Sarah Ganzenmuller AP Lit Summer Blog Post #5

Gilead: Blog 1

Sarah Ganzenmuller 

Friday, August 29, 2014

Due to the fact that the book Gilead by Marilynne Robinson is a lengthy well thought out letter written by Reverend John Ames of his life history, addressed to his son in anticipation of his death, one thing becomes immediately evident. It is clear that John, the narrator, cares a great deal about family, and developing deep connections and a profound relationship with his son, similar to the one he and his own father had. When addressing his father he has nothing but the uttermost respect and admiration, looking up to him as both a man and priest. This strong father-son relationship directly effects the readers understanding of his character.

When Edward, the narrators older brother, came home after going away for a while he claimed that believing in god was childish. This was nearly a direct insult to both boys father, a devoted priest whose life centered around his religion. The narrator recalled that after Edwards eviction his mother told him, “If you ever spoke to your father that way, it would kill him”(Robinson 27). To this he soon remarked “In fact, my thought was always to defend my father. I believe I have done just that,” (27). Understanding this family dynamic gives reason for Johns fervent pursuit of god driven by his intentions to please his father. John grew up to see what a disappointment, despite his extreme intelligence, Edward was to his father, who John soon swore he would do right by. This, above anything else, illuminates specifically Johns loyal character, and his devotion to the people he loves.

           Despite this obvious similarity John often fixates on the elusive differences between the two men’s approach to preaching. He accounts that his father preached from notes, while almost shamefully admits that he has to write his whole sermons out. John is amazed at his fathers ability to create the magnificent sermons he did given with such a powerful delivery on the spot. This accentuates Johns modesty in a rather subtle way. John constantly downplays his own significance, while giving his father all the credit in the world. Although John believes he has defended his father, it becomes clear that he doesn’t necessarily believe he has lived up to him, which through indirect references and stories is clearly not the case. This leads one to see the self doubt in John, which keeps him from ever expressing outright how special he really is. 

John sticks to his word, and follows in his father’s footsteps to grow up to be a minister, living by the same scriptures and principles. Religion played a predominate role in both mans life, effecting and persuading both men in ways nothing else would. Both felt a sense of commitment and obligation to God. John and his father are and were united by their pursuit of religion. When traveling together John recalls strangers immediately recognizing his father as a preacher. He describes their ability to identify his father immediately, and soon acknowledges that people do the same to him now, saying “And they could tell he was a preacher, rough-looking as we were a few days into our desert wanderings, as he called them(…) I have had the same experience many times, and I have wondered about it, too” (16). It is clear here that both men carry themselves in such away, exuding the same kind of light which separates them from the rest. 

         

John frequently recalls fond stories and memories he has of his father. One particular trip they took together to find his grandfather’s grave is mentioned often. He recollects the night they stood at the grave, admiring the alignment of the setting moon and rising sun. That night is father told him that everyone had the privilege to observe the same thing. John considers the situation and claims, “I realized my father would have meant that the sun and moon aligned themselves as they did with no special reference to the two of us. He never encouraged any talk about visions or miracles, except the ones in the Bible” (48). In other words this setting and rising of the sun and moon, something that was so magnificent and beautiful at the moment, something that seemed like a private show just for them, was no miracle. You can sense Johns resistance to this specific belief of his fathers more than anything else, but soon you find he succumbs to most everything his father tells him, as later it is claimed when preaching about miracles he said similar things to his dad. This little moment, and potential disgreement, though small and seemingly insignificant, shows that maybe there is a little more to John then he lets on. It is my belief that John had his own views on things that differed immensely from his dads, but they were quickly disregarded and set aside to please his father. This may be the one unhealthy tint in their relationship, as it may be Johns father had too much of an influence on him. This underlying complication is what shows maybe a weaker side to John, and his easily persuaded philosophies and lack of resistance to things deep down he might disagree with. 

