English 11

Blackout Poem – “Death of a Salesman”

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He wouldn’t look at me.

He shot me.

“You’re hurting me.”

I was struck.

Then I

spoke the unbelievable truth.

 

The blackout poetry fits the play “Death of a Salesman,” written by Arthur Miller, which is about Willy Loman, an aging salesman in New York who struggles as a father, husband, and a salesman. Willy does not have an ideal relationship with his two sons. He has the most conflict with his oldest son, Biff Loman, as he expresses disappointment with him because Biff never had a steady job, but in the past, he was a high achiever and seemed like he had a promising career. The significant reason why Biff has changed is because he discovered Willy’s affair during a time when he failed his high school math exam and was in desperate need of help from his dad. Willy fails to be a good father and a husband, and as well as a salesman. Willy wanted to be a successful businessman like his father and his brother, but in reality, a salesman was not the right occupation for him. Moreover, he got fired due to his lacking ability. The genre of this play is tragedy because one of the characteristics of tragedy includes limitations on the hero’s wish to achieve goals and mistakes made by the hero. Willy, the hero in this play, wishes to be a successful salesman but his age and insufficiency of passion limit him. Also, the mistake he made is the incorrect selection of his profession. He enjoys doing physical work that involves using his hands, and the small number of sales he made proves his mistake. The image above is a blackout poem which is formed by redacting words from an already established text. This poem reflects the relationship between Biff and Willy. More specifically, it indicates how Biff feels about his father throughout the whole play. Since Biff was young, Willy had been keen to raise his son to be a well-liked businessman, which is what Willy wish he had been. Once, Biff told Willy that he stole a ball from his coach. Willy responded that it is okay and did not care to discipline him that stealing is morally wrong no matter what the initiative was. Willy had always taught his boys that it is important to be masculine and attractive. Willy and Biff’s relationship is dysfunctional because it lacks nurturing and interest. Growing up, Biff frequently argued with Willy due to the angst and secrecy he felt from his dad. In the latter part of the play, when Biff is in his thirties, he goes to meet his former employer to ask for money to start a new business. The Loman family encouraged him that the former boss will give him a positive response, by recalling that everyone had always loved him. However, the result was the opposite of what they were so sure of. The former boss refused to help Biff and then he realized that his whole family, including Willy, has deluded themselves into thinking they are successful. Biff was awakened by the reality that his life was a lie, all along. The poem connotes this whole plot, by using Biff’s perspective. His father had no sincere interest in him, made him feel disappointed, and at the end, he realized the reality of his family and blamed his unsuccessful life to Willy. The image of the man who is facing against the knelt man, which represents Biff, is Willy. The two silhouettes indicate their relationship. Furthermore, the cash symbolizes Willy’s thoughts on success. In conclusion, one can agree that the blackout poem thoroughly represents the plot of the play “Death of a Salesman.”

 

DOAS Monologues

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The following is my understanding of an monologue. I wrote a monologue of Linda, who is one of the characters from the play ,“Death of a Salesman.”

Linda: I am a woman who wants what’s best for my family, but struggles, as life is not always easy. My husband, Willy is a man with good heart but has too much stress on his work and his position of a father and a husband. He drives long hours and comes home tired. I try my best to support him. I make delicious food, assures him that everything will be okay, and keep him in his good mood so that never again he tries to kill himself. I also care a lot about my two precious sons. The youngest, Happy has got a stable life, but my oldest son, Biff seems like he is lost in his life. Willy is not satisfied about Biff of how he always moves to one job to an another. Oh, I really do hope everything becomes all right.

This is a monologue because Linda is uninterrupted when saying the long lines and it gives information of her thoughts and her caring personality.
This monologue would fit in the current plot when Linda talks to the dead Uncle Ben, since she can tell him about her life.

