- Sophocles’ Oedipus the King
starts with plague. It is a
sickness and if this pollution hadn’t happened, Oedipus wouldn’t have wanted to
find out who is the murderer of Laius. Also the play is arranged around cause and effect so that
each event cannot be separated from each other. For example, because of plague ,
Oedipus sent Creon to Apollo to ask solution. In line 107, we can see the
solution which is to find the murderer of Laius. Oedipus goes to Teiresias and
it goes on like that. Moreover I like word changing in the play. To illustrate,
Teiresias is the blind man but he is the one who sees the truth. In contrast,
Oedipus is the healthy man and he has bright eyes but he is the one who cannot
see the truth that he is the murderer of his real father. It is clear irony in
line 457.
- Who is the guiltiest in the play? This was asked by Mr. Boyd in the lesson. I answered it quickly as “Oedipus”. However,
when I think the whole play deeply,
the
misdeed starts at the beginning times which are before Oedipus was born. In line
777, Jocasta says she let her husband
whatever do with the son. She didn’t prevent the King about killing her son.
Therefore
, she is the murderer, too. She decided
that intentionally. However, Oedipus didn’t know the man he killed is his
father. If he had known, he wouldn’t have done such a cruel thing.
- I started to wonder about Jocasta’s
character. She was a loyal wife and she applied whatever Laius said. On the
contrary, she always comes out against Oedipus while he is trying to reveal the murderer. As she refuses the prophecies and she
tells don’t pay attention those sayings like in line 1040. Moreover, she is
such a woman that when Oedipus blamed Creon as murderer, she begs Oedipus to
save Creon’s life. She didn’t do the same thing for her child and she sent her
son to death in cold blood.
- While
we were learning Ancient Greek Theatre’s origins, Mr. Boyd asked whether TV
shows or movies affect us. The reason of asking this question is
that in those times people
realized the theater influenced them. I agree with those people. That is,
nowadays there are a lot of TV serials and some people who watch them
internalize actors’ roles. For example, in an episode, there was a woman
who had a love affair with another woman’s husband. When this woman goes
outside in real life, some on
the street shout at her because they believe her character is like her role in
the episode.
- I wonder how this theater or TV shows
can affect us so deeply. For example, if one of my friends asks me to change some of my traits,
I may ignore him/ her. I think this great impact is due to the fact
that visual things like theater have resemblance with our lives.
- After the lesson, a question came to
my mind. It was why the actors had masks in Ancient Greek Theater.
To illustrate, if one had to be a woman, he could wear girl costumes and use
make up. That is enough. When I came to my room, I searched that on the
internet and I found some information about this. There are a lot of reasons
but the best reason which is acceptable for me is that the audience focused on
his actions not his appearance such as his face. Also using masks are more
convenient because the actors can change their roles without losing time by
changing just the masks.
- Through
reading “the Poetics of Aristotle”, Aristotelian unities appeared
as time, place
and action in a tragedy. I think these are very elegant ideas. That is
,
Time has to be in 24 hours in a tragedy according to Aristotle and this makes
the play clearer. Moreover, the play looks
like actual life by limiting it with one day. The other one is place. The whole
play is at one place. Therefore, actors don’t have to change background and
scene can be arranged effectively and glitteringly. The last one is action.
There should be one aim in the play . Thanks to that, audience focuses on
one thing and they don’t have to try to understand from what they should take
lesson. I like these unities. Oedipus is the best example for it.
- Aristotle put “plot” as the
first feature of a tragedy, but why? He
explains it as “the soul of a tragedy” (pg:4, 2nd parag. ). Maybe it is because
of that plot forms the play. It is not just full of acts and scenes; also it
contains ways to show the play better.
- I
thought Janie had a very imaginary and creative mind that she had another world
in her mind. She described the nature or
saw it in a different way. For example,
in chapter 2, under the pear tree, she described marriage by referring
bees. Then, the narrator asked,
“Where were the singing bees for her?”
These bees could be the symbol for men.
That is, she looked at the nature from her specific point of view and
commenting on the natural events according to her world. She wanted to be with a man who was
romantic. The other example was in
chapter 4, Joe Starks said, “Call me Jody lak you do sometime.” I understood this Janie established another
name for Joe or she made a reduction for his name. This showed again that Janie interpreted his
name according to her world. She wanted
to say sometimes Jody, so she called him as Jody.
