Huxley Essay

     With a wise man like Aldous Huxley, there are many topics, opinions, and issues that the modern, not so educated individual, today, would not be able to express like him. From generation to generation, times have changed so greatly that Huxley would be astonished to see today. His vision of the future that he portrays in his novel Brave New World is in ways totally opposite than how today is actually ran, but at the same time somewhat similar. From technological advances to advances in humankind, today's society is so different than what it was back when Huxley visioned it that it is easy to compare and contrast modern views to his views.
     One aspect of the interview that I did not agree with was when he stated that the future he visioned was right around the corner. I do not believe, whatsoever, that a cruel, inhumane, conditioned world like that will evolve. I believe even though our society is wacky, not traditional, and ass backwards, we are not that demented to form and structure our lives into that foreign, inhumane world. That world portrayed in his novel is so disturbing and cruel that it makes my stomach cringe. Humanity is so much better and purposeful than that type of world. The nasty, unusual ways and methods depicted in the novel are so inhumane that i believe no one in this world would prefer our lives to turn to that. Another idea of his that I did not agree with was we are living in his "vision of hell on Earth." Although society is twisted these days, I love living in today's society with all of the other individuals on earth. It is not a hell on earth whatsoever. The world and the life it contains is a beautiful thing.
      Although there were many sayings of Huxley in his interview that I disagreed with, there were some that I agreed with. For instance, his statement that indicated he believes that the technological advances of today will not only reduce opportunities for humans, but also eliminate them and our freedom of control. These technological advances enable inhuman machinery to perform jobs that humans should be doing. An example of this in today's society is that machinery can now insert medicine and antibiotics into patients. This should be a task for humans (the nurses who are employed by the hospitals/doctors.) Lastly, I agreed to his idea that over population is also a limiting factor of human opportunity and freedom of control. With too many individuals inhabiting the world and states, there will be a lesser amount of jobs, houses, etc for everyone. This can eventually become a very dangerous, costly event.
     Overall, I love the ideas Aldous Huxley has expressed in his years of life and enjoy being introduced to them and his intelligence.

Chapter 4 notes

-Begins with Lenina publicly proving her unfaithfulness to Henry by asking Bernard about their "New Mexico plans"

-Bernard got really awkward and co fused because he has no idea what she was talking about

-"his face wore an expression of pain." 

"Benito Hoover, one of the guys that lenina had seen before and was too hair for her, was witnessing all of this. Went over to Bernard trying to talk to him but Bernard took off. Benito put a wad of sex hormone gun in his mouth and walked away after realizing the situation he just witnessed was awkward 

-"the huge table topped buildings were no more in a few seconds than a bed of geometrical mushrooms sprouting from the green if park and garden."

-lenina and Henry went flying looking down on their pefect town; ten minutes later thy were at Stoke Poges and had started their first round of Obstacle Golf 

-it shifts to Bernard thinking about his terrible size; his physique was hardly better than that of the average Gamma. He was 8 cm short than the standard alpha height and was slender in proportion, he hated his physique and was humiliated by it 

-it made him feel like an outsider, an alien, he was self conscious of his dignity 

-Bernard hops in his plane and flies to meet my. Helmholtz Watson a deep chested, massive yet quick in his movements, sparingly and agile. He was a lecturer at the college of emotional engineering 

-both men form a relationship based on both their dissatisfaction of their own bodies and lives

-Bernard tells helmoltz what Happened with lenina but Helmoltz doesn't pay much attention to it

-helmoltz focus on how he thinks his writing could be better used, and that he is dissatisfied with his writing in the moment 

-Bernard thinks someone is at the door and jumps and gets very nervous 

-helmholtz listened to Bernard with a sense of discomfort, but at the same time he felt rather ashamed for his friend and wished Barnard would show more pride

Chapter 2&3 Reading Notes

Fig. Language:

Chapter 2:

-Similie/personification/restatement: "thousands of petals, ripe blown and silkily smooth, like the cheeks of innumerable little cherubs, but of cherubs, in that bright light, not exclusively pink and Aryan, but also luminously Chinese, also Mexican, also pale as death, pale with the posthumous whiteness of marble."

