Thoughts on...

doing a review of the books in power point/video? maybe some past papers or something?

To Commenters

So some people have been commenting n asking me fo help n stuff and well if you're doing that I will help you definitely  (well at least I'll try) , you can just tell me what you need help with one time and I'll answer as soon as I can to the best of my ability, and check back regularly to see if I replied.
That is all. Carry on with your interneting.

First Person and Peripheral Narration in Prose

It's pretty important to remember to talk about a novel's point of view in your prose essays.

What is the point of view you ask?

(of course you didn't actually ask - but lemme clarify so I can pretend to be smart). Point of view my darling non-existent friend, is simply the perspective the story is told from. It's kinda like whose telling it or whose eyes you're seeing through. There are several points of view an author has the option of writing with...(for example):

There's the most obvious one and the one that we all probably exclusively used as ten year olds; the first person narrator.
eg. I wake up in the morning feeling like P Diddy. Weeee are the championsss. I like big butts and I cannot lie.
What we realised this does is tell the story first hand from someone experiencing it. This is their story and although we may hear it referred to as the "I" narrator, it could also be told from the point of view of a group of people using the pronoun "We". 

The only book I could think of off the top of my head that uses the plural form of the first person narrator is 'The Virgin Suicides' (eg. Whenever we saw Mrs. Lisbon we looked in vain for some sign of the beauty that must have once been hers).
I haven't read every single book on the CAPE syllabus (so forgive me) but the two books that I can think of that use this style are 'The Great Gatsby' and 'Wuthering Heights'. Now this may be a bit confusing since if you read either of these books, you'll realise that although the narrators are characters in the story and speak directly through experiences, it's not necessarily their story; they're simply side characters telling the story of the protagonist (or protagonists). There is a special word for these kinda narrators; they're called peripheral narrators. 

In Wuthering Heights we have Lockwood telling his little side story about how he buy a house and meet a girl and doh like people but that not really important - no one quotes him toting about life, everyone quotes Cathy and her whole "Nelly, I am Heathcliff!" scene. Don't let this confuse you though - it's still first person narration (remember the I/we thing kinda gives it away).

In The Great Gatsby, although Nick is a bit closer to the narrator, he's hardly the protagonist (I mean the book's called The Great Gatsby not The Great Carraway).


So why use these narrators -wouldn't it be simpler if you stick to the regular "I woke up on sunny day"?

LIST TIME! (AKA WHY WE USE PERIPHERAL INSTEAD OF FIRST PERSON)

1.  Societal perspective - a lot of the time the author is using the periphery narrator as a social gauge; they judge the protagonist for you. This is helpful when studying such weirdos like Gatsby and Healthcliff because well, they're weirdos. As you may have noticed both Nick and Lockwood are foreigners who encounter the protagonists when they move (temporarily) right next door to them. Them being foreigners is important because it makes them more critical and less biased and affected by the weirdness around them. The author wants the reader to know what their society thought about characters like them, and what better way to do that than put you in a regular ole person's shoes? (This also works for the Virgin Suicides - yeah peripheral narrators there too). The authors are judging society and making you question your morals as you go along! How fun! 
2.  Enigma - That's fancy for mystery. The author probably wants the reader to view the protagonist as an inexplicable creature. We actually know this is true; look at Gatsby and Healthcliff (aren't you all dying to compare these two?) for a good bit of the story we didn't know who Gatsby was or where he came from or how he got rich, we just knew the man like to fete. And the same goes for Healthcliff, hell the story finished and they had kids and shit and we still didn't know what drain Mr. Earnshaw pulled him out from or if that was his horna child or what. And what does all of this do? Say it with me potentially brainwashed CAPE students; it adds suspense!
3. The character doesn't change much - Not all protagonists are the reflective type. They don't know they're going through major life changes and they don't make the effort to think about these things. They don't change from the beginning of the story to the end. Take Gatsby for example; Gatsby remained Gatsby through and through. The only thing that changed about him was our perspective of him (toting over a girl does not change who you are - he was a toter all along, he just hid it before). Now if we got this from his point of view things would be totally different; he'd just be like...I was poor but I wanted to be rich and I liked this girl but she was rich so I made friends and illegal money but she married a dude and I toted and tried to win her back with money and blah blah. Given Gatsby's personality it would be hard to get the whole "American Dream" point across through his Daisy obsession. 
4. The character is difficult to relate to - Raise your hand if you're an orphaned Moor that was rescued by some dude who brought you to his house in the middle of fucking nowhere only to die and leave you with his abusive son and sexy daughter! Ok, now raise your hand if you were ever in a new place and felt awkward and didn't know anyone! Hopefully more people related to the latter (or else that would ruin my entire point) because not everyone has been through the epic lives of these literary heros. We're just plain old teenagers living in a different century with nothing to do other than Literature homework, it's easier for us to relate to the someone a little more generic and bland. Remember these characters represent society and needs to be relatable to the masses... universality is key for good literature! 
5. *SPOILER* They die. Well you're reading lit notes, what do you expect? How would you write this in first person? Would Healthcliff just die? How would he go about narrating while he dies? How would we get that cool parallel between the second generation if he's dead (unless he comes back as a weird introspective ghost)? You can typically tell a character isn't gonna die if they're narrating and well all these protagonists die (including the Lisbon girls). 

