Friday, August 28, 2009

Paradise Lost Questions

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1. After his defeat, Satan is now tortured by lost happiness and lasting pain that accompanies being forced to live in Hell for all eternity.

2.
a) Satan means that his attitude, and any other fallen angel’s, will allow them to preserve their horrible conditions because they can make a horrid place livable.

b) It shows Satan’s optimism and his passion to avenge God. Even though he is stuck in the most wretched places, he finds the good in it.

3.
a) Satan wants to avenge God with the help of all the other fallen angels, who will seek their vengeance also. Satan wants to govern Hell benevolently.

b) These plans are a cliffhanger for the rest of the books in Paradise Lost. At this moment, it appears that Satan will try to battle God again, and there may potentially be other battles with the other, less prominent fallen angels. These climaxes create excitement in the reader, and thus suspense.

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich Day 3 Group Presentation

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“There was a time when the camp commandant had issued yet another order: on no account were prisoners to walk about the camp on their own. Wherever possible, a squad was to go in-tact. . . . The camp commandant took a very firm stand on that order. No one dared contradict him. The guards picked up solitary prisoners, took down their numbers, yanked them off to the cells—yet the order was a flop. It flopped quietly, like many much-touted orders. . . . With that rule of his the commandant would have robbed them of their last shred of freedom, but it didn’t work out, much as he tried, the fat pig.”

• Theme — The illogicality of the Soviet regime. The Soviets attempt to control their citizens’ lives in a totalitarian manner to make them more productive—collective action is a corner-stone of communism—but is in the end despised and voided. The author’s use of described it as “another order” shows how there were many superfluous rules in the camp and in So-viet society. Also, the fact that the prisoners could not leave the camp but they are forced to travel in groups shows the superfluities of the Soviet regime. The commandant tries to rob the zeks of their last piece of freedom, similar to actions taken in the Soviet Union to control the citizens’ lives. Tone — The order’s failure is ascribed in negative tone, as the “fat pig[‘s]” attempt to “rob” their “freedom” is met with resentment.

• Symbol — The commandant is viewed as the Soviet leader (at this time, Stalin). He takes firm stances on seemingly superfluous orders, just like how Stalin ordered for the purging of millions of “enemies.” The commandant tries to take away the zeks’ freedom much like how Stalin attempted to create a totalitarian state to manage his citizens’ lives.

• Syntax — The short phrases connected by commas to show the swiftness of action taken by the guards. The dash after the succinct description of the prisoner’s capture shows the con-trast between what was expected to what actually happened.

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich Day 2 Group Presentation

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Tiurin’s discharge from the Soviet Army because his father was a kulak was a severe crime in the Soviet Union. Just as Tiurin’s discharge was unfair because it was unpreventable, so was the massacre of the kulaks. The kulaks were wealthy landowners who symbolized capitalism. They were also defined as hiring labor, owning a kind of processing equipment, renting out agricul-tural equipment, or involving in trade, money-lending, or commercial brokerage. In his attempt to strengthen the Soviet Union’s agriculture and rid these class enemies, Stalin had the farms collectivized into kolkhozes, but the kulaks rebelled against his orders. Many kulaks smashed implements and killed their livestock, while others attacked members and government officials. As a result, Stalin initiated dekulakization, or the liquidation of the kulaks as a class, on Decem-ber 27, 1929. All kulaks were divided into three categories: those who were shot or imprisoned as decided by the local secret political police, those who were sent to Siberia, North, the Urals, or Kazakhstan after confiscation of their property, and those who were to be evicted from their houses and used in labor colonies within their own districts. As many as 1.8 million peasants were deported in 1930 to 1931. However, with dekulakization (in addition to other policies), there was mass starvation in many parts of the Soviet Union and the death of at least 14.5 mil-lion peasants in 1930 to 1937. Another wave of persecution began in 1937.

Tiurin’s illogical discharge is similar to the other members of the Gulag. For instance, Shukhov was sentenced because he was forced to admit he was a spy even though he fought for the So-viets in World War II. Gopchik was sentenced because he was giving milk to Bendera’s men.

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich Day 1 Group Presentation

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I chose this song because it represents Shukhov’s plight and how the workers in the labor camp have to work hard. In this section, the 104th division has to go to a power station and then an auto-repair shop. Another group of men is digging holes in the frozen ground, a nearly impossi-ble feat. Also, the song talks about disillusionment after working hard, similar to how men in the working camp had a hard time returning to society or were kept at the labor camp.

As soon as you're born they make you feel small
By giving you no time instead of it all
Till the pain is so big you feel nothing at all
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be

They hurt you at home and they hit you at school
They hate you if you're clever and they despise a fool
Till you're so ------- crazy you can't follow their rules
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be

When they've tortured and scared you for twenty odd years
Then they expect you to pick a career
When you can't really function you're so full of fear
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be

Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV
And you think you're so clever and class less and free
But you're still ------- peasants as far as I can see
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be

There's room at the top they are telling you still
But first you must learn how to smile as you kill
If you want to be like the folks on the hill
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be
If you want to be a hero well just follow me
If you want to be a hero well just follow me

“Working Class Hero” by John Lennon

The Stranger Three Essay Prompts

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1. Using Seena’s happy face drawing as a base, the duality of Meursault’s life leads to further insight on the pieces of existentialism

2. Using Tim Hsu’s chemistry analogy as a base, Raymond can be characterized as a character that is the catalyst to Meursault’s transformation.

3. Using Ashwin and Tim Bui’s skit as an example, Meursault’s argument with the chaplain can be seen as his culmination of existential thought.

The Stranger Part 2 Question

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When Meursault sees himself in jail, it serves as a wake-up call to his meaningless, much the same way people who use drugs look at the mirror and realize their barbarity. This is because when the person looks at himself or herself, the person sees what he or she has be-come and reacts against it. After being jailed, Meursault lives a life normal to what he had been before. However, when he sees himself in the mirror and attempts to smile but can-not, it shows that his life has really changed into meaninglessness. When he was free, Meursault had the ability to smile but didn’t choose to; when he is in jail, he simply cannot. Meursault’s attempt to smile shows his misunderstanding of happiness; he tries to be happy without meaning and thus cannot be. In Meursault’s attempt to find meaning, he sees Marie as his reasoning, but since he is condemned, he will never be able to be with her. Meursault’s desperation at not being able to smile is intensified because it comes right be-fore he is to be executed. However, Meursault’s inability to smile shows the existentialism of life; in the end, it doesn’t matter whether a person smiles or not since everyone dies eventually. Meursault does not look in the mirror before because he knows that he looks the same all the time; he represents the first stage of existentialism where one does the same thing every day and increases their meaninglessness. However, when Meursault sees himself in the mirror in the jail, he reaches the low point in his angst where he truly sees the meaninglessness of life. Because of this, he enjoys his last few days alive watching the weather, what he truly likes.

The Stranger Part 1 Question

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In the first five chapters, the sun has a calming effect on Meursault. On the bus ride to his mom’s funeral, when one would most likely be grieving, Meursault is relaxed by the sun’s glare. Generally when he goes in to a room, he notices the amount of light in it, showing his level of detail with the sun. However, when it is night, Meursault becomes irritated. The weather is described vividly, and when he is happy, the sun is depicted as helping Meur-sault. During the funeral, the sun’s heat becomes inhuman and oppressive, showing how Meursault’s mood resonates with the weather. The weather provides a distraction for him and possibly a scapegoat to blame his other problems on. On the sunny beach, Meursault flirts with Marie and enjoys himself. After spending the night with Marie, Meursault relaxes by watching the clouds. In the dark, he meets his old and cynical neighbor Salamano. Meur-sault doesn’t like Paris because it has dark courtyards. In chapter six, the sun blinds him and is like a slap in the face, a reality check for him. At the beach with Masson, the pleasant, idyllic conditions used to describe the beach are a contrast to what actually happens. When Meursault, Raymond, and Masson take a walk on the beach, the sun’s glare blinds Meur-sault. The sun becomes more oppressive the second time Meursault and Raymond visit the Arabs. The sun’s glares and other signs of heat foreshadow Meursault’s killing of the Arab. On the third visit to the Arabs, the sun’s effects on the beach are described the most vividly in the novel, with many metaphors and personification. “Blinding halo of light” depicts the Arab as an angel. When the Arab pulls out his knife, the light that is reflected off of it is as much as a stab to Meursault as it was to Raymond. The light moved down Meursault’s fore-head to his eyes, and since the eyes are the main sense of perception, it causes him to react. At this time, the weather is described angrily. Meursault’s relationship with the sun is similar to the sun’s path in the day. The sun goes in a circle and rises and sets every day, just like Meursault’s day. When it is day, Meursault is happy, but when it is night, Meursault is not. Changes in this pattern contrast the expected reaction to the time, such as when Meursault kills the Arab in the day or when Meursault is with Marie at night. Because the sun rises every day but changes throughout the day, it represents existentialism. When the sun slaps Meursault in the face, it references Raymond slapping his mistress and the police officer slapping Raymond. Both are vicious acts, but the officer’s slapping is considered right. This dualistic view on slapping is similar to the sun on Meursault.

