Prose Passage Reflection
Prompt:
The following passage is from D.H. Lawrence's 1915 novel, The Rainbow, which focuses on the lives of the Brangwen's, a farming family who lived in rural England during the late nineteenth century. Read the passage carefully. Then write an essay in which you analyze how Lawrence employs literary devices to characterize the woman and capture her situation.
Original Passage:
Through the use of personification, hyperbole's and imagery, Lawrence is able to explain to the readers that the woman is eager to gain knowledge for herself, and her family in order to be the "greater person."
Throughout the entire passage, Lawrence uses imagery to describe how the woman believes her family, specifically her husband, is better than everyone else. In lines 47-48, Lawrence states "whereas the vicar, dark and dry and small beside her husband..." When compared to her husband, other men appear to be much weaker. Lawrence later goes on to say, "as Brangwen had power over the cattle the vicar had power over her husband" (Lines 52-54.) No matter how weak the vicar were or how strong the Brangwen men were, the vicar still overpowered them because of the amount of knowledge they have.
In the very last line of the passage, Lawrence uses personification to show the readers how much power the vicar really had and why. "His soul was master of the other man's. And why-why? She decided it was a question of knowledge." (Lines 64-66) The woman thinks knowledge is the reason the vicar will always be stronger than them because her family was not open to knowledge. Lawrence says how other men "...had done in fighting outwards to knowledge..." (lines 34-35) So other men seeked knowledge.
Lawrence also uses a hyperbole to show how hard the Brangwen men worked when it came to farming, "the Brangwen men faced inwards to the teeming life of creation, which poured unresolved into their veins." (27-29) The woman had noticed earlier on in the passage that the other men worked facing "outwards to where men moved dominant and creative, having turned their back on the pulsing heat of creation, and with this behind them, were set out to discover what was beyond, to enlarge their own scope and range and freedom." (Lines 23-27) The other men were much more open to gaining knowledge and new ideas while the Brangwen's men were more focused on just their current livelihood and situation.
The woman wants her family to be greater than everyone else and she realizes that in order to be that, they need to gain knowledge. "She craved to know. She craved to achieve this higher being, if not in herself, then in her children." (Lines 56-57) She realizes that it may be too late for her and her husband to overpower others however, there's still a chance for her children if she opens them up to the world and gets them to do more things than just farming "inwards" and not facing the outside world. Lawrence even states that the woman craves a different lifestyle from the one she currently has, "but the woman wanted another form of life than this, something that was not blood-intimacy." (Lines 15-16) You can also tell she wanted to broaden her horizon when Lawrence describes her view, "her house faced out from the farm-buildings and fields, looked out to the road and the village with church and hall and the world beyond." (Lines 16-19)
Reflection:
After doing some background research on D.H. Lawrence, I found out that Lawrence had a strong belief in individualization: the balance between the humanistic side and animalistic side. In his passage, The Rainbow, Lawrence explores the concept of individualization by using the example of a woman longing for more to what she has in her life. Lawrence compares what the woman wants to what the men in this passage want which are two completely different things. I should have talked more about the two different points-of-views between the man and the woman while also describing the change in the tone the occurred. I should have also included the name of the author and the novel the prompt was talking about in my opening paragraph.
The following passage is from D.H. Lawrence's 1915 novel, The Rainbow, which focuses on the lives of the Brangwen's, a farming family who lived in rural England during the late nineteenth century. Read the passage carefully. Then write an essay in which you analyze how Lawrence employs literary devices to characterize the woman and capture her situation.
Original Passage:
Through the use of personification, hyperbole's and imagery, Lawrence is able to explain to the readers that the woman is eager to gain knowledge for herself, and her family in order to be the "greater person."
Throughout the entire passage, Lawrence uses imagery to describe how the woman believes her family, specifically her husband, is better than everyone else. In lines 47-48, Lawrence states "whereas the vicar, dark and dry and small beside her husband..." When compared to her husband, other men appear to be much weaker. Lawrence later goes on to say, "as Brangwen had power over the cattle the vicar had power over her husband" (Lines 52-54.) No matter how weak the vicar were or how strong the Brangwen men were, the vicar still overpowered them because of the amount of knowledge they have.
