Dialectical Journal #7: The Hunger Games

Passages From The Text	Pg #	Comments & Questions
·         “This teaming up with the Career wolf pack to hunt down the rest of us. No one from District 12 would think of doing such a thing! Career tributes are overly vicious, arrogant, better fed, but only because they are the Capitol’s lapdogs. Universally, solidly hated by all but those from their own districts. I can imagine the things their saying about him back home now. And Peeta had the gall to talk to me about disgrace? ·         Obviously, the noble boy on the rooftop was playing just one more game with me. But this will be his last. I will eagerly watch the night skies for signs of his death, if I don’t kill him first myself."	·         162	·         (E) It’s things like this that make me truly dislike Katniss. I know there wasn’t really a way for her to know that Peeta was just tricking the Careers, but she should have more faith in the boy! In the passage before this one, she was hoping that wherever Peeta was he was ok, then in about 10 seconds she’s willing to kill him herself! She’s ridiculous! I can understand why she was so surprised about Peeta’s love confession and didn’t even believe it until the end of the book. They are polar opposites- Peeta is kind, considerate, generous and an empathizer. Katniss is none of these.   The only people she really cares about are Gale, her sister and mother (kind of). Other than that she tends to keep people at a distance. And Peeta does not deserve that! The only reason I wanted Peeta and Katniss to end up together by the end of the book series is so Peeta would be happy.

Assignment 4: Krapps Last Tape

The most significant part in the play for me is the end.  In this part, Krapp has just finished listening to the tape he made when he was 39, it was made 30 years ago, and then starts a new tape. “Just been listening to that stupid bastard I took myself for 30 years ago, hard to believe I was ever as bad as that. Thank God that’s all done anyway.” The reason I chose that part was because even though Krapp is now 69 and seems to detest the man he was when he made that tape recording, he appears to be the same. Over the tape he talks about his problem with bananas and alcohol (“Have just eaten I regret to say three bananas and with difficulty refrained from a forth. Fatal things for a man with my condition. Cut it out!’’) and how he should put an end to those habits but thirty years later he is still doing the same thing. “Krapp switches off [tape recorder], broods, looks at his watch, gets up, goes backstage into darkness. Ten seconds. Pop of a cork. Ten seconds. Second cork. Ten seconds. Third cork.”

Krapp is the only character in this play. He is very strange; he doesn’t seem to be mentally stable. I find his ability to stay the same over such a long period of time astonishing. He is a little different than he was at 39, but he seems to be essentially the same person. Samuel Beckett is the author of this play and he did a very good job writing this. Even though the 39 and 69 year old Krapps each talked about very different subjects on their tapes, during very different times in their life, the style in which they speak is the same in both. The Krapps’ both seem to lose their thoughts mid-sentence and are always pausing throughout their dialogues. It’s almost as if Krapp was frozen in time. In the play Krapp replays a certain part of the tape he made when he was 39 numerous times, giving the audience the feeling that even though he acted as though he is better now than he was then, he would give anything to be able to have that experience again. “We lay there without moving. But under us all moved, and moved us, gently up and down, and from side to side. (Pause) Past midnight. Never knew such silence. The earth might be inhabitited. (Pause) Here I end-(Krapp switches off, winds tape back, Switches on again)”

The authors’ use of stage directions adds a lot more to the story. They allow the readers to see how spastic and weird Krapp is through his movements."He turns, advances to edge of stage, halts, strokes banana, peels it, drops skin at his feet, puts end of banana in his mouth and remains motionless, staring vacuously before him. Finally he bites off the end, turns aside and begins pacing to and fro at edge of stage, in the light, i.e. not more than four or five paces either way, meditatively eating banana. He treads on skin, slips, nearly falls, recovers himself, stoops and peers at skin and finally pushes it, still stooping, with his foot over the edge of the stage into pit." The stage directions allow the readers the ability to imagine the way the character's mannerisms and actions. They, along with the writing, help to thoroughly bring Krapp to life.

Dialectical Journal #6: Candide

Passages From The Text	Pg #	Comments & Questions
·         “’Whatever shall be, shall be,’ said Candide. ‘But one thing consoles me. I see that people one never thought to see again often do turn up. It may well turn out that, having run into my red sheep and Paquette, I will also run into Cunegonde.’ ·         ‘I wish,’ said Martin, ‘that she may one day make you very happy. But I very much doubt she will.’ ·         ‘You’re a bit hard,’ said Candide ·         ‘That’s because I’ve lived,’ said Martin	·         78	·         (R) I don’t understand what Voltaire has against optimism. Candide wasn’t even going all crazy like before, he was just thinking happily about his future. But then Voltaire had to go and bring him down. Or perhaps it’s foreshadowing! I wouldn’t be surprised if by the time Candide and Cunegonde end up together (if they ever do), they would be miserable. That girl is just too much trouble and I doubt Voltaire would let Candide live happily ever after anyway.

