RTCM I've lost count

    We started out this month finishing Frankenstein. I feel like we spent plenty of time on that little novel. It was an interesting book but the writing style really made it for me- if you were to choose any sentence in that book and actually speak it, it'd come out as the most pretentious sounding garbage anyone's heard. But in writing, all that is excusable and makes a classic, so why not.

     We also went through critical lenses. That section was more confusing and complicated than any book we've read so far but I suppose it had to be done. How much of it I remember come exam time is a hazy question. If the quiz we took was any indication of my learning ability, we're looking at a weak 2 on this AP test. 

     Next, Fifth Business. I know a lot of people I talked to about it enjoyed it, and I can see why but I don't feel the same. It wa an interesting book and it offered some surprising ideas. The fact that it was an actual novel and not a play or poem was also a nice reprieve but I didn't find it as profound or though-provoking as others. Maybe I'm looking at it all wrong or maybe we just have different opinions. It was and is bearable but I really hope Ms. Holmes points at some big Ah-Ha! that makes this book more thoughtful to me. 

     These blogs continue, weekly and I think when I do them they help. Open Prompts are starting to come more naturally and flow more smoothly and Closed Prompts are also becoming less of a pain. I absolutely do not consider myself prepared for the AP exam but I'm sure by the time it rolls around there will be a little mre confidence somewhere. 

Open Prompt 3, Part 2

2005. In Kate Chopin’s The Awakening (1899), protagonist Edna Pontellier is said to possess

“That outward existence which conforms, the inward life that questions.” In a novel or play that

you have studied, identify a character who outwardly conforms while questioning inwardly.

Then write an essay in which you analyze how this tension between outward conformity and

inward questioning contributes to the meaning of the work. Avoid mere plot summary.

In Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard, Guildenstern displays an almost desperate need for understanding, questioning everything while complying with the play as it is written. Guildenstern's attempts to rationalize every situation exemplify the effectiveness of confusion, frustration, and the impracticality of questioning predetermined fate.

Guildenstern's efforts at understanding seemingly impossible situations contribute largely to his confusion. Take, for example, the coin toss Rosencrantz and Guildenstern use to pass time. Every time they flip a certain coin, it lands heads up. Guildenstern ponders the probabilities of such an event, and even considers the idea that the coin or they may have been placed in an alternate universe- he questions the remarkability of the coin's loyalty and brings up several lines of thought on the matter. However, unable to see any ideas through to the end, Guildenstern gives up, and is only left confused with the entire situation. This is a recurring cycle- remarkable event, questioning, surrender, confusion. Guildenstern never manages to draw a conclusive thought, confusing his character.

Following this confusion, occasionally Guildenstern is frustrated. Even noting that he and Rosencrantz are simply cogs in the machine of fate, thusly obeying the written word to a letter. Yet all the while Guildenstern is attempting to understand strange events. Near the end, he even discovers his fate yet recognizes his powerlessness to influence it. Frustrating as this may be, neither Guildenstern or Rosencrantz have the ability to take control. They are set into a much larger, yet very similar cycle- Remarkable event, acceptance/surrender- over and over (how many times is undetermined and undeterminable). Impractical and pointless, this inward questioning and quest for understanding helps Guildenstern achieve nothing and change nothing.

Stoppard uses Guildenstern to force readers to question their own beliefs- are our lives laid before us in a cycle that we have and will continue to run through forever? Is questioning our individual roles fruitless, or do we have control of our fates?

Open Prompt 3, Part 1

It's against my religion to do this on Easter sorry