Literary Analysis 2

1. Briefly summarize the plot of the novel you read.
-"The House on Mango Street" by Sandra Cisneros is about a young girls life. The young girl in this novel is named Esperanza and she explains all the different things that happen around her. She has moved many times and is now living on Mango Street which she explains as the house she never dreamed of living in. She always dreamed of living in a huge white house with trees all around it, a huge yard, it would have "real stairs", three washrooms and a basement. Not only was this her dream home, but also her families. Throughout the novel she explains her different experiences she has living at that house and all the different people she meets.

2. Succinctly describe the theme of the novel. Avoid cliches.
-The theme of this novel is that you may not get what you want, but make the best of what you have.

3. Describe the author's tone. Include three excerpts that illustrate your point(s).
-The author's tone would be disappointment. In the novel, Esperanza is very disappointed of not living in the house she dreamed of. For example when she says, "But the house on Mango Street is not the way they told it at all." she is disappointed that from everything her parents told her and how they explained the house they would be living in wasn't what she expected it to be. Another example is when she explains how she doesn't like her name.  "I would like to baptize myself under a new name," is what she says in explaining how much she's disappointed in inheriting her great-grandmothers name and didn't want to be like her sitting at window all the time. One situation that is another good example of disappointment is when she goes to the fortune-teller. "She comes back and can tell I'm disappointed." which she was because the lady wouldn't tell her if she saw a house in her future.

4. Describe five literary elements/techniques you observed that strengthened your understanding of the theme and/ or your sense of the tone. Include three excerpts that will help your reader understand each one.
-Five literary elements/techniques would be setting, imagery, symbols, description, and the view of the protagonist. Setting helped my understanding of the theme and tone by show how the young girl moving to that house on Mango Street was not what she wanted. Imagery and description helped by how the author explained how the house on Mango Street looked compared to what Esperanza expected her house to look like. This showed a big part of disappointment she had. The protagonist point of view also helped because her view of how everything happened and the different situations she went through, gave a sense of how she felt throughout the novel.

Tools That Change the Way We Think

"Back in 2004, I asked [Google founders] Page and Brin what they saw as the future of Google search. 'It will be included in people's brains,' said Page. 'When you think about something and don't really know much about it, you will automatically get information.'

'That's true,' said Brin. 'Ultimately I view Google as a way to augment your brain with the knowledge of the world. Right now you go into your computer and type a phrase, but you can imagine that it could be easier in the future, that you can have just devices you talk into, or you can have computers that pay attention to what's going on around them and suggest useful information.'

'Somebody introduces themselves to you, and your watch goes to your web page,' said Page. 'Or if you met this person two years ago, this is what they said to you... Eventually you'll have the implant, where if you think about a fact, it will just tell you the answer."

-From In the Plex by Steven Levy (p.67)

Comments:

By using extensive Internet/media/technology it makes think about how it caused less of a motivation for me to actually learn about something. When I use the computer and different websites to look up something it doesn’t actually stick to my memory. I just look up the topic and in just a matter of seconds answers pop up for me. This media also messes up my concentration. Sure like any other person, there are times when people are doing research on a homework assignment and think to themselves “I’ll just check my messages really quick no big deal” but in reality it distracts us from trying to get homework done. Then time is running out, so people just look up something really quick and find the easiest answers they can get. From this distraction of loses our concentration, it has made it harder for people to actually get something out of their research. These kind of things have made us lazy on wanting to learn about something we have never known before. By learning about the filter bubbles it makes me feel like when I am doing research, I am not learning everything I am supposed to know. Since the filter bubbles limit me from certain information because they “think” they are giving me what I want, I feel like there is a lot more information out there that I should know of. When comparing myself to older people without smart phones or contemporaries who don’t use the tools we use today, shows how much easier it has gotten for everyone. With just typing in a certain topic we receive many answers that they would not have gotten back then.  

In Search Of

When watching the video on Filter Bubbles, some new information that I learned was that even though our computers are logged off or shut down, there are websites that use about 57 signals to try to figure out what kind of information we want.  From all this information it makes me think that the information I may be looking up right now for a certain research project for a class can be totally different than someone else’s that is doing the exact same thing as me. Also how what I may be looking up on a website isn’t the only information that may be out there, but it’s the information they give me because they think it’s what I want.  Is there truly no privacy that we “think” we get on the Internet? Since when did this filter bubble begin and how is it improving people’s way of researching information?  How I can improve my effectiveness of my searches is to look up on different websites or computers to see what information matches. When re-doing the research on Shakespeare, I noticed how totally different websites began coming up and how there are a lot more pictures that what I saw before. On the second time I got more of his biography's and pictures compared to the first time when I got more of a list of the different types of work he did.

To Facebook or Not to Facebook?

My initial impression towards Facebook was that it was another form of Myspace. A site where I would be able to get in contact with my friends and be able to communicate with different people. These would be the benefits to me, that I would be able to talk to family and friends that I am not able to see face to face everyday and even to meet new people. Of course there are many great risks associated in using Facebook, such as not knowing who is actually seeing the different things that you are posting, getting tracked down by how much information you put out there for everyone to see and many others. By reading the article that was discussed in class really informed me a lot about how Facebook really works. I never thought that they would actually be selling my own personal information and how things I think are private aren't so private after all. From this it began to make me think more about the stuff I would post on the site and how a business is making profit from my own information.

Who was Shakespeare?

When talking about Shakespeare, it is interesting to me to see how much people don't know about him. From doing a bit of research I found out that he was born in 1564 and was the son of a merchant and glove maker. He married the daughter of a farmer and had a child with her. Of course may of his works are well known in explaining the nature of humanity. I would have never thought that people were questioning his works and saying that someone else wrote the plays for him. In the article we read and discussed in class, it is interesting on seeing how people are stereotyping him since he came from a lower class and think that someone from a lower class could not have written such great works of writing.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/merchant/shakespeare.html

Notes on Hamlet

From my thinking throughout the play so far has came to a conclusion of how much of a dilemma Hamlet is in. It must be a very difficult situation on trying to confront not only his uncle but the King on what he has done. Since the ghost showed up at midnight my view on Hamlet has changed. To me now he is a very smart guy on creating the play in order to get some kind of reaction from Claudius and I can see how much he thinks about certain situations and tries to outweigh the pros and cons.

(Don't) Be Hamlet

          

            Many people throughout their life time have at least once tried to find an easy way out of certain situation. They believe that if they do, everything will get easier from that point on. Hamlet is a great example of this type of situation. In Act lll scene l, he is facing a dilemma of whether or not to commit suicide. From my own opinion suicide is not the answer to problems, people just think it is. 

            In this scene of Hamlet, we can see how much his father’s death, his mother’s marrying of his uncle, and his findings of his father’s murder have all impacted him tremendously. These are a couple of situations that have brought him to committing suicide, but what is that going to solve? Sure he might be free of the heartache and the stress of trying to keep his thoughts to himself, but it will not eliminate the main problem as a whole.

His uncle Claudius will still have all the power and will get away with murdering Hamlet’s father. Throughout the play Claudius tells Hamlet to get over his father’s death as if it wasn’t a big deal. Hamlet needs to stay strong during this period of time and figure out a way to get Claudius back or how to confront him about the situation.

All the problems that unravel throughout time are what make a person stronger. This applies to Hamlet. He should not commit suicide just because he is in pain and does not know what to do. He should continue with his life and find solutions and answers instead of finding the easy way out.