Analysis paper-- Outline

The function of the horse in Chekhov's“The Lament”

1. Introduction (1 page)

  -Review of the story

  -Thesis: The author used the horse to calls on people in the real society to have more compassion to those who are in grief.

2. Body (4-5 pages)

  -Attitude of passengers& young cab driver to Iona’s grief

  -The relation between the horse and Iona

  -Function 1: The horse is a comparison and irony to those cold-hearted people.

  -Function 2: The horse is a symbol of unreal things in the society. (Because Chekhov did not create a human showing compassion to Iona) And the unreal thing is Chekhov’s wish to the society.

  -Function 3: The horse’s faithfulness and compassion to Iona moves the readers and calls for the society to show compassion to people in grief.

3. Conclusion (0.5 page)

4. Works cited (1 page)

Analysis paper-- Determine quotes from primary&secondary source

Primary source:

Russia…had a majority population of unhappy slaves and overtaxed workers. Before 1861 most peasants had been serfs, with no legal status or rights as free men. Alexander II’s emancipation edict gave them legal freedom – but the land redistribution that followed often thousands of peasants worse off than before. 



Secondary source:

It is a shocking moment, very touching, perhaps, as an eminent student of Chekhov has found it, “too direct moving.”It is a breathtaking moment, and the pressure on us to “blubber” is very soon intensified. Iona…now credits an animal with a human’s sensitivity to personal anguish.

Analysis paper-- Determine sources

Dessner, Lawrence. “Head, Heart, and Snout: Narrative and Theme in Chekhov's ’Misery‘.” West                  Chester State College. 1985.

McCarthy, Mark Myers. “Religious conflict and social order in nineteenth-century Russia: Orthodoxy               and the Protestant challenge, 1812—1905.” University of Notre Dame. 2004.

Brians, Paul. “19th-Century Russian Literature” Washington State University. 1998.

"Russian Society." alphahistory.com

Analysis paper-- Determine elements

  I'm going to analyze the function of Iona's horse in "The Lament".

Analysis Paper- Determine text& literary review

Text: The Lament- Anton Chekhov


Review:
  The story takes place at a winter day of a Russian city. The main character, Iona Potapov, the cab driver, whose son died, wants to tell his grief to his passengers and a young cab driver. However, none of them are willing to listen. The passengers shout him to drive faster and the young cab driver just falls asleep again. Finally, Iona could only tell the whole story to his horse, the only one that listens.

Respond to the elephant vanishes

  This story talks about how the elephant came to the town and venished. The narrator, "I", describe the news about the elephant, as a normal citizen. However, to my surperise, "I" told the clue of the venishment of the elephant, which nobody else knew. And at the end of the story, the author only pointed out that the elephant got smaller and escape, leaving the readers to imagine how they escaped and what were their fates next.

  In my opinion, the theme of this story is about politics and the love toward animals. They adopted the elephant to the town, not because they love elephants, but some political reasons. And parties aruge a lot just about the very little land that the elephant is going to take up. On the contrary, the elephant keeper is the one that really love the elephant. They have lived together for 10 years and the elephant knows well what a move of the keeper means. The escape of the elephant and its keeper also means to escape the place which is full of politics and come to somewhere people really love animals and live together in harmony. And this is I think the author wants to express--to give pure love to animals and get away of political purposes.

Respond-I bought a little city

  This is a imaginative story! When I read the first couple of paragraphs, they remind me of a game I played called "simcity", in which the player build his own city by his imagination. Similar to the game I played,in this story, the narrator bought a city in Texas. When I play that game, I usually failed to manage the city fianlly and so did the narrator in this story!

  So why did the author write this story in this way? In my point of view, the author is expressing the difficulty of managing a city and developing the city in his ideal way, as well as balancing the contradictories. Maybe in the real world, there are many citizens complaining about the governors are doing a poor job, and this story attempts to let people know, the contadictions cannot be avoided. The author wants to reduce the number of dogs but hurt people's feelings. And any changes he is going to make have some negative effects. So people should understand this point and don't complain that much. Anyway, anything cannot be perfect.