-the director aimed to make the babies terrified of books and nature. 

-restatement page 26: "silence, silence.... Silence, silence.... Silence, silence."

-the kids hear the same statements over and over, are subjected to believe they're better than others (in a Beta and am better than a delta), they where certain clothing based on what they are

-restatement plays a huge Role in their everyday lives

-Chapter 3:

-it's strange that the kids play like kids from our generation, outside on the play ground, entertaining themselves with balls, games, etc but now they're more involved and consist of machines 

-although in the book the children play naked

-restatement again: page 31: "charming"

-"discarnate voices called from the trumpet mouths."

-"The Controller" makes an appearance and everyone including the children get very excited and are infatuated with him

-directors fordship, Mustapha Mond, appears 

-"no air, space; an under sterilized prison; darkness, disease, and smells."

-the controller (Mustapha) gives a speech about the dangers of family

-"the tropical sunshine lau like warm honey on the naked bodies of children tumbling promiscuously among the hibiscus blossoms."

-fanny asks lenina if she is going out with Henry foster and gives her advice to hVe more than one "lover"?

-Mustapha says that family leads to exclusiveness 

-"mother, monogamy, romance." Continually repeated

-our generation was bound by love and that's why we were so unhappy and mad. We were forced under other rule  

-everyone belongs to everyone else now. Not just one or a few people 

-lenina says she likes Bernanrd Max too but fanny says he's ugly and small 

-Bernanrd was a specialist of sleep teaching "hypnopædie"

-throughout this the book keeps going back and forth between Henry's conversation in the locker room, Mustaphas to the children, and Lelina and Fannys

-looked this up on sparknotes to clarify some aspects of the controllers speech 

"Religion, Shakespeare, museums, and families all passed into obscurity. The date of the introduction of the Model T was chosen as the start of the new era, and all crosses had their tops cut off to make them into Ts. Six years of pharmaceutical research yielded soma, the perfect drug. The problem of old age was solved, and people could now retain the mental and physical character of youth throughout life. No one was allowed to sit alone and think. No one was allowed “leisure from pleasure.”

-In the changing room at the end of the workday, Bernard overhears Henry talking with the Assistant Predestinator about Lenina. The Predestinator suggests a “feely” (a movie involving senses of touch and smell) that Henry might want to attend. While discussing Lenina admiringly, Henry tells the Assistant that he should “have her” some time. The conversation disgusts Bernard. The Assistant notices his glum expression and he and Henry decide to bait him. Henry offers Bernard some soma, infuriating him. They laugh as Bernard curses them.

-this chapter to me was very weird and random. I am going to need further explanation and analysis from dr. Preston

Brave New World Lecture Notes: Chapter 1

#ForBree❤️

Literature Analysis #2 of the semester

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

Notes taken on the book:

-a Nobel of education, maturity, childhood to adult hood

-Pip is the protagonist

-it's a novel of fantasy. He has fantasies of what his life could be like

-he imagines that things happen on their own for him with no effort (this is what makes a child a child; idealism)

-appropriate fantasy for pop especially because he's a orphan he has a very strong sense for being unwanted, very sensitive, feels that the normal path in life isn't good enough and it won't fulfill him

-he's conscious of being a victim and being on the short end of the stick. He has a question in his mind "am I wicked, a good person, do I deserve what I have?"