Well that's all the important things I could think of right now. Feel free to add to it or tell me I'm an idiot in the comments (if you're calling me an idiot you need to justify it with examples though). 

Paper 1 Definition of Terms

well I don't actually have the definition of terms but I do have this fun game I found testing your knowledge:

GAME!

Click on it people, that's how links work...

Characteristics of the Sub Genre: Prose

Okay I'm pretty lazy right now and don't really wanna type so I'm doing this in point form. Structure and narration are huge things in prose so CAPE likes to ask a lot of questions on it. Even if they don't outwardly ask you to talk about it, you mention it as a technique the writer uses or something, so it ends up coming up anyway...so KNOW it.

Wuthering Heights:
Gothic

• Supernatural Elements (Cathy's ghost, superstition)
• Gloomy Setting (the moors were described as a "misanthropist's heaven" how much more depression do you want? architecture falls under this too)
• Strong, emotional (sometimes even a tad bit melodramatic) characters like Catherine and Heathcliff, i believe the word they like to use is passionate?
• Anti Heroes (and heroines!) this is a protagonist that doesn't exactly have any virtuous qualities about them like what typical heros have (Catherine was a selfish little brat and Heathcliff was a vengeful ass) 

Brown Girl, Brownstones:
Bildungsroman

• a bildungsroman is a coming of age novel (follows the protagonist from a child to an adult)
• revolves around the conflict the protagonist goes through when trying to find their identity.
• conflict can be family related or response to the wider society
• novel ends with the protagonist's assessment of themselves and their place in society

Introductions of Essays

A lot goes into the introduction of any essay; it is the entire basis and foundation of your essay so you have a lot riding on it. So make sure it's good. There are two main things you need to do when writing the introduction of any lit essay, you need to:

1. Provide the relevant context
   here you need to give a little background into the books you're doing. You need to state the name of the book and who wrote it. You may wanna talk about the setting and maybe the literary period the book was written in. Whatever you do here don't go too in depth, just give enough context for your essay to make sense. For example if you have to do a drama essay about women in society then you may just wanna mention how society treated women then. Was it a patriarchal society? Was feminism a thing? Don't go in depth here, that's what the body of the essay is for just mention enough to justify your answer or thesis.
2. Answer the question/state your thesis.
   well obviously this would be the other part. I like to put it at the end of the intro so it'll be justified. Here you answer the question they're asking you or give your opinion if it's an argumentative essay (try to always make it an arguementative essay - you get points for analysis). It's basically your essay in one sentence - the topic sentence.

