Unit THR33 Dark Romanticism and Realism

ELAALRL4 The student employs a variety of writing genres to demonstrate a comprehensive grasp of significant ideas in selected literary works. The student composes essays, narratives, poems, or technical documents.


I think it means that a student should be able to understand and create different types of writings depending on the genre, and be able to write in that style, given that they understand it. In order to do this i would need to read and understand different types of writing and be able to construct some of my own.

DARK ROMANTICISM

I think that me personally would fall underneath the dark romantics slot. I feel this way because I don't necessarily believe that god is the little voice in my head, and that everyone is pure. I tend to lean the other way because not 100% of people have good intentions or a good conscious.

Hop-Frog

Hop-Frog was a good example of Dark Romanticism because the whole thing basically is a plot of revenge. You could see the evil in more than one person in this story. The one that really stuck out was after the king pushed Tripetta and threw his goblet at her.

"It was interrupted by a low, but harsh and protracted grating sound which seemed to come at once from every corner of the room."

This is the part where Hop-Frog makes it apparent that he is enraged by the kings action. This is the part where you start to see some Dark Romanticism, his rage. The transcendentalists believed that god spoke through your conscious, this cant apply here because why would god want Hop-Frog to feel this way?

The Raven

The Raven was a good example of Dark Romanticism because it was a rather chilling story to red and it felt as if there was evil with in the story, a sort of torment. In the beginning of the story he is obviously distraught. Later you find that someone close to him has died and hes so upset that he wants to get his mind off of it. The rest of the story goes on about there being a raven and his feelings generally stay the same throughout.

But the raven, sitting lonely on that placid bust, spoke only that one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.Nothing further then he uttered; not a feather then he fluttered;Till I scarcely more than muttered, "Other friends have flown before;On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before."Then the bird said, "Nevermore."

I pulled out this part of The Raven because it shows the anti-transdentalistic characteristic of this poem. Poe is feeling dread and an misery. Nothing is making him feel any better at all, while the raven is actually making him feel worse. He is basically being tormented by the voice in his head, or if the bird was actually real, then nature itself. The bird is telling him that he wont go away. The voice of dread and misery wont leave him.

The Symbol

Poe's symbol for this poem is when the raven lands on the bust of Pallas. Pallas, representing wisdom and knowledge, is being shrouded by the ravens gloomy dreadful presence. It's an understanding of how he feels at this point in time because the knowledge and wisdom are supposed to represent Poe as a whole.

Realism

"The Story of an Hour" Kate Chopin

This was an interesting story that took me a while to understand the whole meaning. Mrs. Mallard was sad that her husband died, but not long after she was happy about being free from the idea of being bound to a marriage. The part that stuck out to me was when her husband was supposedly dead, only then was she truly happy.

"There stood, facing the open window, a comfortable, roomy armchair. Into this she sank, pressed down by a physical exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her soul."

I pulled this out of the writing because it represents realism, you don't really need to imagine this at all because its so brilliantly laid out there for you to understand how lethargic the room is. I think that Kate wants to show that when people lose a loved one it can be catastrophic towards your emotions, like the fact that she was getting married, when she found out her husband was dead she didn't know what to think.

'The Battle With Mr. Covey" Fredrick Douglass

In the battle with Mr. Covey, a couple of slaves were fanning wheat. while doing so a young slave (Fredrick Douglass) didn't feel very well. He got dizzy and fatigued to the point where he needed a minute to recover. The minute he stopped work Mr. Covey (the guy in charge) heard the fan stop and immediately showed up. The other workers vouched for Fredrick and told Mr. Covey that he had gone to lay down. Fredrick explained everything to Mr. Covey but he wasn't about to let that go down. Mr. Covey gave Fredrick a savage beat down.

"I was exceedingly feeble; made so as much by the kicks and blows which I received, as by the severe fit of sickness to which i had been subjected."

This quote paints a mental picture of how miserable he was, how he was fighting off a sickness but he also had to deal with a racist guy beating him. This is evidence of realism because you don't really have to imaging what it would be like, he tells you exactly how miserable he was.

Realism

My example of realism would be in the book, The Grapes Of Wrath. The social issue for this example is where the Joad family packed up their truck and went to find work because the big corporations basically took everything from the people in Oklahoma. The idea of realism in this book is where food is purposefully destroyed to keep the price higher.

"...In front of her tent, the woman still looked at her shattered hand. Little droplets of blood began to ooze from the wound. And a chuckling hysteria began in her throat, a whining laugh that grew louder and higher with each breath."

This gives you an idea of realism because you don't have to be there to get an idea how it went down. Ive never been in this situation, and the way its been described I don't feel that I have to have been there to know what this certain situation is like.

12. Explain (with DIRECT EVIDENCE FROM YOUR OWN WORK) how you have met (or exceeded) at least two of the standards listed below.

ELAALRL1 The student demonstrates comprehension by identifying evidence (i.e., examples of diction, imagery, point of view, figurative language, symbolism, plot events and main ideas) in a variety of texts representative of different genres (i.e., poetry, prose [short story, novel, essay, editorial, biography], and drama) and using this evidence as the basis for interpretation.

Ive met this standard when I was working on "The Raven", in the poem there was a symbol of a raven landing on a bust of Pallas. I used evidence and interpreted the meaning.

ELAALRL3 The student deepens understanding of literary works by relating them to their contemporary context or historical background, as well as to works from other time periods.

I have met this standard because i made a reference to The Grapes Of Wrath when I was working on the Realism section of this unit. This book being in a relatively older time period, i used it to support the idea of Realism.

Unit Dos

NATURE by Ralph Waldo Emerson





This piece of writing caught my attention in a couple different ways. It was a bit hard to understand in a couple places but overall I think it was pretty interesting. It was very descriptive about the woods and the feeling that the author got from being outdoors. There are several places where you would be able to pick out some transcendentalistic traits from the excerpt. The number one connection i could make was on page 221 of the literature book, it states "In the woods, we return reason and faith. There i feel that nothing can befall me in life-


no disgrace, no calamity, (leaving me my eyes), which nature cannot repair. I think it related to transcendentalism because it was talking about how being in the woods made him feel as if nothing in life could befall him, it returned him to not only reason but faith.





This is a good example of Transcendentalism because they believed that god spoke through the beauty and feel of nature as well as through the hard work of people. I feel that he was trying to connect with the "oversoul." This was a lot about nature and I think the particular point he was trying to make was that god speaks through nature.



SELF-RELIANCE by Ralph Waldo Emerson



This writing was very unclear to me at first, but with some explanation I started to gradually understand the main point that Emerson was striving to get across. In a nutshell, he says to rely on your own judgement and feelings rather than to conform like the rest of society. He is saying that instead of being part of the corrupt body as a whole, be your own person, rely on the voice in your own mind. This stuck out to me because this is how I feel in some ways. This reminds me of peer pressure in a way, people could be doing something that you don't particularly think is a good idea, you can either conform, or do what you think is right.



"These are the voices which we hear in solitude, but they grow faint and inaudible as we enter into the world. Society everywhere is in a conspiracy against manhood of every one of its members".

I pulled out this piece of the writing because it has a lot to do with one of the key factors of transcendentalism. It touches on how people in society don't listen to this "inside" voice, this voice of god. It is stating that people would rather be like everyone else than to make their own individual seemingly correct choices.