- While reading the novel, from time
to time, I got upset. My first sadness
was that Janie had to get married Logan at the end of chapter 3, and she
understood marriage did not make love. I
was sorry for her because she wanted to marry having a love relationship with
her husband. The other time I got upset for her was that Jody wanted her to tie her hair up. She was dominated by a man who Janie thought
she loved him once. Last disappointing
moment was the scene of that Janie killed Tea Cake, in chapter 19. These sentences were very emotional while
reading it “It was the meanest moment of eternity. A minute before she was just a scared human
being fighting for its life.”
- I like Janie’s some thoughts. In the novel, she was not interest in political issues.
Instead of this, she was interested in happiness and
love. She spent her life without
thinking any social problem or politics.
Because of this, Janie could not be happy with Jody. When she was with her friend Mrs. Turner, Tea
Cake heard that Mrs. Turner wanted Janie to meet her lighter brother in chapter
16. Then, he did not allow Janie to see
Mrs. Turner again. Janie followed what he said although she liked her as a friend. I thought, if a person gives up her friend
for her boyfriend, she must love him madly.
Alternatively, Janie wanted to be just happy and she did not want to
discuss this with Tea Cake, so she accepted his idea.
- Tea Cake was a liar. He stole Janie’s money and lied about it in
chapter 13. Then, gambling appeared in
the novel. I thought, Tea Cake spent all
her money on card games, but he lost and he did not dare to say this loss. He wanted to gain Janie’s love and trust
again, so he proposed to gain lost money from gambling. Last semester, I learned from my drama
analysis lesson that gambling can be a reference for the chance. You cannot control the cards and you cannot
always win. To win, you should try more
and more or play more. This gambling
looked like Janie’s life. She tried to
find love. She seemed playing gambling
on her life. Finally, she found her love
with Tea Cake. I understood that a lie
or chance might affect our lives in some way.
- I remembered The Great Gatsby in which we witnessed to racism. For example, Tom said on page 16, in chapter
1, “Well, it’s a fine book… The idea is if we don’t look out the white race
will be- will be utterly submerged. It’s
all scientific stuff; It’s been proved.”
He talked about white people should not mix with dark people. Like this
novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God had
also some racism examples. One of them
was in chapter 16. Mrs. Turner disliked
blacks and she said “Mis’ Woods, Ah have often said to mah husband, Ah don’t
see how uh lady like Mis’ Woods can stand all them common niggers round her
place all de time” She loved Janie
because of her kind behaviors and hair style.
However, she hated Tea Cake because he had dark skin. Moreover, in chapter 19, a man said while
gathering dead bodies “Don’t dump dem bodies in de hole lad dat! Examine every
last one of’ em and find out if they’s white or black…They makin’ coffins fuh
all de white folks.” This was a clear example for racism. Even their dead bodies were not considered
the same as white bodies.
- I think the scene of dog’s biting
Tea Cake could be a symbol for the fight between white and dark skinned
people. The dog was described in chapter
18 as powerful and angry. In those
times, white people were angry because they thought they were superior to dark
people and they did not want to be seen in the same status with dark
people. If I think the dog as white
people, the dog gave harm to its environment and bit Tea Cake who has dark
skin. Tea Cake was described as over
tired. It could be a reference for all dark
skinned people that they were tired of being threatened as slavery by white people.
- Again, like The Great Gatsby, this novel remembered me the class
difference. Gatsby and Myrtle wanted to
be like high class Daisy and Tom. They made reaching the high class an aim for
their lives. In Their Eyes Were Watching God, at the end of chapter 6, Mrs. Robbins
said “… Mist’ Starks, please gimme uh lil piece uh meat fur me and mah
chillun.” Jody was on the high class
because he provided the Eatonville lamps, post office etc… and he earned a lot of
money from this. The other people were
hungry. This was a difference. The other proof was spittoon. Not all the people had a spittoon, so it was
the symbol of prosperity.
- At the beginning of the novel, men’s
dream like looking ships at a distance was told. In chapter 18, the dialogue between Bohaman
boys and Tea Cake was “Indians don’t know much…
De white folks ain’t gone nowhere.
