AP poetry essay

    The stand out use of connotatively unsettling words, alludes to the lingering question in the narrators mind and his uncertain tone . Within the first stanza alone, the narrator presents the reader with an uncomfortable situation; weighing a dog with a bathroom scale using the displacement of their own weight. The scenario's discomfort is highlighted by the use of the words, 'awkward', 'bewildering', and 'shaky'.  It is later mentioned in the last stanzas of the poem that a relationship of the narrator's ended under uncertain terms. The unsettling words used in the first stanza, 'awkward' and 'bewildering' are again repeated in the last, capitalizing on the narrator's allusions. The way in which the narrator brings up the relationship, in the context of a mundane activity, causes the reader to believe that the relationship is always present in the narrator's mind. The lingering tones of regret and wistfulness are evident in the far fetched metaphor of weighing a dog, and the dynamics in which the narrator carried on a relationship with another person. To be reminded of such an event in everyday tasks emphasis's the extent to which it occupies the narrator's mind.

Poetry Notes

Musical Devices
-arrangement of sounds, repetition, and variation
Alliteration; repetition of first letter sound
Assonance; repetition of vowel sound
Consonance; repetition of consonant sound
Anaphora; repetition of an opening word/phrase

Rhyme; repetition of accented vowel sound
    -masculine; one syllable rhyme
    - feminine; two or more syllable rhyme
    - internal rhyme; multiple rhymes within a line (ehhem)
    -end rhyme; end of line rhyme
    - approximate rhyme; similar not exact

Rhythm and Meter
Rhythm; recurrence in sound pattern
Accented/Stressed; emphasis
Rhetorical Stress; clear intention
End stopped line; run on line corresponds with next
Run on; continues on next line
Caesuras; varying rhythm of lines
Free Verse; aware when necessary
Foot; one accented, 2 not

Metrical Variation; varying measure
Substitution; replacing feet
Extrametrical syllables; added at beginning or end
Truncation; omission of unaccented syllable
Scansion; defining form
Expected Rhythm- heard rhythm
Grammatical/Rhetorical pauses; punctuation or line breaks

Sound and Meaning

Onomatopoeia; word that represents sound
Phonetic intensives; sound connects to meaning



 

Title Signifigance

    The title, Pride and Prejudice, is a representation of the two characters, Darcy and Elizabeth. The two emotions, pride and prejudice, are commonly felt but rarely made evident on purpose by those who feel them. With no personable narrator and the the two feelings put up front by the title, the reader is forced to identify the feelings in the characters; mainly that Elizabeth is prejudice and Darcy is prideful. Elizabeth is prejudice towards Darcy, especially in her first impressions. Darcy is prideful, not in the negative light Elizabeth interprets. The personality traits are the security fronts the characters use during the times when they are forced to put them selves out in society, especially when searching for potential suitors.

The Lighthouse and legacy

     It is evident from the very beginning of the novel that Mr. and Mrs. Ramsay are representations of life purposes and that Lily finds herself caught in between them. Mrs. Ramsay's purpose in life is to be charismatic, nurture relationships with others, and find happiness in the present. Mr. Ramsay obsesses over intillectual hierarchies and strives to be admired and admired for his work, a legacy he may not live to see: "How long would he be read - he would think" (161). Lily stuggles to decide which legacy she wants to Perdue because she wants to be admired for both her intellect and her self as a person. However, ten years pass and Lily is still unsure of her purpose. As everyone prepares to go to the lighthouse, a symbol which can be interpreted as guidance and purpose, Lily is stil questioning: "What does one send to the lighthouse? ... What does one do? Why is one sitting here after all?" (218). In the end, Lily decides that art and expression are the thoughts that pervade her mind the most and after ten years lily finally finishes her painting.

Mrs. Ramsay's enduring influence

      Mrs. Ramsay's influence was the thread that held together the relationships in the beginning of "To the Ligthouse" and even though she has passed away suddenly, her significance is still apparent:  “Mr. Ramsay stumbling along a passage stretched his arms out one dark morning, but, Mrs. Ramsay having died rather suddenly the night before, he stretched his arms out, they remained empty” (141).  This is especially the case in terms of Mrs. Ramsay's relationship with Lily. She has a constant presence in Lily’s consciousness although her impression of her has changed. Initially, Lily was both in awe and discouraged by Mrs. Ramsay; impressed by her charisma but still apprehensive at the reminder of social expectations for women. However as the years pass, Lily has grown to respect the ways in which Mrs. Ramsay effected her, and Lily is finally able to complete painting  after  ten years. Mrs. Ramsay's death is sudden and goes unexplained throughout the novel, meant to be a statement of the spectrum of time and how in the span of the universe, a single death is insignificant. However Mrs. Ramsay's life is captured in Lily's painting  and is a single source of stability in the characters' ever changing lives: “nothing stays, all changes; but not words, not paint.”