-he doesn't really know what normal is. He has grand expectations but also has fears

-he's fatherless but uses the other characters such as Joe as father figures and role models

-Maggwich finds pip hanging around and asks him to go get him food. He eats like an animal, he's not governed by civilization, has no manners, has a capacity for wickedness and brutality, symbolizes the animal need to survive, he represents a threat of abandonment, if Pip doesn't help him he could possibly go back to being abandoned orphan, he symbolizes what he could be the guilty not loved orphan who people wonder why he was even born 

-havasham sumbolizes shining promise, the potential of what could be a fairly godmother figure, sacrificed her life to memorialize her life and betrayal, her house is still and not moving since the day she was left at the alter. It's a memorial to dead hope. It represents possibility and fertility. She is the monster side of the female, she's rich and adopted Estella to Pip that means hope, she is also not what she seems and you have a dichotomy 

-when Pip plays the game with estella, Havasham trained Estella to be a heart breaker, a destroyer of men

-Pip doesn't talk truthfully about Havasham or Estella to any other character because they remind him of himself 

-Pip is a seed, the acorn who could become the oak or blow away in the wind, the character who hasn't become anything yet, wanting to be something more

-havasham and Maggwich vanish and pip has to put in work to see what he can make happen in his life. He meets Joe and draggers who are father like figures

-joe and jraggers are very different from each other. Both start with j and j is interchangeable with i and dickens use these characters to let him compare him self to the men. Am "I" like Joe or jraggers

-joe is a blacksmith and Jagger's knows things about people, knows secrets, etc. He holds that over people to keep them loyal 

-Joe lives by feeling he looks at every situation as a whole and goes with his gut. He doesn't judge people by appearances and he's a romantic a poetic view of the world. We don't see him as a success financially but has a rich emotional life. 

-Jagger's lives by the letter of the law. He breaks everything down to evidence and logic, he doesn't deal with emotions as much as Joe. He makes it hard on people. What he knows about others can hurt them. Characters who ar like jagger are Estella moly havasham Maggwich 

-Jagger's doesn't believe in people or ideas he believes in words. He has a lot of money and that is his success

-Joe and Jagger's have both come across a mother and a baby in need of help

-Joe comes across them and adopts them even though the marriage isn't ideal

-Jagger's separates the child and mother and puts the kid up for adoption and the mother becomes his slave and servant and haunts her with blackmail if she doesn't do want he wants her to do

-Joe and Jagger's are foils to one another

-Joe tells pip that Jagger's only acts like a business man

-wemmick and magwich wemmick plays off of Jagger's and magwich plays off of Joe

-wemmick at home is a foil to wemmick at home, he represents an old nostalgic world, prefers people over money

-wemmick is cut and dry in his office always thinking about money and emotional and caring at home

-Pip tries to adapt and how he will use the characters personalities and etc to his life and growth process

-magwich comes to symbolize pip in a bad way, he identifies with pip as an orphan, he's like wemmick and has a double life. His hard childhood and his life after he meets pip

-Pip doesn't just get influenced he actually has an influence 

-pip is not the son of a metaphorical dynasty 

-Estella is not meant for pip it's just part of her training, pip comes to realize that her origins are even worse than pips

-magwich has actually created pips imaginations and thoughts, he was the influence

-pip comes to the understanding that what's old is new again

-resolution of great expectations is about that it's not about adults telling youth how to live and think, it's about the youth figuring it out 

-Pip sees life as a fertilizer that makes everything grow 

-Joe is not an intellectual but sees that the universe is complicated and people are always making new rules

-pips attitude changes when concerning both Joe and Jaggers

-he wants to be practical like Jagger's but emotional like joe

-he differs from joe and Jagger's in one big way in which he still lives in his imagination and is an idealist and not a realist

-joe and Jagger's are ready to accept the consequences of their actions

-they will deal with what comes

-pip wants the benefits but doesn't want to pay the piper 

-he cuts himself off by separating himself from his last and becomes a snob because he's trying to find who is trying to be

-he talks about his bad attitude and difficulties and knows he's not perfect and Dickins shows us by this that Pip is still young and does not get it. 

