Good Luck

Should be revising but I wanted to take the time out to wish everyone except Shaun the best of luck for the exam on Monday. It's been a great year and I truly can't wait to begin the coursework with all you guys except Shaun. All of these posts have been great in helping me revise, except Shauns, and I love you Guys.

Reading the question

Reading the Question

In the lesson we took a look at English Literature Unit 3 June 2010’s exam paper, and focused on what the question is asking you do - as well as identify the key assessment objective (AO2, AO3 AND AO4).

We looked at a section A question for The Pardoners Tale;

• “In spite of the fact that both the Pardoner himself and the Tale are sinister, they are also comic.” Consider The Pardoner’s Tale in the light of this comment.

The AO2 focuses on the terms; "sinister" and "comic". Basically these two terms are the hint for what kind of A02 analysis you should be doing.

The phrase "Consider" and “In spite” focuses on AO3 in the sense that when you see these style of words you should recognise that it’s for you to start an argument. The “In spite” part hints that there are both sinister and comic elements in the Pardoner and Tale. The “consider” or another synonym of it suggests other interpretations of the comment.

Finally the A04 is a bit tricky, but from looking at past exam papers we deduced that it is usually a term that could have different meanings across a time period. For example the terms “comic” and “sinister” have a different meaning to Chaucer’s contemporary audience, compared to a post modern. For example sinister for Chaucer revolved around God, sin, Death and Afterlife; in fact all of these notions link to religion – thus hence we can deduce that “sinister” was a lot to do with religion. However, Carter who is surrounded by a post modern society could value sinister in criminals. Hence the element of “sinister” varies in different time periods.

This analysis is common to every question. You can do the same for all of them, so I recommend analysing two each for section A, and two for section B. I realise this blog is short, but this activity will help you be more specific when answering questions. The only way to be specific and detailed when answering questions is by first understanding what the question is exactly asking you to do. Eventually understanding what the question is asking us will become nature, with lots of practise.

Homely Gothic
We discussed how the Gothic in the Victorian time represented a longing for a more unified and spiritual way of life. The Gothic achieved this by the use of nostalgic ghost (for those drama monkeys that missed the lesson nostalgic means having a feeling of reminisce about something you once had. Like a car you once loved but then you get a new car but there is a feeling of something missing, maybe the clutch is not as good as the old one).
We read an article called ‘Homely Gothic’ this article discussed how in the industrial revolution there came about a movement to a more factual way of life where everything would happen for a reason. This meant that people started to find the answers to questions that religion could not answer in science. This time was close to the time of the book by Darwin ‘The Origin of Species’ which was published in 1859 this was the time when the phrase ‘death of religion arose’ as people where given the assurance that science provided. But this lead to a sense of disunity among the people that where left torn between the blind belief in religion or a factual scientific way of life. But people started to feel a certain void that once was filled by the believe in the supernatural and the unknown. The Gothic provided this by exploring feeling that there are things which are greater than us and don’t always happen in a result to a cause but because they just do. We then said how the Gothic was seen as an escape from this boring way of living where everything was black and white; this meant the Gothic took people on excursions beyond the everyday world.
We then read the bit on ‘Sins of The Father’ which dealt with how in the time of the Victorian society the home was seen as the last place where one could refuge from a sense of loss of unity. Bronte uses this as her setting where she shows the home is not as perfect as people thought it was, Bronte shows that instead of being a place where the heart is, she takes the view that it is the heart of where all pain and oppression begins. ‘Wuthering Heights’ goes against the idea of ‘The angel of the house’ where Catherine refuses to remain as this angelic creature but carries out escapades with Heathcliff.
We then had to do an essay thesis statement for the essay that was due on Monday. So if you haven’t done it yet and have been praying for the question; your prayers have been answered as hear it is:
How far do you agree ‘Wuthering Heights challenges social norms and is therefore a Gothic text?
We did a good example of how a good introduction and first paragraph should be like; it’s on learning recourses under Mr Sadgrove English.

