This is going to be my very last post in this blog. It was a pleasure to work with you guys. I wish you best of luck for your exams and everything that will come after it. I cannot help you anymore now, but please keep in mind that you all have administrator rights here and can still work with the blog to help each other with the preparations! Good luck!!!
Dear students… March 28, 2009
The Short Stories March 28, 2009
Anita Desai: A Devoted Son
Location: at home, next to a bigger city/outlying district of a bigger city, poor area
Period: close past / present
Historical background: joint family system
Main characters: Rakesh: the son
Varma: his father
Minor characters: mother of Rakesh/ wife of Varma
Daughter- in- law/ wife of Rakesh
Bahtia: the neighbor
Contrast between characters: On the one hand Rakesh: studied in the USA, top marks at university, scholarship, successful doctor who opens his own hospital
On the other hand: the rest of his family and the neighbours who are poor and low- educated.
Perspective: third person narrator who comments the story, omniscient
Conflict: between the young and the old generation in a joint family, hierarchy in the family
Male or female roles: men dominate the story; the women mostly have to obey the men
Salman Rushdie: The Free Radio
Location:
India, city nearby Bombay
Historical background:
it took place in a time of overpopulation in India; the time of the government of Indira Gandhi (1966 to 1977)
Main characters:
-
first-person narrator
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Ramani
Minor characters:
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thief widow
-
friends of Ramani
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officials
Contrast between characters:
Ramani:
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naïve
-
trustful
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inexperience
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little soft in his head/ dumb
-
young
in contrast to
the first-person narrator:
-
experienced
-
caring
-
respected
-
foresighted
-
intelligent
Perspective:
authorial intrusion
Conflict:
Ramani/ first-person narrator concerning Ramanis life perspective (marriage, sterilisation)
Male or female roles:
The woman (thief widow) dominated Ramani.
Bharati Mukherjee: Nostalgia
Location: New York, State Hospital Queens
Historical background, period of Indian history: emigration of Indians
Main characters : Dr. Manny Patel, Padma
Minor characters: Padma, Camille, maitre d’
Contrast between characters: Camille is not Indian
Perspective: 3rd Person omniscient
Conflict: Dr Patel is frustrated because he misses India, has sex with a minor
Ending: Dr Patel has sex with a minor and gets caught by the maitre d’ who asked Dr Patel for medicine before. He gets 700 Dollars and a letter for a hospital from Dr. Patel because if Patel does not do that he wants him to, he threatens to go to the police.
Meher Pestonji: Outsider
Location:
India; Almora, Mumbai
Historical background/period of Indian history:
Modern time
Main characters:
Theresa, Jyoti, Santosh
Minor characters:
Savok, Cawas, Zenia
Contrast between characters:
Theresa: can’t accept poverty; doesn’t like the decadence
Jyoti: pragmatic, arrogant
Perspective:
Omniscient narrator
Conflict:
Individualism vs. collectivism, pragmatism vs. idealism
Male or female roles:
No typical ones
Technology:
Wants to make a film about street children
Examples of the identity of the ‘other’:
German: can’t accept poverty; Parsis are rich and independent
Influences or clashes between the occidental and the oriental:
Acceptance of the poverty; worth of a human’s life; individualism vs. collectivism
Disillusionment:
Children on the streets survive under hard conditions
Salman Rushdie: Good Advice is Rarer Than Rubies
Information still missing!!!
Sorry for the delay… March 26, 2009
…I’m spending the night at school, so the short story summaries won’t be online before Saturday.
I’m wishing you best of luck for all your exams! Forgot to tell you so yesterday! 
Wednesday, Feb. 25th, 2009 February 22, 2009
Today we mainly talked about Thomas’ homework. More summaries were presented, slowly the remembrance of the first semester returns. As we’re slowly approaching the 2nd semester in our thinking, please BRING YOUR INDIAN SHORT STORY COLLECTION with you from now on!
Still having the upcoming Abitur in mind, please answer another question on the excerpt from J.S. Foer’s novel:
Analyse the means the author uses to illustrate Oskar’s state of mind.
Feb. 20th, 2009 February 22, 2009
This time we went a bit further into how Abiklausuren are generated, solved and marked.
Your job this time: Repetition of how pictures are analysed. For practise, solve question Nr. 3 from last year’s Abitur!
The photo of the observation deck is part of the novel. Explain how the photo reflects the text.
Keep in mind that you have to describe the picture before you may analyse it!
