England LIT: A year of reading English lit

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Reflections on a year of Reading English Literature

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

Oliver twist by Charles Dickens

The tempest by William Shakespeare 

David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

 Already being a huge fan of the English culture and the classic literature it has to offer choosing England was an easy choice for me. The country has a very rich cultured past and everything in England is very posh and elegant. The inclusion of a royal family is just an example as to why England is very classical in England you can even be knighted by the queen! The landmarks like the Big-Ben, Buckingham Palace, and the tower of London are just a few of the largest tourist attractions in the world that England has to offer. The literature follows suit to this reputation in every novel that I’ve read especially Dickens work. The landmarks make appearances and the royal family even is coherent. The poor in the novels are really poor and the rich in the novels are especially really rich! The characters are always speaking to each other in elegant fashion and the occupations they have like being teachers, black smiths, and stock brokers are still popular jobs in England. The characters eat crumpets and drink lots of tea and the stereotypes of English people are really true in these novels and it actually is quite comical. The land of the Iconic union jack has produced some of the best classic authors that literature has to offer just like my favorite author from there Charles Dickens.

 What I’ve learned from Great expectation is that no matter what the upbringing or what mistakes you have made in the past if you pay your dues you will be rewarded in the end. Pip helps an escaped convict run away from the police and even though that is something illegal later on during his adult hood he was gifted with something amazing to escape his abusive sister and future of being a blacksmith. Pip gets to become a gentleman and is gifted a fortune to lie with from a mysterious donor and that donor is the very convict he helped when he was a kid and it repaid him later on in life because he did his job and stayed focused.

What I’ve learned from Oliver twist is that sometimes you may have to do the wrong thing to help support yourself in the long run. Oliver starts out as an orphan destined to work a job at a funeral home who is ready to run away to the city and make a living out there. When he was trying to make his living he and three other children are kidnapped by a villain named Fagin who is going to use them as servants. The entire group starts pick pocketing to make enough money to eat and escape the clutches of Fagin while all of the orphanages owners are looking for him. Fagin turns himself in and the inheritance Oliver is given and the money he made to escape stays with him and he gets adopted by the orphanage owner and stealing to keep himself alive.

What I’ve learned from The Tempest is that if you stay focused and on task you can really accomplish anything you set yourself to doing. The king of Naples is taking a ship home with his other family back home from his daughter’s wedding and he ends up in a shipwreck with the daughter watching it happen. He doesn’t want his daughter to see him die so he and the crew build a small ship and brave the oceans cruel waves to make it back home. The reason they made it back is because the way they kept their mind to a task and the way that they just never gave up they completed the task the set their line too.

What I’ve learned from David Copperfield is that there is always going to be somebody in the world who is there for you and on your side. David’s father died when he was you and he grew up with an abusive step father who wouldn’t let him try to pursue his aspiring writing career. David’s step father sends him to a boarding school and while he’s there he meets many people who go against him. He stuck to his wits and became a successful writer with the help of his new found love Agnes. Because she was there to support him through all of the hatred he is shown he is able to become a successful writer. If you find a support system you can always complete anything you try to do through any hate.

What I’ve learned about myself is that I’m still not a huge fan of reading anymore like I was when I was a little kid. But if the book I’m reading is something from dickens or any English literature I am a little bit more interested in reading. What I have learned about myself is also that I wait till the last minute to finish things that I have to do which is something that I should work on doing. The reading itself was enjoyable it gave me a routine to follow every week during school and I had something to do every Sunday night and it became normal. In the end of all of these blog posts the biggest thing I figured out is that English literature is my personal favorite literature and that I do better on my homework and finish assignments when I am put on a schedule and I get into a routine.

Word Count: 909

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Week 20 Blog

David Copperfield

Charles Dickens

Pages 20 - 67

Words – 628

 Summary - Friends of David’s were caught hanging out with Murdstone at his store and were distressed and worried about David. These kids are extremely immature and lack an intellectual mind. The boys fathers are the same way and work very hard non-intellectual jobs. A Mr. Micawber is introduced to david and this man has a homeless and dirty look but is extremely intelligent and appears as if he was able to grow up fortunate enough at the time to receive an education. Murdstone lets david go and live with this mysterious man and his family and eventually trust david and reveal a  big secret they have been keeping. The family is going through extreme debt and is struggling to put food on their children’s plates and are barely able to keep themselves alive. They become extremely distraught over the stress of not being able to successfully raise their child even though they can afford a slim ration to feed barley a person. David doesn’t want to live in this household anymore and Is going to attempt to find himself a job and run away to live in his own place he is going to rent.