-he's now coming to terms to what that story really did for him

-he paints himself so that he will know what he is really like

-By the end of the novel Estella has been so discredited and pip is so disillusioned that they're not the same people and it doesn't matter if they marry. They are an underage couple who have failed

-Joe marries and has a child named pip

The novel is a reflection of his own view on the characters Joe and Jagger's and also having pip clear out his way of life and coming to terms of who he is

1. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens starts of with the introduction of a young man, Pip introducing his life that he is dissatisfied with. He comes from a non-traditional background, is an orphaned child who is being raised by his sister and her husband, Jo, in London during the mid-nineteenth century. As he was in a graveyard gazing upon the tombstones of his family, a convict approached him from behind and threatened to kill him him if Pip did not help him. This man, Magwitch, turned out to be a criminal who had escaped from jail. Just as Pip was doing everything this man said (retrieving him food, water, etc) Magwitch was recaptured by law enforcement.

Recovering form this near-death experience, Pip's uncle, Pumlechook took Pip to the Statis House to play. This house,the home of Miss Havisham, is a very scary, timid, spooky house that has all of its clocks stopped 20 minutes to 9. Miss Havisham is a women who is constantly mourning of her "ex husband" who ditched her at their wedding. While in her home, Pip meets Miss Havisham's taken in child, Estella, and falls deeply in love with her. Estella is a young lady raised to break men's hearts at Miss Havisham's request. While Pip fell in love immediately, Estella was constantly rude and cold-hearted. She eventually married an abusive man with an incredible social status. However, this never stopped Pip from chasing the love of his life till the end of the novel. In the end, Estella and Pip marry and live happily ever after.

Along Pip's journey, he was given a generous fortune from an unknown source. To claim his fortune, Pip had to travel to London where he could inherit this fortune. While in London, Pip met Herbert Pockett, whom he aided with his fortune in order to help Herbert pursue his dreams. While enjoying London, Pip was met with yet another curve-ball. He is reunited with Magwitch, the convict he helped in the graveyard, who claims to be the source of Pip's fortune, and not Miss Havisham as Pip was led to believe. Although Pip was indecisive as how to react to this news, Pip became very close with the convict and eventually helped him come up with a plan to escape to London to get away and hide from law enforcement. Unfortunately, their attempt was unsuccessful and Magwitch was sentenced to prison until death.

In the end of the novel, Pip discovered he really did love Estella. Weirdly, Pip finds out that Estella is actually Magwitch's daughter. Estella and Pip chose to continue their married life happily and confident and tell one another that nothing will break them apart.

2. A potential theme for this novel could be that love is genuine and pure. In this circumstance, it can surpass some of the worst of circumstances. Pip's involvement and introduction to Estella wasn't ideal for any fairytale. She was rude and cold-hearted to him and all other men she came across. To add on to her bad, unattractive qualities, Estella proved that she was a pushover and easy to be influenced. Because she had been manipulated by Miss Havisham throughout the course of her life, Estella was so easy to push around and persuade. Pip continued to show his love and care for Estella even when she portrayed such rudeness and disgust towards Pip. This demonstrates real love and determination.

Obviously, it takes real, genuine love to surpass the cirumstances and conflicts that both Pip and Estella encountered throughout the course of the novel. When Estella was rude, and even married to someone else, Pip never gave up hope that he and the love of his life, Estella, would end up together.

3. The tone of this novel is one that I have never come across before. The tone can be described as one that is depressing yet hopeful at the same time. Quotes that support this are:

• "Ask no questions, and you'll be told no lies." Being lied to has the potential to make one feel unworthy and depressed, but knowing a way of how to avoid lies is comforting.
• "We need never be ashamed of our tears. For they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth, overlying our hard hearts." Seeing or reading of a person who is brought to tears makes for an upsetting tone. Not to mention, being the one crying is much more heartbreaking. However, knowing that crying isn't wrong and serves a purpose is comforting in the midst of one's unhappiness.
• "I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be." Its saddening that discouragement occupied a relationship in the novel, but reassuring that even when faced with discouragement, it's possible to still love one another.

4.

