growing up and how she has to manage her monthly period. There are issues which are related to women. “Offerings” is about heartbreak due to rejection and “The Rose” is about skepticism about love. These two poems are related to relationship and how the women view relationship in a way that may be heartbreaking or lack of trust in a love relationship.

The Zoo Story by Edward Albee

21st July 2009, Tuesday

Today is another lesson about writing thesis statement. We read a story about “The Zoo Story” by Edward Albee. This is a play of a dialogue between Peter and Jerry where Jerry is the initiator of the conversation who managed to dominate Peter’s bench. I took about an hour to finish reading the play because it is very long. However, I enjoyed reading the play.
From the play, I view Jerry’s character is very irritating, disturbing and disgusting because he disturbs Peter who is sitting on a bench peacefully reading his book. He keeps on throwing weird and irritating questions such as asking Peter where he lives, his family members and the zoo which caused Peter to be confused and annoyed. Even though from another point of view, some may think that Jerry is very wise because he managed to dominate Peter’s bench and die on it that is his ultimate goal. Meanwhile, in my point of view, I feel sympathy for Peter because he was kind to entertain Jerry’s conversation but in the end, Jerry succeeded to use Peter as a stepping stone to achieve his dreams to die on the bench.
Therefore, the thesis statement for this play is Jerry’s death signifies the birth of his pride and dignity. The three supporting details for this thesis statement will be Jerry stumbles back on the bench that Peter had vacated. Another supporting detail is Jerry is dying, but now his expression seems to change. His features relax, and while his voice varies, sometimes wrenched with pain, for the most part he seems removed from his dying. He smiles. The last supporting detail is Peter lost his bench but Jerry defended his honor.

Sara and the Wedding

16^th July 2009, Thursday

The thesis statement that I thought about for this short story is Sara’s positive thinking changes her family’s thought of the hopelessness of her in getting married. The title “Sara and the Wedding” has a connection to herself where it seems she is also getting married on the same day as her younger sister due to being attracted to Ramli and raped by him.

Although Sara was not in a young age, twenty-nine years old, fat where cellulite clung to her thighs, her waist, her belly and her buttocks, she still had a hope that she may one day get married like her sister. In the story, there is one part written “She knew that the silver of hope was too valuable to be discarded and she willed, almost desperately, herself to believe in it, utterly and implicitly. She assured herself that there was something out there waiting for her-something, maybe even somebody fine, noble and exciting.” (Pg 93)

As Sara was standing alone enjoying the night scene, Ramli appeared and was attracted to her. He was nasty enough, moving from touching Sara’s hands to the degree of raping her. Actually, Sara did not mind but allowed Ramli to rape her to prove that she was attractive despite of being condemned by her family and elder cousin that she had no hope of getting married. Her high self esteem made her achieve her dream to prove to her family her true desirability and power of somehow still could attract men.

Who is Ovid?

14^th July 2009, Tuesday

Due to curiosity, I did some research on the internet during the holidays to find out the background of Ovid.

Ovid’s actual name was Publius Ovidius Naso. He was a Roman poet and was born into an equestrian family in Sulmo (now Sulmona), near Rome in 2oth March 43 B.C. and died on 17 A.D. He was Educated for the bar and became highly proficient in the art of rhetoric. However, he was skillful in the area of poetical and he devoted most of his time and energy to writing verse. After inheriting his father's property, Ovid went to Athens to complete his education. He later travelled in Asia and Sicily with his friend the poet Aemilus Macer.

By the age of 30, Ovid had been married three times and divorced twice. He probably also had a number of mistresses. The details of his affairs are recounted in the Amores, a series of poems telling of the stages of an affair with a woman named Corinna. His private life was that of a care-free, well-to-do, and somewhat licentious man of letters.

At Rome, where he resided until his 50th year, he was assiduously courted by the distinguished and fashionable society of the city, including Emperor Augustus. In ad 8, however, Ovid was banished to Tomis (now Constanţa, Romania). According to Ovid, one reason for his banishment was the publication of Ars amatoria, a poem on the art of making love which would have flown in the face of Augustus's attempted moral reforms. Since the poem had been in circulation for almost ten years it is probable that this was merely a pretext. A second reason, never disclosed by Ovid, may have been his knowledge of a scandal involving the emperor's daughter Julia. Ovid did not lose his citizenship and never gave up hope of repatriation, as revealed in the many poems written to his friends during his exile at Tomis, but his entreaties and those of his friends were futile. He died at Tomis, an honoured citizen of the town.