Sarah Ganzenmuller AP Lit Summer Blog Post #4

Charming Billy: Blog 2 

Sarah Ganzenmuller

Wednesday, August 13, 2014

In Charming Billy, Alice McDermott successfully manages to create several well rounded, in depth characters. She uses many different technics to display their character through actions, their own words, and what other people say about them, their personality seems to come to life. Most of the men in the story have glowing, warm personalities that consume you whole. There is Billy, a fun loving, caring man, there is Dennis, loyal and compassionate, and then there is Dennis’ dad, ebullient, loquacious and generous. Yet the women are shed in a rather darker light, Dennis mom being harshly realistic and materialistic, looking to her second marriage as a sound investment, then there is Eva, Billy’s first true love, who kept the money he worked hard for instead of using it to travel back to the states and see him. Whether good or bad, all of these characters are blooming with some sort of spirit or individuality, whether they ooze warmth or something colder they have many moving parts, can be unpredictable, and looked at from many different points of view. And then there is Maeve.

Maeve is constantly described as plain and boring. The lack of personality she encompasses is almost frustrating. Yet she is terribly misunderstood, and not given enough credit by those who surround her. The one testimony to her character is her courage, “but the courage it took to look out onto life from a face as plain as butter: pale, downy skin and bland blue eyes, faded brown hair cut short as a nuns and dimmed with gray. Only a touch of powder and of lipstick, only a wedding band and a small pearl ring for adornment.” (McDermott 5) This simplicity is evidently by choice. If she wore more red lipstick, kept her hair long, wore bolder jewelry her supposed dullness would quickly be adverted. Yet flashy isn’t something Maeve aspired to be. Attention was simply not something she craved. While the author describes her features in a rather monotonous way, pale skin is beautiful, and brown hair and blue eyes as well. Maeve didn’t believe she deserved to be beautiful, and I also believe she didn’t believe she deserved to be truly loved. People say that we accept the love we think we deserve, and this is exactly Maeve’s case. She grew up with a drunken father, one who didn’t treat her as well as he should have. She then married another drunkard, wonderful as he was, Billy was inevitably broken, and Maeve knew it. But she was perfectly happy to love him even if she didn’t necessarily receive the same type of love in return, because this wasn’t something she was used to, it wasn’t something she thought possible. She spent her life taking care and loving others, never expecting anything in return.    

Another thing the other characters failed to marvel at was her sheer determination. After countless nights of dragging both her incoherent father and husband into their beds, she remained balanced, stable. Even her determination to win Billy over was something. She admitted to tossing her fathers shoes down an incinerator more than once just to have an excuse to go to the shoe store and see him. She even took a trip by herself, a true indication of her bravery, so she could see Billy. Yet through all of the tragedy in Maeve’s life with her mother dying, her father and then husband’s alcoholism she remains, on the outside, unaffected. She keeps her emotions bottled up, barely crying at Billy’s funeral. After the funeral at Maeve’s house Dennis takes the dog from a walk, and his return causes quite a stir. Maeve mistakes Dennis for Billy returning home, and finally she lets go of all of the emotions she grasped so tightly, yet she is still described as stark. “Maeve shook her head, her hand now on her heart. ‘I thought it was Billy,’ she said a third time. Even the bit of lipstick shed worn earlier in the day was gone and her simple housecoat was colorless, white and beige. She seemed as plain as a blank page.” (168) Following this Maeve cries, and proceeds to throw up, soon launching into stories about Billy. It seems extremely unfair to label Maeve as this plain dull thing, when she expressed so much emotion. It gets me frustrated and annoyed, and I sympathize for Maeve and how misunderstood she is. This is exactly what McDermott wants. Strategically by overemphasizing Maeve’s plainness she illuminates what makes her so special, and interesting. She makes you feel for her in ways you may not have had she just given you Maeve’s true description herself.  And thankfully, after a rather depressing book, it ends on a nice note. Dennis and Maeve soon realize that it was more than just their deep, unedifying love for Billy that bound them together. It was right under our nose the whole time, Dennis and Maeve’s compatibility shown during the many nights Dennis would help Maeve lift Billy off the floor. Finally Maeve found a love that could lift her up rather than drag her down. 