In the very last line of the passage, Lawrence uses personification to show the readers how much power the vicar really had and why. "His soul was master of the other man's. And why-why? She decided it was a question of knowledge." (Lines 64-66) The woman thinks knowledge is the reason the vicar will always be stronger than them because her family was not open to knowledge. Lawrence says how other men "...had done in fighting outwards to knowledge..." (lines 34-35) So other men seeked knowledge.
Lawrence also uses a hyperbole to show how hard the Brangwen men worked when it came to farming, "the Brangwen men faced inwards to the teeming life of creation, which poured unresolved into their veins." (27-29) The woman had noticed earlier on in the passage that the other men worked facing "outwards to where men moved dominant and creative, having turned their back on the pulsing heat of creation, and with this behind them, were set out to discover what was beyond, to enlarge their own scope and range and freedom." (Lines 23-27) The other men were much more open to gaining knowledge and new ideas while the Brangwen's men were more focused on just their current livelihood and situation.
The woman wants her family to be greater than everyone else and she realizes that in order to be that, they need to gain knowledge. "She craved to know. She craved to achieve this higher being, if not in herself, then in her children." (Lines 56-57) She realizes that it may be too late for her and her husband to overpower others however, there's still a chance for her children if she opens them up to the world and gets them to do more things than just farming "inwards" and not facing the outside world. Lawrence even states that the woman craves a different lifestyle from the one she currently has, "but the woman wanted another form of life than this, something that was not blood-intimacy." (Lines 15-16) You can also tell she wanted to broaden her horizon when Lawrence describes her view, "her house faced out from the farm-buildings and fields, looked out to the road and the village with church and hall and the world beyond." (Lines 16-19)
Reflection:
After doing some background research on D.H. Lawrence, I found out that Lawrence had a strong belief in individualization: the balance between the humanistic side and animalistic side. In his passage, The Rainbow, Lawrence explores the concept of individualization by using the example of a woman longing for more to what she has in her life. Lawrence compares what the woman wants to what the men in this passage want which are two completely different things. I should have talked more about the two different points-of-views between the man and the woman while also describing the change in the tone the occurred. I should have also included the name of the author and the novel the prompt was talking about in my opening paragraph.
Final Portfolio Reflection
The first assignment that I am very proud of is my very first blog post. I have never had my own blog before so I did not really know what to do when I made this one. Am I supposed to be funny? Serious? Myself? Being myself is the tough one. I am not a very creative person so my blog will basically be just like everyone else's. That is why I wanted to have a very unique design to my blog, so I can make myself different from everyone else to the best of my ability. I'm glad that I chose a different picture as the background of my blog instead of just going off of some design that you could chose from and I'm glad that I made my own layout design instead of just using some template. It's these little things that make my blog unique and different from the others. My first blog post shows the reasoning behind the certain decisions I made when designing my blog and I still stand by those decisions and am proud of them. If I had done something differently, I probably would have regretted it and went back and changed it at some point.
The second assignment that I am very proud of is my Hamlet character post #2. I spent a lot of time and effort into that assignment and I feel like I understood it the best out of all the other assignments we had to do. I also really enjoyed doing this assignment because I was able to compare a more modern version of revenge to Hamlet and doing that made the play a lot more relatable and easier to understand. It was nice that this was one of the first few assignments in the Hamlet section because then I was able to understand the rest of Hamlet more easily since I had a better understand because of this assignment.
I feel as if I get a lot more work done and understand the concept better when I work individually. When I am working with a group, although it is very beneficial, I feel as though I am not always grasping the full understanding of the assignment. I will help my group of course and do the required work however, whenever I did not understand a certain part of the assignment, one of my group members would just take over that part and do it instead of me having to worry about it and do it.
If I were working by myself on the same assignment, I would have to figure out how to do that part of the assignment on my own instead of just having someone else do it for me. If I did that then I would learn more and get a better understand of that specific assignment. One thing that was great about groups was presenting in front of the whole class with them. I really like how we had to present so many of our projects because it motivates us to work harder so that we will have good presentations as well and it also helps students with their public speaking abilities. I know I get nervous speaking in front of people so giving multiple presentations in front of people really helps me get used to it and get better at it.