 

“The Lord of the Flies” – Infographic

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Here, I made an infographic on the novel “The Lord of the Flies,” written by William Golding. This infograhic includes information on the characters, setting, conflicts, background details, ideologies, allegorical references, atavism, morality, symbols, themes, dystopian literature, and mob mentality!

Characterization (3D) – “Insert Character’s Name”

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  1. “Henry; the choir boy who had fainted sat up against a palm trunk, smiled pallidly at Ralph and said that his name was Simon” (28)
  • This quote talks about Henry, who is apart of the choir, and when the littluns arrived, they were wearing their choir jackets

 

2. “Henry was the biggest of them” (pdf 83)
– “Them” indicates the little ones. Henry is bigger than the rest of the little ones but smaller than the big ones.

 

3. “This was fascinating to Henry. He poked about with a bit of stick, that itself was wave-worn and whitened and a vagrant, and tried to control the motions of the scavengers” (pdf 85)

  • This quote shows the readers that Henry has a interest in nature.

 

4. “There were little boys, fair, dark, freckled, and all dirty, but their faces were all dreadfully free of major blemishes. No one had seen the mulberrycolored birthmark again” (122).

  • This quote does not talk in particular about one certain littlun, but it is the overall appearance of them all.

 

5. “They were dirty, not with the spectacular dirt of boys who have fallen into mud or been brought down hard on a rainy day. Not one of them was an obvious subject for a shower, and yet—hair, much too long, tangled here and there, knotted round a dead leaf or a twig; faces cleaned fairly well by the process of eating and sweating but marked in the less accessible angles with a kind of shadow; clothes, worn away, stiff like his own with sweat, put on, not for decorum or comfort but out of custom; the skin of the body, scurfy with brine—” (pdf 157)

  • This quote explains how the boys became dirty.

 

6. “The undoubted littluns, those aged about six, led a quite distinct, and at the same time intense, life of their own” (61)

  • The readers can assume that Henry is about 6 years old.

 

7. “They were very brown, and filthily dirty” (61)

  • This quote shows that the Littluns are very filthy and have dirt all over them

 

8. “And in the middle of them, with filthy body, matted hair, and unwiped nose” (61)

  • The boys became dirty as they haven’t showered for a long time.

 

9. “On the beach, Henry and Johnny were throwing sand at Percival who was crying quietly again” (pdf 94)

  • The readers can assume that Henry would be covered in sand.

 

These quotes are from the novel, “Lord of the Flies” written by William Golding. The quotes are descriptions of Henry, a character in this novel. He is one of the little ones, so we assume that he is about 6 years old. Henry is the biggest one among the little ones. Therefore, the readers can assume that he is quite big as a 6 years old. The readers can know other things about his appearance. In the first part of the story, when the boys have just arrived at the island, Henry wore the choir’s uniform : a long cape. However, as the time went on, Henry became dirty as he has dirt on his body and his hair became long and tangly.

Lord of the Flies – Morality Podcast

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Nour and I created a podcast, answering the question, “Through a psychological perspective, why did the boys act the way they did in several scenarios throughout the novel?”

This document is the work cited page.

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To those who are interested in the music we used in this podcast, the opening song is “Take Five” by Dave Brubeck and the closing song is “Kong” by Bonobo.

 

“Lord of the Flies” – Island Description

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These are the quotes that describe the island, where the story takes place in the novel, “Lord of the Flies, written by William Golding.

 

The Platform

  1. “Here the beach was interrupted abruptly by the square motif of the landscape; a great platform of pink granite thrust up uncompromisingly through forest and terrace and sand and lagoon to make a raised jetty four feet high. The top of this was covered with a thin layer of soil and coarse grass and shaded with young palm trees. There was not enough soil for them to grow to any height and when they reached perhaps twenty feet they fell and dried, forming a criss-cross pattern of trunks, very convenient to sit on. The palms that still stood made a green roof, covered on the underside with a quivering tangle of reflections from the lagoon” (Golding 13).           