Sarah Ganzenmuller AP Lit Summer Blog Post #3

Charming Billy: Blog 1

Sarah Ganzenmuller

Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Swiftly and effortlessly within the first couple of pages of Charming Billy Alice McDermott manages to grasp ahold of her readers by both toying with their curiosity and taking full advantage of suspension. She uses descriptive imagery and figurative language to eloquently describe the scene of the funeral which unfolds before your eyes as a sort of mystery due to the fact you are left in the dark for a considerable amount of time about who it is who actually died, and how. Her purpose is to fully engage her readers from the very first page, gaining their loyalty through her exquisite and detailed descriptions yet tactfully leave them wanting more so they read on. When she finally does give them something to hold on to, a name and a reason, Billy, who died because he was an alcoholic, she still leaves room for further explanation. This is necessary because rather than having the focal point of the book be towards the middle, she puts the climax at the beginning and works her way from there. She leaves you wanting to know more about Billy, his life, and the reasons behind his alcohol addiction. Her technique is particularly clear in the following quote on page 7, as the passage contributed immensely to the readers desire to learn more.

“And if you loved him, we all knew, you pleaded with him at some point. Or you drove him to AA, waited outside the church till the meeting was over, and drove him home again. Or you advanced him whatever you could afford so he could travel to Ireland to take the pledge. If you loved him, you took his car keys away, took his incoherent phone calls after midnight. You banished him from your house until he could show up sober. You saw the bloodied scraps of flesh he coughed up into his drinks. If you loved him you told him at some point that he was killing himself and felt the way his indifference ripped through your affection.”

            The most evident rhetorical strategy used here is parallelism. The whole entire paragraph consists of sentence similarly structured to give what McDermott is saying more power. Because she carries this parallelism throughout the quote it almost seems although it is more of a poem than a piece of writing. She does this through her repetition and progression of the start of each sentence which goes from  “if you loved him” to “or you”  followed by “you” and finally, looping back to the original beginning “if you loved him”.

           

            McDermott also successfully appeals to your emotions here, in a couple of different ways. By showing how people cared for Billy you in turn grow to care for him yourself, because you cant help but to feel if others went through all this trouble for him he must have been worth it. That is the very purpose of the many small sentences of the different things people did for him placed together. It has a lengthening effect making it seem like an extensive list, successfully gaining the readers sympathy and appreciation. The gruesome detail of the bloodied scraps of flesh Billy coughed up into his drinks also provides as a shocking appeal to ones emotions, but in a different way. This the readers would most likely find appalling, yet it gains sympathy for Billy once again. The final sentence to the quote is a killer. “If you loved him you told him at some point that he was killing himself and felt the way his indifference ripped through your affection.” Now that McDermott has got you hooked on Billy, convinced of his worthiness and wonderfulness, leaving you grieving over his troubles you are suddenly hit with the little fact that Billy didn’t care if he lived or died. This has the reader completely hooked, because now they need to figure out why. Why did death not fear Billy? What horrible things happened to him that allowed him to see death as a comfort rather than something to run from? These are questions McDermott leaves you wondering. These are the questions that propel you into the remainder of the book, hungry to understand.

Sarah Ganzenmuller AP Lit Summer Blog Post #2

The Scarlet Letter: Blog 2 

Sarah Ganzenmuller
Wednesday, July 16, 2014

           Motivations/Outcomes of Hester Prynne and its meaning:

Though I was at first tempted to examine and expose Roger Chillingworth's evil characters motives, I realized no matter how in depth one would try to interpret his actions they would find nothing but a cold hearted soul thirsty for revenge. His deformed body mirrors his distorted soul, and he is quite blatantly the antagonist of the story. In contrast to Chillingworth's consistently cruel character, Hester embodies a whole different characterization. Ones who's motives are not necessarily always clear, one who cannot be defined in one way due to her persona being more liquid than solid as she is constantly developing and changing throughout the story. 

           

Hester is described in the first scaffold scene when at trial for committing adultery as a young woman with a "figure of perfect elegance on a large scale. She had dark and abundant hair, so glossy that it threw off the sunshine with a gleam, and a face which, besides being beautiful from regularity of feature and richness of complexion, has the impressiveness belonging to a marked brow and deep black eyes”(Hawthorne 46). Those who knew her previously who had expected and no doubt hoped out of jealousy to behold her dimmed and obscured by her misfortunes were astonished to find how her beauty shone out of the humiliation in which she was enveloped. Just in this first scene, Hawthorne manages with physical appearance alone to prove Hester different than most. She quite admirably accepts her fate and though ashamed of her sin goes about her dishonor with a sense of pride and dignity. This is verified when she refuses to announce who the perpetrator is, not revealing who she slept with. Despite having nothing to lose and maybe even something to gain from the unveiling of her fellow sinner, as he would prove company in exile, she burdens herself with loneliness and the secret.

