ELA book of choice post

For my book of choice, I read three stories by HP Lovecraft: Herbert West- Reanimator, The Call of Cthulhu, and The Dunwich Horror. Each of these tales has a rather similar setup and payoff, beginning with a narrator speaking of the unspeakable eldritch abominations they bore witness to or beginning with some sort of backstory and eventually focusing on a certain character. This character then recounts their tale about happening upon these discoveries and the terror that ensued.

The first one, Herbert West- Reanimator, featured the tale of a disgruntled medical student at Miskatonic University whose theories about the nature of the human body led him to create an elixir that could bring people back from the dead by “restarting” them. This student, named Herbert West, calls upon the aid of the narrator, who has taken interest in his experiments. They were unsuccessful in initial attempts, but they did notice that the closer to death they revived them, the more responsive they were. This led to more and more experiments being conducted with more success, however, all subjects were reduced to mindless animals. Then WWI began and they both enlisted as medical officers as volunteers for the Canadian military. Of course, they only did this to come across fresh cadavers. One particular subject, Major Clapham Lee, an old friend of West who died in a plane crash, demonstrated incredible results when West was able to reanimate both the body and the severed head. Unfortunately, Clapham Lee escaped, and began to find the old subjects West was working on, eventually taking revenge by severing West’s head in an attack on the lab.

The second story, The Call of Cthulhu, followed the perspective of a man who had come across a strange artifact bearing no basis in modern architecture or art. His curiosity leads him to hear about various happenings in the swamps of Louisiana. This led to a slippery slope where he found the memoir of  Norwegian sailor who found part of the sunken city of R’lyeh.

The third tale was the Dunwich Horror. This story did not follow a narrator and it followed a child of a woman and one of the Great Old Ones, Yog-Sothoth. This child, named Wilbur, matures much faster than usual and is rather hideous in appearance, despite being extremely intelligent. Wilbur eventually tries to procure a copy of the necronomicon, presumably to awaken the Great Old Ones. Eventually, Wilbur is found mangled by a dog and his entrails are certainly not human, with greenish blood and reptilian skin. The person that found the corpse visits the town of Dunwich to see what was going on and finds Wilbur’s twin brother, who resembles his father much more than his mother.

Herbert West was the first and most lackluster of the three stories. It began with little suspense, someone’s trying to play God, of course nothing good will come of it. After the first corpse was reanimated, the trick of crazy zombies doing crazy things got old. The ending was also rather uninteresting, as West just really got what was coming to him after the his near-sadistic experiments.

Call of Cthulhu is considered one of the classic Lovecraft stories, and with good reason. It provided a hook for the audience through the statue, it carried through multiple accounts and showed the research the narrator had done, and it had an interesting and disturbing payoff. I know this is basically a meme at the school, but his imagery was incredible. It painted a vivid image in your mind even when what occurred on the pages did not match any logic, like the architecture of R’lyeh. The recounting of past events flowed seamlessly as well, something that is difficult to find in most fiction.

The Dunwich Horror was very impressive in terms of how it read. The slow buildup to the reveal of the brother and the foreshadowing of the dogs was enthralling. As for the story itself, it wasn’t as good as Call of Cthulhu because the payoff wasn’t nearly as harrowing, but it was still enjoyable. As this story wasn’t written as a personal anecdote, it does not have the same intrigue as other Lovecraft stories, but it was still a good read.

Lovecraft’s stories can be somewhat off-putting due to their lengthy descriptions and blatant racism, but they are still very good stories that can hook readers in and give them a satisfying ending in only a couple pages. The overarching themes of hopelessness and doom that permeate the universe he created should be enjoyed by anyone who is interested. The stories are not hard to find, either, as one can easily locate a compendium of his stories on multiple online databases. Lovecraft was a brilliant writer who continues to inspire fiction to this day, if you want to find an enjoyably disturbing series of tales, look no further than Lovecraft.

ELA reading post

    My favorite book we read this semester was The Great Gatsby. It told its story in a unique way that I very much enjoyed, and the contradictory nature kept me interested throughout the book. My least favorite book, however, was the Odyssey. Sure, it is one of the first true adventure books and it set the standard for stories to come, but the fact that it appeared long before standard conventions of writing is readily apparent. The protagonist has no flaws to speak of, everyone seems to like him, and most of the women he meets want to bed him. The book even tells you the ending, removing all suspense, which now that I think about it, wasn’t even there in the first place because Odysseus never falters. All mistakes and hardships are brought upon by people other than himself and every time he is in danger, he is given some godly protection. The book embodies many of the things that I hate in stories, like infallible protagonists, suspenseless action, and a hearty helping of wish fulfillment.