The Stranger Part 1 Question

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Marie is characterized as a young, hedonistic person who represents someone who has not seen the existentialism of life. Instead of trying to shape her own destiny, she regularly hooks up with Meursault and sits out in the sun all day. Camus uses her to expound of exis-tentialism and describe how hedonism is useless because in the end, everyone dies and there is no pleasure in that. Marie is the opposite of Mary from the Bible, who is angelic. Thus, her actions are intensified so that her pleasure-seeking ways are considered sinful. Sa-lamano is the complete opposite of Marie, though he has also has not seen the existential-ism of life. He has been walking his dog twice a day for eight years and has not changed his route ever. He symbolizes someone who does not realize the monotony of life and thus does not change it. Salamano’s naivety is also shown when he regularly kicks and swears at his dog. One would think that Salamano and his dog would come to accept one another after eight years, but they each are blind to reality. Salamano and his dog are both scabby, showing how they are very much alike. Salamano is also the opposite of his Biblical refer-ence, Solomon. Solomon is a wise king whereas Salamano is an old, depressed man. Both people are character foils to Meursault, who is the average of the two. He actively engages in hedonist activity with Marie, but sees the meaninglessness of life with his indifferent atti-tude towards his mother’s death. He represents existentialism exactly, being both apathetic towards life but also doing what he wants to do.

What is Existentialism?

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What: a philosophical movement begun in the 19th century that denies that the universe has any intrinsic meaning or purpose. It requires people to take responsibility for their own actions and shape their own destinies. Existentialists basically agree that human life is in no way com-plete and fully satisfying because of suffering and losses that occur when considering the lack of perfection, power, and control one has over their life. Even though they do agree that life is not optimally satisfying, it nonetheless has meaning. Existentialism is the search and journey for true self and true personal meaning in life. It is the arbitrary act that existentialism finds most objectionable-that is, when someone or society tries to impose or demand that their be-liefs, values, or rules be faithfully accepted and obeyed. Existentialists believe this destroys in-dividualism and makes a person become whatever the people in power desire thus they are dehumanized and reduced to being an object. Existentialism then stresses that a person’s judgment is the determining factor for what is to be believed rather than by arbitrary religious or secular world values.

Who: forerunners in Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger. Came to influence Sartre, de Beauvoir, Camus, Dostoyevsky, Kafka, and Marcel.

Why: false progress of technology, disillusionment with society. Existentialistic ideas came out of a time in society when there was a deep sense of despair following the Great Depression and World War II. There was a spirit of optimism in society that was destroyed by World War I and its mid-century calamities.

When: Term coined by Marcel around 1943, first discussed by Sartre in 1945. Became wide-spread in the 1970s, continues to be important to today.

A Room of One's Own Saturation Report Research

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A Room of One’s Own: Preface
• Book written at the same time as stock market crash: monetary issues were more important than feminism
• “genius needs freedom; it cannot flower if it is encumbered by fear, or rancor, or dependen-cy, and without money freedom is impossible” (viii)
• “women are poor because, instead of making money, they have children” (x)
• “women were betrothed in their cradles; they were married at fifteen; they bored a dozen children, and those children died, and they went on bearing children. Moreover, they were uneducated; they had no privacy” (x)
• “yet even when they were freed from the practical impediments imposed upon their sex, they could not write because they had no tradition to follow. No sentence had been shaped, by long labor, to express the experience of women” (x)
• “women’s writing has…been impoverished by the limited access women have had to life: what could the writing of George Eliot have been like…had Miss Evans fought in the Crimea” (x)
• “the novelist imaged by Woolf, a young woman named Mary Carmichael who has money and privacy has not achieved it in her first book…despite the deeply heartening sentences…Mary Carmichael is a good novelist; she writes with spirit; she has many new and interesting things to say. But she is not a genius” (xi) — Woolf disproves her thesis
• “she had felt cheated in her education” (xiii)

A Room of One’s Own
• “a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction” (4)
• Money is used to keep the existing order of all superior classes
• “the wineglasses had flushed yellow and flushed crimson; had been emptied; had been filled” (11)
• “one could almost do without dinner after such a luncheon” (13)
• “here was my soup…” (17)
• “a good dinner is of great importance to good talk. One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well” (18)
• “all that [gold and silver] lies beneath the colleges down there [Oxbridge]” (19)
• “and it was only after a long struggle and with the utmost difficult that they got thirty thou-sand pounds together…But considering how few people really wish women to be educated, it is a good deal…So obviously we [the Fernham scholars] cannot have wine and partridges and servants carrying tin dishes on their heads…we cannot have sofas and separate rooms” (20)
• “if she [Mary Seton’s mother] had left two or three hundred thousand pounds to Fernham, we could have been sitting at our ease tonight and the subject of our talk might have been archaeology, botany…” (21)
• “only, if Mrs. Seton and her like had gone into business at the age of fifteen, there would have been…no Mary” (21–2)
• “to endow a college would necessitate the suppression of families altogether. Making a for-tune and bearing thirteen children—no human being could stand it” (22)
• “in the first place, to earn money was impossible for them [older generations of women], and in the second, had it been possible, the law denied them the right to posses what money they earned” (22)
• “England is under the rule of a patriarchy…His [a professor] was the power and the money and the influence…He left millions to charities and colleges that were ruled by himself” (33–4)
• “of the two—the vote and the money—the money…seemed infinitely the more important” (37)
• “indeed my aunt’s legacy unveiled the sky to me, and substituted for the large and imposing figure of a gentleman” (39)
• “is the charwoman who has brought up eight children of less value to the world than the bar-rister who has made a hundred thousand pounds…we have no rods with which to measure them even as they are at the moment” (40)
• “by no possible means could middle-class women with nothing but brains and character at their command have taken part in any one of the great movements” (44–5)
• “it is unthinkable that any woman in Shakespeare’s day should have had Shakespeare’s ge-nius. For genius like Shakespeare’s is not born among labouring, uneducated, servile people…It is not born today among the working classes” (48)
• “to have a room of her [a woman] own…was out of the question, unless her parents were ex-ceptionally rich or very noble, even up to the beginning of the nineteenth century” (52)
• “one would expect to find a lady of title meeting with far greater encouragement than an un-known” (58)
• “Mrs. Behn was…forced by the death of her husband and some unfortunate adventures of her own to make her living by her wits. She had to work on equal terms with men…Aphra Behn proved that money could be made by writing at the sacrifice…of certain agreeable qualities” (63–4)
• “intellectual freedom depends upon material things…and women have always been poor, not for two hundred years merely, but from the beginning of time” (108)
• “earning five hundred pounds a year” (108)
• “after the year 1880 a married woman was allowed by law to possess her own property” (112)

The Cambridge Introduction to Virginia Woolf
• “her father was the distinguished Victorian author [and] critic…Sir Leslie Stephen, editor of the Cornhill Magazine, of the Dictionary of National Biography and of the Alpine Journal, who counted Thomas Hardy, Henry James and George Meredith among his friends” (3)
• “his father, and Woolf’s grandfather, was Sir James Stephen, Regius Professor of Modern His-tory at Cambridge University and noted Counsel to the Colonial Office and Board of Trade, who framed the bill to abolish slavery in 1833” (3)
• “Leslie Stephen was educated at Eton and Trinity Hall, Cambridge, where he became a deacon in 1855 and then parson (in the Church of England) in 1859” (3)
• “Virginia and Vanessa were not schooled like their brothers, but educated at home. Both par-ents contributed to Virginia’s education, but it was her father who shaped her intellectual foundations, encouraging her to roam freely, from an early age, through his extensive library, and later giving her daily supervision in reading, writing and translation (of Greek and Latin)” (5)
• “Julia Stephen did not seem to exist as a separate person in her own right, but rather she be-came the personification of the Stephen household…this general existence explained ‘why it was…impossible for her to leave a very private and particular impression upon a child. She was keeping what I call…the panoply of life…in being’” (6)
• “by the close of the nineteenth century her studies with her father were being supplemented by tuition in the classics from Dr Warr of King’s College, Kensington, and from Clara Pater, sister of the English essayist and critic Walter Pater” (7)
• In 1904, “she assisted F.W. Maitland with a biography of her father, and her first (anonymous) review appeared in the Guardian. In 1905 she began work as a teacher of literature at Morley College in South London” (8)
• “in April 1909 her aunt Caroline Emelia Stephen died and left her a legacy of £2,500” (11)

Virginia Woolf — Holtby
• “though she was unable to endure a regular education, she enjoyed an unusually effective training as writer. Partly…she trained herself…But, even more important, she had the free run of her father’s library. It was a splendid library, catholic, discriminating, stocked with the classics and containing his almost unique collection of eighteenth-century books. Virginia was turned loose in this. She could read what she liked, and she read enormously…This freedom must have been incalculably useful to a girl who was going to be a novelist” (17–8)
• “she knew that working women have need of political protection, that working men enjoy a poorer diet than that of college girls, that artists need privacy and adequate incomes” (33)
• “she accuses them [materialists] of coarseness of perception and indifference to the affairs of the spirit” (51)
• “seeing that to produce good work, freedom of mind, independence, privacy and leisure, a training for truth instead of for docility, all are necessary, she herself returns to discuss the contingent, the ephemeral” (51)