• Metaphor-"... think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day." (page 82) In this quote, the chains and flowers are metaphors for what could potentially hold the characters back from doing what they really wanted to do.
• Anaphora-"... one [man's] a blacksmith, and one's a whitesmith, and one's a goldsmith, and one's a coppersmith. Divisions among such must come, and must be met as they come." (page 260) This quote made a point that each man must be separated due to their profession/abilities.
• Narration-"...I called myself Pip, and came to be called Pip." (page 1) Right from the very start of the novel, Dickens identified Pip as the main character and the narrator of the story. 
• Foil- "Keep still, you little devil, or I'll cut your throat!" (page 1) This quote was said by Magwitch, the convict. This quote made Pip look more innocent and defenseless and made Magwitch look evil and cruel. Pip was identified as a young orphan who was visiting his parents tombstones when he was abruptly approached and slandered by a criminal who escaped incarceration. These two descriptions made each character look as if they were opposites of one another.
• Setting- "As I was looking out at the iron gate of Bartholomew Close into Little Britain, I saw Miss Jaggers coming across the road towards me." (page 142) 
• Point of view-"I looked all around for the horrible young man, and could see no signs of him." (page 5) This quotes proves that the point of view is in first person is used to narrate the novel.
• Symbol- "I am greatly changed. I wonder you know me." (page 415). This quote depicts that Estella represents change in the novel. 
• Dickens uses innuendo to explain that Pip is an orphan without stating directly that he is. "I give Pirrip as my father's family name, on the authority of his tombstone and my sister."

Characterization

1. Two examples of direct characterization are: 
"A fearful man, all in coarse grey, with a great iron on leg." 
"A man with no hat, and with broken shoes, and with an old rag tied round his head."
Two examples of indirect characterization are:
"You made your own snares." Indirectly, Miss Havisham is stating that Pip created his own problems.
"Miss Havisham gives you to him, as the greatest slight and injury that could be done to the many far better men who admire you, and to the few who truly love you." Indirectly, Pip is stating that being with anyone else but him is a mistake. That it would hurt him and "injur" him since he admires her and truly loves her.
2. The author's syntax does change when he focuses on character. When not focusing on character, Dickens writes in what I would consider a normal, relaxed style, in twenty-first century English. When he does focus on characters, however, he develops a different syntax and diction. An example is, "At Epsom races, a matter of over twenty years ago, I got acquainted wi' a man whose name was Compeyson; and that's the man, dear boy, what you see apounding in the ditch, according to what you truly told your comradearter I was gone last night." The words "wi" and "comaradearter" support my point. 

3. Pip is dynamic and round character. In Pip's life, his changes from being a poor, innocent, confused boy to a successful, respectable "gentleman" by obtaining his large fortune. He did a complete 360. Before his benefactor provided him with the amazing fortune and the opportunities it brought along itself, Pip was a dissatisfied, lost, immature boy who was desperate for an innovation in his life. By the end of the novel, he was a man who truly understood friendship, loyalty, success, love, and over all, reality.


4. After reading this story I felt like I had simply read about a character. I did not really connect to the character Pip because I have never gone through anything that complex and devastating before. Thus, it was hard to relate to Pip and the scenarios he faced. Where I live, it is very rare that someone gets a random benefactor that provides them with a chance to collect a huge fortune and travel to a out of state place to retrieve the fortune. To me, the story was just very random and hard to relate to for a modern day student like me. Also, today fairy tales are not commonly seen in society/reality. If Pip and the other characters were to have experienced what they did in modern day, he would have certainly not received both the fortune and the love of his life. He would have either received none or one. Dont get me wrong, I loved the book and all of its characters, but the fact that it was hard to relate them made it extremely difficult for me to come away from the novel and be able to say that i feel as if i had spent the whole book feeling as if I were experiencing it like Pip and overall even saying that I "know" Pip on a personal level. 

Lit Terms List 6

Simile:  a figure of speech comparing two essentially unlike things through the use of a specific word of comparison.

Soliloquy: an extended speech, usually in a drama, delivered by a character alone on stage.

Spiritual: a folk song, usually on a religious theme.

Speaker: a narrator, the one speaking.

Stereotype: cliché; a simplified, standardized conception with a special meaning and appeal for members of a group; a formula story.