Some of the famous writers were influenced by Ovid: Dante Alighieri, Geoffrey Chaucer, John Milton and William Shakespeare.

(Text adapted from Encyclopedia article)

A picture of Ovid.

Ovid’s extant authentic works

• Amores ("The Loves"), five books, published in 16 BC, and revised to three books ca. AD 1.
• Heroides ("The Heroines"), also known as Epistulae Heroidum ("Letters of Heroines"), 21 letters. Letters 1–5 published 5 BC; letters 16–21 were composed ca. AD 4–8.
• Medicamina Faciei Femineae ("Women's Facial Cosmetics"), The Art of Beauty, 100 lines survive; 5 BC.
• Ars Amatoria ("The Art of Love"), three books; first two books published 1 BC, the third book was published later.
• Remedia Amoris ("The Cure for Love"), 1 book, published AD 1.
• Fasti ("The Festivals"), 6 books extant, about the first semester of the year, about the Roman calendar. Finished by AD 8, possibly published posthumously.
• Metamorphoses, ("Transformations"), 15 books published ca. AD 8.
• Ibis a poem written ca. AD 9.
• Tristia ("Sorrows"), five books published AD 10.
• Epistulae ex Ponto ("Letters from the Black Sea"), four books published AD 10.

Pyramus and Thisbe by Ovid

14^th July 2009, Tuesday

In my point of view, the story of Pyramus and Thisbe is very similar to Romeo and Juliet. The story is about a love relationship between Pyramus and Thisbe. Due to the strong affections between the lovers, they died together by Pyramus killing himself first and next Thisbe killed herself. The story of Romeo and Juliet in the last scene reflects this sad ending as well between the two lovers.

A brief content of Pyramus and Thisbe is introduced. Pyramus and Thisbe were neighbours and they came to know one another. As their friendship begun, their love grew deeper. However, their parents forbade them from marriage. Meanwhile, nothing could stop the blazing love between the two lovers. One day, as Pyramus slipped out of his house and wanted to meet up with Thisbe at a shade of a tree, he found Thisbe’s veil under a tree was tore into shreds and stained with blood. He thought Thisbe was dead and was so upset until he killed himself with a sword which hung at his waist. In reality, Thisbe was still alive. When Thisbe knew that Pyramus was dead, she was very upset and used the same sword as Pyramus used to kill herself. Both of them lied dead under the tree. I see this as a sad story because the ending is death of two lovers. Meanwhile, it is also true love and the impact of love is so great until the lovers were willing to die together.

In class, Miss Dzeelfa assigned us to produce a dialogue in the form of a play about the last scene of the story where Pyramus killed himself for the love of Thisbe’s and Thisbe killing herself for the love of Pyramus. This activity was fun and interesting because it made us think creatively and working together as a group. Each group presented their dialogue creatively. For example, a group named themselves as China 5 used the Chinese slang and intonation to speak English. There was also some addition of Hokkien with English translation. It really made the class laugh.

I think play is a very useful activity to be used in a class. Besides being fun and interesting, students are able to think creatively, cooperate with one another in a group and train up their confident to act in front of the class.

Writing thesis statement

Today’s lesson was different from the lesson on Tuesday. We learned to write Thesis Statement. Although we learned this in the second semester during Academic Writing class, i feel that it is necessary for us to do a fresh recall and revision of what we have learned. It is also a foundation to the writing of Position paper.

Thesis statement is a topic sentence in a paragraph which further focuses the narrowed subject of a topic. It is a sentence which clearly stating the writer’s controlling idea which will later link to the main point, opinion or angle that the rest of the essay will support and discuss. A thesis statement is not too vague and too general. For example:

Vague thesis statement: My recent trip to Florida was really bad.

Revised thesis statement: My recent trip to Florida was disappointing because the weather upset my sightseeing plans.