Virginia Woolf — DeSalvo
• “the patriarchal family was the normative family of Victorian England, and it remains the ‘ideal’ family of many segments of contemporary society. Within the patriarchal family, male members exhibit a ‘diminished capacity for affectionate relating’…fathers in such families are described as ‘prefect patriarchs’ within the home, although they often present themselves as ‘pathetic, helpless, and confused; sons have excessive privilege; the activities of the female members of the family are supervised, restricted, and controlled and they are isolated from the world…In the patriarchal family, the father has immense powers over his wife and child-ren—an unrestricted right of physical control, the right to control behavior, and sexual rights” (8–9)
• “it has been commonly accepted that the Stephen family was characterized by its liveliness, its affectionate concern for the well-being of its children, its economic and emotional securi-ty—that it was…the archetypal serene and secure family of Victorian ideology” (19)
• “living in a time when women were supposed to be angels, when women’s capabilities to car-ry on the business of family life were assumed to be boundless, when men did relatively little, if anything at all, regarding their children” (21)
• “Victorian mothers…used their own daughters so early to help them with the work of the household, keeping them…from developing their own interests and capacities” (21)
• “Victorian ideology normally precluded a man from engaging in primary care responsibilities for children, the father’s role being defined in terms of authority, not emotional involvement” (28)
• “the very structure of schooling that the British patriarchy provided for its boys, in ‘trying to produce a race of men who are in control,’ turns out men who want to control: but in fact, it ‘turns out men who are weak, ignorant and pathetically vulnerable’” (31)
• “never having received any formal education to speak of, she was particularly concerned with the role that education played in preventing women from becoming economically indepen-dent, and in ensuring that power and privilege remained the provenance of a few men of a certain class” (282)
• “Woolf illuminated the fact that while men of privilege spent their time in educating them-selves, women were being trained to subservience…Woolf understood that the control of woman’s access to education was the way in which the control of women’s labor without re-compense in the family was assured. She saw it a as state identical to slavery” (284)
• “she believed that education had been denied women and the poor to subvert them, to con-trol them, to make them dependent upon men of privilege, and to exhort unpaid or poorly paid labor from them” (292)

Virginia Woolf: A Feminist Slant
• “for Woolf the authoritarian state is the patriarchal family expanded. In the larger public world, the tyrants simply mass together into business and professions. Be they professors, clerics, doctors, men of commerce, lawyers, politicians, or policemen, they are instruments of the patriarch” (58)

The Politics of Literary Theory
• “in a particular society certain ideas prevail because they and not other ideas best defend the interests of the ruling class” (7)
• Around 1850, “the middle classes turned to education to foster the unifying values of a na-tional culture” (9)
• “the great feminine writers, such as Charlotte Brontë and George Eliot, successfully opposed the stereotyped and misconceptions of the male Victorian establishment, which routinely de-nigrated the intelligence and the ability of women and dismissed their writing” (93)

The Effect Men Have on Women

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Women have constantly been a subject of men. Whether sexually, economically, politi-cally, or socially, men have always asserted themselves as superior. Women have not taken a back seat to this injustice though. They have risen up and demanded legal and societal reforms that aim to bring equality among the sexes.

One example of male exploitation of women comes from humanity’s very existence: sexual reproduction. Simply, all humans are a product of a man and a woman and thus sex. However, men have transcended the reproductive matter of sex and have used it mainly to their enjoyment. This included sexual abuse and male trickery of the women into having sex. Because Virginia Woolf herself was sexually abused by her own brother, it can be said through the psychoanalytic literary criticism that Woolf has developed a negative view of men that cha-racterizes them as amoral and hedonistic.

Another example of male dominance over women is money. From a Marxist viewpoint, all of humanity has been in a constant struggle between two classes over money, as in the present case of men verse women. Men have secured their own future (and thus their ideology) by restricting jobs to men and paying women less money for equal pay. Also, men use the fact that they are the financial backbone of the marriage to suppress women sexually and psy-chologically, as women are forced to see themselves as a burden to men and thus remain com-placent. In A Room of One’s Own, the fictional narrator goes to the financially troubled wom-en’s universities while the male universities such as Oxbridge are financially secure. Because both colleges are gender exclusive, men either have more money than women or care more about education than women. Since both sexes care about education, men therefore has more money and is able to use that money to secure for future generations of men favorably educa-tion.

Males also controlled women politically. Until recently (for the book was written in 1929), women were not able to vote. Women’s suffrage was seen as the most important de-mand for women, though the gain was purely symbolic and not utilized completely to the women’s favor. With these “gains,” women were still unable to end de facto discrimination against them as well as other women’s issues. Women have also been largely discouraged or prevented from obtaining government jobs, as a women having jurisdiction over men may be very controversial and demeaning to men.

Last and most important, men have asserted themselves over women socially. Women tradition has long been established by precedents, of which men have served to create. Women are then forced into their native habitats, of which have proved successful, in men’s eyes, for thousands of years. In the novel, women are discouraged from breaking the status quo because that would ultimately lead to their failure. The example of Shakespeare’s sister proves how women were not considered for anything other than producing children, especially male child-ren and thus continuing the family tradition. Men have always been deemed the smarter of the two sexes and thus have controlled the educational and political systems. Women’s place in society is thus maintained by constant checking of their advances by males as well as a general defeatist attitude that immobilizes women to remain complacent.

Despite male dominance of women, women have gained several rights and are in the process of gaining more. They have shown that through grass-roots efforts and perseverance that gains can be made and their lives can improve. As more women become successful, culture and the views of women will change, allowing them to get past certain societal impediments such as the glass ceiling. Action is needed not only by women but also by men, who will realize that equality is better for everyone and morally right. The emancipation of women from men will free them from the male grip of inferiority and allow them to contribute greater to society.

A Room of One's Own Chapter 2 Question

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Do you think women’s suffering in society is more of a product of their defeatist attitude or of male dominance? Analyze how your belief is evident in the novel and in real life.

I belief that the problem lies with both genders. Men have considered themselves superior be-cause of sexual practices, not being burden by childbearing, and physically stronger. They have used this belief to secure themselves the best jobs, top government positions, and the dominant gender in society. Men continue to exert this idea throughout history, from the Napoleonic Code and Mussolini’s views of women. Napoleon’s code established male dominance of the household while Mussolini restricted women to the home to produce babies. In the novel, male scholars kick Virginia Woolf off the grass, disrupting her train of thought. Men also prevent Woolf from visiting the library. However, most women have accepted this secondary position. Some women, like the women’s suffrage movement, have rebelled against the male dominant society and have established real gains. However, most women adhere to the males, reproduc-ing with them despite their arrogance. Women continue to stay at home while their husbands work, taking sole responsibility of the children that both of them had an equal part in making. After women achieved suffrage in numerous countries, including the United States in 1920, the momentum ran out of the women’s movement, as women thought they had met their goal. However, after de jure prohibitions, de facto prohibitions became the norm. Women expe-rienced the glass ceiling, where they could see the top of the social ladder but could not reach it. Men were the glass, what had prevented women from achieving equality with men. In the novel, the women challenge Oxbridge’s elitism by creating their own female college; however, the women’s college is hindered by lack of enthusiastic support.

Newspapers Conditions on Irish Immigrants and War and Peace Questions

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3. Using questions in the essay, known as rhetorical questions, allows the writer to make it seem as though he or she is directly talking to the reader. Often, the questions are phrased so that there is an obvious answer. This is done by using ethos and pathos. The writer claims that a strong man not working and a productive yield not put to use are just like hydrogen and oxygen: dangerous when separated but useful and necessary to life when combined. This uses ethos, as it is logically correct. The writes also pleads with the reader to consider why starving people are not allowed and encouraged to plant their own potatoes. This uses pathos, as it is emotionally correct.

1. Kutuzov was not a hero in the European sense since he did what was best for his country and did not try to be the leader of men. Instead of trying to defeat Napoleon in one huge battle, he cautiously retreated and fought a fairly large battle at Borodino. Though he didn’t win the battle, he chose to retreat and let Napoleon suffer the Russian winter. While not personally defeating Napoleon, he was able to drive him out of Russia. He did what the people wanted.

3.
a) In the big picture, Kutuzov was a failure at commanding the Russian army. He lost nearly half his men at the Battle of Borodino and let Moscow be taken. However, he did the best that he could do for his country. He saved lives by retreating and using the scorched-earth policy. His strategic tactics caused Napoleon to leave Russia with only a small fraction of his army.

b) I agree with the latter description because a person can only do the best with what he or she has. If his army couldn’t defeat Napoleon’s, then Kutuzov was right in retreating.

5. Tolstoy initially depicts Kutuzov as a failure at commander, as everyone is angry with him and he has made many mistakes. However, at the end, he is described as a great “hero” be-cause of how he saved Russia. This shift allows the reader to take in both perspectives and feel sorrow for initially characterizing Kutuzov as foolish and inexperienced.

Literary Journal: Allusion

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Allusion

A reference to a historical, spiritual, or traditional activity or event used to increase the effect of the speaker’s purpose.

“Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,”
(from “The Second Coming” by W. B. Yeats)

Yeats’ use of a falcon allusion provides the necessary image and symbol to support his beliefs. While some of his beliefs (the Spiritus Mundi, the world has two-thousand-year cycles) may seem far-fetched, the allusion serves to align all his beliefs together. With the destruction asso-ciated with World War I and the Russian Revolution of 1917, Yeats believed that the world was on the brink of the Apocalypse. All of history’s events in the two thousand years between Jesus’ death and the present were “turning and turning in the widening gyre” and would eventually all be sucked out into nothing. The allusion relates this to the falcon; just as the falcon cannot hear the falconer and thus breaks free after it has gone too far away, so will the earth break into anarchy due to all of society’s problems. The center of the gyre is the falconer, or the Earth, and it can represent morals and values. The widening circles taken by the falcon, or society, can represent how humans are increasingly become more savage and destructive. If this process continues, then “things [will] fall apart.” Yeats closely associated this sort of chaos with destruc-tive war associated with World War I and the Russian Revolution of 1917. In his eyes, these events were stark changes from normal life and thus could only mean Armageddon. However, thinking about the big, and thus irreligious, picture, Yeats’ prediction of the world falling apart is a result of lack of morals. Thus, Yeats’ views this era as a testing time where the battle be-tween sin and good was at an all time high. Reforms in society and in people need to be made to preserve mankind from Armageddon.

