In The Importance of Being Earnest, by Oscar Wilde, there are many relations to dishonesty through different literary techniques. Characters in the play often say many things that contradict things they say earlier. Epigrams in particular seem to come up repeatedly and are often little quips that don't always make sense. Algernon seems to always say life lessons that are not very sensible which makes them also a little untruthful. There is a lot of satire on social institutions especially regarding marriage. Then marriage was about who had money or property and was more of a business deal than about love. That is not dishonest because when you marry someone you are supposed to love them, but if it is a business deal that isn't necessarily so. References to the name Ernest, or to the trait are common. At the end Jack finds out that his birth name is Ernest. He has been going by Jack, a name given to him by his adopted father. He then went on to make up "Ernest" and then go by that name in London. While telling everyone about this so-called "Ernest" he didn't realize that he was spilling lies, he was actually telling the truth. At the end he figures it out and is unhappy with this. Wilde conveys the pursuit of pleasure through many characters, Algernon in particular. Algernon always wants the lush, lavish clothing; he wants the delicious food; and he wants to party. He creates his friend "Bunbury" to make sure this happens. By making up this Bunbury he is always lying to someone.
In the play, Wilde seems to be saying that dishonesty will always come out somehow. That is an epigram in itself. By creating this characters who lie, and live half their lives falsely it makes fun of people in life who do lie. Wilde is trying to poke fun at the upper class people during the Victorian Age who would do whatever they liked and not get in trouble for it. In this play it came back to bite Algernon and Jack, though they did end up squeezing out of it. An underlying message in The Importance of Being Earnest is how being dishonest and untruthful will end up for worse.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Animal Farm Project Evaluation
1. Grace did a movie with Molly, Sarah, and Kady. They did a really good job putting the preview/movie together to make it look real, which helped a lot with reinforcing of the literary elements. I thought that the footage of the actual pigs, and how they showed certain parts of the novel (ie. Farmers drinking and hanging out with the pigs at the end, the commandments) really made the themes of Animal Farm stand out.
2. Alena and Mackenzie also did a movie. The movie did a good job talking about the book and creating an idea about the book for the viewer. They really established the idea of the pigs becoming the rulers of Animal Farm.
3. Olivia wrote a haiku. She used careful diction and meaningful words to make the poem dark, as the book is. Each word and syllabul are picked to describe the despair and pigs taking over in the novel.
4. Sean made a comic strip. His comic strip represented the ideas of corruption of power really well. He had really good pictures and well written sentances to go with this theme. I thought his comic was really creative.
5. Rachel created a game for her project. I thought this was a great idea because it had never even occured to me to do something like this. Her game was a little complicated, but after awhile I understood it. I liked that she showed all the of elements of Animal Farm in a fun, easy to use way!
6. Reagan wrote a poem for her project. She made each stanza represent a different part of the central themes. It began with a happy vibe because they overthrew Mr. Jones, then eventually changed into a darker idea. Throughout the poem she capitalized some letters and I thought that was a typo at first, but then I realized that they actually were on purpose, and spelled out "TYRANNY" which I thought was a cool idea that enhanced the poem.
7. Donna did a video for her project. I thought she did a good job expressing the feelings in the book with the background music changing from slow and sad to cheerful depending on what was happening. I thought the filmwork was a bit choppy and a little unrealistic looking, but overall it was good!
8. Kayla made a class pyramid. I thought that she showed how Animal Farm was and then how it changed. It was an interesting comparison between the two, and I thought she did a good job creating it, though I wasn't sure if the "Before" was before The Rebellion, or before Napoleon completely took over and Snowball was sent away.
9. Brooke made a song for her project. I thought it was a good idea, but I was sort of confused by the caption. Her song itself was pretty good, but it seemed to overall happy, throughout the whole thing even though Animal Farm wasn't happy the whole book.
10. Will and Paul did a comic strip. They did a good job of describing the full novel, but I thought it was sort of simple, and they could have gone more in depth. They had all the ideas there, they just needed to draw them out a bit more.
I thought my project was pretty good compared to most of the projects. I think I was in the middle. Grace, Molly, Sarah, and Kady's video was really good, and then there were some projects that were lacking a little bit. I think that I incorperated themes from the book well, but it was hard to get everything from the class disscussions and everything from the novel into a comic strip; however, I think I succeeded in doing enough. I think I definetely put in enough effort. I spent a long time phrasing the words in the right side of the comic. I also spent awhile choosing the right quotation from the book.
2. Alena and Mackenzie also did a movie. The movie did a good job talking about the book and creating an idea about the book for the viewer. They really established the idea of the pigs becoming the rulers of Animal Farm.
3. Olivia wrote a haiku. She used careful diction and meaningful words to make the poem dark, as the book is. Each word and syllabul are picked to describe the despair and pigs taking over in the novel.
4. Sean made a comic strip. His comic strip represented the ideas of corruption of power really well. He had really good pictures and well written sentances to go with this theme. I thought his comic was really creative.
5. Rachel created a game for her project. I thought this was a great idea because it had never even occured to me to do something like this. Her game was a little complicated, but after awhile I understood it. I liked that she showed all the of elements of Animal Farm in a fun, easy to use way!
6. Reagan wrote a poem for her project. She made each stanza represent a different part of the central themes. It began with a happy vibe because they overthrew Mr. Jones, then eventually changed into a darker idea. Throughout the poem she capitalized some letters and I thought that was a typo at first, but then I realized that they actually were on purpose, and spelled out "TYRANNY" which I thought was a cool idea that enhanced the poem.
7. Donna did a video for her project. I thought she did a good job expressing the feelings in the book with the background music changing from slow and sad to cheerful depending on what was happening. I thought the filmwork was a bit choppy and a little unrealistic looking, but overall it was good!
8. Kayla made a class pyramid. I thought that she showed how Animal Farm was and then how it changed. It was an interesting comparison between the two, and I thought she did a good job creating it, though I wasn't sure if the "Before" was before The Rebellion, or before Napoleon completely took over and Snowball was sent away.
9. Brooke made a song for her project. I thought it was a good idea, but I was sort of confused by the caption. Her song itself was pretty good, but it seemed to overall happy, throughout the whole thing even though Animal Farm wasn't happy the whole book.
10. Will and Paul did a comic strip. They did a good job of describing the full novel, but I thought it was sort of simple, and they could have gone more in depth. They had all the ideas there, they just needed to draw them out a bit more.
I thought my project was pretty good compared to most of the projects. I think I was in the middle. Grace, Molly, Sarah, and Kady's video was really good, and then there were some projects that were lacking a little bit. I think that I incorperated themes from the book well, but it was hard to get everything from the class disscussions and everything from the novel into a comic strip; however, I think I succeeded in doing enough. I think I definetely put in enough effort. I spent a long time phrasing the words in the right side of the comic. I also spent awhile choosing the right quotation from the book.
Saturday, January 1, 2011
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)