  

Here's how my intros typically look; the green part is context and the yellow part is my thesis.                                                                  

              _____________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________

Remember we NEVER use examples  and start discussion in the intro. If you wanna be fancy you can use a relevant quote from some third party or maybe even the person themselves relating the question. Just don't start discussing here, you'll have plently of time for that in the body. 

Poems I Like for Les Murray

If I seriously find one other person who's not from my school (or who I've peer pressured) that's doing Murray I'll be so happy. Murray is a very cool chap but you never get any info on him because let's face it; he's not Hardy. Here are some Les poems that I think are especially worth studying.

• An Absolutely Ordinary Rainbow
• The Quality of Sprawl
• The Mowed Hollow
• Inside Ayers Rock
• The Tin Wash Dish
• On Home Beaches
• Late Summer Fires

And hey, if you can figure out what the hell Bat's Ultrasound is about and you feel comfortable enough talking about it then go right ahead and do it because it's a great poem to talk about sound and his technique.  Yeah I know I just gave you a list and that's shitty but I like making lists and maybe later I'll talk more about the poems.

Btw, one of my favs by him is The Meaning of Existence but there's not as much to talk about when compared to the others, but feel free to use whatever poems you want, these are just the ones I feel comfortable enough talking about in terms of amount on content and actually understanding the content. 

Love and Desire in Twelfth Night

The theme of love is introduced in the first line of the play “If music be the food of love, play on” this establishes it as a central theme. All major characters in the play experience some kind of love or desire for someone, whether it’s true love or not is something to be debated but still... There are many kinds of love in Illyria; we have romantic love, unrequited love, master/servant love and sibling love.

Love’s a funny thing here though; it’s always changing and doesn't seem to be very stable... In the beginning Orsino claims to love Olivia but as we see he doesn't really know her that doesn't stop him from showering her in bad poetry though, as soon as Viola reveals she’s a woman though he forgets all about Olivia and jumps ship and marries her.

 His melodrama is only matched by Olivia’s mourning. She claims to be so frickin sad and vows to wear a veil for 7 years but the first sexy guy to come round (Cesario/Viola) she starts throwing herself on. This seems a bit extreme doesn't it? Shakespeare seems to be making fun of the upper class here; who are more into the idea of something (like love) that they actually love someone....I mean Orsino had his little page boys go and court Olivia instead of going although he was so in love with her while Feste is the sane one who's in the background making fun of both of them.  And I mean we all know someone like that (hell we may even be someone like that ourselves) who sees a nice girl in a Mario’s line somewhere and starts writing bad poems about how her hair smells so good and he’s so in love without even knowing her name. We can't exactly call that undying love now can we?

Now let’s talk about Sebastian and Antonio; it’s pretty debated but I think it’s safe to assume that Antonio had a thing for him. And I mean it makes sense right? He saved him and took care of him and was willing to following him although he’s a wanted man in Illyria. I think there’s more of a chance of that being true love than Malvolio who just wanted Olivia’s status or Orsino who just thought they'd look super cute together. But what happened to Antonio in the end? Did he end up with Sebastian? Of course not, this was The Elizabethan era and homosexuality was regarded as a mental illness up to the 90s. The 1990s. So when everyone one else was getting married to people they basically met two hours ago poor Antonio was in jail. 

Viola and Orsino's relationship summed up 

By the end of the play people just seem t be pairing up at random with whoever; the first time Sebastian met Olivia he married her, and I mean sure she thought he was his sister but I mean still... he went along with it. "Hey this sexy rich lady wants to marry me, why not?" When Olivia found this out she didn't even have a problem, hey they must be the same person anyway...
On the other side of the spectrum we have the lower class people like Maria and Sir Toby who instead of flowery poetry have double entendres all about sexy sex stuff. Hey, at least they liked each other.
Shakes further satirizes romantic love by showing us how sibling love (Viola and Sebastian) and master/servant love (Maria and Olivia) is more constant than anything else. 