Stream of Consciousness: the style of writing that attempts to imitate the natural flow of a character’s thoughts, feelings, reflections, memories, and mental images, as the character experiences them.

Structure: the planned framework of a literary selection; its apparent organization.

Style:  the manner of putting thoughts into words; a characteristic way of writing or speaking.

Subordination: the couching of less important ideas in less important  structures of language.

Surrealism: a style in literature and painting that stresses the subconscious or the nonrational aspects of man’s existence characterized by the juxtaposition of the bizarre and the banal.

Suspension of Disbelief: suspend not believing in order to enjoy it.

Symbol: something which stands for something else, yet has a meaning of its own.

Synesthesia: the use of one sense to convey the experience of another sense.

Synecdoche: another form of name changing, in which a part stands for the whole.

Syntax: the arrangement and grammatical relations of words in a sentence.

Theme:  main idea of the story; its message(s).

Thesis: a proposition for consideration, especially one to be discussed and proved

or disproved; the main idea.

Tone: the devices used to create the mood and atmosphere of a literary work; the        

author’s perceived point of view.

Tongue in Cheek: a type of humor in which the speaker feigns seriousness; a.k.a. “dry” or “dead pan”

Tragedy: in literature: any composition with a somber theme carried to a disastrous conclusion; a fatal event; protagonist usually is heroic but tragically (fatally) flawed

Understatement: opposite of hyperbole; saying less than you mean for emphasis

Vernacular: everyday speech

Voice:  The textual features, such as diction and sentence structures, that convey a writer’s or speaker’s pesona.

Zeitgeist: the feeling

Isaac Asimov Essay

write a brief essay describing how the love of learning can inspire a vision of the future.


     "Now a days, what people call learning is forced on you and everyone is forced to learn the same thing on the same day at the same speed.." Isaac Asimov's quote portrayed above is the reason why individuals now a days tend to dislike learning and school. Because schooling is based on a common core curriculum, some individuals like school and some hate it with a passion. Every individual that attends a school is subjected to learn how the school districts want the students to learn. The students aren't given hardly any say in how the education should be ran or circulated. I believe that school should not be based on a common core curriculum because of the fact that everyone is different in the ways they learn, obtain knowledge, and express themselves. If school was formed in a way that it granted individuals the ability to focus on subjects they are appreciative of and that they care for, then students would have a greater passion and love for schooling. It would ignite our participation in our educational activities, spark our love for education, and overall make educational facilities a better, more comfortable place for everyone. If we were given the chance to study what we love in the school place, our love for education would greatly increase and also inspire a vision of the future. Whether a student is infatuated in baseball and wants to create a technological advance in the baseball industry or if one is passionate about the plantation of organic crops and wants to make an advance their, there will always be an inspiring vision of the future when we are given the chance to study what we are passionate about.

    Another wise quote said by the magnificent Isaac Asimov, "The number of teachers is far greater than the number of good teachers," is another reason why the love for education is not as high as it should be and the inspiration of a vision of the future is limited to only those individuals who have a general passion for education. Ordinary teachers who follow the "ordinary classroom procedures and rituals" are no fun and we all know that. If more teachers followed the not so ordinary classroom procedures and neglected the common core curriculum, more students would love school. If more teachers were like Dr. Preston and allowed students to have more freedom and say in the classroom, our love for school and our visions for the future would be greater than ever. Not only could it potentially lead to an innovation and revolution in education, but it could possible start a new genre of learning in school places. All students like my peers and me want is more freedom, say, and flexibility in the classroom. If more teachers realized this and granted their students this, the advances in education, visions of the future, and love for education would be outrageous. 
     
     All in all, I think that if teachers and staff who are employed at educational facilities became more "unordinary" and more flexible in the classrooms, then the students love, passion for school and their creative visions of our near future would ignite a revolution in the school place and educational facilities. If students could study material they are passionate about, our future would be in line for a great, new innovational beginning.

