1. Simulacrum: a slight, unreal, or superficial likeness or resemblance; an effigy, image, or representation.
ex) To a senior, a freshman and an 8th grader are both a simulacrum of naivety.
2. Apocryphal: dubious or of doubtful authenticity; political, on a large scale.
3. Venal: open to bribery, corrupt.
*Venial: pardonable/Venereal: "Venereal" diseases=STD
*Root "Ven-" from Venus: to sell yourself.
4. Canonical: authorized; recognized; accepted: canonical works.
ex) Homer's Odyssey is one of the canonical works of literature.
5. Gambit: 1) An opening in which a player seeks to obtain some advantage by sacrificing a pawn or piece. 2) Any maneuver by which one seeks to gain an advantage. 3) A remark made to open or redirect a conversation.
In The Fly, we observe a gambit gone wrong--the boss traps the fly in an inkblot as a gambit for his own withering life, only to fail miserably. While the boss expects the fly to escape from the inkblot and inspire him with courage and vigor, the fly eventually collapses under the weight of the ordeal. A canonical work in itself, The Fly is a great short story that represents the void of a loss.
6. Inveterate: 1) settled or confirmed in a habit, practice, feeling, or the like: an inveterate gambler. 2) firmly established by long continuance, as a disease, habit, practice, feeling, etc.; chronic.
7. Pinguid: fat; oily.
ex) By the time he finished his tenth Big Mac, his fingers and lips were in a pinguid mess.
8. Teleological: the belief that purpose and design are a part of or are apparent in nature.
The story "Wrong Number" builds up to an ending that is meant to depict fate. The plot is characterized by a linear time overarching the theme of fortune and two different interpretations of the same time period to emphasize fate.
9. Sophism: The argument that the entire structure of our language and psychology of Tlon is not valid because it does not follow our current model of practice is sophism. Our very rejection of the language reveals the imperfection and the dissatisfaction of our current state.
10. Sentence Correction: The Boston Common is a public area in downtown Boston and is the main setting for the short story that follows a male patriot who argues to such an extent that it became venal.
11. Endemic: Although the rejection of homosexuality is hardly an endemic phenomenon, during the time of Kafka, it was especially concentrated in Prague, where the Austria-Hungarian empire was falling to pieces. Like an inveterate preconception, homosexuality has been constantly marked as the "queer and the unacceptable," that it could only be revealed implicitly in The Metamorphosis by Kafka.
12. Castration: 1) to remove the testes of; emasculate; geld. 2) Psychology. to render impotent, literally or metaphorically, by psychological means, esp. by threatening a person's masculinity or femininity. 3)to deprive of strength, power, or efficiency; weaken: Without those ten new submarines, our navy will be castrated.
*a deep-seated fear or anxiety in boys and men said to originate during the phallic stage of sexual development. Symbolize the child's fear that he will, like Oedipus, lose his power (and his close relations — i.e., his mother).
13. Inculcate: 1) to implant by repeated statement or admonition; teach persistently and earnestly (usually fol. by upon or in): to inculcate virtue in the young. 2)to cause or influence (someone) to accept an idea or feeling (usually fol. by with): Socrates inculcated his pupils with the love of truth.
In mainstream culture, the audience is quite discriminative: though there are no formal boundaries limiting women from watching blockbuster movies, many of them are meant for men. According to Freud's theory, the society inculcates the men that women are "lacking," or rather, a lesser version of the men. They are, in a sense, the castration that they never had, and simultaneously a deep-seated fear of helplessness.
14. Epicurean: fond of or adapted to luxury or indulgence in sensual pleasures; having luxurious tastes or habits, esp. in eating and drinking.
15. Iniquity: 1) gross injustice or wickedness. 2) a violation of right or duty; wicked act; sin.
16. Diaphanous: light, delicate, and translucent
17. Rapacious: aggressively greedy or grasping
18. Varnished: disguised or glossed over (a fact); glossed with varnish
19. Sepulchre: a small room or monument, cut in rock or built of stone, in which a dead person is laid or buried.
20. Veneration: revere; regard with great respect
21. Mizzen: the mast aft of a ship's mainmast.
22. Emissary: a person sent on a special mission, usually as a diplomatic representative.
23. Cipher: a secret or disguised way of writing; put in secret writing
The company workers are perceived as the emissaries of European civilization to those who are not involved in the company. But in reality, they are divided and selfish in their motives, and merely a nuisance to Congo. All in this chaos, it seems that only Mr. Kurtz remains as a cipher to Marlow and to other company workers. His philosophy of "blinded justice" in his picture is a pictorial cipher.
