From the Massachusetts Book Awards – A Program of the Massachusetts Center for the Book A Reading and Discussion Guide Massachusetts Award Winner The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz Riverhead Books Prepared by Deborah O. Doulette Neilson Library, Smith College 2008 PRELIMINARIES Oye! Listen up! And hold on to the edges of your book because Junot Diaz has written this buenmoso historia that is muy, muy importante. And if you don’t speak Spanish/Spanglish, it doesn’t matter; this historia moves so fast, you might not want to take the time for translation. You’ll just be a little bit disoriented, a little bit of an immigrant in a new novel world.
This Fleeting World: A Short History of Humanity By David Christian Summer Reading assignment: Prequel (pp. xx-xxviii); pp. 1-92 Reading Guide The first thing you’ll notice about This Fleeting World is that it moves fast! But don’t worry; it’s not meant to tell you everything you need to know about human history. Rather, this book provides broad brushstrokes, noting the most significant ”threshold moments” that changed the way we have lived on Earth.
Why? Because no matter how heroic, how larger than life Odysseus is, the epic does not belong to him alone. He shares it with his son Telemachos, a character who rightly deserves his own Telemachy. A contact zone, according to Mary Louise Pratt, is a “space and time where subjects previously separated by history and geography are now present.” It is quite easy to pinpoint the contact zones encountered by Odysseus, but Telemachos has his own as well. They are less grander than his father’s death-defying exploits, but damaging and
Epic of Gilgamesh Alternate Perspective Good morning teachers and students, today I will be presenting Gilgamesh’s real perspective of his adventures. The fluid nature of perspective is derived from the susceptibility of information to varied interpretations. This is explicated in the ‘Epic of Gilgamesh’, where the protagonist’s selflessness and love for Uruk and its people is overlooked due to the rigid expectations of modern society. The incongruities between Gilgamesh’s own perspective and a modern interpretation show that society’s perceptions of a ‘hero’ are highly volatile, relying immensely on the innate subjectivity of perspectives. The aberrant perspective of Gilgamesh which I am presenting may seem divergent and atypical when analysed in accordance to our modern values and principles, but to Gilgamesh this would be quite natural.
Thus, I came to the conclusion: Gilgamesh and Rama’s pride, determination and godly contributions helped to influence their journeys, but the results of their quests differed greatly. The endings to Gilgamesh and Rama’s epics were the only great differences in their characteristics. Rama’s tale ended with him throwing the Brahmasthra at Ravana’s heart, “…where the Brahmasthra entered and ended his career” (“Ramayana” 38), and accomplishing his goal. Even though he won, he seemed to be in a complacent mood. To the contrary, Gilgamesh failed his task.
Despite Paul seeing his teen years as a mistake, he fails to realise his achievements through his hard work. Paul’s loyalty to Rosie is one of these key examples. Although his musical career seemed to fail, his love life was of his true successes. He was continually loyal even through the temptations of Megan Murray and ended up marrying and having two children with Rosie. Another example is of Paul’s honour towards Herr Keller.
Etienne De Leon Professor Prietas R. English III 2/27/2014 The Great Ambition Dream, love, and unreachable- pretty depressing concepts. You see them in life, witness them in action, and notice how many people suffer. They long for love, and their dreams, but to some, such ideas are unreachable. Although, to others it may be more mental thoughts of pessimism, but the rest, they literally can’t reach for their goals. In the novel “The Great Gatsby”, we meet a wealthy mysterious man named Gatsby.
Brave New World Timed Writing Throughout our society in this current day and age, it seems to be one of the most, if not the most crucial thing to a person to be socially accepted by others. Conforming to society is what will get a person to be acknowledged and desired by others. However, a person will often go through countless episodes of moral questioning and introspect. This idea of the tension between a character's outward conformity and inward questioning acts as a strong theme throughout the novel, Brave New World. The author, Aldous Huxley, demonstrates this theme through means of one particular character, Lenina.
I feel like I relate most to how Malcolm took matters into his own hands to overcome his struggle with his illiteracy and poor vocabulary. I would have done the same, you can not sit around a think a problem will fix itself, you have to take action for change. If Malcolm would have continued to beat himself up and become frustrated with his lack of knowledge or education he would have done nothing but dug a bigger hole for himself. By Malcolm X self teaching himself to have a powerful vocabulary arsenal he paved the way from himself to still, to this date, be one of the most influential and prominent speakers of our era. He is mentioned in the same sentence with legendary visionaries such as Ghandi, Martin Luther King Jr., Mohammed Ali, and the list goes on.
It is not only his death which cuts short the opportunity for Nhamo to grow as a character, but also the influence the patriarchy has had on him and how it has moulded him to think and act in a certain, restricted way. Babamukuru, Tambu’s uncle, is the central patriarchal figure in the novel and arguably the most important character overall, despite the fact that his