Response to Marquez

  This story introduces an old man with enormous wings appears in Pelayo's yard. The Pelayo's keep him with the chicken and charge fees for people who want to see him. People treat the old man like the animals in the zoo and the Pelayos make him to get money.

  I think this story expresses two main points. The first one, just like Chekhov's Lament, the author wants the society to have more compassion to each other, especially those who are old, poor, in need or in trouble, just like the man with wings. The second one is that the author wants people to think independently, rather than being controled by religions. In this story, Father Gonzaga is the symbol of religion, who does rediculous things to make sure whether the old man is an angle

Oral Presentation-Chekhov

1. Visual aids: http://prezi.com/pic5kedukmmt/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy&rc=ex0share

2. Outline:
a. Introduction about the story&author

b. Character analysis
   Iona
   Passengers
   Young cabby

c. The meanings of "Lament"
 
d. The theme: Call on people to have more compassion to each other.

3. Biliography:
Boyd, William. "A Chekhov lexicon ", http:// www.theguardian.com/books/2004/jul/03/classic

"Lament" dictionary.com. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/lament?s=t

Marks, Ben. "Russia During Chekhov's Lifetime" http://virtueofthesmall.com/old_sites/littlegreenpig/articles/RussiaDuringCheckhov/

4. Other researched notes
"what is the main theme in anton chekhov's 'the lament,' also called misery" enotes.com http://www.enotes.com/homework-help/what-main-theme-lament-327514

Response to Lament

  This is a short story that seems easy, but means much.

  This short story talks about Iona, the cabdriver, whose son died but none of his passengers were willing to listen to his grief.

  The title "Lament" has a lot of meanings. Firstly, Iona lived a poor live and was looked down upon. Secondly, his son died. Furthermore, people in the society were cold-hearted and selfish. The comparison between Iona's horse and his passengers stress out how cold-hearted the people were, even worse than a horse.

  So Chekhove wrote this story to express his disappointment of that society and call on the government to care more about the lives of people in the bottom of the society.

Utopia project

Social Issue

Status Quo:

Minorities:

-          Black people, Asian-America, Latin-America, Aboriginals, etc.

-          Minorities are discriminated

Unequal job opportunity: black-sounding names are much less likely to receive callbacks

Unequal education opportunity: same as the former.

Symbolic racism: prejudice, judging one by color of the skin.

Cultural: their culture are despised unequally.

Racist

-          They lived with their arrogance and prejudice.

-          Publicly claim racism

Political structure

-          Governance

Government: Committee system. Congress, committee, and judiciary.

Representation in congress should be distributed according the population proportion of each race.

Committee is the highest administration power, which is comprised of 5 members. These five members must represent different races. Committee members are respectively restricted.

Judiciary has 9 grand justices, who are distributed to 9 different divisions and take turns in other divisions each year.

A racial court is designed to settle all the cases involving racial problems.

-          Rules:

dos

·           inter-race marriage

·           equal election right

·           equal representation: quotas according to the ratio of each race

·           equal right of education: quotas according to the ratio of each race

·           equal social welfare

·           right of property

·           freedom to choose religion

·           equal job opportunity: quotas according to the ratio of each race

donts

·           Public claim on racial discrimination

·           Unequal job treatment due to racial differences

·           Varied representation among races

·           Punishment: community service according to the impact of racial discrimination, jail, fine.

Social Structure

-          Social bonding

Every infant should have a surrogate parent after birth, who must be from another race. And the surrogate parent is responsible to teach the child the tradition and behavioral norm of their race. And they are honored to attend great events of the child, like commencement, marriage.

Racial Equality Day, 5/13.

-          Property dividing

Lands are equally divided. And they earn credit by their work.

Based on their work hours.

-          Member constitute

Minorities: Black people, Asian-America, Latin-America, Aboriginals, etc.

Anti-racist

Racist. (should not exist): have an investigation before admitted in.

Map:

Emergent self-service medical care stations: asthma, heart disease, etc.