Dialectical Journal #5: Candide

Passages From The Text	Pg #	Comments & Questions
‘“Who’, asked Candide, ‘was the fat pig who was telling me so many bad things about the play I cried such a lot at, and about those actors I liked so much?’            ‘He is evil incarnate,’ replied the abbe. ‘He earns his living by decrying all new plays and books. He hates the up-and-coming writer, just as eunuchs hate the up-and-coming lover. He’s one of those vipers of literature that feeds off filth and venom. He’s a hack.’            ‘What do you mean by hack?’            ‘I mean’, said the abbe, ‘someone who churns out articles by the dozen, a Freron.’”	65	(R) Voltaire wrote this satire because he disagreed with the view of German philosopher, Leibnitz, that this world is the “best of all possible worlds.” He thought that statement was ludicrous, so he decided to write a book that shows just how crazy Voltaire finds that point of view to be. What I find interesting is, while writing this book that is supposed to make fun of Leibnitz’s theory, he also uses it as an opportunity to make jabs at other people. According to the back of my book, a Freron is not some kind of archaic insult. It’s actually a person. “Elie Freron (1718-76), an implacable and not always unjustified critic of Voltaire.” I think it’s funny how he took this book as an opportunity to mock all the people who annoy him. Killing two birds with one stone, I guess.

Dialectical Journal #4: Candide

Passages From The Text	Pg #	Comments & Questions
·         ‘“We have the wherewithal to pay the Governor of Buenos Aires now, ‘ [Candide] said,’ if a price can be put on Miss Cunegonde, that is. Let’s head for Cayenne and take ship there and then we’ll see what kingdom we’re going to buy.”’	·         52	·         (R) Candide and his servant are leaving Eldorado. Voluntarily! The one place they weren’t kicked out of or had to flee for their lives, they choose to leave so that they can brag about the riches they got and get back Candide’s lover. I don’t understand Candide at all. He’s always talking about the “best all worlds’ but when he finally finds it, he leaves it behind.

Dialectical Journal #3: Candide

Passages From The Text	Pg #	Comments & Questions
“‘What is this place,' said one to the other, ‘which is unknown to the rest of the world and where nature of things is so different from ours? It’s probably the place where all goes well, for there absolutely must be such a place. And whatever Maitre Pangloss might have said, I often observed that everything went rather badly in Westphalia.”’	47	(R) I’m not sure, but I think Candide may be growing as a character. At the very beginning of this book he believed his country-Westphalia-to be the best of all places and whatnot but here he admits that it is not that great. I also think that Voltaire might be trying to tell the audience something with this scene. Candide is currently in Eldorado, a fictional place, and is essentially saying that this might be the “best of all possible worlds”. Perhaps Voltaire is saying believing that this world is the best of them all as delusional as the belief that Eldorado exists? Even if there is a best of all worlds, why would this one be it? What other worlds are we comparing ours’ to? I can kind of understand why Voltaire would feel so moved to write a satire about that sentiment. This book has gotten a little better. It’s still pretty weird and creepy though. (This woman got one of her butt cheeks eaten!)

Dialectical Journal #2: Candide (ugh)

Passages From The Text	Pg #	Comments & Questions
“’Well, here’s a fine mess’ said Cunegonde. ‘There’s no going back now. That’s us excommunicated. Our last hour has come. How is it that someone as soft-hearted as you can have ended up killing a Jew and a prelate in a matter of minutes?’           ‘My dear girl,’ replied Candide, ‘when a man’s in love, jealous, and flogged by the Inquisition, there’s no knowing what he may do’’’	22	(R) Yesterday, I was actually looking forward to reading this book. That was before I realized something very important and that, my dear English teacher, is that this book is extremely stupid. As Merrick has told me about 5 times, this book is a ”refutation of optimism”. Hence the second name, “Optimism”. I just have no idea how anyone in this book is optimistic. They all seem crazy about this world being the “best of all possible worlds”   (which i can understand why Voltaire found annoying.  Honestly, this world is pretty horrible. In fact, it would be pretty depressing to think this is the best of all possible worlds) and junk, but they don't really seem to hope for the best  Maybe it's because they believe that everything that happens IS for the best. Even though everything that you wouldn't want to happen to you has happened to the couple speaking in the passage. By this part, though, they don't seem to believe in that "everything's for the best" opinion as much by this point ("I wonder why?" this blogger sarcastically thinks). Voltaire must really hate that kind of thinking. otherwise, why waste so much time writing a really dumb (forgive me literary police!) book?