Linguistics
In our lesson on Thursday we started by having to identify all the language feature that are found in Wuthering Heights, like symbols, motifs, semantics and themes. We then looked at the how the linguistics that are used in Wuthering Heights help to tell the story, and how a chain of sentences create this feeling of excitement which is followed by a sentence that kills the flow of joy all together.
We looked at the use of pronouns such as ‘I’ personal, but opinionated. We see this in the opening of the novel when Lockwood narrates his meeting with Mr Heathcliff and excessive use of the word I which shows the reader that Lockwood is a very opinionated character and also one that is very self –centred narrator. The use of ‘it’ is also found in the novel regarding Heathcliff “it looked intelligent”. ‘it’ is used as in regard to objects, this also creates the fear of the unknown which in the time of the British empire was a common fear due to the amount of nations that where colonised. We then focused on dynamic verbs and how they used to give the text an energetic feeling with the use of words such as “ran” creating movement in the text “she bounded before me” as Nelly narrates when she and Cathy go out on her sixteenth birthday. This is used to amplify the excitement and mood of the text.
Then we discussed the use of nouns which are used to give the text a sense of realness and believability. They are used so the reader can connect with the text and not feel like an outside observer. The dates “1801”, seasons and diary entrees also make the story more reliable. Sentence length also plays an important role in the novel. They are used after a long sentence that is complex and compound, the sentence normally leaves the reader with a question mark “It's a pity she could not be content” that is behind all the enjoyment there is always something that the character is worried about, which in the case of Cathy is her sick father. Semantic fields are also used in the novel with regards to many things. For example in regards to the Grange and the first description that we get of the place, words like carpet, crimson, shimmering and soft tapers gives the place a feeling of heaven on earth where all is well and happy, yet this not the case when we look at the following cluster of words which reveal the true nature of things at the Grange. Words like shrieking, weeping and “red-hot needles” gives the reader a completely different feel of the Grange which is more like hell the heaven.
After that we looked at a couple of extract that we were from Wuthering Heights and had to identify the linguistic feature that they had. We saw how they were dominated with the pronoun ‘I’ that is used by our narrators Lockwood and Nelly showing how opinionated they are. We also found semantic fields in regards to Heathcliff as Nelly narrates about him. Words such as degradation, black fire, depressed, roughness and stern show that Heathcliff as an evil character which is later described as “imp of Satan”.
And hear is the bit we all love... the home work. We have to an essay the question was “The mystery inherent in the story confers Wuthering Heights as a Gothic novel”. Discuss.
We wrote a sort of plan on what should be in the essay
• Fragmented narrative/nouns and time
• Ambiguous- TC WH oppositions blurred
• Life and death
• Parasitic- feeds on Victorian categorisation
• Gothic context- how the Gothic is more of a mode then a genre
• Thesis statement. Mysterious elements create uncertainty and fear making the novel of the Gothic mode

Section B Questions

Section B Questions

The section B question that we focused the lesson on was:

“Writers often use the Gothic literary genre in order to challenge or destabilise the beliefs and conventions of society” Discuss this statement in relation to three texts.

 We began to talk about how we could interpret this question. We said how it could be related to Julian Wolfrey’s article in which he said "Gothic exists in relation to mainstream culture in the same way as a parasite does to its host". We discussed how this related to the word ‘Destabilise’ in the question. Wolfrey’s says that the Gothic acts much like a parasite which feeds on the ‘deep wounds’ of society in order to evoke fear and anxiety from readers. In other words the Gothic seeks to reveal to society its own fears. It aims to morph these fears into the traditional stock characters and wild, isolated settings of the Gothic in order to illuminate society’s own fears to itself, thus destabilising ‘the beliefs and conventions of society’.

Following this we split up into groups of three and was each given an article relating to a specific text. We then had to extract quotes from these articles and find quotes within the text that we could relate to these. My specific text was ‘The Bloody Chamber’ and a quote that we picked out was:

“Otherness takes centre stage”  - in discussion to this quote by Fred Botting we talked about how, in The Bloody Chamber ‘Otherness’ does indeed take centre stage. Carter does not stick to the traditional ‘methods’ of the gothic. The stock manly, boisterous characters typical of the Gothic are replaced with noble heroines who are often in a position of power over their male counterparts. In relation to The Bloody Chamber itself we talked about the shifts in power within Carter’s stories. One of many examples is in ‘The Erl-King’ in which we see our female narrator strangle the Erl-King with his own hair while he lays in her lap.