Big Cities and Open Spaces –> summaries of the 1st semester February 17, 2009
Revision: 1st semester: Big Cities + Open Spaces
1.Songtext: New York, New York
2.Infobox: Urban + Suburban America
Eike + Jano
Before the expansion of urbanization, most cities developed alongside water transportation ways, because there was no industry and no railroads. From 1850 to 2005, the population living in cities rose totally as well as relatively.
Suburbanization led to different problems, like pollution, because the car was used more often than before. It also caused expansion of ghettos and economic weakness of the big cities because of the low investment and consume there. Also, the destruction of large natural areas to build suburban ones was a problem.
In the 1970s, the inner cities became more attractive again. The energy crisis, the yuppie culture and the investment in new businesses in the inner cities were reasons for this development.
The American cities do not leave room for street markets like the European ones do, trade was done in shops that were most often not situated in the city centers. American cities usually have a Central Business District, which is the economical center, including information exchange, specialization and services for customers from far away.
The areas between the CBD and the suburban places are a mixture of public services, industry and businesses and usually grew from manufacturing areas with ethnic residential quarters.
A modern trend in the cities are gated communities that want to make their own rules and include all necessary facilities. Modern city planners want to construct people-oriented places with local green markets, public spaces, historic buildings and local landscapes restored to their original character..
3.Edward Field: New York
Steffen
Field’s poem is a hymn of praise for his home town New York. He compares New York to paradise, for him it is like a place that. It’s not a place of nature, but it is a `people paradise`. New Yorkers live the way they want to live and nobody cares. They are opened-minded and friendly. They don’t hide their feelings, to get in contact it is not complicated. Field calls it a `carnival of sex` where everyone can satisfy their desires. It is a free way of living together for everyone, men and women. There are no restrictions. Field even doesn’t mention the word `gay`, he just says it is not different to him, from which you can’t conclude that Field must be gay. So this poem is one which could have been written by any New Yorker, adoring his home-city.
4.A Welcome Sign for Immigrants
Thomas
5.Sunset Park
Jannes
The text “Sunset Park, New York City” is an article about the immigrants in New York City and their problems in their new country. It was published in “The New Republic” and in “The American Studies Newsletter” in 1994. The author Roger Rosenblatt is a Harvard-educated writer and journalist.
In “Sunset Park, New York City”, a lot of people live below the poverty line and have problems with their new country. The author interviewed many people in the Sunset Park and they talked about the main problems they have to handle (ll. 48-53). The people are from different countries and mostly came to America because they had dreams about living in the USA like the “American Dream” (ll. 109-111). When they arrived, the people realized that also in America the people have big problems, like crime, unemployment and even more. (ll. 86-95). Another huge problem for the immigrants is that they have to work hard and long to earn enough money to pay the rent and taxes (ll. 165-168). By contrast most native Americans earn more money for less work, and so the immigrants don’t feel as American (ll. 185-192). Therefore, many immigrants toy with the idea of going back to their home country and leaving the USA (ll. 95-101). One of the interviewees told the author that he “felt so out of place in America” (l. 206) and that is a real problem for them.
Finally, you can say that the immigrants to the USA have to deal with many problems. For many, the American Dream is an out-dated idea and life in America has become more complex.
6.Please don’t Take my Air Jordans
Philip
The poem “Please don´t take my Air Jordans” by Reg. E. Gaines deals with a young man, who has an unhealthy passion for brand clothing. Generally, it deals with the importance of it.
First, he lets the reader know what he wears and what it costs and that he is unemployed, so he has not enough money to fulfill all of his “clothing-dreams”.
Then he tells about his drive to get brand new stuff, because his friends are laughing at him, concerning his old “gear”. As a result, he makes the plan to steal what he wants via force of arms.
Afterwards, he finds a victim with the desired clothes, he chases and menaces him. Then he shoots at him.
Instead of being terrified by death, the victim’s last thoughts spin around his Nike Air Jordans and he worries about them.
The poem excellently shows the changed values in the life of some people.
On the one hand, you can see the young man who is prepared to kill someone to get his desired clothes and on the other hand, there is the victim who clings more to his shoes than to his life.