The Beach

2. “The shore was fledged with palm trees. These stood or leaned or reclined against the light and their green feathers were a hundred feet up in the air. The ground beneath them was a bank covered with coarse grass, torn everywhere by the upheavals of fallen trees, scattered with decaying coconuts and palm saplings. Behind this was the darkness of the forest proper and the open space of the scar. Ralph stood, one hand against a grey trunk, and screwed up his eyes against the shimmering water. Out there, perhaps a mile away, the white surf flinked on a coral reef, and beyond that the open sea was dark blue. Within the irregular arc of coral the lagoon was still as a mountain lake—blue of all shades and shadowy green and purple. The beach between the palm terrace and the water was a thin stick, endless apparently, for to Ralph’s left the perspectives of palm and beach and water drew to a point at infinity; and always, almost visible, was the heat” (Golding 4).

3. “The place of assembly in which he stood was roughly a triangle; but irregular and sketchy, like everything they made. First there was the log on which he himself sat; a dead tree that must have been quite exceptionally big for the platform. Perhaps one of those legendary storms of the Pacific had shifted it here. This palm trunk lay parallel to the beach, so that when Ralph sat he faced the island but to the boys was a darkish figure against the shimmer of the lagoon. The two sides of the triangle of which the log was base were less evenly defined. On the right was a log polished by restless seats along the top, but not so large as the chief’s and not so comfortable. On the left were four small logs, one of them–the farthest– lamentably springy” (Golding 82).

Lagoon

4. “Within the irregular arc of coral the lagoon was still as a mountain lake—blue of all shades and shadowy green and purple” (Golding 10).

The Cave

5. “He led the way over the rocks, inspected a sort of half-cave… There was indeed a long green smudge halfway up the rock… Side by side they scaled the last height to where the diminishing pile was crowned by the last broken rock… A hundred feet below them was the narrow causeway, then the stony ground, then the grass dotted with heads, and behind that the forest” (Golding 115-116).

6. “He was surrounded on all sides by chasms of empty air. There was nowhere to hide, even if one did not have to go on. He paused on the narrow neck and looked down. Soon, in a matter of centuries, the sea would make an island of the castle. On the right hand was the lagoon, troubled by the open sea; and on the left— Ralph shuddered. The lagoon had protected them from the Pacific: and for some reason only Jack had gone right down to the water on the other side. Now he saw the landsman’s view of the swell and it seemed like the breathing of some stupendous creature. Slowly the waters sank among the rocks, revealing pink tables of granite, strange growths of coral, polyp, and weed. Down, down, the waters went, whispering like the wind among the heads of the forest. There was one flat rock there, spread like a table, and the waters sucking down on the four weedy sides made them seem like cliffs. Then the sleeping leviathan breathed out, the waters rose, the weed streamed, and the water boiled over the table rock with a roar. There was no sense of the passage of waves; only this minute-long fall and rise and fall” (Golding 150).

Bathing Pool

7. “The beach near the bathing-pool was dotted with groups of boys waiting for the assembly” ( Golding 22).

The Scar

8. Beyond falls and cliffs there was a gash visible in the trees; there were the splintered trunks and then the drag, leaving only a fringe of palm between the scar and the sea” (Golding 22).

The Island

9. “It was roughly boat shaped; humped near this end with behind them the jumbled descent to the shore. On either side rocks, cliffs, tree-tp[s and a steep slope; forward there, the length of the boat, a tamer descent, tree-clad with hints of pink: and then the jungly flat of the island, dense green, but drawn at the end to a pink tail. There, where the island petered out in the water, was another island; a rock, almost detached, standing like a fort, facing them across the green with one bold, pink bastion” (Golding 26).

The Coral Reef 

10. “The coral was scribbled in the sea as though a flowing, chalk line but tired before it had finished. Inside was peacock water, rocks and weed showing as in an aquarium; outside was the dark blue of the sea” (Golding 26).