Dey oughta know if it’s dangerous.”.
Tea Cake as a man looked at Indians’ departure at a distance. There was a coming hurricane and he decided
to stay by thinking that white people knew everything right. Tea Cake did not move. The nature is controlled by God, so we can
think of the nature as a symbol of God.
It was told in the novel when the hurricane appeared “Six eyes were
questioning God.” For example, people
forget God sometimes and when they feel hopeless, they rely on God. Tea Cake should not have waited for other
white people’s departure. He had a mind
and he could have acted according to his mind.
However, they understood nature’s power, God’s power, so they started to
worry about their lives now.
- We
moved to Jazz age. In this age, there
were people who love parties, hanging out and smoking all the time. I have not imagined this kind of life until
watching the video about this age in the lesson. Our guest writer was Fitzgerald with his
novel of The Great Gatsby. In the first chapter, I met Nick and his life
a bit. I think Fitzgerald wanted us to
think Nick was a reliable person. He
came from a good and wealthy family, he was in the war, he graduated from Yale
and he wanted to work in Eastern to have a career. All these things put a person in a good
quality, so we can trust this person.
Unlike Holden in The Catcher in
the Rye, Nick told us events
that he did not witness. For example,
the conversation between Wilson and Michaelis was not witnessed by Nick. Nick said in chapter 8, on page 171, “… a car
stopping outside. It was one of the
watchers of the night before who had promised to come back…” Therefore, this was a bit strange and how can
he know this in detail? Moreover, at the
beginning of the novel, Nick said “In consequence I’m inclined to reserve all
judgments…” However, throughout the
novel, Nick made judgments about people and he was affected by his feelings
while judging them. To illustrate, Nick
said for Myrtle in chapter 2, on page 28 that “… the thickish figure of a woman
blocked out the light from the office door.” Maybe, she was not so fat. When we considered that Daisy was Nick’s
cousin, I could say that he might be affected because Myrtle was Daisy’s
husband’s mistress. Although Nick seemed
reliable, he was not.
- While reading the novel, I could not
decide whether the following events were
a symbol of homosexuality or not. These
refer to the end of the chapter 2. Nick
said he just remembered this “I was standing beside his bed and he was sitting
up between the sheets, clad in his underwear…”
Moreover, these refer to the definition of Gatsby’s smile. Nick said in chapter 3, “It was one of those
rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come
across four or five times in life.”
These showed the homosexuality.
However, when I looked at these from another perspective, these had another meaning.
In those times, people gave importance to money and they started to act
fake like fake smiles, fake conversations etc…
Because of this fake world, Gatsby’s smile could seem to Nick as a real
and natural one. Therefore, he could be
affected from this.
- In chapter 4, there was a huge list
with people, who were invited to the party.
I thought these names could have a meaning. If they had not had, there would not have
been such a long list of names. Beaver
is an animal. I suspected from this
surname. Then, I looked at other
surnames’ meanings from the dictionary.
Becker is a European fish, Leech is a kind of parasite, and Blackbuck is
an Indian antelope. These all surnames
are the names of the animals. This guest
list told us something, which was uncovered in the novel. When all guests came to the party, they were
drinking and eating too much, they were hanging out with other partners despite
having already one partner. They were
out of humanity. They acted more like
animals. Fitzgerald chose these surnames
and these surnames gave the novel a mystery.
Maybe, my thoughts about surnames can be a bit nonsense, but I believe
this had some meaning.
- One of the symbols in the novel was
T.J. Eckleburg. The valley of ashes was
mostly in the tone of grey with the exception of Eckleburg’s blue eyes. These colors can be considered as some
feelings there. For example, blue
reminds us positive feelings like trustworthy.
When I think of the blue of oceans or sky, it gives me comfort. His eyes were
smaller than his body, so I can understand that there was so little trustworthy
there. However, when I think of gray in
psychology meaning, it is between black and white. Its meaning can be authority or conservative
area. All things in the valley of ashes
were gray and this means there were some hiding truths like cheating the
husband and escaping from being the murderer of Myrtle etc… However, this gray covered this truth. Therefore, this was not emerged by Wilson.
- I think Gatsby has the feeling of
loneliness in the crowd and he isolated himself from his environment. However, there was one character that was the
loneliest in the novel, according to me.
