Prompt Revision #4: Open Prompt #1

Note – I did this essay on the book The Last Song and that’s not a well-known piece of work so I rewrote it based on Death of a Salesman

Choose a novel or play that depicts a conflict between a parent (or a parental figure) and a son or daughter. Write an essay in which you analyze the sources of the conflict and explain how the conflict contributes to the meaning of the work. Avoid plot summary.

            In the play Death of a Salesman the relationship between Biff and his father is very important because it sets up the theme of this play and it symbolizes the struggle of trying to achieve the American Dream.

            The struggle between Biff and Willy is a deep - rooted conflict that goes back to when Biff was a child.  Biff could do no wrong in Willy’s eyes, and Biff took advantage of this special treatment by stealing and failing classes in school.  Willy worked as a salesman and had to travel a lot, and during one of Willy’s out of town trips Biff decided to come up and visit his father, and when he did he saw that his father had been cheating on his mother.  This realization lead to Biff resenting his father and losing all respect for him, as a result Biff went out on his own and tried to work on farms, and ending up in jail for a little bit.  When Biff finally comes home his father pushes him into getting a job as a salesman and this conflict of Biff wanting to do his own thing, and Willy pushing him to get a job as a salesman and make a good living sets the scene for the whole play.

           

            The themes present in this play are respect/reputation and following your dreams.  The theme of respect and reputation is present throughout the whole play because Willy constantly says that all someone needs to be successful in like is to be well liked, and that’s why Willy thinks Biff can succeed.  Willy doesn’t seen to understand that Biff doesn’t have a good education, the only thing willy cares about is his reputation so he wants to make sure his son is well liked and has a successful job.  Biff on the other hand doesn’t believe that he needs to uphold a certain reputation; instead he wants to go and try being a farmer or doing something where he can work outside and work with his hands.  Biff and Willy’s conflict add to this theme and help emphasize it.  The other theme present is following your dreams, and that’s what Biff is trying to do.  He’s trying to find himself and find a job that makes him happy.  On the other hand Willy is pushing Biff to be a salesman because that’s a respected occupation.  Throughout the play it’s apparent that Willy made the mistake of not following his passion and made a wrong decision in life, and Biff doesn’t want to do the same.

            Last is the idea of wanting to achieve the American Dream.  Willy took the job as a salesman just to achieve the American Dream, and he plays up his a job a lot in his head and makes it sound like he holds a highly respected position.  He does this because he wants to seem successful, and the reason he fights with Biff and pushes him to take a job as a salesman is so Biff can also achieve the American Dream.  Another reason is that part of Willy knows that he didn’t succeed so he wants to live through Biff.  The conflict between Willy and Biff emphasizes the idea of the American Dream, and makes readers think about the true meaning of that phrase.

            Biff and Willy’s conflict isn’t just there as a plot twist, it’s present to emphasize the themes in the play and also to make readers think about the true meaning of the American Dream.  

Ceremony Summary/Analysis

Author – Leslie Marmon Silko

Setting – Many different Laguna reservations after World War II

Point of View – Third person, and the narrator/ author shows bias towards Tayo

Characters

1.       Tayo – He’s the main character who has just come back from the war and is sick, throughout the book readers find out he’s not physically ill but mentally ill.  Tayo has to deal with being half Laguna and half white, and in the end the Ceremony that makes him feel better is the fact that he’s able to establish his identity and blend his two cultures together.

2.       Betonie – He’s the medicine man that kicks off Tayo’s journey, and he was able to connect with the spiritual world.  Betonie’s visions and his star pattern are what helped Tayo get better.

3.       Auntie – Tayo’s mom’s sister who is very concerns about her image since her sister had an affair with a white man, because of this Auntie makes a point of keeping Tayo distant.  Auntie is ready to assimilate to the white culture just like her son Rocky.

4.       Josiah – Tayo’s uncle who acted as a father figure for him.  Josiah is the one that kept Tayo close and made him feel like part of the family.  Tayo herded cattle with him, and met the Night Swan through Josiah.  One of Tayo’s problems throughout the book is coping with Josiah’s death.

Plot Summary – Tayo starts out at Auntie’s house and throughout the story readers are taken along for the ride with Tayo as he pieces together his memories.  Grandma suggests that Tayo should go to a medicine man to get better so Tayo first sees Ku’oosh, and then sees Betonie who helps him even more.  Betonie tells Tayo his future and when those things have happened Tayo’s ceremony will be completed.  Inspired by Betonie Tayo goes to chase the cattle that Josiah and he raised, and while looking for them Tayo met Ts’eh who is the yellow woman and part of Tayo’s ceremony.  After spending time together Ts’eh can see that Emo is coming to kill Tayo.  Tayo spends the night trying to hide from Emo (death) and does so successfully.  In the end Tayo is cured and readers learn that this story is one that’s told over and over again, but there are just different names.

Themes

1.       Storytelling – At the end readers realize this is just a story and Tayo and the characters just fit into the character slots.  The many poems also add to this theme because they act as a backbone for the story because the ideas in the poem parallel and foreshadows Tayo’s journey.

2.       Integration of Culture – Tayo’s whole journey/ceremony happens due to the root issue of Tayo’s mixed culture, because he’s stuck between the white and Laguna culture.  In the end when Tayo is finally cured it’s because he found a good balance and as a result found his identity.

3.       Tradition – This is evident throughout the story because the people who tried to stray away from culture ended up dead, for example Rocky and Helen Jean.  This is also a lesson to be learned, and Tayo ends up surviving because he still sticks to some traditional ways.

Quotes

1.       She sighed, and laid her head back on the chair. "It seems like I already heard these stories before—only thing is, the names sound different."

Ø  This quote is important because backs up the theme of storytelling and how everybody’s story is the same, and the character roles are just filled with different people

2.       Only Humans had to endure anything because only humans resisted what they saw outside of themselves.

Ø  This quote is important because when Tayo took Josiah’s advice and took charge of his “animal” side Tayo succeeded in life and met fewer obstacles

3.       He could feel it inside his skull- the tension of little thread being pulled and how it was with tangled things, things tied together, and as he tried to pull them apart and rewind them into their places, they snagged and tangled even more.

Ø  This quote showed readers how confused Tayo is and the quote uses symbolism to help that point across because the tangles thread represented Tayo.

 

 

 

Response To Course Materials #8....Last One!!!!!

We're almost there...only a few more weeks until the dreaded AP exam.  Since the last post we've finished Ceremony and annotated the whole book, which took some time.  But after annotating I found a lot of important things, for example the repetition of the color blue, and the idea of lions, bears, and deer.  After discussing the novel and reading many articles talking about it and the culture I was able to see the novel in an analytic way, and I pulled out the theme of change/transformations.  This book showed me that there's a lot more that what's on the surface, obviously this is true for all the books we have read because we keep digging to find new meanings, but with Ceremony I felt like the deeper levels were achieved by learning more about the Laguna culture rather than just analyzing.  When it comes to the previous books we have read the only similarity I see with Tayo and the other characters is the idea of identity.  Tayo is like Biff in that sense because they both don't know themselves because they are trying to live up to the standards of others.  For Biff it's his father he's trying to impress, and with Tayo it's the whole community and their idea that Tayo is inferior to then because he's not full Laguna.

We have now started to read Fifth Business and this book is definitely easier to read than any of the other books, and we don't have to annotate it!!!!!!!  So far I'm enjoying the book, and I'm interested to see where the Jung ideas we talked about in class will fit into this novel.  Now moving on to the AP exam, Im still nervous for it because I don't know if my analyzing skills are strong enough, but I think doing the practice multiple choice during FLEX will help!