Aldous Huxley

While looking up some articles to read about Aldous Huxley, I came across this sight filled with some of the best quotes I have ever read. These quotes were directly obtained from the man, Aldous Huxley, himself. I strongly suggest who ever is reading this to check the link out and look over his inspirational, amazing quotes! Enjoy!

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/a/aldous_huxley.html



There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that's your own self.
 -Aldous Huxley

Uncontrolled, the hunger and thirst after God may become an obstacle, cutting off the soul from what it desires. If a man would travel far along the mystic road, he must learn to desire God intensely but in stillness, passively and yet with all his heart and mind and strength.  -Aldous Huxley

Lit Terms List 5

Parallelism: the principle in sentence structure that states elements of equal function should have equal form.

Parody:  an imitation of mimicking of a composition or of the style of a well-known artist.

Pathos:  the ability in literature to call forth feelings of pity, compassion, and/or sadness.

Pedantry: a display of learning for its own sake.

Personification: a figure of speech attributing human qualities to inanimate objects or  abstract ideas.

Plot: a plan or scheme to accomplish a purpose.

Poignant:  eliciting sorrow or sentiment.

Point of View: the attitude unifying any oral or written argumentation; in description, the physical point from which the observer views what he is describing.

Postmodernism: literature characterized by experimentation, irony, nontraditional forms, multiple meanings, playfulness and a blurred boundary between real and imaginary.

Prose:  the ordinary form of spoken and written language; language that does not have a regular rhyme pattern.

Protagonist: the central character in a work of fiction; opposes antagonist.

Pun:  play on words; the humorous use of a word emphasizing different meanings or applications.

Purpose: the intended result wished by an author.

Realism:  writing about the ordinary aspects of life in a straightfoward manner to reflect life as it actually is.

Refrain:  a phrase or verse recurring at intervals in a poem or song; chorus.

Requiem:  any chant, dirge, hymn, or musical service for the dead.

Resolution: point in a literary work at which the chief dramatic complication is worked out; denouement.

Restatement: idea repeated for emphasis.

Rhetoric: use of language, both written and verbal in order to persuade.

Rhetorical Question: question suggesting its own answer or not requiring an answer; used in argument or persuasion.

LIT TERMS LISTS 2-4

#2

Circumlocution: a roundabout or evasive speech or writing, in which many words are used but a few would have served

Classicism: art, literature, and music reflecting the principles of ancient Greece and Rome: tradition, reason, clarity, order, and balance

Cliché: a phrase or situation overused within society

Climax: the decisive point in a narrative or drama; the pint of greatest intensity or interest at which plot question is answered or resolved

Colloquialism: folksy speech, slang words or phrases usually used in informal conversation

Comedy: originally a nondramatic literary piece of work that was marked by a happy ending; now a term to describe a ludicrous, farcical, or amusing event designed provide enjoyment or produce smiles and laughter

Conflict: struggle or problem in a story causing tension

Connotation: implicit meaning, going beyond dictionary definition

Contrast: a rhetorical device by which one element (idea or object) is thrown into opposition to another for the sake of emphasis or clarity

Denotation: plain dictionary definition

Denouement (pronounced day-new-mahn): loose ends tied up in a story after the climax, closure, conclusion

Dialect: the language of a particular district, class or group of persons; the sounds, grammar, and diction employed by people distinguished from others.

Dialectics: formal debates usually over the nature of truth.

Dichotomy: split or break between two opposing things.

Diction: the style of speaking or writing as reflected in the choice and use of words.

Didactic: having to do with the transmission of information; education.

Dogmatic: rigid in beliefs and principles.

Elegy: a mournful, melancholy poem, especially a funeral song or lament for the dead, sometimes contains general reflections on death, often with a rural or pastoral setting.

Epic: a long narrative poem unified by a hero who reflects the customs, mores, and aspirations of his nation of race as he makes his way through legendary and historic exploits, usually over a long period of time (definition bordering on circumlocution).

Epigram: witty aphorism.

#3

Exposition: beginning of a story that sets forth facts, ideas, and/or characters, in a detailed explanation.