This was Nick. At the end of
chapter 1, Nick said the last sentence as “Then I was lying half asleep in the
cold lower level of the Pennsylvania Station…”
At the end of chapter 5, Nick said, “Then I went out of the room and the
marble steps into the rain, leaving them there together.” Most of the chapters ended with Nick’s
loneliness. He indicated this for each chapter.
- I have not seen a character like
Tom. He was so selfish that he wanted all women for just himself.
He treated them as objects. When he needed Myrtle, he
called her to come to the train station. When he got angry to her, he hit
her. To talk about Daisy, both Gatsby and Tom considered her as an object.
Gatsby believed when he was wealthy, he would obtain Daisy. He did not
even think of her life. Tom did not want to be alone, so he kept Daisy in
his pocket. However, this was also the choice of Daisy. She said
about her daughter in the first chapter, “… I hope she’ll be a fool- that’s the
best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.” She
knew that Tom was cheating on her. She did not go away because Tom gave
her his prosperity. Therefore, she wanted her daughter to be like herself
who chose prosperity.
- When I finished the book, I sympathized with Gatsby. He wanted to
get Daisy and he set out to get her. He did illegal things, but his
desire and passion was so strong that he did not even think of what these
illegal things can cause. Tom was in good condition because his
prosperity came from his powerful family. Gatsby tried to get this wealth
alone.
- In the lesson, we said that Gatsby followed American
Dream. There were dark sides of dreams. In real life, sometimes I
do something I want, but it does not give the feeling, which supposed to
be. Gatsby gained a wealthy life, but he was still unhappy. He
thought when Daisy saw him with this wealth; she would come with him
immediately. According to me, Gatsby’s first fault was he showed himself
as if he was rich. The other fault was his desire to change. He
wanted to put himself into something, which did not reflect Gatsby
himself. For example, he had a large library. I do not know if he
read or not. He wanted to show himself as sophisticated. Therefore,
besides American dream, this novel can be related to the identity. The
answers of how we can see ourselves (like Nick sees himself honest or Gatsby
sees himself wealthy and equal to Tom) and how environment can affect us could
be found in the novel after reading it .
- I finished the book and I started to think what did Gatsby “the great”. I
found an answer. He was rich and gave parties. He had a car and a
luxury house. Society knew Gatsby with his parties and his wealth.
This “the great” was seen by the society. Actually, he was not
great. He committed crimes and he was poor without illegal things.
The novel’s title was a bit paradoxical when I thought in this way .
- During the discussions in the class, I found something about curtains.
Nick told about curtains in so detail that he said in chapter 1 “The only
completely stationary object in the room was an enormous couch on which two
young women were buoyed up as though…” I thought it could be a
message. Curtains were moving, so something or someone can move on their
lives. However, others, like couch, cannot move. Like Gatsby and
Myrtle, even they wanted to change their fate, it did not work. They died
like unborn child.
- While I was
reading the book, I thought it was just related to a boy’s foolish
thoughts. Also, I was not used to see these kinds of slang words in
the novel. For example, at the beginning of the novel, Holden used the
word of “goddam” or “phony”. It was weird. However, I appreciated
the author because so few people can dare to write the events so naturally and
clearly. When I started to think and see the life of Holden, using
slang words did not seem so weird. Especially boys in those ages use
this kind of language. I felt what Holden told to us was true.
However, this feeling turned to complexity for me in chapter 8. That is,
he lied a lot to the people. For example, he lied about his name and life
of Ernest to Ernest’s mother in chapter 8. Then, lies came in an
order. Therefore, now I believe Holden was contradictory.
- After the
drama analysis lesson, novel analysis seemed to me a bit hard. It is not
just because of novels’ length, also because of characters. The first
novel, which was The Catcher in the Rye, has many characters in
each chapter beside of the hero, Holden. Even in the first chapter, I met
Old Selma Thurmer, Old Spencer, D.B., his parents, Robert Tichener, Paul
Campbell, Mr. Zambesi etc… All of them were not main characters. To look
from the good side, there was also so detailed information that I could
visualize easily what Holden wrote. For example, in chapter 11, he told
something about Jane. It was: “When he did, I asked Jane what the hell
was going on. She wouldn't answer me, then… Then all of a
sudden, this tear plopped down on the check board.” I imagined this scene
like a movie scene. Therefore, I thought that this book should be a movie.