Literary Journal: Imagery

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Imagery

The use of descriptive language to evoke an image in a person’s mind, usually through visualization, hearing, sensory, tasting, or smelling.

“The time you won your town the race
We chaired you through the marketplace;
Man and boy stood cheering by,
And home we brought you shoulder-high.

Today, the road all runners come,
Shoulder-high we bring you home,
And set you at your threshold down,
Townsman of a stiller town.”
(from “To an Athlete Dying Young by A. E. Housman)

The visual imagery and repetition of the athlete being carried “shoulder-high” heightens the juxtaposition of his highest point in his or her life, after he or she won the race, and his or her lowest point in his or her life, when he or she died. This allows Housman to show how easy it is to go from hero to zero, from being famous to being nothing. Because the athlete is in the same position both times, it can be suggested that the athlete’s death somehow was a result of his or her fame. The athlete’s early death is also symbolic of society; even with all technological improvements of the nineteenth century, or training, all those can wiped away by a single cata-strophic event such as World War I, or in the athlete’s case, his or her death. The euphemism and nonchalant tone of “a stiller town” is emblematic of the times. Death was all too common in this era, as imperialism and war had led to belief that war and subjugation was not necessarily malicious. In addition, Housman’s overall casual tone shows his existentialism and cynicism. While depicting the athlete as outgoing and hard working, Housman combats this optimistic happiness by immediately saying how he or she died, leaving one to doubt whether it was even worth becoming an athlete. “Runners” is also repeated and used as an example of visual imagery. However, they also have a metaphoric meaning. “Runners,” or people who move fast, speed through the world and don’t take the time to enjoy it. The athlete was a runner and so was not able to enjoy the world in his or her short time.

W.B. Yeats's The Second Coming and Auden Questions

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1. Visual and Christian imagery.

2. The twenty centuries of stony sleep were the period before Christ was crucified, i.e. 20,000 B.C. to 0 A.D.

3.
a) Personally, I do not believe that a Second Coming exists. Other people may believe Jesus may come up from the ocean and judge humanity to see who should be saved before the apocalypse.

b) The speaker believes that the sphinx will walk towards Bethlehem and be born again. It is completely different from what the speaker says. His is based on belief while mine is based on empirical non-evidence.

4. Things Fall Apart might be about how other countries try to subject other countries. This eventually becomes so great that the native people rebel and force out their invaders, only after things have fallen apart.

While Yeats’ beliefs are wild and have been proven wrong by the test of time, a basic understating of his beliefs, that there will be a Second Coming soon after this poem was written, is necessary to interpret this poem in other ways. The Second Coming may not involve “a shape with lion body and the head of a man” (14) “slouch[ing] towards Bethlehem to be born” (22) but rather can be how society must get back to Judo-Christian values to survive in the world. Before this poem, society, and especially European society, had been flipped by World War I and the Russian Revolution of 1917. Basic ideas like “love thy neighbor” need to be reinstated and propagated so that society can stop killing itself and that there can be order in the world. While Yeats believed in the “Spiritus Mundi” (12), the rest of the world can see this similar concept in worldwide cooperation and international peace organizations. Yeats’ poem may be an over-exaggeration of what may happen, but the urgency which he called for action should be matched in more realistic terms. Society had been corrupted by greed, as evident in imperialism and big business. It is now time to break these chains and demand equality and freedom. Just as Yeats’ said that Jesus will come back and judge those to save before the apocalypse, so will society judge those people who have damned themselves by living a life of corruption and deceit. World War I was the greatest manifestation of sin that the world had seen up to that point. Pride and profit had led European countries to think themselves better than other countries to subjugate them. Pride had led European countries to engage in a dangerous arms race. Pride had also led the soldiers of the countries to see themselves as heroes and liberators, when they were actually taking a shortcut to death by believing in nationalism and the quest for greater power. The Russian Revolution of 1917 was more of an apparent threat to society that it actually was, as its beliefs of international socialism and equality of riches had frightened Westerners into seeing it as evil. This was because Westerners were always concerned with profit and being better than other people, rendering them blind to the fact that socialism would make people’s lives more equal and fair.
3.
a) Brueghel implies that Icarus has only his legs out of the water. This can either represent death or life, as crashing into the ocean means death while baptism symbolizes life.

b) Auden’s poem adheres to Brueghel’s meaning because it contains the duality of Icarus: while it appears dead, it actually is a rebirth.


3.
a) This Birth is like Death because Jesus will go on to form Christianity, which will come in-to direct conflict with other religions, particularly paganism, as well as cause many other hardships.

b) The speaker is no longer at ease back home because he is a pagan and he realizes that Jesus will form a religion that will conflict with paganism.

The Lady of Shalott Questions

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1. The Lady of Shalott’s curse is that if she looks out her window to Camelot, the curse is start-ing. If she then proceeds to try to leave her castle and go there, she is killed.

2. Shadows are used to convey three dimensionality and realism; however, they obscure detail and are perceived as sinful. If you are only half sick, then that means that you have a duality towards them. Just as artists want to receive money for their art by being realistic, their art becomes darker.

3.
a) I think the author devotes so much space to his description of Sir Lancelot to give more importance to him and make his part in Lady Shalott’s death more important.

b) This description of him makes him appear to be very handsome. Because of him and his good looks, the Lady of Shalott leaves her castle and ends up killing herself. This is em-blematic of the Industrial Revolution. Before, life was pastoral and simple, just like how the Lady of Shalott weaves all day. However, she always hears about Camelot (wealth and affluence) and wishes to go there. Then, Sir Lancelot (industrialization) comes. He woos her with his good looks and causes her to leave. She ends up breaking the curse and dies, just like how many other people believed industrialization would make them rich fast when in actuality it made them poorer.

Realism, Naturalism, and Romanticism

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1.
a) Realists focused on ordinary people facing the normal problems of life, using the influ-ence of democracy and the growing middle-class audience for literature. They muck-raked and wrote about real problems.

b) Realism was successful because of the trend of democracy and the growing middle-class audience for literature.

2.
a) Naturalists sought to put the spirit of scientific observation to literary use by using de-tails to promote social reform. They contradicted the Romantic idea that nature mir-rored human feelings and portrayed nature as harsh and indifferent to the human suf-fering it caused.

b) Their approach is both realistic and natural, though more natural. They depict social problems just like Realists, but expand on these problems using observations, the natu-ral part of it. Other approaches to literature did not provide ways to fix social problems or simply did not even address them.

3.
a) Some people did not like realism. They either became part of the Pre-Raphaelite Bro-therhood to be inspired by the spiritual intensity of medieval Italian art, or completely turned away from the world and sought to create art for art’s sake.

b) When they were first introduced, SUVs were deemed to be the next best thing due to their spaciousness and ability to carry many things. However, now they are shunned be-cause of their low gas mileage, their unnecessary size, their destructive force, and their anti-crash psychology. Hummers also have a similar, and much more controversial, pat-tern.


1. Ulysses’s current situation contrasts with his previous experiences by being the opposite. Before he was fighting in wars and having adventures on his way back home; now, he sits has no adventure in his life. It is ironic that he wishes to choose a more dangerous lifestyle, though more romantic.

2.
a) Ulysses yearns to return to his adventurous days of fighting and sailing because his cur-rent life is boring. He does not like being a king very much.

b) His feelings about aging are that it is taking away time for him to do more adventures and journeys. He is accepting of it but not enthusiastic about it.

c) His attitude toward life in general is that it is meant to be lived and that adventure is an integral part of it. He is romantic and places emotions above physical constraints.

5. The fact that Ulysses dies after setting forth does not change my opinion because he did what he wanted to do and died doing what he loved. If he remained at home, he would die grudgingly and never have known what his journey would have been.

2. Ulysses and Lady Shalott are similar by that they both see the world’s capabilities and yearn to experience them. Ulysses is prevented by his kingly duties and old age, while Lady Shalott is prevented by a curse.

1. Infinitive phrases

2. Single words

3. Infinitive phrases

4. Clauses

5. Prepositional phrases

Pride and Prejudice Possible Essay Questions

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1. How does Lydia fit into society’s views of marriage?
2. What role does Mr. Collins have directly in Elizabeth’s life?
3. Compare and contrast Charlotte and Lydia.
4. Is Mr. Bennet a good or bad person?
5. Why did Jane Austen have all the main characters live happily ever after?
6. Who is more nonconformist: Lydia, Elizabeth, or Darcy?
7. What does the military symbolize?
8. Who is the most mocked in the novel: Mr. Collins, Lady Catherine, or Miss Bingley and Mrs. Hurst?

Pride and Prejudice Vocabulary Part 2

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11. Complaisance—The Bennets, especially Mrs. Bennet, have complaisance towards Mr. Bing-ley in an attempt that Jane can marry him.

12. Condescend—Miss Bingley treated the Bennets condescendingly because they were trying to win Mr. Bingley’s favor when they were of less social status and wealth than him.

13. Impertinence—When Mr. Darcy refused to dance with anyone at the Meryton ball because he did not know anyone, he showed his impertinence.

14. Approbation—The Bennets do not have approbation over Charlotte and Mr. Collins’s mar-riage because they think Charlotte stole Mr. Collins from Elizabeth.

15. Deference—After Mr. Collins received the Bennets’ inheritance, he treats the family, and especially Elizabeth, with deference.