24. jocund: syn (jovial, merry, exuberant). ant (morose, dour, surly)
25. abscond: syn (vanish, disappear). ant (surface, rise, appear)
1.http://okebari.blogspot.com/2007/09/jesss-take-on-shanghai.html
This blog is none other than Ms. Barga's blog about her life in Korea. Here she shares her musings on the Korean culture, about living abroad, and traveling. This particular post is about Shanghai, a city that is slowly losing its authenticity. I feel that it is a good reflection on the changing aspirations and culture of the East.
2. http://www.luxirare.com/
While most fashion blogs on the web discuss fashion from a superficial and trend-based perspective, Luxirare delves into the extremes of fashion and creativity. Her outfit posts--usually consisting of the clothes she designed and created herself--are at the high-end of fashion. Her cooking, too, is peculiar--abundant with medical precision and scientific, almost. Truthfully, it's a love-or-hate blog, but I love it.
3. http://ethicist.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/10/can-you-hate-the-artist-but-love-the-art/
A blog that I recently came across, "Moral of the Story" discusses, well, morals. In this particular post, Cohen discusses whether hating the artist has to equate to hating their work. It's an interesting twist on the conventional thought that the artist encompasses his/her work.
#2 Observation (9/1)
I’m sitting in an empty kitchen, lights off, desolate and dark. The kitchen is a very strange place. It’s a place for communion, but I feel isolated. It’s supposed to be full of life and vigor, yet without the lights or the food on the stove, only a faint trail of the stench from the refrigerator remains. It is the scent of artificiality. A refrigerator is artificiality distilled into one giant prison of decaying food.
Despite the lack of light, I see my reflection on the refrigerator door. And I am not alone. All sorts of objects—plates, bottles, spoons, cabinets—are looming over my head. They swallow me. I used to swallow them. Now they consume me. I blink and I hear a choir singing inside the refrigerator. And I blink and I see the digital clock so lifeless and still. And I blink and all the kitchen engulfs me whole, from the wooden floors to the smell of the dead air. And I feel no flavor, no spirit, no verve in this cemetery of burned out sensations.
a. identify climax, major conflict, resolution or denoument, what type of plot (see page of literary terms)
b. comment about setting
c. identify one major symbol and one minor.
d. discuss two characters. Label as round or flat, dynamic or static. Are they archetypal or foils?
e. Open to the exact middle. What page? Write one paragraph about how this one page relates thematically, symbolically,
or other (just not all plot) to the rest of the book.
f. Tell me one thing other that really only someone who has read the book will get.
Lucky Jim revolves around the protagonist Jim and his hatred towards pretentiousness and formality both present at his job and in his love life. Thus, the major conflict of the plot is Jim’s struggle against the “fakeness” in his small society of university people. The plot culminates in a climax in which Jim knocks down Betrand and gives his Merrie England speech drunk. The plot comes to a resolve as he is fired from the university, acquires a new job, and claims his love for Christine at the train station.
The majority of the novel takes place at the university Jim works at, and at the Welch residence, where Jim reluctantly frequents to flatter Professor Welch. The limited the range of settings seem to indicate that Jim’s world is small—perhaps too small for him to be satisfied. The revelation that a larger world exists outside his small circle of friends and “frenemies (friendly enemies)” is indicated by the book’s ending, in which Jim takes off to live in London with Christine.
One major symbol from the book is Jim’s expressions. He has several “faces” that he designated specifically to express a certain emotion out of sight from the person it is targeted towards. For instance, he has an “Eskimo face” that he makes to express reluctance towards Michie, who is a contrast to Jim’s superficial knowledge of his subject, the Medievial Ages (97 Amis). Often these faces serve to reveal Jim’s true emotions that he is unable to express in playing his dual-role of being a socially-acceptable (however boring and pretentious) man, or an honest and straight-forward person.
A minor symbol from the book is Margaret’s quasi velvet shoes, which represents “fakeness.” Jim’s strong dislike towards these artsy and “quasi” shoes indicate his disapproval of everything not true to its nature.
Jim Dixon, the protagonist, is a round or dynamic character. At the beginning of the novel, he does his best to conform to social “rules,” complying to Welch’s dinner invites to secure his promotion in the department. However, he gradually realizes that studying what he hates the most and loving who he doesn’t like is an oxymoron that his life should not be wasted upon. By the end of the novel, he has lost his job, and Margaret’s love, but he has instead gained a respect for himself and his life.
