Through October we have wrapped up The American Dream, gone on to Death Of A Salesman, and done a little poetry practice.
I feel pretty good about how we left American Dream, but making the blog post for it took forever! But we're making a study guide, so if you think about it that way it isn't so bad. We'll use it to study from later and then it'll be great.
Death of a Salesman is giving me anxiety though. For some reason I find it significantly harder to analyze than American Dream and I'm not having these epic epiphanies every time we discuss anymore... I do notice some similarities between the texts and should probably elaborate on them:
Both Dream and Salesman center on dysfunctional families and the relations/power struggle between one generation and the next. However, in Salesman, the family has legitimate love and care for each other. We haven't quite reached any great understanding of the work yet, but I think the theme has something to do with having unrealistic dreams, which is similar to Dream because in both of them satisfaction was unattainable. Except in Dream it was impossible, and in Salesman it is possible (achieved by Charley, for example), but the Lomans lack the resources to achieve their goals. Their dreams are unrealistic for them, but satisfaction can be achieved in other ways, such as how Biff wants to be a cowboy/farm hand.
I really loved reading "Promises Like Pie-Crust," that was such a great poem. I was able to understand the meaning a lot better than I usually can from poetry. The speaker was refusing love and commitments because she had lost faith in peoples' abilities to follow through happily on promises. Either that poem was extra clear, or I'm improving at poetry reading! Although we read "My Father's Song" too, and I was able to understand that one as well. It was about life and how all living things coexist and need nurturing from each other. The earth raises crops, which raise people, who raise their children, and the little mice are doing the same thing. This lesson got passed down father to son for several generations. I really liked that poem, too. I'm still not crazy about annotating these texts. I've seen how it can be extremely useful in some cases, but with these poems I don't think all the time we spent marking it up was worth it. The meaning can be reached without having to question every little thing... Don't you think? Or am I speaking blasphemy here...?
So... I hope that as we move into November, sixth hour can get a little more thoughtful. I feel like our class hasn't been arriving at good conclusions in our practices over the past few weeks. No judgment! It's my fault as well, but I think we can do a little better. I mean it's sixth hour so we're tired and ready to leave... But let's try to get super excited like we did when discussing American Dream. Hopefully we develop some kind of epic and revolutionary analysis.
Hi Mary! You did a great job synthesizing, here. I'd like to have seen you discuss tragedy, distractor and question styles in this post, but it's otherwise pretty thorough. (And I hope that you've found the DOS "goldfish bowl" discussions helpful!)
ReplyDeleteMary,
ReplyDeleteI love your style. I struggle with clarity and smooth writing, as will be noticeable in these next few comments, but you write so effortlessly. I think you brought up some really good comparisons between Dream and Salesman which I think will come in handy once we begin discussing the theme. For me, it is hard to dissect Salesman because it doesn’t read like an allegory. Some aspects of it are parallel to greater things while others are completely literal. Willy definitely stands for salesmen, but I don’t think that the rest of his family and surrounding characters can be matched up with a greater meaning. Dream, however, was consistent with each character matching an idea. I also think that Salesman is not as in-your-face as Dream in that Miller is not a disgruntled man of his time, rather he is writing a play to make the audience think. I liked reading your discussion of the poems, but I wish you discussed a little deeper about why the poem was easier to understand. I think if you realized what made it easier, you could apply that technique to other poems and become a pro at understanding them.
Aw thanks Mariah, you're so nice. :) I write like I would speak, so imagine you were explaining the info to a person and write out your dialogue. I think that helps me to be clear with my writing.
DeleteMary,
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with your view of the discussions of The American Dream vs. that of Death of a Salesman. I also felt that I was able to connect much more with The American Dream discussion and was able to comprehend and feel more confident in our conclusions. I do think that watching the movie for DOS helped me to understand the overall plot better and quicker than I understood The American Dream though. I really like your comparisons of The American Dream and DOS that you made, I hadn’t thought about how similar they are in some ways, which was very helpful to see that view. I also liked the two poems we read in October, and I also agree that as we analyzed these poems it was a little agonizing to talk about them at such a slow pace, nitpicking at every single detail…I also think that the meaning of the poem as a whole can be concluded without going into such detail, however, the detail did help to emphasize certain points and tie some loose ends. I am also looking forward to seeing what November brings and also hope that my hour gets very excited over a discussion again.