16. Reproof—Mrs. Bennet had many reproofs with Mr. Darcy; one of them was for not dancing with Elizabeth.

17. Rational—The Gardiners are characterized as being rational.

18. Commendation—Lady Catherine did not have commendation for Elizabeth’s piano playing skills and scolded her.

19. Condescension—When Mr. Darcy proposes to Elizabeth, he shows his condescension.

20. Disdain—The Darcys and the Bingleys have disdain for Mr. Wickham because he is a liar and a deceiver.

Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner Summary

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Argument: A poem about how a ship was driven passed the equator by storms “towards the South Pole” and into the Pacific Ocean and then “came back to his own Country.”

Part I: “An ancient Mariner” (1) stops a man going to a wedding. The mariner “holds” (9) the “Wedding Guest” (14) and tells him about “a ship” (10). He sailed past the equator. “The Wedding Guest” (31) is excited by the man’s story. The wedding music plays and “the Wed-ding Guest” (37) becomes impatient. A mighty “Storm” (41) comes and pushes the ship “south” (44) to Antarctica. There was now “mist…snow,” (51) “ice,” (53) “cold,” (52) and “snowy clifts” (55). “An Albatross” (63) appears, a welcome sign. It accompanied the ship and the “ice…split” (69), allowing for the “helmsman [to] steer…through” (70). The Mariner then “shot the Albatross” (82) with his “crossbow” (81).

Part II: The sailors were now going north, but there was not any “sweet bird…follow[ing]” (88), causing the other sailors to be angry with the Mariner because the Albatross “made the breeze to blow” (94). However, when the fog and mist cleared, they say, “‘twas right…such birds to slay” (101). There is a “fair breeze” (103) that blows the ship into the Pacific Ocean. Then the gods avenge the Albatross and the “breeze…dropped” (107), causing them to be stuck in the ocean “day after day” (115). The sailors believe “the Spirit [has] plagued” (132) them and “followed [them] from the land of mist and snow” (133-134). The sailors again blame the Mariner and force him to wear “the Albatross about [his] neck” (142).

Part III: The sailors become crazy and thirsty. The Mariner sees “a little speck” (149) in the west. The speck comes closer and the Mariner realizes that it’s “a sail” (161). The sailors are happy and begin to “drink” (166). The sailors believe the ship is going to “work [them] weal” (168), but it confuses them how the ship moves “without a breeze, without a tide” (169). The ship went behind the Sun and appeared “flecked with bars” (177). It appears that “Woman [is] all [the ship’s] crew” (187) and that “Death [is] woman’s mate” (189). The red-lipped, yellow-haired, white-skinned woman was “the Nightmare Life-in-Death” (193). She was playing a game of dice where the winners would take the souls of the sailors. She takes “four time fifty…men” (216) but leave the Mariner to a fate much worse.

Part IV: The Wedding Guest “fear[s]” (224) for the Mariner. The Mariner looked at “the many men…all dead did lie” (236–237) and at “the rotting sea” (240). The Mariner cannot forget “the look with which [the dead] looked on” (255) him. The Mariner had to see “the curse in a dead man’s eye” (260) for “seven days [and] seven nights” (261) and was forced to live. The Mariner then see the “slimy things” (238) in the water and sees their true beauty. The Spirit’s curse is free when the Mariner sees the “water snakes” (273) and “the Albatross fell off” (290) his neck and “into the sea” (291).

Part V: The Mariner regains the passion to life and so do “the silly buckets on the deck” (297). The Mariner is cleansed with rain and the winds come up again and shake “the sails” (311). “A hundred fire flags sheen” (314) in the air. “Lightning fell” (325) and “the dead men gave a groan” (330) and rose to life. The crew returns to their duties, with “the helmsman steer[ing] the ship” (335) and the sailors “all [beginning to] work the ropes” (337). However, the crew does not acknowledge the Mariner, scaring the Wedding Guest. The Mariner says that they were possessed by “spirits blessed” (349). Their voices came back eventually. The Mariner is now loves nature and enjoys the “little birds” (360) “jargoning” (362). The Spirit that carried the ship to the Equator “slid” (379) and the ship again “stood still” (382). The ship then encountered a strong storm and tossed the Mariner overboard. The Mariner was still alive on the beach of some land and heard “two voices in the air” (397). The first man asks if the Mariner is the man who “with his cruel bow…laid full low the harmless Albatross” (400–401). The second man says that the Mariner “hath penance done, and penance more will do” (408–409).

Part VI: The first man wonders what drives the ship “on so fast” (412). The second man replies that the Moon “graciously” (420) gave the ship fast speed. The first man still does not under-stand, so the second man says that the powers the Spirit cast on the ship caused it to move “faster than human life could endure.” The men go as the Mariner wakes up. “The dead man” (433) from the ship go onto the shore, relieving the death in their eyes. However, the “spell was snapped” (442) and the Mariner was able to see “the ocean green” (443). A wind started up and “welcom[ed]” (459) him to the land. In the distance, the ship flew swiftly (460). The Mariner looks around and discovers that he is in his “own countree” (467). He sees the harbor bay in its beauty. In the distance, there were all of the corpses with a “se-raph man” (490) next to each one. The Mariner then “heard the dash of oars… [and] the Pi-lot’s cheer” (500–501). He also heard “the Hermit good” (509) who will “shrieve [his] soul… [and] wash away the Albatross’s blood” (512–513).

Part VII: The Hermit “loves to talk with mariners” (517). The Hermit and the Pilot talk and dis-cuss how the “skiff boat” (523) boat is worn out with warped planks (529). The Pilot is afraid of the ship but the Hermit is not. “The ship…split the bay” (548) and suddenly sank. The Mar-iners found himself “lay afloat” (553) and then “within the Pilot’s boat” (555). The Mariner “moved [his] lips” (560), causing the Pilot to shriek and the Hermit to “raise…his eyes” (562). The Mariner “took the oars” (564) and asked the Hermit to shrieve him. The Mariner told the Hermit his tale, causing him to be free. To free him from his sin, the Hermit requires the Mariner to “pass, like night, from land to land” (586), telling his story. The wedding is just about to begin, causing the Mariner to tell the Wedding Guest to have a strong belief in God. The Mariner leaves and the Wedding Guest is “a sadder and wiser man” (624).

Charles Dickens's Life Outline

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1. Tranquil childhood—Best of times
a. Born February 7, 1812
b. Father: John Dickens
i. Clerk in Navy Pay Office
ii. “congenial” and “hospitable”
iii. “generous to a fault which caused him financial difficulties throughout his life”
c. Charles taught alphabet by his mother Elizabeth from 1814 to 1821, reads greatly
d. Father transferred to Chatham in 1817
i. Gentle surroundings
ii. Larger home
iii. Two live-in servants
iv. Read greatly during this time
v. Attended the school of William Giles
vi. Played with siblings games of make-believe
vii. Recited poetry
viii. Sang songs
ix. Created theatrical productions
e. Goes to school with the son of a Baptist minister in 1821

2. Forced work—Worst of times
a. John and all of the family except Charles imprisoned for debt in the Marshalsea Prison
b. Twelve year old Charles forced to work at Warren’s Blacking Factory pasting labels on boxes
c. Lived in a boarding house in Camden Town
i. Walked to work everyday
ii. Visited his father on Sundays
d. Introduced to the world of the working poor
i. Child labor was high
ii. Few adults cared for abandoned or orphaned children
e. Appalling working conditions
f. Long hours
g. Poor pay typical of the time

3. Resurrection
a. Left after three months
b. Mother wanted him to stay
i. Charles betrayed and resented her for many years
c. Father arranged for Charles to go to Wellington House Academy in London as a day pu-pil from 1824 to 1827, saving him from the factory and setting him up to be a writer.

A Tale of Two Cities Thesis

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In Charles Dickens’s historical novel, A Tale of Two Cities, he uses repetition in the form of anaphora to highlight the differences between the many doubles in the novel as well as the historical context of the French Revolution to emphasize the changes these doubles undergo during the course of the novel.

and

In Charles Dickens's novel, A Tale of Two Cities, he uses parallel structure to foil the main characters' differences as well as symbolic diction to show the similarities between the characters' actions to the events of late eighteenth-century France and England.

A Tale of Two Cities Quotes

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1. “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foo-lishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way…” Book the First, Chapter 1, Page 13
These famous words begin the novel. Dickens states how each city is essentially the opposite of the other, though he does not tell the reader which one is better off than the other. His use of parallel structure shows how each city directly contrasts the other. The motif of doubles starts here with the description of Paris and London. His singsong rhythm and his use of understatement by listing the evils shows how neither good nor bad are winning; rather, they are both equal. His long sentences with many commas show how the two cities contrasted each other many ways, emphasizing their differences.

2. “[Jarvis:] ‘Jerry, say that my answer was, RECALLED TO LIFE.’ Jerry started in his saddle. ‘That’s a Blazing strange answer, too,’ said he, at his hoarsest. ‘Take that message back, and they will know that I received this, as well as if I wrote. Make the best of your way. Good night.’” Book the First, Chapter 2, Pages 19–20
Jarvis tells Jerry to deliver back to Tellson’s bank that message. Jerry is perplexed at his answer, but Jarvis reaffirms him. The phrase “recall to life” is paradoxical because nothing can ever be brought back to life. However, it suggests that something that was “dead” in the sense of having no reason to live or theoretically “dead” has now come back to its full potential. It is revealed in the next chapter that a person in a prison cell was “recalled to life” by that he was let out of prison. “Recal-ling to life” is used interchangeable with “digging out of the grave,” showing the many ways of bringing someone back to life. Jarvis says it so nonchalantly that it would appear that it is common for him. The concept of bringing somewhat back to life is prominent throughout the novel.