 Analysis - Now that Dickens started of the story without any explanations of what David or the other characters are like the info about them are coming into view now. Dickens introduced David’s unintelligent friends who give off a selfish rude vibe “I needed my compliments as soon as I entered the area - being the only way I could politely function”. Dickens showed the friends ignorance when one of them said that to David when he was mocking David’s intelligence and constant search of approval. David is being shown as a supportive character that will go great lengths to make sure not just he is feeling happy but others also see their good traits. “if you’re a Villain, than I’m a treacherous villain” David is trying to convince Mr. Micawber isn’t a villain for not being able to provide his own kid a good experience and opportunity to strive at the moment. It shows that no matter how David is treated he will go extra lengths to make sure he treats everybody else how he wants to be treated.

 Personal Response - This novel has turned into one that has really invested me into the characters and plot to the point where I am caught reading ahead and that’s the reason why I have had such a spike in pages in this week’s quotes. The feeling of the conflicts David is going through really makes you think about the way you live your own life and how you treat other people even if they are in a better situation then yourself it. The plot and Davids personal development as a human of society still is there and without the insight into the way David feels there would be no way the plot would develop any further because the story has mostly focused on the people around David. The learning environment that he is in is still in the story in a different way. He is now using his life experiences to teach the reader ways to react in life and teach the reader about himself as well. The story had maintained its importance in my nightly routine which shows it’s doing its job and was a good way to finish off the blog posts. This whole project has really show me that I’m a huge Dickens fan and the importance of reading some sort of literature every night has helped me in s many ways from being able to perform well in English class and to keep me entertained every night.

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Of your a Villan, than I'm a treacherous villain

David Copperfield by Charles Dickens pg 67

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I needed my compliments as soon as I entered the area - being the only way I could politely function

David Copperfield by Charles Dickens pg 45

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I was brought up by hand and I can never get my innocent care free childhood days back

David Copperfield by Charles Dickens pg 22

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Week 19 Blog

David Copperfield

Charles Dickens

Pages 1 – 15

Words – 541

 Summary – This novel starts out with a preface that contains information about dickens mixed feelings upon completion of this story and where he is going from here on out. The first chapter has an adult David guiding us through his life’s journey. David only wants the reader to understand that the novel has no inclinations with any villains but only has to do with victors. David lets us know the exact time and place he was born and under the exact circumstances of his birth as well. Because he was born exactly on midnight on a Friday he has the extreme ill fated gift of being able to witness ghosts. He never knew his dad because before he was birthed his dad died. His aunty, Betsey Trotwood, talks to his mom when he is born telling her that she will be parenting the next female child she gives birth to.  Betsey wants to make sure the girl won’t have to grow up abused like she was when she was a kid. Instead David is given birth to and is obviously a male and Betsy painstakingly runs away from the home and isn’t ever seen again.

 Analysis - Dickens wanted to start the story of with very little explanation as to what exactly is going on with David besides the fact that he is narrating his own life story and is telling us about the circumstances of his birth. Dickens introduces David’s aunt as one of the strongest most demanding characters in the novel because of she intended to raise David if he was a female. Dickens having this character quickly disappear without any more information other than opinions opens up way more room for things to happen when she comes back. Dickens is trying to establish a fast developing tone to the starting point of the story and isn’t giving off much information at the moment. David narrating the story helps us not really interpret everything because he does give us some sort of initially perfect and accurate info because these are first hand events he is telling.

 Personal response – This is the first chapter I’ve read of this book and wasn’t able to include any quotes in the analysis but this is the third dickens novel I’ve attempted to perfectly translate into blog posts. Only a chapter in and this is my favorite Dickens novel yet because of all the room for interpretation your left to have your imagination go free with. The fact that David is narrating allows the reader to really trust the process of the story and not immediately get bored of it.  In classic Dickens fashion he starts the story off with little to no insight on the characters lives or really personality traits. Instead he allows you to make your own personal summaries and let you form opinions that will definitely change towards the end of the novel. Dickens wants the reader to form relationships with these novels characters and especially in David Copperfield and he wants those opinions to change and for the reader to create enemies and give every different reader their own different feeling on the stories characters and that’s something that I appreciate.