Great Gatsby final post

    The Great Gatsby is in many ways a strange book to me. It features many things that I generally find annoying in most modern entertainment, like rain symbolism and a plotline that involves multiple affairs, but I still found it enjoyable. It told its story in a way I haven’t really seen before and it kept me interested despite a plot line that is rather boring at first glance. Much of this could be because of the perspective, a passive gentleman that avoids most social contact who is not directly affected by the main story. Much of this could be the contradictory nature of many characters, like Gatsby being trustworthy yet he lies about much of his past. I haven’t seen these elements at all in most of my media consumption, and I believe that these unique elements caused me to enjoy the book much more than I would have if it was told through Gatsby’s perspective. If I saw the story through his eyes, it would lose much of the suspense and intrigue that kept me turning pages. Gatsby would lose his contradictions, as I would see through the character what was true and what wasn’t. If the book did not have these little elements, I would have probably hated it, but as it stands, it was an incredible read.

Great Gatsby Post 4

It is difficult to see in many places how Gatsby changes in the novel, seeing as the changes happen in sudden mannerism alterations, but despite the scarcity of them, they are highly significant. First, he is a larger than life filthy rich man who has an incredibly interesting backstory, but as the novel progresses, he becomes more like a normal person. That is why it’s confusing how he changes, because as he becomes more familiar, we understand him more as a human than a construct. First, we are introduced to him as a mysterious, almost improbably interesting character. Everyone speaks of him admirably and with some feeling of awe. Rather quickly, however, we learn his motive for doing everything he does: Daisy Buchanan. As Nick tries to set him up with her, he starts to break down. His nervousness is on full display, and his use of “old sport” starts getting erratic and strange, it’s not just an expression, it’s a way to express his anxiety. The breaking point is the hotel scene, where he, rather stupidly, expresses anger and entitlement when he, to Tom’s face, tells his she’s having an affair with him. By the end, he is not flawless, he’s a mess who lied about his past and has issues controlling his nerve, but he’s most certainly an interesting mess.

Great Gatsby Post 3

The central conflict in this book is difficult to pin down and is very much open to interpretation, but I think that it revolves around Tom. Tom was very much the center of this, he married Daisy, he had an affair with Myrtle under Wilson’s nose, and he had a rivalry with Gatsby. All of this points to an external conflict with a minor antagonist who is completely justified in their later actions. It all stems from one mistake, the affair with Myrtle. This affair would come to justify much of the hatred towards Tom in the novel, as well as set the unfortunate events in motion. His affair was made known to Daisy, who subsequently had an affair with Gatsby, leading Gatsby to confront Tom in their visit. This then led to Daisy driving with Gatsby, running over Myrtle whilst escaping her husband, who found out her affair and began to act cruelly. This led to Wilson, in maddening worship of the gold spectacled deity, to kill Gatsby (at least that’s what the book seemed to say, I’m still confused on this matter), whose car he saw speeding down the road. Tom Buchanan’s bad decision started these conflicts, culminating in Gatsby’s death.  

Great Gatsby post 2

The weather symbolism is rather obvious in the meeting, so much so that I curse it for possibly having to do with the “sad stuff happens in rain” trope gaining popularity. Of course in this case, it’s not just “oh the rain symbolizes tears, innit that clever?”, it’s more of a “rain on your parade” type of rain. Gatsby is extremely nervous about this meeting, and quite understandably so. His whole dream rests on him impressing a married woman enough to attract her interest. The rain is less of a “depressive” and more of an “anxious” rain. At any moment, lightning could strike and destroy everything. Things go well, however, so well that the sun appears bright in the sky again, yellow glow illuminating more color symbolism and signifying that the meeting went well and there will be another. Although I despise the use of rain, I will say that it is done quite well in this book and in a new way that I haven’t seen particularly often. Considering that this is an extremely popular book from the 20s, I’d expect the symbols to be more obvious and stale due to overuse today, but I actually did enjoy them here despite my indifference to symbolism in general and my hatred of the rain trope.

Great Gatsby post 1

Nick Carraway initially claims to not be a judgmental person and then proceeds to spend the next few chapters passing judgement on almost everyone he meets. Considering his place in the story, this makes perfect sense. He is the narrator, we see the world through him and we see the characters through him. If he does not judge the other characters, we would not get as detailed a description. Tom to us is the sleazy scumbag who cheats on his wife, throws awful parties, and will never be as cool as he was at 21. We would not get quite this much information had Nick not immediately passed judgement and we wouldn’t be as familiar with the character. Him immediately denouncing Jordan as dishonest gives her a flaw and gives us more insight into her character and making us interested in her story. If he wasn’t so judgmental, we wouldn’t have as vivid a world as we do.

Othello post 1

For Shakespearian tragedies, tragedies typically have easily visible defining features. For instance, protagonists will have fatal flaws, the high socially ranking protagonist will crumble due to outside pressure, and almost everyone dies. Othello exemplifies these characteristics well. The protagonist, Othello, has a main flaw of putting too much trust in friends and being too temperamental. Othello is also a military general whose mental state crumbles as a result of Iago’s deception. The point of nearly everyone dying is especially true. The chain of death begins with Rodrigo failing to kill Cassio and dying, then Othello killing Desdemona, then Iago killing Emilia, Othello killing himself, and culminating with Iago being arrested, likely leading to execution.