Finally with all of our quotes and critics points we began to link the general ideas of our quotes to all three texts rather than just one. To do this we constructed a ven diagram in order to demonstrate clearly which points linked to which text and whether any points would be relevant for all three texts. Some examples of the quotes from my groups ven diagram are linked to below:

(Very simplified but you get the idea)

Ven Diagram

The significance of chronological events in “Wuthering Heights”

The significance of chronological events in “Wuthering Heights”

During this lesson we mainly studied the effect of Bronte’s order of events. The non chronological order holds significance on many different aspects of the novel.

We looked at Bronte’s use of multiple narratives and the effects of this. We each drew a picture to try and represent what we believed to show how Bronte used the frame narrative to tell of

Bronte's writing

About

Lockwood's re-encounter

Of what

Nelly told him

She interpreted

From Isabella's letters.

Next we looked at the order of events within Wuthering Heights. Bronte's uses of non chronological events can be seen as confusing so we split into groups and rearranged the events to what they would have been if told chronologically.

We then summarised what was gained and lost through Bronte’s use of non chronological narrative and decided:

Gained

• An further understanding of Heathcliff’s character
• Sympathy for Heathcliff
• A stronger understanding of family relationships and relations
• A more stable understanding of characters emotions toward each other
• Clarity in relation to the novel as a whole
• A more comfortable reading experience with more relatable characters

Lost

• The “uncanny of the monumental”
• The gothic aspects of obscurity
• The gothic aspects of ambiguity
• The mystery of Heathcliff (to a certain extent)
• The use of Lockwood as a narrator (as Nelly would have to tell the whole story)
• The uncomfortable and non relatable characters.

As a result I personally believe that Bronte's time scheme is used to allow the elements of the gothic to invade and feed on the mainstream literature that is “Wuthering Heights”. Without Bronte's time scheme the gothic intervention in “Wuthering Heights” would decrease drastically due to the loss of obscurity of the plot and the ambiguity of characters. Bronte's time scheme and with-holding of information makes any judgements or decisions made by the reader at the start of the novel a contradiction of themselves later on in the novel. This occurs when intentions behind actions are revealed; A good example of this would be Heathcliff’s revenge and then the discovery of his abuse as a child at the hands of Hindley and the way the “dark skinned gypsy brat” is never truly accepted by his “family” with the exception of Catherine, and even she questions his humanity later on in the novel.

Religion in 'The Pardoner's Tale'.

Started of the lesson with interprating this picture and how the wolves praying on the bodies could represent religion in medival society and its power and dominance upon its members.

"It is in the corruption of religion that the text becomes horrific". How far do you

think this assessment of 'The Pardoner's Tale is justified?

We then went on to highlighting key words in the question which later on helped with noting down what needs to include in this essay question, such as;

• David Punter's definition of Horror + Terror
• The church being a 'parasite' to middle-age society/ the Gothic amplifying and 'feeding off' deeper wounds already present in members within society.
• Questioning the question= e.g. it can be horrific to an extent but not without the element of terror.

We then went on to focusing on the word 'Corrupt' and what it could mean;

• Exploitation
• immorality
• taking advantage of ones position and status.

By reading pages 73- 76 and underlining (with pencil!) the important points on religious context within the middle ages and its significance in The Pardoner's Tale. Examples:

Religious Context- Chaucer's presentation of this in The Pardoner's Tale

• The state of the soul is important to the Cristian faith/ preparing for the 'next life'- The Pardoner uses this ideology in order to manipulate the congregations fears and anxieties.


• Money could be paid as a substitute to penance. It could then be used by the Church for its various religious and charitable purposes- Yet the Pardoner uses it to convince people who want the pardons and him having the power to provide it, becomes a profitable racket.


• Preaching was a highly developed technique in the middle ages, it had an agreed structure- The Pardoner draws examples from scriptures or other authoritative writers, fitted in at suitable moments throughout the sermon to justify his preaches.


• The preacher is not giving his own self- generated thoughts but he is passing on the word of God- Yet the Pardoner states that he thoroughly enjoys his powers of persuasion. To help him gain money from 'selling' pardons.


• 1/3 of the countries wealth going to the church- Description of Pardoners value of church as an institution to fill up his pocket.


• Church had political power which went to people within the church- The Pardoner abuses his power and position given to him by the church.

• Preaching intended to bring people closer to Christ- Sermon on avarice (attempt for own gain)


• Preaches were only allowed to preach the word of God- The Pardoner makes his own pronouncement on the authority of his relics.