 Expressionism: movement in art, literature, and music consisting of unrealistic  representation of an inner idea or feeling(s).

 Fable: a short, simple story, usually with animals as characters, designed to teach a moral truth.

 Fallacy: from Latin word “to deceive”, a false or misleading notion, belief, or argument; any kind of erroneous reasoning that makes arguments unsound.

 Falling Action: part of the narrative or drama after the climax.

 Farce: a boisterous comedy involving ludicrous action and dialogue.

 Figurative Language: apt and imaginative language characterized by figures of speech (such as metaphor and simile).

 Flashback: a narrative device that flashes back to prior events.

 Foil: a person or thing that, by contrast, makes another seem better or more prominent.

 

Folk Tale: story passed on by word of mouth.

 Foreshadowing: in fiction and drama, a device to prepare the reader for the outcome of the action; “planning” to make the outcome convincing, though not to give it away.

 Free Verse: verse without conventional metrical pattern, with irregular pattern or no rhyme.

 Genre: a category or class of artistic endeavor having a particular form, technique, or content.

 Gothic Tale: a style in literature characterized by gloomy settings, violent or grotesque action, and a mood of decay, degeneration, and decadence.

 Hyperbole: an exaggerated statement often used as a figure of speech or to prove a point.

 Imagery: figures of speech or vivid description, conveying images through any of the senses.

 Implication: a meaning or understanding that is to be arrive at by the reader but that is not fully and explicitly stated by the author.

 Incongruity: the deliberate joining of opposites or of elements that are not appropriate to each other.

 Inference: a judgement or conclusion based on evidence presented; the forming of an opinion which possesses some degree of probability according to facts already available.

 Irony: a contrast or incongruity between what is said and what is meant, or what is expected to happen and what actually happens, or what is thought to be happening and what is actually happening.

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Interior Monologue: a form of writing which represents the inner thoughts of a character; the recording of the internal, emotional experience(s) of an individual; generally the reader is given the impression of overhearing the interior monologue.

Inversion: words out of order for emphasis.

Juxtaposition: the intentional placement of a word, phrase, sentences of paragraph to contrast with another nearby.

Lyric: a poem having musical form and quality; a short outburst of the author’s innermost thoughts and feelings.

Magic(al) Realism:  a genre developed in Latin America which juxtaposes the everyday  with the marvelous or magical.

Metaphor(extended, controlling, and mixed): an analogy that compare two different

things imaginatively.

Extended: a metaphor that is extended or developed as far as the writer

wants to take it.

Controlling: a metaphor that runs throughout the piece of work.

Mixed: a metaphor that ineffectively blends two or more analogies.

Metonymy:  literally “name changing” a device of figurative language in which the name of an attribute or associated thing is substituted for the usual name of a thing.

Mode of Discourse:  argument (persuasion), narration, description, and exposition.

Modernism:  literary movement characterized by stylistic experimentation, rejection of tradition, interest in symbolism and psychology

Monologue:  an extended speech by a character in a play, short story, novel, or narrative poem.

Mood:  the predominating atmosphere evoked by a literary piece.

Motif:  a recurring feature (name, image, or phrase) in a piece of literature.

Myth:  a story, often about immortals, and sometimes connected with religious rituals, that attempts to give meaning to the mysteries of the world.

Narrative:  a story or description of events.

Narrator:  one who narrates, or tells, a story.

Naturalism: extreme form of realism.

Novelette/Novella: short story; short prose narrative, often satirical.

Omniscient Point of View:  knowing all things, usually the third person.

Onomatopoeia: use of a word whose sound in some degree imitates or suggests its

meaning.

Oxymoron: a figure of speech in which two contradicting words or phrases are combined to produce a rhetorical effect by means of a concise paradox.

Pacing:  rate of movement; tempo.

Parable:  a story designed to convey some religious principle, moral lesson, or general truth.

Paradox:  a statement apparently self-contradictory or absurd but really containing a possible truth; an opinion contrary to generally accepted ideas.