3. “A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other. A solemn consideration, when I enter a great city by night, that every one of those darkly clustered houses encloses its own secret; that every room in every one of them closes its own secret; that every beating heart in the hundreds of thousands of breasts there is, in some of its imaginings, a secret to the heart nearest !” Book the First, Chapter 3, Page 21
The narrator gives the reader his own opinion of human nature, stating that people are inherently secretive and shady. This is one of the few times that the narrator gives his own opinion on a mat-ter, showing the strength of his belief. As for the novel, it mirrors that past actions of Doctor Ma-nette, as his past is revealed slowly throughout the novel. In addition, Sydney Carton is a strange character when he is revealed in the novel, as someone who drinks as much as he does is sure to have a troublesome past.

4. “The wine was red wine, and had stained the ground of the narrow street in the suburb of Saint Antoine, in Paris, where it was spilled. It had stained many hands, too, and many faces, and many naked feet, and many wooden shoes. The hands of the man who sawed the wood left red marks on the billets; and the forehead of the woman who nursed her baby was stained with the stain of the old rag she wound about her head again. Those who had been greedy with the staves of the cask, had acquired a tigerish smear about the mouth; and one tall joke so besmirched, his head more out of a long squalid bag of a nightcap than in it, scrawled upon a wall with his finger dipped in the muddy wine-lees—BLOOD.” Book the First, Chapter 5, Pages 37–38
In a suburb of Paris, a wine cask broke onto the ground and all of the peasants scooped down and drank it. Red wine, the same color of blood, symbolizes and foreshadows the blood that will “stain” the French during the French Revolution. The peasants are scrambling for the wine, showing how hungry and desperate they are. Everyone is involved in the scrambling, showing how the Revolution is wholly and affects everyone in France. The fact that the wine shop is owned by Monsieur Defarge shows how he will be a central part in the Revolution. In the next passage, all the peasants are hungry but not only for food, but for change.

5. “But indeed, at that time, putting to death was a recipe much in vogue with all trades and profes-sions, and not least of all with Tellson’s. Death is Nature’s remedy for all things, and why not Legis-lation’s? Accordingly, the forger was put to Death; the utterer of a bad note was put to Death; the unlawful opener of a letter was put to Death; the purloiner of forty shillings and sixpence was put to Death; the holder of a horse at Tellson’s door, who made off with it, was put to Death; the coiner of a bad shilling was put to Death; the sounders of three-fourths of the notes in the whole gamut of Crime were put to Death. Book the Second, Chapter 1, Page 62

6. “‘What!’ said Mr. Cruncher, looking out of bed for a boot. ‘You’re at it agin, are you?’ After hailing the morn with this second salutation, he threw a boot at the women as a third. It was a very muddy boot… ‘What,’ said Mr. Cruncher, varying his apostrophe after missing his mark, ‘what are you up to, Aggerawayter?’ ‘I was only saying my prayers.’ ‘Saying your prayers! You’re a nice woman!…And what do you suppose, you conceited female…that the worth of your prayers may be?’” Book the Second, Chapter 1, Page 64
Mr. Cruncher is introduced to the audience as being very hostile, especially to his own mother. He does not care that his mother is praying and thinks that she is praying against him. His aggression gives him the appearance of a madman who is hostile and gives himself a bad first impression that lasts throughout the novel. “Aggerawayter” is Cruncher’s form of “aggravator” and suggests that he thinks that his mom is aggravating his financial crisis. Cruncher is using his mother as a scapegoat for his poor conditions. Cruncher mirrors Dickens’s father, who also had economic troubles.

7. “‘Al-ways rusty! His fingers is al-ways rusty!’ muttered young Jerry. ‘Where does my father get all that iron rust from? He don’t get no iron rust here!’” Book the Second, Chapter 1, Page 66
Young Jerry’s remark raises doubts in the reader’s mind because there is no part of the Older Cruncher’s description as of this quote that suggests he would be working with iron. It continues with Dickens’s practice of leaving questions to be answered at the end of the chapter. Some of his novels, including this one, were published periodically, so it was important to leave cliffhangers to make the audience want to read more. However, the color of rust, red, is symbolic. It has many meanings, but here it foreshadows the wrath than Cruncher has towards his mother and his eco-nomic position and also foreshadows how his hands will become bloody in the events of the novel.

8. “Silence in the court! Charles Darnay had yesterday pleaded not guilty to an indictment denouncing him (with infinite jingle and jangle) for that he was a false traitor to our serene, illustrious, excel-lent, and so forth, prince, our Lord the King, by reason of his having, on divers occasions, and by di-vers means and ways, assisted Lewis, the French King, in his wars against our said serene, illu-strious, excellent, and so forth; that was to say, by coming and going, between the dominions of our said serene, illustrious, excellent, and so forth, and those of the said French Lewis, and wickedly, falsely, traitorously, and otherwise evil-adverbiously, revealing to the said French Lewis what forces our said serene, illustrious, excellent, and so forth, had in preparation to send to Canada and North America. Book the Second, Chapter 2, Page 71
By the way the “Mr. Attorney-General” speaks, Dickens is mocking him as well as all other law pro-fessions. The Attorney-General calls the King of England “serene, illustrious, excellent, and so forth” four times, showing how people in law only repeat information. The juxtaposition of “serene, illustrious, excellent” with “and so forth” shows his incompetence by using a vague, informal phrase after his positive description of the King. The attorney also calls the French King “Lewis” and not “Louis,” showing his incompetence.

9. “When toned down again, the unimpeachable patriot appeared in the witness-box. Mr. Solicitor-General then, following his leader’s lead, examined the patriot: John Barsad, gentleman, by name. The story of his pure soul….Having released his noble bosom of its burden…” Book the Second, Chapter 3, Page 75
Dickens shows how the Solicitor-General builds up his witness to be a hero and a “patriot,” though all he is doing his giving his view on what happened. This suggests that the solicitor is incompetent and is symbolic of the rest of the law world. It is ironic that a product of law, the examination of Barsad, reveals that he is not very “pure,” as he has been in debtor’s prison two or three times. “Leader’s lead” again shows the solicitor’s repetition and dumbness.

10. “…the jackal sat at his own paper-bestrewn table proper, on the other side of it, with the bottles and glasses ready to his hand…the jackal, with knitted brows and intent face, so deep in his task, that his eyes did not even follow the hand he stretched out for his glass…‘Before Shrewsbury, and at Shrewsbury, and ever since Shrewsbury…you have fallen into your rank, and I have fallen into mine…you were always somewhere, and I was always—nowhere.’” Book the Second, Chapter 5, Pages 94 and 96
Dickens describes Sydney as a jackal, or someone who works with accomplices to deceive people. He is dejected and his work does not help his social status, and so he succumbs to drinking. Sydney is accepting of his worthless position instead of trying to change it. Since he looks very similar to Mr. Darnay, his life choices are measured against his, showing the theme of doubles, as evident in the first line of the play.

11. “Perhaps. Perhaps, see the great crowd of people with its rush and roar, bearing down upon them, too.” Book the Second, Chapter 6, Page 109
These two lines mean two very different things. From what Ms. Pross believes, the crowd is the men who are trying to win Lucie’s affection. However, in the larger and historical sense, it foresha-dows the French mob that will start the French Revolution and will change history.

12. “Monsieur the Marquis ran his eyes over them all, as if they had been mere rats come out of their holes. He took out his purse. ‘It is extraordinary to me,’ said he, ‘that you people cannot take care of yourselves and your children. One or the other of you is for ever in the way. How do I know what injury you have done my horses? See! Give him that.’ He threw out a gold coin for the valet to pick up, and all the heads craned forward that all the eyes might look down at it as it fell. The tall man called out again with a most unearthly cry, ‘Dead!’” Book the Second, Chapter 8, Page 116
Dickens mocks nobles by giving them obvious and redundant names. “Monsieur the Marquis” means Mr. Nobleman and generically shows how he represents all nobles, pompous and indifferent towards the lower classes. The nobles are introduced into the story as violent and indifferent, giv-ing them a bad first impression. Instead of caring for the dead son or the now-childless father, the Marquis only cares about his horses. However, when he gives a gold coin to Monsieur Defarge, he angrily throws it back and does not accept his pity, showing the class struggles between the two and also foreshadowing the French Revolution.

13. “It was a heavy mass of building, that château of Monsieur the Marquis, with a large stone cour-tyard before it, and two stone sweeps of staircase meeting in a stone terrace before the principal door. A stony business altogether, with heavy stone balustrades, and stone urns, and stone flowers, and stone faces of men, and stone heads of lions, in all direction. As if the Gorgon’s head had surveyed it, when it was finished, two centuries ago.” Book the Second, Chapter 9, Page 125
The repetition of “stone” gives the château a cold and disheartening look, much like Marquis’s stone, indifferent heart. “Stone flowers” seems like an oxymoron because flowers are not made of stone; however, it represents that nobles, like Marquis, were once nice and compassionate, but have now been taken over by coldness. “Stone faces of men” and “Gorgon” foreshadow the Mar-quis’s death because the Gorgon was a Greek monster that killed anyone that looked at it by turn-ing him or her into stone.

14. “[Darnay:] ‘My friend, I will die, perpetuating the system under which I have lived…’ ‘This property and France are lost to me…I renounce them.’” Book the Second, Chapter 9, Page 129
Mr. Darnay openly defies his powerful uncle and loses the vast inheritance he has to prove a point: that there needs to be a change. At the end, he is the leading suspect of the Marquis’s death, as the Marquis criticized Darnay’s decision to disown himself of the nobility. He writes “JACQUES,” which is the code name for supporters of the French Revolution, showing the class struggles be-tween the nobility and the middle classes.