Mrs. Ramsay characterization

Mrs. Ramsay is characterized as a beautiful and charismatic woman who is widely admired as well admiring of others. At face value, her marriage to Mr. Ramsay seems idealistic however, when it is scrutinized in other characters' thoughts, flaws begin to appear. Lily, a young intellectual, is in awe of Mrs. Ramsay's perfectly  traditional lifestyle, a path Lily herself has made a conscientious decision to avoid. While Lily is impressed by Mrs. Ramsay's accomplishments, she can't help but also question the possibility of unfulfillment that may accompany Mrs. Ramsay's lifestyle. This thought is addressed later on by Mrs. Ramsay when she thinks, "...he will never be so happy again, but stopped herself, remembering how it angered her husband that she should say that. Still, it was true" (62). On the opposite end of the spectrum, Mr. Ramsay is fully aware of the compromises Mrs. Ramsay makes despite her undeniable strengths. Mr. Ramsay's thoughts confirm what Lily speculates. He realizes that while it is his role of the marriage to be the intelligent, accomplished half, he realizes that his success would be nonexistent had it not been for the charisma of his wife.

Research Paper Outline

(the info sheet said to share outline on a google doc but just in case, I'm posting it here too.)

Life and Work of Dorothy Parker

    Dorothy Parker was an American writer with a sharp tongue and biting wit who lived through one of the most vibrant times in American History. Despite her satirical style, Parker’s life was filled with misfortune and struggle that is reflected in her work. Even though history remembers her as a humor writer, her work extends to social criticism, civil rights activism, war reporting and brutally honest life reflections.

s1) Dorothy Parker, born August 22 1893 New Jersey. Died June 7th, 1967.

Journalist, writer, and poet, civil rights activist.

- Wrote for the The New Yorker Magazine, Vogue, Vanity Fair,

- Formed a group called the Algonquin Round Table with writer Robert Benchley and playwright Robert Sherwood

- After Hollywood, still a well-regarded writer and poet, wrote a play entitled Ladies of the Corridor in 1953

Early Life

Despite her legacy as a humorist, Dorothy Parker was born into a tragedy riddled family. Her life filled with sudden catastrophe inspired her signature telephone greeting, “What fresh Hell is this?”.

- Born August 22 1893 New Jersey. 3 much older siblings .

- Parents Jacob Henry Rothschild & Annie Eliza (Maston) Rothschild

-Mother dies 1897,father married Eleanor Frances Lewis 1899

- Never close with stepmother, dies 1903

- Attended Blessed Sacrament Academy because of Stepmother even though she was Jewish

-At age fourteen, Dorothy dropped out of school never receiving a High School diploma although she was an avid reader.

-An uncle was killed on the Titanic

-Father died 1913, broke after a decline in business as a garment manufacturer, Dorothy was 20, began playing piano and taught at a ballet school.

-Within a year she broke into the magazine business by selling her poem “Any Porch” to Frank Crowninshield, editor of Vanity Fair. He later helped her get a job writing captions for Vogue in 1914.

-1917 she married Edwin Parker, a stock broker. Married for ten years until Parker returned from WWI an alcohol and morphine addiction. Kept the last name ‘Parker’.

Career

-At Vanity Fair she became New York's only female drama critic at the time

-Critic job led to her invitation and the creation of the Algonquin Round Table at the Algonquin Hotel

-The Algonquin Round Table was a group of famed New York writers who gathered at the Algonquin Hotel to meet and discuss events for over a decade. Notable members included: Dorothy Parker, Harold Ross,Robert Benchley; columnists Franklin Pierce Adams and Heywood Broun, and Broun’s wife Ruth Hale; critic Alexander Woollcott; comedian Harpo Marx; and playwrights George S. Kaufman, Marc Connelly, Edna Ferber, and Robert Sherwood

-ART came to define American humor of the era.

-Throughout the 1920s, her life took on the surface glamour of the Jazz Age

-Despite her surface success, Parker had a troubled personal life, unsuccessful love affairs, suicide attempts . (This parallels the characteristics of Jazz Age).

