RobertZanni

Well, here is my portfolio for the second half of the semester. I feel that I blogged a lot more consistently than for my last portfolio. I didn't really get much peer commentary on my blogs this half. I didn't get much last half either. I guess my entries aren't very interesting or I just must not blog on the right things. Who knows. I feel that I did a better job keeping up with my blogs, though, and this exercise has got me looking to blog more now than I have before.

Coverage:
Bi-polar, Much?
Marks of a Hero
In the Thought of Things

Timeliness:
Truth is in...Someone Else's Eyes?
It's True. They Were Dumb
Bi-polar, Much?
Marks of a Hero
In the Thought of Things
Academic Article
Spiritual Security

Interaction: Well, I didn't get any peer comments on my blogs this half of the semester, which is the same as last semester. I don't know why, but perhaps I just don't write interesting blog entries. My blogs were on time, so I don't see why I got ZERO comments.

Depth:
Truth is in...Someone Else's Eyes?
Bi-polar, Much

"You see Brother" - the glow she gave the word was disturbing - "it is really the spiritual values of the Brotherhood that interest me/ Through no effort of my own, I have economic security and leisure, but what is that, really, when so much is wrong with the world? I mean when there is no spiritual or emotional security, and no justice?" (Ellison, 410)

This quote is spoken after our nameless narrator goes to a quite successful lecture. As he is leaving he is approached by a woman who states that her problem has to do with the ideology of the Brotherhood. In the quote she states that she has economic security and leisure but then goes on to say that it is nothing when there is so much wrong with the world. She goes on to say that there is no emotional or spiritual security, and surely no justice. This quote stuck out to me because she is so right. We see it in the first chapter of the book when our narrator is put through the fight scene and the electrocution through the rug. The book is full of parts where injustice is shown and that no one can have emotional security. But, the ideology that she speaks of, about the Brotherhood being the only way to get that security is what gets me. Clearly, the Brotherhood is not the only way that a black women could get emotion security at the time, but I think that she thought this because the Brotherhood was everywhere at that time. In every black man's home. Everyone was talking about it, and were made to think that they were the only way.

The American writer Ellison
describes "play[s] artfully upon the audience's sense of experience and form";
his audience is that which "he is called to play as a pianist upon a piano,"
though "this second instrument can be most unstable in its tuning, and
downright ornery in its responses," a fact that Ellison regards as "a special,
most American problem" (496). Such collaborative interaction between
writer and audience, Ellison explains, comprises an act of "democratic faith"
entailing "an incalculable scale of possibilities for self-creation" (494). (Hanlon, Pg. 5)

I chose this quote because it really stuck out to me. To think of a speaker playing his audience like a piano. This shows that a speaker must know what he or she is doing in order to get their audience to respond the way they want, much like a piano. A piano can become untuned and give you notes that are bitter to the sounds and that leave a bad taste in your mouth. As a speaker, one has to be aware of the fact that audiences are the same way. They can become untuned from the speech and throw out responses that make you cringe and want to quit. The narrator of invisible man knew this as he was stepping up to the microphone. He knew how to play his audience, how to get them to speak the notes he wanted them to. When the narrator did this, his speech just flew out of him, getting a great response from his instrument, his audience.

Okay, so my blog entry is on the whole exert from when the narrator had smoked a reefer cigarette in the prologue. Okay, so all of us being in college know what reefer is and if you don't well it's a drug. Anyways, the whole exert is that of a dream like state. I found that it was more of a nightmare more than anything. What astounded me though, was the line "Git out of here, you fool! Is you ready to commit treason?"(10) Now I have read the book before in one of my Honors English classes and already know what this is referring to, but just out of the sense that I never did read it, how is one going to commit treason? What was the motive that Ellison, told us this line before hearing of the narrator's 'curse'? Perhaps, Ellison is trying to get at something with the mother of the seven boys. Perhaps it is his grandmother or great grandmother speaking to him and warning him of dangers to come. Just my thought on the exert and its meaning. I'm not as good at close reading as others in the class and maybe someone has some insights into this?

In the article we see how us as American's individually and as a society are pretty dumb. It says that as soon as there was great rainfall in the great plains there was a swarm of farmers going there to grow crops, even after there was evidence that the "where annual rainfall fluctuated from seven to twenty inches" shows that we were dumb as a nation and culture to believe that this land would save us from our lack of food and grain. As a result, we got a drought which caused the farmers to "lash out at the weather, believing it caused their woes." This is not true because we cause out own woes. This takes me to the thesis of the essay. It is to show us that we thought one large rainfall would keep our land fertile for years to come and that we would not have to worry if there was low rainfall in one year or growing season. This statement is pretty non-obvious in the sense that the essay shows us what we did to get into the situation of the dust bowl, but it is pretty obvious in the sense that the same things happened to us in the 19th century. We went to where there was an abundance of water thinking it would never run out, but in the end it ended in an ecological disaster just like during the dust bowl.

"Truth is in the eye of the beholder." That is a pretty famous quote. I don't know who said it, not many people do, probably. Foster kind of hits on this point. He says that "If you're going to understand the ladies, and the meal, and the story, you have to read through the eyes that are not your own, eyes that, while not those of Aunts Kate and Julia, can take in the meaning of the meal they have provided." Foster says this to show us that we have to look at a story through someone that is living in that time period. For example, if we were reading Grapes of Wrath, again, it would make it much easier to read and understand the story and the struggle of the Joads. I read the story just to get through it. I have read it before and hated it the same. Now knowing how to read stories, how to put myself into them will make reading alot easier, but how do I teach myself to do that? 

In chapter 21 of Foster's he talks of heroes or the main characters having physical or mental marks that set them apart from everyone else. I agree with him. In most of the novels I have read the heroes do have some sort of imperfection. In 1984, for example, Winston Smith is a small, skinny and weak person. He works a job given to him by the government and lives his life by the rules of one ruler. He lives in a totaltarian society and hates it. He struggles to find the truth behind his totaltarian leader. Being small and frail makes this significant because he is too small to do any physical damage to the guards or anyone. But through his intelectual abilities he tries to unravel the mysteries of the society that he lives in. So, I agree with Foster when he says "You give a guy a limp in Chapter 2, he can't go sprinting after the train in Chapter 24. So if a writer brings up a physical problem or handicap or deficiency, he probably means something by it." (Foster pg. 200) These deficiencys add to the plot. They add new challenges to the characters.

"And, gladys, I want you to be especially nice to your father tonight. You know what he calls you when you're good-his little angel, his little star. Keep your dress down like a little lady. And keep your voice nice and low. Gladys Antrobus!! What's that red stuff you have on your face?" (Mrs. Antrobus pg.25) These lines by Mrs. Antrobus really struck me. In the lines before that and after she is very nice to her children. Why does Wilder make the characters in the book seem especially bi-polar? Throughout the whole play they seem to shift their moods and characteristics drastically from one line to another. Perhaps, Wilder is trying to get at something different than just telling us that this family is crazy. Perhaps he is trying to show us how small tiny things can change our moods so easily. Perhaps it is to show us that people as a whole are very susceptible to our surroundings.

Here is my portfolio. I can't say I am really into this blogging thing, but I guess I am going to have to get used to it.

 

Coverage:

Why The Sad Setting, Steinbeck

Jesus in Literacy

Timeliness:

Faint Green Light

Baptism in Literature? I Think Not

Depth:

Jesus in Literature

While I was beginning to read The Grapes of Wrath for the second time, I really started to realize the minute details that Steinbeck puts into the first chapter. He uses this chapter as a sort of building block to throw us into the dust bowl. "The rain-heads dropped a little spattering and hurried on to the next country. Behind them the sky was pale again and the sun flared. In the dust there were drop craters where the rain had fallen,  and there were clean splashes on the corn, and that was all." This shows what the dust bowl was really like. the rain would come and just spit a litte bit, not even enough to wet the ground. Steinbeck shows the true drought that America was going through at the time. The talk about how you could see just where the rain fell on the ground and corn shows that the weather was truly unforgiving. I do wonder one thing though. Why does Steinbeck not just simply tell us "It was the dust bowl"?