Merchant of Venice project post

In my opinion, my project went very well. I thought I covered the subject sufficiently and I am impressed with my essay. I was rather satisfied with my project, but there are a few areas where I would like to improve. First, I could have been more specific with my examples of cost infliction checks. The students seem to have gotten the concept, but I felt my delivery was slightly lacking. Second, there were many places where I felt that I hadn’t gone in depth enough, such as cost infliction checks once again. Third, my articulation was flawed. Overall though, I am extremely happy with how the presentation and essay turned out.

Merchant of Venice final

In the Merchant of Venice, Shylock is A Jewish moneylender who, depending on who you talk to, functions either as a protagonist or antagonist in the story. The most interesting part of this character is the fact that despite him fitting the Elizabethan stereotype of jews nearly perfectly, he is arguably the most complex character in the entire play. Despite how easy it would have been for Shakespeare, a man who was not at all sympathetic towards Jews, to make him into another flat Don John, he made the character relatable. While Shylock sought vengeance, his motives made sense and were even validated by the story itself multiple times. Of course, if you go be the traditional Shakespeare play structure, Shylock is obviously the antagonist, but he is complex enough to make observers sympathize with him more than the intended protagonists. His anger, as fierce as it is, is very similar to the way most of us feel anger, which allows us to connect with Shylock much more easily than the other characters who live lives of luxury and nobility. Comparing Shylock’s story of rapid transition of power, loss, and ruin to Antonio’s story of just constantly screwing up and being rescued out of nowhere makes me connect much more with Shylock as a character because I understand his predicament. With Antonio, I can’t help but feel like he deserved at least some kind of punishment.

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Personally, I do not think Shylock deserved his punishment at all. Simply denying the sentence is already plenty, destroying his livelihood over attempted revenge against someone who not only was a thorn in his side since his maturation, but also gave him the idea in the first place is a bit much. I am most definitely highly biased, as Shylock is one of my favorite characters in theater, but taking him out of work, making him forfeit his religion, and forcing his forfeit of half his estate does not seem just, let alone merciful. Quite hypocritical considering Portia’s speech was all about mercy, but I suppose that if Shylock gave none, the court might also give none. If I were observing this in the Victorian era, however, I would have thought that he deserved the sentence, and not because of his religion. Assuming that I would have been Christian, the concept of mercy would have been much more valuable to me than it is now. My personality favors justice and retribution over mercy and absolution, but had I been raised rigorously as a Christian, my outlook would have been significantly different. This would mean that seeing Shylock’s cold want for revenge would make the punishment seem sufficient. At first glance, this seems strange, after all, if I had considered mercy important, would I not see it fit to give Shylock mercy as well? Possibly, but it is the contents of the punishment that matter. Making Shylock a Christian, assuming he took the punishment seriously, would mean educating him in the Christian ideal of mercy, something which had I been raised at that time, I would consider important. Of course, as I have not been raised as a Christian, I do not know whether or not I would think this way, but This is my hypothesis.

Merchant of Venice post 2

In terms of who is the protagonist, it definitely seems that Antonio was intended to be the protagonist. He is made out to be the righteous, virtuous Christian that was antagonized by a moneylending Jew. Then, it was obvious, but now, with a significantly less prejudiced population, the lines aren’t that clear. Shylock seems wicked, but is written in a way so that the observer feels sympathy for him. Everything he does feels justified and his hardships make you feel empathy for the character. The “good Christian’s” deception makes this clear, Shylock was punished for attempting to finally have his revenge against a man who attempted to destroy his livelihood and ruin his reputation multiple times. Instead of being able to exact his revenge, he was punished further on a technicality. Shylock feels more like a rounded dynamic character than anyone else, as he feels emotion and drive unlike the others, and he is the only one who acts predictably like a person would while Antonio is a stock, flat character.

Merchant of Venice post 1

The most interesting character to me was Shylock for reasons entirely connected to his religion. He fits the stereotypical mold of Judaism perfectly for the 16th century, but he is also made into an interesting character. From the outset, Shylock is already made to seem more virtuous than Antonio, and his anger towards the nobleman is completely justified. Shylock is at odds with a man that seeks to ruin one of his few avenues for profit, tarnish his reputation in the community, and then has the audacity to ask him for money, only to not return it and manipulate the court into punishing Shylock. He is a character that has seen hardship and prejudice come from a man that considers himself righteous. The reason I find this interesting is that this text came from 16th century England, where people were prejudiced against for being Catholic. If they would hold hatred against Christians like themselves, members of other religions were treated like dirt. Shakespeare writing a relatable Jewish character in his time is extremely strange, especially when considering that he did not shy away from insulting them in his writings. For example, In one of Benedick’s monologues in Much Ado About Nothing, he insults them, indicating that Shakespeare did not shy away from prejudice. It may seem small, but to insult the Jewish in one work and make interesting characters out of them in others is somewhat odd.