Welch, on the other hand, is a flat or static character that serves as a foil to Jim. He remains lofty, self-conscious and “fake” in his manner of dealing with others throughout the entire novel.
Page 125 depicts the conversation between Carol and Jim at the party about love. Carol says that “marriage is a good short cut to the truth,” an illusion of “false maturity” (125). Her comment on marriage echoes the book’s theme of peeling the layer of pretense to find a true sense of self. Furthermore, the fact that she admits that sex is important to her is a contrast to Margaret, who refuses to acknowledge her own desires.
When he thinks to himself, Jim uses a variety of insults and swearwords that anyone would identify with when they are stuck talking to a person they dislike. It’s an excellent vicarious experience. Lynn, I've never heard of this book. I am not the end all expert on all literature, but please, double check that there is a body of criticism on this book and the author.
12/12
#5 HOD --Wasn't sure if we were required to upload this (I think you said we don't need to), but here it is.
Settings:
1. Doctor’s waiting room: two knitting ladies that are strangely uncanny and fateful looking.
2. Drawing room: His aunt’s that looks like a typical lady’s drawing room of a wife of the high dignitary.
3. Company’s station (79) : rocky cliff, earth on shore, houses on hill with iron roofs, with blacks moving around like ants. Blinding sunlight drowning all the recrudescence of glare.
4. The hill (81): artificial hole, under the trees where it felt like Inferno.
Theme/Motif:
*Inferno and Devils: The blacks are often referred to devil--could this be a stereotyped look on them, or should it be considered as a "layer of irony?"
#6 Choice book two: Everyday Drinking by Kingsley Amis
1. Amis maintains a lofty (if not elitist and slightly pedantic) attitude.
2. The escapism implied in drinking--shown in Lucky Jim's repeated drinking scenes and Amis' discussion of "how to drink without getting drunk."
3. The "Hate list" from Everyday Drinking is reminiscent of the "expressions" that Jim makes in Lucky Jim.
4. Amis despises the pretentiousness exhibited by high society members, but he himself is not quite down to earth.
5. His puns and sarcasm are characterized by blunt statements.
+Vocabulary
1. Simulacrum: a slight, unreal, or superficial likeness or resemblance; an effigy, image, or representation.
ex) To a senior, a freshman and an 8th grader are both a simulacrum of naivety.
2. Apocryphal: dubious or of doubtful authenticity; political, on a large scale.
3. Venal: open to bribery, corrupt.
*Venial: pardonable/Venereal: "Venereal" diseases=STD
*Root "Ven-" from Venus: to sell yourself.
4. Canonical: authorized; recognized; accepted: canonical works.
ex) Homer's Odyssey is one of the canonical works of literature.
5. Gambit: 1) An opening in which a player seeks to obtain some advantage by sacrificing a pawn or piece. 2) Any maneuver by which one seeks to gain an advantage. 3) A remark made to open or redirect a conversation.
In The Fly, we observe a gambit gone wrong--the boss traps the fly in an inkblot as a gambit for his own withering life, only to fail miserably. While the boss expects the fly to escape from the inkblot and inspire him with courage and vigor, the fly eventually collapses under the weight of the ordeal. A canonical work in itself, The Fly is a great short story that represents the void of a loss.
6. Inveterate: 1) settled or confirmed in a habit, practice, feeling, or the like: an inveterate gambler. 2) firmly established by long continuance, as a disease, habit, practice, feeling, etc.; chronic.
7. Pinguid: fat; oily.
ex) By the time he finished his tenth Big Mac, his fingers and lips were in a pinguid mess.
8. Teleological: the belief that purpose and design are a part of or are apparent in nature.
The story "Wrong Number" builds up to an ending that is meant to depict fate. The plot is characterized by a linear time overarching the theme of fortune and two different interpretations of the same time period to emphasize fate.
9. Sophism: The argument that the entire structure of our language and psychology of Tlon is not valid because it does not follow our current model of practice is sophism. Our very rejection of the language reveals the imperfection and the dissatisfaction of our current state.
10. Sentence Correction: The Boston Common is a public area in downtown Boston and is the main setting for the short story that follows a male patriot who argues to such an extent that it became venal.
11. Endemic: Although the rejection of homosexuality is hardly an endemic phenomenon, during the time of Kafka, it was especially concentrated in Prague, where the Austria-Hungarian empire was falling to pieces. Like an inveterate preconception, homosexuality has been constantly marked as the "queer and the unacceptable," that it could only be revealed implicitly in The Metamorphosis by Kafka.