15. “[Lucie:] ‘My father!’ she called to him. ‘Father dear!’ Nothing was said in answer, but she heard a low hammering sound in his bedroom. Passing lightly across the intermediate room, she looked in at his door and came running back frightened, crying to herself, with her blood all chilled…Her un-certainty lasted but a moment; she hurried back, and tapped at his door, and softly called to him. The noise ceased at the sound of her voice, and he presently came out to her, and they walked up and down together for a long time. She came down from her bed, to look at him in his sleep that night. He slept heavily, and his tray of shoemaking tools, and his old unfinished work, were all as usual.” Book the Second, Chapter 10, Page 141
Doctor Manette’s return to shoemaking shows how troubled a man he is. While alone and impri-soned for eighteen years, he cobbled shoes. When Lucie leaves for a while, he returns to his habit. This suggests that unlike his title of “Doctor,” his real heart’s ambition is a cobbler, showing the complexity and secrets that humans have.

A Comparison of John Donne and Ben Jonson

Full credit

Of the many similarities that John Donne and Ben Jonson have, they do have many dif-ferences. One of these differences is their use of style to show or mask the clarity of their poems. Donne uses elaborate and complicated conceits such as the famous compass conceit in “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning” as an example of how men and women have different roles in society though their love is forever. Jonson on the other hand uses a much more un-derstandable writing that though is not as figurative as Donne’s effectively displays the same meaning through clearer terms. His “On My First Son” is easily recognizable as an elegy to his dead son. Secondly, Donne uses much more metaphors and conceits than Jonson does, showing how life is unusually connected and how many things in nature mirror human activities. In Donne’s “Meditation 17,” he uses several metaphors such as bells tolling to deaths, books to life, and treasure to benefits. However, Jonson does not use many conceits and thus his writing is not as figurative and metaphoric.

Despite their differences, the two poets share several similarities. Both of them write of their loves and of their difficulties with them. In Donne’s “Song,” he explains how he must leave his lover, but his lover should not be sad and just imagine him there. In Jonson’s “Song: To Ce-lia,” he explains how the girl he is going for has rejected her gift but that doesn’t upset him be-cause it smells of her. Both poets have an epigrammatic style, as evident in Donne’s “Holy Son-net 10” (“Death, thou shalt die.”) and Jonson’s “Still to Be Neat” (“Still to be neat, still to be dressed…”). This style makes their writing memorable and quotable and thus strengthening the memories of them.

Questions on Carpe Diem Poets

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3. Each of the poem’s sections forms a part of the speaker’s argument. The first section is the hypothetical, the “if,” if they were to get married. The second shows what will happen if they don’t get married. The third sums up why they should get married. The sections help to present his argument clearly and logically.

1. Herrick uses images in lines 1–4 to convey the idea of passing time by relating the brevity of life to the buds of roses, showing how life is as short as a rose’s life.

4. The attitude toward love the third stanza of “Song” reflects is if something does not love then no man can have her and thus the devil should take her.

1. “Vaster”: his love would be grand. “Hurrying”: life is ending quickly. “Languish”: souls wither when they are not with someone else.

2. The speaker’s attitude in Suckling’s “Song” undergoes a change in the third stanza. Instead of asking why the lover does not choose someone as her mate, he scorns her and tells her to be with the devil if she does not choose someone.

1. “To His Coy Mistress”: “Had we but world enough, and time, / This coyness lady were no crime.” The speaker says that if humans were to live forever then love would be no crime. However, since we don’t, we must act and seize the day and get married. “To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time”: “Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, / Old time is still a-flying; / And this same flower that smiles today / Tomorrow will be dying.” The speaker compares life to the shortness of flowers, showing the delicacy of life and the brevity.

2. I like “To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time” better because it is shorter and more succinct. It also has more vivid metaphors that are easily understandable and better shows the brevity of life and how we must seize the day.

3. Sir John Suckling’s “Song” continues with the theme of carpe diem by showing how the lover must act quickly and marry her lover now or else be forced to live with the devil. However, it deviates from the theme because it puts the decision in the woman’s hands and not in the man’s. It also suggests a more frightening consequence if we don’t seize the day.

That age is best which is the first / When youth and blood are warmer; / But being spent, the worse, and worst / Times still succeed the former.

1. Herrick’s speaker feels that the most best time to marry is in one’s prime.

2. He says that old age is worser than youth.

3. In “Song,” the speaker suggests that the bestest thing to do is to find someone else.

4. All three poems imply that one of the baddest worse things you can do is to waste time.

Questions about Metaphysical Poetry (Donne and Jonson)

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4. In one conceit, John Donne explains how whenever the bell tolls for someone, it is technically tolling for you be-cause everyone is connected and when someone dies we lose their stories and their presence. In another con-ceit, Donne explains how no man is an island. This again shows how everyone is connected and that even though it may appears that we are “islands,” separated from another, we are all one because when someone dies we lose their tales and experiences.

2. What Donne means is that all humans are connected that no one is an “island” and that all humans are part of the “continent.” This alludes to England, which is an island, separated from Europe, but still part of the conti-nent. When one human dies, we lose their memories and stories and are thus less in value.

5. The use of the phrase compares with Donne’s intended meaning by showing how everyone is connected and is we lose one human (continental Europe) to death (Nazi Germany) then we are worse off. The phrase also applies directly to Britain because it is an island. Britain wanted to keep Europe away from the fascism of the Nazis and keep alive the stories and importance of the sovereign nations.

3.
a. The speaker is trying to convince his beloved that he will only be gone a short amount of time and that she shouldn’t be upset because destiny says that he will have to leave.

b. In the first stanza, the speaker says that he is not leaving because of her. Then he says he will only be gone a short amount of time. Then he says is sad that he has to leave. Then he says that she shouldn’t be sad be-cause that makes him sad. Then he says that it is destiny that causes him to leave and when he does leave, just think of him on the other side of the bed.

5. I believe exaggeration is a valid technique in arguing as long as it is not done too much or is not too drastic. Ex-aggeration makes your point a little bit stronger but it is based on falsehoods, which can hurt your argument is overemphasized.

2. The comparison of them using the compass shows how the speaker is always changing his view on her while she has a fixed position on their love.

3. Lines 3–4 are reinforced by the strong, paradoxical lines 13–14. The ending lines use stronger verbs to show how Death is not scary or overpowering but a step on our journey.

4.
a. The statement means that Death is no longer scary and is simply a nuisance and should be ended or “dead.”

b. It is paradoxical because Death is not a person and is rather a state of being, and thus cannot die. Also, if Death were to die, then it would have nowhere to go since there is no death.

1. “Meditation 17”: “…all mankind is of one author and is one volume: when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language and every chapter must be so translated.” This shows how everyone is related and that when someone dies, we lose his or her stories. “Song”: “Yesternight the sun went hence, / And yet is here today; / He hath no desire no sense, / Nor half so short a way…” This shows how the speaker is like the sun by that they always leave but they always come back and fairly quickly. “Holy Sonnet 10”: “From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be…” This means that the images of Death are the only thing frigh-tening of it, not the experience.

2. “Song”: “…unkindly kind…” This shows how something is not necessarily “nice” but it is “nice.” This can mean criticism. “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning”: “…some of their sad friends do say / The breath goes now, and some say, No;” When everyone dies, they cease to live; however, some people argue that their souls leave and live on forever.

3.
a. The conceit is so abstract that it would appear that nothing could tie the two together. However, it uses “vi-olence” to force a comparison between the two and show how the two lovers are like the legs of a compass.

b. Johnson is missing how the comparison creates a beautiful image of comparison.


4.
a. The images of love in the poem are in common by that they are all common symbols of love and are com-mon to find around. They are gentle. They are mostly circular (a drink’s lid is a circle).

b. This suggests that love is common and that we can find love in everyday things. Since the images are mostly circular, they are all “perfect” images of love.

5. Jonson’s way of presenting the speaker’s grief is effective because it mourns the loss of his son and also shows how the father does not want to be a father anymore.

3. The first stanza is epigrammatic quality because the phrases (“Drink to me only with thine eyes”) are easy to remember and can be quoted. He then says to “leave a kiss…in the cup” and that we will “not look for wine,” showing the humor of the stanza.

4. The last line is paradoxical because something that is loved cannot be disliked. However, it shows that Jonson never wants for his children to die because he loves them.

5.
a. I believe it would not be suitable for the subject’s gravestone because it has to deal more with Ben rather than Benjamin. However, the first four lines are elegiac and can be on the gravestone.

b. Some epigrams make good epitaphs because they can be quoted and thus associated with that dead person. They are at times witty but they express truths about that person memorably.

1. Separation expands their love.

2. Her sighs sigh away his soul.

3. Her weeping weakens his life’s blood.

4. Death is mighty is said.

5. Death does not conquer life.

Donne was dismissed by Sir Thomas Egerton. He had found out about Donne and Anne More’s secret marriages. Secret marriages were considered socially unacceptable. It is believed that they spent the next few years it poverty. His poetry was affected by this period.

Examples of Metaphysical Poetry in “Meditation 17”

• “…all mankind is of one author and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated. God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice; but God’s hand is in every translation…”
• The bell tolling
• “No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were.”
• “…affliction is a treasure…”
• “If a man carry treasure in bullion, or in a wedge of gold, and have none coined into current money, his treasure will not defray him as he travels.”
• “Tribulation is treasure in the nature of it…”

Lady Macbeth's Speech Act I, scene vii, lines 47-59

Full credit

Fill in the words

What _____ was _____ then
_____ made _____ break this _____ to _____?
_____ you _____ do _____, then _____ were a _____;
_____ to _____ more _____ what _____ were, you _____
_____ so _____ more _____ man. _____ time _____ place
_____ then _____, and _____ you _____ make _____.
They have _____ _____, and that _____ _____ now
Does _____ _____. I _____ given _____, and _____
How _____ ‘tis _____ _____ the _____ that _____ me:
I would, _____ it was _____ in my _____,
Have _____ my _____ from his _____ gums,
And _____ the _____ out, had _____ so _____ as _____
Have _____ to _____.