       

  While it takes a great deal of courage to bear this kind of exile alone, one might also observe Hester’s refusal to expose Mr. Dimmesdale as an act of submissiveness. As the book takes place in the seventeenth-century puritan Massachusetts when women were considered inferior to men, it is very possible that Hester simply felt while she owed the man who abandoned her the world, while she owed herself nothing. I can’t help but to feel Hester should be infuriated with Mr. Dimmesdale for leaving her to face her sin alone, yet she remains indifferent. In fact, towards the end of the book she even flings herself at the minister’s feet crying, ”Thou shalt forgive me! Let god punish! Thou shalt forgive!” (161) This scene proves to be a shocking revelation to the reality of the situation. Mr. Dimmesdale should have been begging for her forgiveness, yet she begs it of him. This shows how weak she truly is despite the many years of humiliation, which up until this point had convincingly seemed to make her stronger. Her daughter Pearl is of a different nature. Wise beyond her years, and feeling no inferiority to men or anybody for that matter, she refuses to embrace Mr. Dimmesdale until he stands beside her and her mother. While she makes this claim a literal one, it can be taken symbolically as her urging him to confess his sin, and calling him out for not standing beside them sooner. 

 Pearl serves as a beacon of hope, and a light for Hester throughout the story, giving Hester’s tragic life a purpose. Pearls presence directly affects her mother, giving her the strength to carry on with integrity and good nature. In time people forget the sin committed by Hester, and instead they marvel at her many acts of goodwill. The A, standing for Adulterer that is supposed to dishonor Hester soon looses its significance, and even changes for some, “They said that it meant Able; so strong was Hester Prynne, with a women’s strength” (134). Pearls important role in her mother’s determination to do good by others becomes apparent in her response to Mistress Hibbins invitation to join a meeting of witches who praise the devil. Hester replied, “ I must tarry home, and keep watch over my little Pearl. Had they taken her from me, I would willingly have gone with thee into the forest, and signed my name in the Black Man’s book too, and that with mine own blood!”(97) With these words it becomes clear that Hesters motivation is solely her beautiful daughter. Strangely enough, Hester never seems to worry too much about Gods perception of her and though tainted by others judgments is not concerned with impressing the townsfolk. She devotes her time to charity not for herself, not for her reputation, but for Pearl. “Hesters nature showed itself warm and rich; a well-spring of human tenderness, unfailing to every real demand, and inexhaustible by the largest. Her breast, with its badge of shame, was but the softer pillow for the head that needed one” (133). In the end it is speculated that Pearl lived far from the town she grew up in with a husband and a happy family. Giving Pearl the fairytale ending her mother only dreamt about, Hawthorne makes two points. One is you are not defined by where you come from, even if it is sin. The other being dedication pays off, as Hester’s little Pearl gets everything she could have wanted for her and more.

When Hester grows old, she moves back to New England without Pearl. There she stays until her death. Her ending is a much happier one than that of both Mr. Dimmesdale and Chillingworth. Those characters tragic outcomes prove as a warning given by Hawthorne to his readers. Revenge leaves you with nothing, and secrets eat you alive. Though I am sure Hester wished her sin wasn’t discovered at the time, this discovery is what ultimately saved her. While Hester claimed, “always this dreadful agony in feeling a human eye upon the token; the spot never grew callous; it seemed, on the contrary, to grow more sensitive with daily torture”(72) this very symbol which inflicted so much pain, is what subsequently saved her soul. Instead of Hester’s sin manifesting itself in deep into her heart, as it did with Mr. Dimmesdale, poisoning him, she felt an outward pain, something more bearable, one much less destructive. Having the ability to prosper through her suffering, Hester becomes something of a legend in the colony of Boston. Even those put into the worst of circumstances can remember her legend and hope to see better days.