It's safe to say that there was a little exploration of homosexuality as we saw obviously with Sebastian and Antonio but also with Orsino and Viola (hey, he thought she was a guy and there were hints) and with Olivia and Viola (she was turned on by "Cesario's" feminine-ness) more about that later though.
Anyway feel free to tell me what you think about this theme and why you disagree or agree or add in something you think is important :) 

Looking for CAPE notes? Well Do I Have News for You...

I know I haven't updated in awhile...well because exams finished >.> but I can't just leave you all here so I come bearing the gift of knowledge!

Okay it's just a link to a website...a freaking awesome website! With dinosaurs n stuff! (no - I swear). They have notes for CAPE subjects (including lit ofc) so go check it out.

oh yeah...here's the link!

notezilla (<---click here people)

Happy studying everyone and good luck in exams! (I'm always here if you need help or anything - I have no life)
And yes...I did just copy this post from my comm blog (I'm lazy, okay >.>)

Behold! Twelfth Night Quotes That You Really Should Know

I'm just giving you the quotations because I assume you can figure out what they mean. They're not in any particular order.

"If music be the food of love, play on" (Orsino to his court)

"Give me excess of it, that surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die." (Orsino to his court)

"I will believe thou hast a mind that suits
With this thy fair and outward character." (Viola to Captain)

"Conceal me what I am, and be my aid
For such disguise as haply shall become
The form of my intent." (Viola to Captain)

"Diana's lip
Is not more smooth and rubious: thy small pipe
Is as the maiden's organ, shrill and sound,
And all is semblative a woman's part." (Orsino to Cesario)

"I have unclasp'd
To thee the book even of my secret soul.
Therefore, good youth, address thy gait unto her," (Orsino to Cesario)

"for I myself am best
When least in company" (Orsino to Viola)

"Whoe'er I woo, myself would be his wife" (Viola in an Aside)

BOOM! Random penguin..shit gets
 boring...I know. I had to type it up 

"Better a witty fool than a foolish wit." (Feste to Olivia)

"I wear not motley in my brain." (Feste to Olivia)

"the hood does not make the monk" (Feste to Olivia)

"Methinks I feel this youth's perfections
With an invisible and subtle stealth
To creep in at mine eyes. Well, let it be." (Olivia in soliloquy)

"Poor lady, she were better love a dream.

Disguise, I see thou art a wickedness" ( Viola in soliloquy)

"Journeys end in lovers meeting" (Feste's song)

"I was once adored too" (Sir Andrew to Sir Toby)

"She never told her love...
...She pined in thought,
And with a green and yellow melancholy
She sat like patience on a monument,
Smiling at grief. Was not this love indeed?" (Cesario to Orsino)

"I am all the daughters of my father's house
And all the brothers too." (Cesario to Orsino)

take cuteness pon your ass! 

"This fellow's wise enough to play the fool,
And to do that well craves a kind of wit." (Viola in soliloquy)

"I am not what I am" (Cesario to Feste)

"If this were played upon a stage now, I could
condemn it as an improbable fiction." (Fabian to Sir Toby, Sir Andrew and Maria)

"A little thing would make me tell them
how much I lack of a man" (Viola in an Aside)

"Virtue is beauty, but the beauteous evil
Are empty trucks, o'er flourish'd by the devil" (Antonio to Cesario)

"Nothing that is so, is so." (Feste to Sebastian)

"There is something in't
That is deceivable" (Sebastian in a Soliloquy)

"I'll be revenged on the whole pack of you!" (Malvolio to well...everyone on stage for Act 5)


If you were paying attention you may have realized I used Viola and Cesario in different places, I used Viola when she's not in disguise (this includes soliloquies and asides) and Cesario when she played that part.

These are definitely not the only quotes that are important, you can look through and see what else you can fish out but learn these and use them properly and you'll do well. Try to get in at least three quotes in your essays, but please don't just throw them in, explain and relate them and all that good stuff.