These living spaces can be assembled by normal people. Everybody could build house as long as they are willing to put time and effort, which prioritizes meritocracy.

Open to the entire community. It represents the unity among the races. This means everybody trust each other.

Problems:

Some racists are appointed as the administrator, racial police, and judges. They abuse their power to attain too much interest for their own race.

The quota system fail due to its dissonance to meritocracy because quotas are distributed according to population ratio rather than meritocracy. Like in college admission, someone in one race may be permitted when he is less qualified academically than another one in another race, only because he has the quota.

Mating response 1

  If I only use one word to summarize my impression to this novel, and that is feminism. In this novel, things goes totally different than the "Gilead" we just read.Tsau is a place where females have much power in the society, while in Gilead females have no freedom at all. 

  Since novels are literatures that present an idea, the novel "Mating" maybe present an idea that women should be treated more equally in real life in Africa. Sometimes novels use some up-side-down imaginations to stress out something.

  Anyway, it is a interesting novel and I'm curious about stories happen later.

Handmaid 5 response

    This novel comes to an end. However, this end is a mystery. Finally, Offred made love with Nick and our debate last class came to the result! But what's her fate and the society's fate next, the auther leaves much space for the readers to imagine. It is annoying for me, but it is  why literature is attracting.
    When we reflect the whole story, which is about a wired and unrealistic society named Gilead, we may infer that the purpose of this novel is to alarm the nation to pay attention to the Islam extreme. It could be really dangerous if power of religion gets too strong. If so, the true society will get into Gilead.

The Handmaid tale4

  In this part, there are some surperising plots which is unexpected by me. People have the tendency to disobey the rules of the society. The commander took Offred to a club and to have fun, which is not allowed in the society. And the commender's wife tells Offred that she can be pregnent with Nick, which is also against the rule. As for the commender, maybe he is unhappy with the rule of the society, which makes him not able to find true frendship, love, and so on. And for the handmaids, they also may get tired of the society. However, one thing which is sure is that the rule of Gillead is breaking down. Maybe big changes will happen in the future.

Respond to "Boy Marries Hill"

  This is an interesting and a little bit weird drama made up by only dialogues. However, there are emotions and rhetoric behind the dialogues and this is the special design of the auther. The story is about a boy named Tapesh who wanted to bereak up with his girlfriend Darshini and marry a hill, in order to honer his mother's wish. Darshini pretended to be pregnant to save Tapesh, but finally when Tapesh decided to stay with her, she changed and didn't want to be with him.

  The centeral of the drama is "marring a hill". Firstly, I'm confused about why he insisted on marring a hill. When I know that Tapesh was an indian american whose mother lived in India, and a doctor. It is possible that he came from India to America for education. The "hill" probably stands for his hometown and family. He wanted to marry the hill is a metaphor of Tapesh to go back to his motherland and family.

  As for why the girl finally decided not to love Tapesh, I'm still confused. Is that because of his weird logic, or because she thought Tapesh love something else more than her? I think I still need more background imformation...

 
 
 

Response 3

The Bible is the most classical and influential book for the western culture and people who believe in Christianity of all time. Unfortunately, for me, as I don’t believe in any religion, the Bible is idealism in philosophy to me. However, though I think it is illogical, people accept it because of their cultural belief and this belief makes a big difference.

From chapter 1 to 9, the Bible tells us how was everything created by god step by step and why people shall get married, how people born and die. 

The Bible tells us to be kind, like god gave life to all creatures and like Noah made the ark to save creatures from the flood. When human's thoughts were full of evil, the LORD decided to destroy everything from the earth.

The Bible strengthens its rhetoric by attaching great authority to god and giving an example of “not listening to god will be punished”. Eva and the serpent were punished hard when Eva was tricked by the serpent and ate the tree which the LORD commanded not to eat. 

Anyway, I’m getting interested in this book and I would like to know more about the Christian culture by the Bible.