 

Walter Mitty Daydream Six

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Day Dream 1: Walter becomes a pilot of a navy hydroplane.

 

Day Dream 2: Walter becomes a surgeon.

 

Day Dream 3: Walter becomes a suspect in a murder case. He is an expert marksman who is on the stand answering the district attorney’s questions.

 

Day Dream 4: Walter becomes a devil-may-care World War 1 pilot.

 

Day Dream 5: Walter becomes a defiant prisoner about to be executed.

 

Day Dream 6: Walter becomes a police officer.

 

 

 

“Father and Son” Plot Point Photos

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This project was assigned after reading the short story “Father and Son,” written by Bernard MacLaverty. The story is about the tragedy that happened to a family which occurred mostly because of the miscommunication between the father and the son. The story takes place at a house in Ireland, during the IRA campaign. In 1969 to 1997, IRA was an army conducted by some of the Irish people who wanted to end the British ruling in Northern Ireland. The story reflects the background as the family gets affected by the violent society. In this project, the story is summarized into eight plot points, and each point has a quote and a photo that further explains it.

 

1) Exposition:

Quote: “This is my son who let me down…when he sees me he turns away. A heave of bedclothes in his wake” (MacLaverty 165).

Explanation: This quote shows the exposition of the story. It introduces the characters by describing how the father thinks of his son. It also tells the reader about the physical setting. It informs the reader that the son is in the bed which implies that they are at home.

2) Initiating Incident:
Quote: “I want you to talk to me the way I hear you talk to people at the door. I want to hear you laugh with me like you used to” (MacLaverty 166).

Explanation: This quote shows the initiating incident because the reader is introduced to the conflict. The conflict is the disconnection between the father and the son. The dad wants to talk to his son like he used to, instead of arguing with him during the infrequent times that they talk to each other. Their conflict is due to miscommunication.

3) Rising Action :
Quote:
“Then on the radio, I hear he is dead. They give out his description. I drink milk. I cry” (MacLaverty 167).

Explanation: The father never knows where his son is. Therefore, he always worry that his son will die while he is out, because of a previous incident. The quote adds suspense to the short story and is foreshadowing what is going to happen later on in the story.

4) Rising Action
Quote: “The door swings open and he pushes a hand-gun beneath the pillow” (MacLaverty 169).

Explanation: From this quote, we are told that the son has a gun under his pillow. This builds up a lot of suspense in the story because as a reader we now know that something bad might happen. Building up suspense is what the rising action is for.

5) Rising Action

Quote : “There is a ring at the door. The boy answers it, his shirt-tail out. Voices in the hallway” (MacLaverty 169).

Explanation : At ten o’clock, when the news begins, the father hears his son talking to someone at the door. This part of the story builds up the tension as the readers don’t know what would happen with the son and the visitor.

6) Climax
Quote: “My son is lying on the floor, his head on the bottom stairs, his feet on the threshold” (MacLaverty 169).

Explanation: The father runs to the door as he hears a sound of a bang. Then, he sees his son lying on the floor. From this, readers can assume that the son is dead or badly injured. The quote above represents the climax because the conflict has somehow been resolved. The conflict of this story is the disconnection between the father and the son. Now as the son passed away, one may think that the conflict is resolved in the most tragic way. Also, this quote represents the climax, because this part of the story is the highest point of interest as death has occurred.

7) Falling Action
Quote: “I take my son’s limp head in my hands and see a hole in his nose that should not be there” (MacLaverty 169).

Explanation: Falling action is when all the loose ends tie up. This quote gives the reader a further information of the situation. The father finds a hole in his son’s nose and that explains that the son got shot.

8) Denouement
Quote: “My son, let me put my arms around you” (MacLaverty 169).

Explanation: This is the final act in this short story. The father gets to hold his son which he hasn’t done for a long time. This is the denouement of the story, because it shows the last moment of the relationship between the father and the son.