- In chapter 9, Holden wanted to call someone. This
situation, which was an attempt to call someone to talk, appeared in other
chapters, too. For example, he said “… as soon as I was inside, I could
not think of anybody to call up.” In chapter 15, he again wanted to call
someone, but it was Jane. However, he called Sally. I felt that
Holden wanted to fill his times with somebody. He did not want to be
alone. Maybe, he was afraid of loneliness. Therefore, he felt
himself in the need of some other people.
- I was wondering what Holden felt after
getting kicked out from the school and while going to New
York. I thought, he had no goal in his mind for his education life and
his future life. Therefore, he might have thought the feeling of being
independent. In chapter 1, he went to his history teacher’s home. He took
his own decisions there. In addition, he went to New
York because he did not want to be or feel like adults although it was
impossible. He criticized the adults all the time.
- I love Holden as a teenager
because I thought my teenage years and I was a bit like Holden. He was
rebellious against adults, his parents and his brother D.B. I was like
him, too. Salinger showed the features of teenagers very well in the novel.
Years ago, we thought as teenagers, adults could not be able to understand us
and their speeches about our future were like a fish story. Moreover, Holden thought Spencer
did not listen to him and Holden dreamed another thing while Spencer was
talking to him in chapter 2. These are the perfect examples of teenagers.
- I found Holden’s thoughts about
adults out of balance. He said he was the most terrific liar in chapter
3; however, he blamed adults to be phony and liar. This showed he was
also at the edge of being an adult. He always saw bad sides of being an
adult. For example, Stradlater was a womanizer and his brother D.B.
left them. These kinds of behaviors wounded on Holden.
- In the class, we discussed if
Holden was talking to a psychologist or somebody else. I thought he was
talking to us. For example, when I wrote some events on my diary, I used
words like I was talking to the diary. I personalized it.
Therefore, Holden might have seen the readers of the book like his psychologist
or someone who listen to him all the time. Holden said in chapter 1:
“Don’t even mention to me.” and “If you really want to hear about
it…” These kinds of sentences can be used in diaries, too. We do
not write all we have done for each day. We write just important
days. Holden’s adventures after kicking out from the school would be
important for him, so he did not mention about his parents.
- It was very interesting that
Holden used slang words even for the girls except nuns. He mentioned
about nuns as innocent people. For example, in chapter 17, Holden said to
Sally that “You give me a royal pain in the ass, if you want to know the
truth.” These were very bad words for a girl. In contrast, he was
careful with his language with the nuns. He did not want to talk to them
about Romeo and Juliet because the play had some sexy parts.
- I recognized that Holden was
sometimes a dreamer. In contrast, Sally was more realistic. On page
71, Holden said “How would you like to get the hell out of here?
... We’ll stay in these cabin camps and stuff like that till the dough
runs out…” Sally objected to him: “We are both practically
children. And did you ever stop to think what you’d do if you didn’t get
a job when your money ran out? ...” Despite of Sally’s realistic
point of view, I liked Holden’s thoughts. They were full of honesty and
related to the nature; however, his decisions about whatever he wanted to do in
a minute were a bit lunacy. Maybe, this was because of his youthfulness.
- I wondered why Holden collected
broken pieces of the record in chapter 20. Normally, when something is
broken into pieces, we do not take it. My thoughts about Holden were
changing in each chapter I read. Now, I thought Holden was an unusual
character because he gave an importance to the things which other people did
not pay attention. This record may be the symbol of teenagers like the ducks.
No one cared teenagers who were very fragile at these ages. Because of this,
pieces of the record were not nonsense for Holden. He paid his attention
to the pieces unlike adults.
- In the class, we discussed about
the color of Holden’s hat. It was red and the symbol of security and like
his sister’s hair. After I heard and notice these symbols in the class, I
remembered that red color have some places in the novel. In chapter 11,
Holden told us about Jane and her past. Jane was important for him.
When she cried, he kissed her whole face except her mouth. In addition,
Jane’s tears dropped on the red square while they were playing the game.
The other one was that Jane was wearing red and white sweater. As a color
of red, it might have this kind of importance for Holden. Maybe, he
remembered Jane.