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Fetch me your robes now. You don't deserve to sport these anymore, o how fitting they will be for me

The tempest by William Shakespeare act 5 sc 2 pg 281

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This is my cape and now my land I own you

The tempest by William Shakespeare act 5 sc 2 pg 246

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My journey is one that I should have completed

The tempest by William Shakespeare act 5 scene 2 page 210

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And my ending in despair, unless I be relieved by prayer which pierces so that it assaults mercy itself, and frees all faults

The tempest by William Shakespeare act 1s- scene epilogue

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Week 18 Blog

The Tempest

William Shakespeare

Act V Scene 1 pages 127 - 127

Words - 657

 Summary - Ariel ends up asking about how the king and his band of peers are coming along in the journey across the sea. The king finds out that Ariel and the rest of his friends are in jail, because Prospero demanded they be kept in some sort of cave. Everybody is constantly in raged and very afraid. Ariel is sent to go tell the others that they are now being freed and great Prospero decides that he won’t use any more wizardry. Prospero eventually will use magic again for the last time and he will have the crew destroy his encyclopedia of spells so he cannot use it anymore. Prospero casted a dark spell onto Ariel and the others to make them not move in a formation of Prospero’s choice and not question anything. They are told by Prospero that Gonzalo is very noble for being true to Prospero and that he admires everybody else for their cooperation. Prospero tells Ariel to make his way to where he is being held and gets his old outfit he wore as Milan’s once duke. Prospero then puts on the threads and lets the whole enslaved group go to do as they please and live the rest of their lives onward after he tells his personal servant to get the mariners and boatswains out of the ship wreck.

Analysis – Being very close to the end of the play and being able to read so much of this without doing any blog posts has given an advantage at actually understanding a tough piece of Shakespearean literature. The feeling this play gives me is one of people following their morals and eventually feeing empathetic and doing the correct thing in the end. They realize that they are not the only people in the world and start to notice that they are the smaller piece of a bigger picture. They discover this through self deprecation for example Ariel says “Hast thou, which art but air, a touch, a feeling of their afflictions, and shall not myself, one of their kind, they relish all as sharply”. He means that he feels his biggest issues and his biggest conflicts are no match for others and he should feel sorry for others situations rather than worry about his own. Prospero stated once “Leave it alone, thou fool. It is but trash”. He is telling Gonzalo that his encyclopedia of spells is nothing to get excited over or be jealous of because compared to others encyclopedias is just “trash” in his eyes.

Personal response – Due to all of the snow days and get out of blog free cards this is my only blog post for this play and probably my last due to the book ending very shortly. Because of this I have been able to absorb the dialect and actually form quality opinions on this play. My opinion is that it is very Shakespeare esque and I was expecting it to be just like all of his other plays. One difference this had from others was that there hasn’t been a real “tragic” ending yet. What I mean by that is all of the characters’ end up helping each other out and are on the same page and I think that’s due to the real tragic things happening in the beginning of the play. I enjoyed writing this  blog post because it’s the first one I have been able to write in a while and I missed being able to let all of the feelings I have about a good story much like this one onto a page and think about what’s coming next. I’m predicting a sudden ending where all the characters make realizations about what to do with the rest of their lives after they have seen the luxurious good life and even crossed the bad enslaved part as well.

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Hast thou, which art but air, a touch, a feeling of their afflictions, and shall not myself, one of their kind, they relish all as sharply.

The tempest by William Shakespeare act 5 sc 1 pg 147

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Leave it alone, thou fool. It is but trash.

The tempest by William Shakespeare act 4 sc 1 pg 137

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To come and sport her peacocks fly amain. Approach, rich ceres, her to entertain

The tempest by William Shakespeare 4 sc 1 page 127

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Monster, and I will kill this man. His daughter and I will be king and queen - save our graces!

The tempest by William Shakespeare act 3 sc 2 pg 105

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My mistress, dearest, and I thus humble ever

The tempest by William Shakespeare act 3 sc 1 pg 97

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Bring thee where crabs grow now or else I'll make you a most ridiculous monster, to make a wonder of a poor drunkard

The tempest by William Shakespeare act 2 sc 2