-The most intense of these, with writer Charles MacArthur, ended in pregnancy, abortion, and a suicide attempt

-Married Alan Campbell, a writer and former actor who shared her Jewish-Gentile heritage, he was also speculated to be bisexual. Moved to Hollywood and wrote or contributed to scripts for thirty-nine films. (2)

-Poem Unfortunate Coincidence reflects on Parker’s failed relationships.

-As the popularity in sound motion pictured increased, so did the demand hollywood script writers. Many members of the Algonquin migrated west. Parker followed reluctantly because of her, “deep distrust of any place outside the borough of Manhattan.”

--1930s and 1940s, spent time in Hollywood, California writing screenplays with her second husband Alan Campbell, including the 1937 adaptation of A Star Is Born (Academy Award Nomination)  and the 1942 Alfred Hitchcock film Saboteur. In 1937, Campbell and Parker had a combined salary of $5,000 a week, unheard of during the Great Depression.

Later Years: (Source 3)

A political activist, Parker supported the Actor's Equity Strike in 1919, criticized pretentious and hypocritical men who hid behind leftist politics and art in several of her poems, and was arrested for protesting the Sacco and Vanzetti executions in 1927. (2)

-She traveled to Spain during its civil war and returned to write two of her war stories, "Soldier's of the Republic" and "Who Might Be Interested".

-She was involved with the Communist Party in the 1930s, led to her being blacklisted in Hollywood.

-"The Lovely Leave" and "Song of a Shirt, 1941," examine war from a domestic point of view

-Her pro-communist sympathies were noted by the F.B.I.; the agency kept a nine hundred page file on her.

-She and Campbell divorced in 1947, and remarried in 1950. Separated 1952-1961. Campbell dies of a sleeping pill overdose in 1963

-Moved back to New York in 1964

-Died of a heart attack in 1967 at age 73. She left her estate to the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. foundation.

Writing Style

Dorothy Parker wrote from experience and often followed themes of female life including love, men, their unreliability, social standards and of course death. Death in Parker’s work is most often characterized as untimely or prospective. One of her most well known pieces describes various methods of killing oneself, several she had tested personally.

Resume Analysis

Razors pain you;

Rivers are damp;

Acids stain you;

And drugs cause cramp.

Guns aren’t lawful;

Nooses give;

Gas smells awful;

You might as well live.

- A her matter-of-fact view of life and death

-Ambiguity in title. Without accents, it means to carry on despite obstacles, a message evident in the poem. With the meaning of a sort of summary, it is a statement of her experience towards the struggles in her personal life including four suicide attempts. (1)

-When "Resume" was published, some people admired the way she had transformed a near-fatal experience into dark humor.

Humor: “Humor to me, Heaven help me, takes in many things. There must be courage; there must be no awe. There must be criticism, for humor, to my mind, is encapsulated in criticism. There must be a disciplined eye and a wild mind. There must be a magnificent disregard of your reader, for if he cannot follow you, there is nothing you can do about it. There must be some lagniappe in the fact that the humorist has read something written before 1918.” Dorothy Parker, The Most of S. J. Perelman, by S. J. Perelman (1).

- Parker’s poems function as a vehicle for social criticism

-Her wit was her weapon, used to tell truths close to her experience

-Satirized stereotypical female characters, more bitterly than playfully.There were limited occupations available to American women during the Twenties and Thirties, decades when the predominant image of the American woman was the sexually free, even promiscuous, flapper. (1)

-Her humor is explores the bittersweet, serio-comic, a depiction of the sexual double standard and uneasy relations between men and women.

-An example of work that follows the style of the time is 1927’s “Arranged in Black and White.”

- “Big Blonde” is one of Parker’s most celebrated pieces. It won the O. Henry Prize in 1929 for best short story. The story reflects much of Parker’s personal life including tumultuous relationships, career struggles and a suicide attempt by the main character similar to her own. (2)

Works Cited

Source 1)

"Dorothy Parker Biography." Bio.com. A&E Networks Television, n.d. Web. 20 Mar. 2014. <http://www.biography.com/people/dorothy-parker-9433450>

Source 2)

Parker, Dorothy. The portable Dorothy Parker. 2nd rev. ed. New York: Penguin Books, 2006. Print.

Source 3)

Pettit, Rhonda . "Bio-Critical Summary and Selected Bibliography: Dorothy Parker." Bio-Critical Summary and Selected Bibliography. Modern American Poetry, n.d. Web. 21 Mar. 2014. <http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets