~A place to showcase my growth~
Jared Freeman's Digital Portfolio
Unit II: Short Stories
How do aspects of place affect human action and character?
The main way how aspects of place affect human actions and charcater is through how a certain charcater comes into contact with the setting. The way a charcater interacts with the surroundings or setting impacts their actions. Overall, setting can set a tone, infuence recations and change motives of a charcter in a certain situation.
Early Autumn Analysis
In the short story Early Autumn, the author Langstan Hughes uses hints of the setting of the season autumn. This wasn't just done for the sake of incorperating hints of the setting in the diolouge. It is done to show the comparison between the convesation between Bill and Mary and the chnaging of the seasons. I wrote a paragraph about this exact point:
In the short story “Early Autumn” by Langston Hughes, the details of setting associated with autumn represent the reunion of Mary and Bill. The clues that the author provides about the setting mean more than the coming of the season autumn. Bill, and Mary were once in love, but they ended up going their own separate ways. Then one day Mary sees Bill in the park, and they stop to have a conversation. Through the conversation, they realize that they both have new lives and have adjusted to them. Mary seems to remember more about how she felt during the relationship. As the leaves are falling around her, “she found herself desperately reaching back into the past” (Hughes 1). The leaves falling around someone, a key feature of autumn, represents an end with the old and – soon – growth of the new. Leaves falling off of their branches often serves as a reminder for people, signaling that a new year is coming. By seeing Bill, Mary is reminded about the time they spent together and the memories they had together. The comparison between a transition into a new part of the year, and Mary realizing that she has to transition into a new part of her life was one big metaphor that the author was trying to convey.
I found this whole connection very interesting because indeed the setting of Autumn almost acts as a reminder for them, and infuences the tone of the convesation. Really, anytime we are in a different setting - for exmaple, a snow storm - our actions are changed and that is just a natural thing that our human condition entitles. To gain access to the full document just click the link below.
Indirect Characterization Clasification in Two Kinds
In the story Two Kinds Written by Amy Tan the two main characters in the story definitely have many sides to them. This means that not all of the details of those charcaters are revealed directly, instead indirectly. In order to understand how the author shows us these details we have to use the acronym ASTAR (Apearence, Speech, Thoughts, Actions, Reactions). To showcase what I learned about this technique of identifing clues from the story, I made a chart that showcases what the characters from Two Kinds are like.
This relates to the unit question becuase some of the reasons why Jing Mei and her mother acted the way they did. It was mainly becuase of the place that they were in. Jing Mei thought that since she was in "The Land of the Free" that she could decide anything about her life on her own. And then her mother on the other hand might have still been attched to her chilhood life where obidence is just another ordinary day. How they reacted to certain situations could be explained through this. To download the full document where this chart came from click the link below:
Currency Conversion Clerification Inspired From The Necklace
One recurring motif that I noticed in the short story written by Guy de Maupassant was francs and the cost of a certain item. So I did a little more research on the old French currency that was used in the story. I looked online and according to this article online, this was the national currency of France until the introcution of the Euro. The symbol was FF and it looked like the image below:
To see the link to the article and the picture click the links below:
Article ~>
Picture ~>
Though when reading the short story one might not fully understand how much she was asking for, or how much she payed, or how much it was worth unless you were from that time period. So, I went to an online currency translator and calculated how much the items mentioned in the short story would cost if they were bought in this time period with American Dollars.
After finding all of the prices out it really helped me gain perspective on how much they had to work off and really the stress that came upon them when she realized that she had lost the necklace. Though having seen the prices seemed a little low but I guess it was durring a diiferent time! To see the website where I made all of the conversions click the link below:
How to Write a Thesis Statement 101:
In class we discussed a lot about what a thesis statement is and why it can be one of the most important pieces of information that informs your reader on what the rest of the essay will be supporting. After being exposed to all of the knowledge behind a thesis statement, we had to make a handout that could act as way for someone else to learn this in a creative way. For mine, I made a chart that gave four simple steps to follow when going about writing their thesis statement.
My aproach to this was to make it simple and easy to follow for someone to gain enough information on how to start writing their own thesis. This connects to the unit question becuase often we can have a paragraph or essay topic revolving around the idea that setting affects characters and their actions. Or also if someone is in an area where ideas are clear and are able to help that person know the general idea of what they are reading, then they might be effected, or will take more away from your piece than if the thesis did not enlighten the them on the purpose of your argument/analysis. To print out the handout as seen above just click on the button below and it will take you to the full document.
The Significance of Food represented in the short story
When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine:
In the short story, When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine, food is a recuring motif within the story and is a constant idea that shows up in many parts of the text. From the whole concept of Mr. Pirzada coming to dinner, to America not having certain grocery items, to the giving of candy as a gift, food is a major idea that is present in many "scences" of the text. I made the connection that this is because sometimes food is a major aspect of someone's beliefs/relgion or even just a common gesture in certain parts of the world. This interest me so I did some more research on the importance of food in Indian cuture.
When I looked at an online article it said that there is indeed a reason why food is apart of many aspects of Indian culture. Primarily becuase it is said that food is the source of all life and that the world depends on food. Therefore it is something that is valued heaivily in Indian culture. They belive that god is the creator of all food so they must not waste any and that they must pray to remeber its importance. In addition they say that food is the only way for a person to develop into a better and grown up person.
In my opinion the reason why the author chose to use lots of words to describe food throughout the short story was to highlight an aspect that connected both Lilia's family and Mr. Prizada life that could not have been broken even by a partitioning of India.
Also just for fun here is a listing (and a few pictures) of some of the food items mentioned in the short story!
Mustard Oil
Austere Biscuts
Rice
Cashews
Coriander Chutney
Mincemeat Kebabs
Lentals
Cinnnamon Hearts
Green Beans
Fish
Rasins
Olives
Pickeled Mangoes
Plums
Dried Pumpkin Seeds
Pumpkins
Fennel Seeds
Lemon Wedges
Yougurt Sauce
Coconut
Chili Pepers
Tea
Fried Onions
Click the link down below to go to the article where I got the information about Indian culture and how it realtes to the importance of food.
D.I.Y. Thesis Activity!
Obviously it is one thing to know everything there is to know about a thesis statement. But really you have to practice writing your own thematic stements and then connecting them to the story in order to get some practice. So this was exactly what we did durring class activity. We had the opportunity to do this and get feedback on our statement to then revise what we wrote, which is a major part of what a working thesis statement is.
This next diagram below shows the progression of how our group took this orginal idea from this whiteboard, and through the use of our classmates' feedback, then made it better!
1st Version
Feedback
2nd Version
3rd Version
In the short story "Like the Sun," R.K. Narayan displays that truth doesn't always fufil ones expectations through Sekar's experiment of articulating the truth throughout the day.
As we passed our board around, our classmates gave us feeback on the positives and negatives relating to our thesis statement. The major comment, relating to what we should change, was that . . .
"The thesis does not relate back to something involving the story."
So after we got back our white board we looked and tried to see how we could adjust and revise what we had written originally. We decided that we liked our thematic statement but realized we might not have worded it properly. So we changed it to . . . . . .
In the short story "Like the Sun," R.K. Narayan displays that truth is not always the statement that one wants to hear through Sekar's experiment of telling the honest truth everywhere he goes, and living with the reactions of the people for whom he talks to.
If we had more time and were acually going to prcoeed in devolping this topic into an essay, we would have made other changes to this working thesis statement. Overall this showcases the importance of getting feedback from others and learning to be open for suggestions on things that might not be so strong in your writing.
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As like everything else in this unit, this relates to the unit question. This is becuase as seen in this acivity our actions of changing our thesis statement was impacted by our setting of fellow students giving us helpful criticism. If for some reason you want the picture of our orginal thesis statement from the white board activity you can download a document with the picture on it just by clicking the button below.