Schedule

Step	Completion Date
1: Determine text	APR 6
2: literary review	APR 13
3: determine element	APR 15
4: Meeting with Dr. Marquardt	APR 17
4: determine sources	MAY 8
5: determine quotes from primary sources	MAY 8
6: determine quotes from secondary sources	MAY 8
7: Outline	MAY 11
8: Draft 1	MAY 16
9: Peer Review	MAY 18
10: Draft 2	MAY 23
11: Final Draft	June 5

Lights

1.  “He gets all teary telling about the good times they had together, how her brother made the war seem almost fun, always raising hell and lighting up villes and bringing smoke to bear every which way.”

Light up means bringing happiness.

“A nature hike, they thought, not even a war, so they went off into the shade of some giant trees—quadruple canopy, no sunlight at all—and they were giggling and calling each other motherfucker and playing a silly game they’d invented.”

“Up in the canopy there were tiny white blossoms, but no sunlight at all, and I remember the shadows spreading out under the trees where Lemon and Rat Kiley were playing catch with smoke grenades.”

Sunlight means peace, hope and wished to end the war.

“And if nobody chickened out, the grenade would make a light popping sound and they’d be covered with smoke and they’d laugh and dance around and then do it again.”

Light is an adjective here, meaning quiet, not loud.

“There was a noise, I suppose, which must’ve been the detonator, so I glanced behind me and watched Lemon step from the shade into bright sunlight.”

“Then he took a peculiar half step, moving from shade into bright sunlight, and the booby-trapped 105 round blew him into a tree.”

Sunlight is the light come from an explosion, as sharp as the light from the sun. Lemon stepped into sunlight means he died in the explosion, but also light is a metaphor of a relief from the war and going to the paradise where is peaceful.

“All the while the baby buffalo was silent, or almost silent, just a light bubbling sound where the nose had been.”

Light means not loud, which indicate that the water buffalo was almost dead, also reflect Rat was so cruel to shoot the water buffalo.

Response 2

    “How to Tell a True War Story”is a meta-literature according to what we learned in the first week's lecture. It is made up by several little stories.

    I have to say that this essay made me confused, but what is obvious to get is that the author used thoses stories to argue against wars.
    Curt Lemon was exploded and Rat lost a good friend because of the war. Those who doing listening-post operations cannot speak but listen to their enermy's movement in the mountain, which can be regarded as a torture to them. And the war made people cruel. Rat shoot the water buffalo and people felt amazing about it, rather than show empathy to the water buffalo.

    Those were all brought by the Vietnam war. The war made people lose frendship, love and empathy. The author mentioned "a true story" for many times, but he also said "a true war story is never about war". It seems that those terrible stories are unbelievable, but they were all really happened in a war. That is how the author used those stories to convey an idea that wars are terrible.

Response 1

“The Arabian Nights" is famous among almost every child. It has imaginative plots and uses perfect personification and metaphor to make tales interesting. I enjoy reading them.

“Story of King Shahryar and his brother” talks about two kings, Shahryar and Shah Zaman whose wives betrayed them and slept with their slaves. They got angry and started to hate women. King Shahryar married one virgin and killed her after one night.

I learned that one gets happy when he finds another is more unfortunate. Shah Zaman was less sad when he found ten of Shahryar’s wives slept with slaves while Shah Zaman only had one. Both Shah Zaman and Shahryar were less sad when they found hundreds of men slept with the jinni’s girl.

What’s more, it is doubtful that how they can keep killing women every day. They were kings and if they kill a lot of women, they would not be supported by their people and people should fight back.

“The Tale of the Bull and the Ass” talks about the bull pretended sick and tired to avoid ploughing. The farmer let it rest, but will kill him as it cannot plough any more. So the bull appeared to be hungry and powerful to plough so that it would not be killed.

This tale proves that “every coin has two sides”. As for the bull, getting rest also means it might be killed. Sometimes one thing has its benefits, but also exists harms.

In the end, the “Conclusion” is a happy ending and the nation was in peace. The whole story shows the power of tales. Scheherazade came to the king and told him tales, so that no more women were killed. It was brave and clever of Scheherazade to made the decision and she was the heroine of the nation.