Prompt revision #2

1995. Writers often highlight the values of a culture or a society by using characters who are alienated from that culture or society because of gender, race, class, or creed. Choose a novel or a play in which such a character plays a significant role and show how that character's alienation reveals the surrounding society's assumptions or moral values.

Characters in novels and plays often represent certain issues or conflicts in society.  In America the issue of racism has been an important issue throughout America's history.  In To Kill a Mockingbird, the character Tom Robinson represents racism and the general attitude towards African Americans in the south.  

Tom Robinson, a poor african american farm hand, was falsely accused of raping a white girl despite minimal evidence against him.  Almost the entire community believes Tom is guilty which represents the animosity towards african americans during this time period.  The entire community didn't think twice when taking a white man's word over a black man's word showing many white american's values and views about race during this time period.  The only evidence against Tom was Bob Ewell's word saying that he witness Tom rape his daughter.   Bob Ewell was one of the least respected members of society and even his word was considered better than Tom's.  This represents how much more weight a white person's opinion had than an african american's opinion during this time period which reenforces the theme of social inequality in the novel.

Scout's father represented Tom and even she was treated differently as the trial approached.  It shows how angry and agressive society can get over an issue like race.  This anger has been know to affect and even harm innocent people in America as well as in the story.  Scout was teased in school and was almost stabbed while she was walking home at night at the end of the novel.  From just being associated with Tom, the Scout's entire family was somewhat alienated from their community which emphasizes the strong raciest values in America and in particular the deep south.  Racism being such a importnat part of the story contributes to the meaning of the novel by emphasizing the theme of social inequality in America.  

Tom Robinson and his trial has become a symbol of racial issues in America.  To Kill a Mockingbird has become an classic piece of literature in large part due to the portrail of racial issues and social inequality through the characters in the book. 

Response to Course Material #6

Thankfully the terms test 2.0 final was changed to acting out a scene of Hamlet.  It was actually kind of fun to decide how we were going to act out the two different scenes by deciding which version of the characters would provide and interesting interactions when actually acting it out.   For example we had a much more emotional and weaker Hamlet paired with a Claudius who was constantly scheming.

Ms. Holmes decided to save the best Hamlet movie for last.  "Heroine Hamlet" as I like to call it was very entertaining.  It was very interesting how making some of the male characters to females changed the story.  By changing Horatio to a female Hamlet and Horatio's relationship just felt different and then in the last scene the end up kissing as Hamlet is dying as the whole class started cracking up.  Unfortunately we didn't have enough time to watch the movie from start to finish but in the hour we had to watch it we got the general sense of what Fodor was trying to communicate to his audience. The movie as a whole seemed somewhat ridiculous which is what made it very enjoyable, but hopefully we will discuss it during class and investigate the significance of all the characters being heroine addicts.

We have also just started reading Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead.   We haven't talked about it in much detail yet so I don't have a whole lot to say about it.   It is going to be very nice to be reading in modern english again, but just reading in the first part of this play I can tell that it is filled with deeper meaning that is going to be somewhat difficult to understand.  It is also shorter than Hamlet so the annotations will be a little more manageable.