One of my goals was to become more familiar with all of the different literary devices. I was not able to achieve this goal because I kind of forgot about it since a lot of our assignments did not specifically have anything to do with just literary devices. Once I start seeing them more then I will have to use them more therefore, study them more so that I can understand them and be able to differentiate between them. My goal for next trimester is to be able to at least be aware of as many literary devices as I can and understand their meaning and be able to identify them in texts.
Another one of my goals was get better at time management. No matter how hard I try, this is always something that I struggle with. Whenever I am given a set time to complete something, I get stressed out because of the time limit and then end up paying more attention to the time than to the actual assignment. When doing my homework, I also get distracted easily so I then push off my homework and do it at the very last minute. I just need to finish my homework in advanced instead of always leaving it last minute.
The second assignment that I am very proud of is my Hamlet character post #2. I spent a lot of time and effort into that assignment and I feel like I understood it the best out of all the other assignments we had to do. I also really enjoyed doing this assignment because I was able to compare a more modern version of revenge to Hamlet and doing that made the play a lot more relatable and easier to understand. It was nice that this was one of the first few assignments in the Hamlet section because then I was able to understand the rest of Hamlet more easily since I had a better understand because of this assignment.
I feel as if I get a lot more work done and understand the concept better when I work individually. When I am working with a group, although it is very beneficial, I feel as though I am not always grasping the full understanding of the assignment. I will help my group of course and do the required work however, whenever I did not understand a certain part of the assignment, one of my group members would just take over that part and do it instead of me having to worry about it and do it.
If I were working by myself on the same assignment, I would have to figure out how to do that part of the assignment on my own instead of just having someone else do it for me. If I did that then I would learn more and get a better understand of that specific assignment. One thing that was great about groups was presenting in front of the whole class with them. I really like how we had to present so many of our projects because it motivates us to work harder so that we will have good presentations as well and it also helps students with their public speaking abilities. I know I get nervous speaking in front of people so giving multiple presentations in front of people really helps me get used to it and get better at it.
One of my goals was to become more familiar with all of the different literary devices. I was not able to achieve this goal because I kind of forgot about it since a lot of our assignments did not specifically have anything to do with just literary devices. Once I start seeing them more then I will have to use them more therefore, study them more so that I can understand them and be able to differentiate between them. My goal for next trimester is to be able to at least be aware of as many literary devices as I can and understand their meaning and be able to identify them in texts.
Another one of my goals was get better at time management. No matter how hard I try, this is always something that I struggle with. Whenever I am given a set time to complete something, I get stressed out because of the time limit and then end up paying more attention to the time than to the actual assignment. When doing my homework, I also get distracted easily so I then push off my homework and do it at the very last minute. I just need to finish my homework in advanced instead of always leaving it last minute.
Hamlet Character Post #4
Although people thought I had gone mad, I must admit that, “I lov’d Ophelia. Forty thousand brothers could not (with all their quantity of love) make up my sum” (4.1.90). I cannot believe that she is actually gone. Others do not believe that our love is true and think that I am the cause of her death is hurtful. She lost hope in me and was convinced I was a horrible person after her father's death however, she should have trusted me and been on my side instead of believing her lying brother. I cannot believe her own family would play her like that, “A violet in the youth of primy nature, forward, not permanent—sweet, not lasting” (1.3.15) Our love could have gone on but now, we both have nothing. All because Polonius and Laertes went too far, and ignored the signs that “the habit of mistrust, so ingrained in her father and brother, [was] something new to her” (Seng 220) when trying to convince her that I was no good. I know exactly what Polonius' true motives were. He never wanted Ophelia and I to be together so the second he got the chance, he turned her against me and drove her to her death. I know this hurt her because she loved me as much as I loved her, “Tender yourself more dearly, Or…you’ll tender me a fool” (1.3.18). However, I agree with this critic, because “indeed, she had believed [me]; and, as it turns out, though tragically and too late, her trust was not misplaced” (Seng 220-221). Her death had nothing to do with me. It was completely her father and brothers fault and even hers for believing them. It was all due to Polonius who was “only too willing to sacrifice his morals to political expediency; and it is his spying, sneaking and eavesdropping that finally brings his own death” (Seng 221). I may have stabbed him however, if Polonius had not hidden behind the curtain, I would not have stabbed him, and then I would never have been sent away, and Ophelia would not have gone crazy. Polonius is the one who led her straight to her death.
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