12. Castration: 1) to remove the testes of; emasculate; geld. 2) Psychology. to render impotent, literally or metaphorically, by psychological means, esp. by threatening a person's masculinity or femininity. 3)to deprive of strength, power, or efficiency; weaken: Without those ten new submarines, our navy will be castrated.
*a deep-seated fear or anxiety in boys and men said to originate during the phallic stage of sexual development. Symbolize the child's fear that he will, like Oedipus, lose his power (and his close relations — i.e., his mother).
13. Inculcate: 1) to implant by repeated statement or admonition; teach persistently and earnestly (usually fol. by upon or in): to inculcate virtue in the young. 2)to cause or influence (someone) to accept an idea or feeling (usually fol. by with): Socrates inculcated his pupils with the love of truth.
In mainstream culture, the audience is quite discriminative: though there are no formal boundaries limiting women from watching blockbuster movies, many of them are meant for men. According to Freud's theory, the society inculcates the men that women are "lacking," or rather, a lesser version of the men. They are, in a sense, the castration that they never had, and simultaneously a deep-seated fear of helplessness.
14. Epicurean: fond of or adapted to luxury or indulgence in sensual pleasures; having luxurious tastes or habits, esp. in eating and drinking.
15. Iniquity: 1) gross injustice or wickedness. 2) a violation of right or duty; wicked act; sin.
16. Diaphanous: light, delicate, and translucent
17. Rapacious: aggressively greedy or grasping
18. Varnished: disguised or glossed over (a fact); glossed with varnish
19. Sepulchre: a small room or monument, cut in rock or built of stone, in which a dead person is laid or buried.
20. Veneration: revere; regard with great respect
21. Mizzen: the mast aft of a ship's mainmast.
22. Emissary: a person sent on a special mission, usually as a diplomatic representative.
23. Cipher: a secret or disguised way of writing; put in secret writing
The company workers are perceived as the emissaries of European civilization to those who are not involved in the company. But in reality, they are divided and selfish in their motives, and merely a nuisance to Congo. All in this chaos, it seems that only Mr. Kurtz remains as a cipher to Marlow and to other company workers. His philosophy of "blinded justice" in his picture is a pictorial cipher.
24. jocund: syn (jovial, merry, exuberant). ant (morose, dour, surly)
25. abscond: syn (vanish, disappear). ant (surface, rise, appear)
Sentence Structure
+Assignments
#1 Blog Reading (8/25)
1.http://okebari.blogspot.com/2007/09/jesss-take-on-shanghai.html
This blog is none other than Ms. Barga's blog about her life in Korea. Here she shares her musings on the Korean culture, about living abroad, and traveling. This particular post is about Shanghai, a city that is slowly losing its authenticity. I feel that it is a good reflection on the changing aspirations and culture of the East.
2. http://www.luxirare.com/
While most fashion blogs on the web discuss fashion from a superficial and trend-based perspective, Luxirare delves into the extremes of fashion and creativity. Her outfit posts--usually consisting of the clothes she designed and created herself--are at the high-end of fashion. Her cooking, too, is peculiar--abundant with medical precision and scientific, almost. Truthfully, it's a love-or-hate blog, but I love it.
3. http://ethicist.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/10/can-you-hate-the-artist-but-love-the-art/
A blog that I recently came across, "Moral of the Story" discusses, well, morals. In this particular post, Cohen discusses whether hating the artist has to equate to hating their work. It's an interesting twist on the conventional thought that the artist encompasses his/her work.
#2 Observation (9/1)
I’m sitting in an empty kitchen, lights off, desolate and dark. The kitchen is a very strange place. It’s a place for communion, but I feel isolated. It’s supposed to be full of life and vigor, yet without the lights or the food on the stove, only a faint trail of the stench from the refrigerator remains. It is the scent of artificiality. A refrigerator is artificiality distilled into one giant prison of decaying food.Despite the lack of light, I see my reflection on the refrigerator door. And I am not alone. All sorts of objects—plates, bottles, spoons, cabinets—are looming over my head. They swallow me. I used to swallow them. Now they consume me. I blink and I hear a choir singing inside the refrigerator. And I blink and I see the digital clock so lifeless and still. And I blink and all the kitchen engulfs me whole, from the wooden floors to the smell of the dead air. And I feel no flavor, no spirit, no verve in this cemetery of burned out sensations.