Highlight for answers
Beast
‘t
That
You
Enterprise
Me
When
Durst
It
You
Man
And
Be
Than
You
Would
Be
Much
The
Nor
Nor
Did
Adhere
Yet
Would
Bath
Made
Themselves
Their
Fitness
Unmake
You
Have
Suck
Know
Tender
To
Love
Babe
Milks
While
Smiling
Face
Plucked
Nipple
Boneless
Dashed
Brains
I
Sworn
You
Done
This

Macbeth Act V Vocabulary

Full credit

Vocabulary Word

Definition

Part of Speech

Sentence in Context

Own Sentence

1. Arbitrate

to act as a judge in a dispute between others

T. verb, i. verb

“Thoughts speculative their unsure hopes relate, / But certain issue strokes must arbitrate.” V.iv.19–20

Judges act as arbitrators between the plaintiffs and the defendants.

2. Clamorous

demanding attention loudly and insistently

Adjective

“Make all our trumpets speak; give them all breath. / Those clamorous harbingers of blood and death.” V.vi.9–10

The car alarm was very clamorous and stressed me out.

3. Cowed

to frighten somebody into submission or obedience

T. verb

“Accursèd be that tongue that tells me so, / For it hath cowed my better part of man!” V.viii.23–24

The king cowed the nobles by saying if they didn’t listen to him, he would kill them.

4. Equivocation

the use of vague or ambiguous and sometimes misleading language

Noun

“I pull in resolution, and begin / To doubt th’ equivocation of the fiend / That lies like truth…” V.v.42–44

The equivocation of the riddle made it hard to figure out.

5. Valiant

brave and steadfast; a brave and steadfast person

Adjective, noun

“Some say he’s mad; others, that lesser hate him, / Do call it valiant fury…” V.ii.13–14

Police officers must be valiant to protect the citizens.

Macbeth Act V Quotes

Full credit

1. Out, damned spot! Out, I say! One: two:
why, then ‘tis time to do ’t. Hell is murky…
…Yet who would have thought the old man
to have had so much blood in him?
Speaker: Lady Macbeth
Audience: Herself
Meaning/Significance: Lady Macbeth is sleepwalking and delusional. She thinks there is blood on her hands and tries to rub it off. She remembers the previous murders and says that Duncan’s murder had much more of an impact than his death. Blood is a symbol of guilt and how you can never be exonerated for your sins. Lady Macbeth has changed from then strong, determined partner in the murders to the wavering, psychotic partner. Her remark that Duncan had so much blood shows how his murder set off a chain reaction that involved other murders and the turning of Macbeth’s countrymen on him. This is the only time that a major character does not speak in verse and has his or her lines capitalized. This suggests that something is out of order, foreshadowing her suicide. She once believed that simple water could wash away the blood, but as evident in her lines, it is not.
Location: Act V, Scene i, Line Numbers 36–37 40–41

2. Infected minds
To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets.
More needs she the divine than the physician.
Speaker: Doctor
Audience: Gentlewoman
Meaning/Significance: The Doctor says that delusional people will let loose all their secrets. He then says that she needs God more than physical help. This alludes to Lady’s Macbeth quote that Macbeth should keep his face straight and not let his emotions get the best of him. She ironically breaks that statement by confessing. However, she did not do it awake, suggesting how she feels consciously that she is to remain strong and a strong partner in her marriage.
Location: Act V, Scene i, Line Numbers 73–75

3. Now does he feel his title
Hang loose about him, like a giant’s robe
Upon a dwarfish thief.
Speaker: Angus
Audience: Menteith, Caithness, Lennox, and soldiers
Meaning/Significance: Angus says that Macbeth’s title does not and never did fight him. This shows the theme of kingship and how not everyone is fit to rule other people. Macbeth was never in the line to the throne, showing how he was not destined to be a king. He ruth-lessly secures power through murders, showing his incompetence as king. The robe simile shows how Macbeth’s ambition is to great for one single man.
Location: Act V, Scene ii, Line Numbers 20–22

4. …“Fear not, Macbeth; no man that’s born of woman
Shall e’er have power upon thee.”
Speaker: Macbeth quoting the Second Apparition
Audience: Doctor and attendants
Meaning/Significance: Macbeth repeats the Second Apparition’s prophecy to remind him that he is invincible because everyone was “born of woman.” However, he fails to realize the C-section babies are not “born” in the natural way. He finally is listening to the prophe-cies, albeit wrongly. His inability to fully understand the prophecies is his tragic flaw.
Location: Act V, Scene iii, Line Numbers 6–7

5. Let every soldier hew down a bough
And bear ‘t before him. Thereby shall we shadow
The number of our host, and make discovery
Err in report of us.
Speaker: Malcolm
Audience: Siward, Macduff, Siward’s Son, Menteith, Caithness, Angus, and soldiers
Meaning/Significance: Malcolm has a plan that he and his soldiers will cover themselves with trees and hide their numbers. He is fulfilling the Third Apparition’s prophecy, one that Macbeth had considered impossible and had thus dismissed it. The strangeness of what would appear to be a forest moving would be enough to confound any person, let alone Macbeth’s deranged mind. Malcolm is beginning to show himself more as an able king, as he is making military strategies and taking leadership.
Location: Act V, Scene iv, Line Numbers 4–7

6. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing.
Speaker: Macbeth
Audience: Himself and Seyton
Meaning/Significance: Macbeth says that life is useless and has a lot of commotion but doesn’t mean anything. He renounces life as superfluous. His famous monologue comes af-ter the death of his wife, so it is natural that Macbeth is sad. Macbeth says that his pursuit of power was worthless because life is trivial. It effectively marks the end of Macbeth when he admits that it doesn’t matter if he lives or dies.
Location: Act V, Scene v, Line Numbers 26–28

7. If this which he avouches does appear,
There is nor flying hence not tarrying here.
I ‘gin to be aweary of the sun,
And wish th’ estate o’ th’ world were now undone.
Speaker: Macbeth
Audience: Himself and Messenger
Meaning/Significance: Macbeth says that if the messenger is true about Birnam Wood com-ing to Dunsinane Hill then it would fulfill the last prophecy and mark Macbeth’s downfall. Macbeth now recognizes that the prophecies all become true, albeit too late. Macbeth is tired of the sun, meaning he would rather work in the night, where his murders have oc-curred. Macbeth states that he is now weary of life and realizes that since everyone even-tually dies, death is not to be feared.
Location: Act V, Scene vi, Line Numbers 47–50

8. The devil himself could not pronounce a title
More hateful to mine ear.
Speaker: Young Siward
Audience: Macbeth
Meaning/Significance: Young Siward says that Macbeth’s name is so grotesque that it hurts him. This is an example of a David and Goliath story. Macbeth is Goliath and is a very admi-rable fighter. Young Siward is David and is trying to stand up to injustice. Macbeth’s victory shows how much of a monster he has become. This mirrors England’s position when it has often been the underdog (Spanish Armada) but has come out on top.
Location: Act V, Scene vii, Line Numbers 8–9

9. Despair thy charm,
And let the angel whom thou still hast served
Tell thee, Macduff was from his mother’s womb
Untimely ripped.
Speaker: Macduff
Audience: Macbeth
Meaning/Significance: Macduff tells Macbeth that he was not “born” but rather came into this world by a C-section. He thus fits the last prophecy and able to harm Macbeth. This fo-reshadows how he will kill Macbeth. Macbeth now realizes that this battle will most likely cause him to die.
Location: Act V, Scene viii, Line Numbers 13–16

10. Some must go off; and yet, by these I see,
So great a day as this is cheaply bought.
Speaker: Siward
Audience: Malcolm, Ross, Thanes, and soldiers
Meaning/Significance: Siward says that in battle, some soldiers must die; however, in this battle, not very many people died, making their victory even better. Siward is also referring to Macbeth because he, the tyrant, is now dead and they have not lost many soldiers. This is also dramatic irony because he has not learned that his son has died, accentuating the David and Goliath battle between him and Macbeth.
Location: Act V, Scene viii, Line Numbers 36–37

11. My thanes and kinsmen,
Henceforth be earls, the first that ever Scotland
In such an honor named.
Speaker: Malcolm
Audience: Siward, Ross, Macduff, Thanes, and soldiers
Meaning/Significance: Malcolm rewards his soldiers with titles that had previously only been from England. This shows how Scotland and England are now cooperating together, mirroring King James union of Scotland and England when he was crowned king of England. Malcolm also has developed into a worthy king, as he has developed a rewards system.
Location: Act V, Scene viii, Line Numbers 62–64

12. Seyton!—I am sick at heart.
When I behold—Seyton, I say!—This push
Will cheer me ever, or disseat me now.
Speaker: Macbeth
Audience: Himself and Seyton
Meaning/Significance: Macbeth calls for Seyton and says that the battle will either prove his kingship or dethrone him. “Seyton” is a pun of Satan, and Macbeth calling him suggests that he is asking the Devil for help. The long dashes typically show double entendres in Shakes-pearean plays, so Macbeth’s line can either be interpreted as him calling for Seyton and saying that the battle is pivotal or that he when he beholds Satan he becomes sick at heart. This suggests a change in his character.
Location: Act V, Scene iii, Line Numbers 19–21