#3 Blog Post (9/4)
The Dark Is the Light (8/30)#4 Book Report (9/6): Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis
- a. identify climax, major conflict, resolution or denoument, what type of plot (see page of literary terms)
- b. comment about setting
- c. identify one major symbol and one minor.
- d. discuss two characters. Label as round or flat, dynamic or static. Are they archetypal or foils?
- e. Open to the exact middle. What page? Write one paragraph about how this one page relates thematically, symbolically,
or other (just not all plot) to the rest of the book.Lucky Jim revolves around the protagonist Jim and his hatred towards pretentiousness and formality both present at his job and in his love life. Thus, the major conflict of the plot is Jim’s struggle against the “fakeness” in his small society of university people. The plot culminates in a climax in which Jim knocks down Betrand and gives his Merrie England speech drunk. The plot comes to a resolve as he is fired from the university, acquires a new job, and claims his love for Christine at the train station.
The majority of the novel takes place at the university Jim works at, and at the Welch residence, where Jim reluctantly frequents to flatter Professor Welch. The limited the range of settings seem to indicate that Jim’s world is small—perhaps too small for him to be satisfied. The revelation that a larger world exists outside his small circle of friends and “frenemies (friendly enemies)” is indicated by the book’s ending, in which Jim takes off to live in London with Christine.
One major symbol from the book is Jim’s expressions. He has several “faces” that he designated specifically to express a certain emotion out of sight from the person it is targeted towards. For instance, he has an “Eskimo face” that he makes to express reluctance towards Michie, who is a contrast to Jim’s superficial knowledge of his subject, the Medievial Ages (97 Amis). Often these faces serve to reveal Jim’s true emotions that he is unable to express in playing his dual-role of being a socially-acceptable (however boring and pretentious) man, or an honest and straight-forward person.
A minor symbol from the book is Margaret’s quasi velvet shoes, which represents “fakeness.” Jim’s strong dislike towards these artsy and “quasi” shoes indicate his disapproval of everything not true to its nature.
Jim Dixon, the protagonist, is a round or dynamic character. At the beginning of the novel, he does his best to conform to social “rules,” complying to Welch’s dinner invites to secure his promotion in the department. However, he gradually realizes that studying what he hates the most and loving who he doesn’t like is an oxymoron that his life should not be wasted upon. By the end of the novel, he has lost his job, and Margaret’s love, but he has instead gained a respect for himself and his life.
Welch, on the other hand, is a flat or static character that serves as a foil to Jim. He remains lofty, self-conscious and “fake” in his manner of dealing with others throughout the entire novel.
Page 125 depicts the conversation between Carol and Jim at the party about love. Carol says that “marriage is a good short cut to the truth,” an illusion of “false maturity” (125). Her comment on marriage echoes the book’s theme of peeling the layer of pretense to find a true sense of self. Furthermore, the fact that she admits that sex is important to her is a contrast to Margaret, who refuses to acknowledge her own desires.
When he thinks to himself, Jim uses a variety of insults and swearwords that anyone would identify with when they are stuck talking to a person they dislike. It’s an excellent vicarious experience.
Lynn, I've never heard of this book. I am not the end all expert on all literature, but please, double check that there is a body of criticism on this book and the author.
12/12
#5 HOD --Wasn't sure if we were required to upload this (I think you said we don't need to), but here it is.
Settings:1. Doctor’s waiting room: two knitting ladies that are strangely uncanny and fateful looking.
2. Drawing room: His aunt’s that looks like a typical lady’s drawing room of a wife of the high dignitary.
3. Company’s station (79) : rocky cliff, earth on shore, houses on hill with iron roofs, with blacks moving around like ants. Blinding sunlight drowning all the recrudescence of glare.
4. The hill (81): artificial hole, under the trees where it felt like Inferno.
Theme/Motif:
*Inferno and Devils: The blacks are often referred to devil--could this be a stereotyped look on them, or should it be considered as a "layer of irony?"
#6 Choice book two: Everyday Drinking by Kingsley Amis
1. Amis maintains a lofty (if not elitist and slightly pedantic) attitude.2. The escapism implied in drinking--shown in Lucky Jim's repeated drinking scenes and Amis' discussion of "how to drink without getting drunk."
3. The "Hate list" from Everyday Drinking is reminiscent of the "expressions" that Jim makes in Lucky Jim.
4. Amis despises the pretentiousness exhibited by high society members, but he himself is not quite down to earth.
5. His puns and sarcasm are characterized by blunt statements.