7.Trinity Place
Lina
The poem was to be read in connection with the topic “New York City”. The Trinity Church is settled between the Broadway and Trinity Place in the South of the city. It was built in 1846 and almost marks the end of the Wall Street.At the cemetery belonging to the church yard Alexander Hamilton, one of America’s first constitutional lawyers and the first United States Secretary of the Treasury, as well as Robert Fulton, who invented the first usable steam boats, are buried.The first two lines of the poem refer to these facts. They are used to identify the Church explicitly, although Trinity Church and its position are already widely known.Lines three and four describe a typical situation at these yards. Sandburg tells that the yard is a meeting point for poor people who talk there about everything important for them,family as much as war. Richer people go to a cafè but those ones described in the poem cannot offer. So they meet at Trinity Place and exchange news there. The next two lines don’t refer to Trinity Yard directly. They rather explain what someone at Trintiy Yard sees. The fence surrounding the church and behind that all these people moving along the Broadway which ends at the ocean. It is here when Sandburg uses the term “great” for the first time. ”… down the great street that ends with a Sea”. This word is repeated in the last lines.
He again refers to Hamilton and Fulton, first to the persons directly and then indirectly through the mentioning of the governments and the steamboats. And there the two people, the government and the steam boats are referred to as “great”.
The question is: Is this term to be taken seriously or is it supposed to be ironical?
The last lines suggest that in his poem Sandburg critizises the industrialisation as well as the government.
“ … easy is the sleep of Alexander Hamilton.
… easy is the sleep of Robert Fulton.
… easy are the great governments and the great steamboats.”
Hamilton and Fulton have an easy sleep because they have nothing to worry about. They are dead and they are famous. Both men stand for a new development, the creation of the United States, the invention of the steam boat. In Trinity Yard also other famous people are buried. But none of them expresses the distance between them and the people who sit on their tombs as much as these two. A State Secretary of the Treasury and an Inventor of a machine that changed the working conditions for all boatsmen, and above them people who live at the living wage.
Hamilton and Fulton are symbols for all the governments who were not able and not willing to change the conditions of the poor people and all the invention which worsen the situation of the workers.
Sandburg war a socialist and thus he expressed his critics on the political, social and economic system I his poem. He turns his attention to the poor people at the street that you saw every day at the begin of the 20th century. He seems to admire that the people are still happy. He refers to them as “… a singing, talking, hustling river” . Even then the broadway was an important commercial street, so Sandburg calls it a “great street”, ironically, because this great street stands for everything the poor people walking along the street cannot have.
Important for the semester topic is, together with the other poems, to get to know different views on New York City. Sandburg sees the city with all its famousness very critically and is very concerned with the life of the poor in NYC.
… easy is the sleep of Robert Fulton.
… easy are the great governments and the great steamboats.”
8.A Definition of the American Dream
Steffen
The American Dream is based on four main elements, which were described by James Truslow Adams.
The first is the belief in a steady improvement of living standards and the conviction that everyone can realize their highest ambitions through their own activities.
–> The belief in your own strength to realize your dreams.
Secondly, there is the belief that in the course of civilization’s irresistible westward movement even new borders must be crossed and even new barriers overcome. After the Americans had finished the westward movement, they began to cross new barriers like the orbit. With the globalisation new `frontiers` are being opened.
Moreover, the belief that immigrants of different ethnic descent from different cultures and with different religions can be fused into a new nation.
–> This leads to the so-called American melting pot where all people live together peacefully.
Finally, there is the belief that God has singled out America as his chosen country and appointed the American to convert the rest of the world to true democracy.
–> Examples are the wars in Iraq and against the Taliban to give the people in these countries peace and democracy.
These are the four elements of the American dream.
You have to ask yourself:
Is the American Dream really fulfilled?
Can the American Dream be fulfilled by everyone?
The American Dream is dreamt only by few people. Mostly, it is the white people who become rich. For many, the American Dream is limited to material things and money. Most people don’t care about the problems which other people have. In this way, to dream the American Dream you need to be reckless. “Many people don’t fight enough for the dream anymore”, say some people, but you must have in mind that most young people like immigrants don’t have the chance to fight for it. For these people there is no dream of personal success, of new frontiers, of the American melting pot, in which all people live together in harmony and peace. They are fighting for their survival.
9.Frank Zappa: Hungry Freaks, Daddy Jano + Eike
“Hungry Freaks, Daddy” is a song written by Frank Zappa in 1966. Music-historically it plays an important role because it was the opening track of the first album Zappa ever recorded with his famous band Mothers of Invention.
The song is about the feelings of a degenerated young generation, which doesn´t want to join the illusory world of goods and lies (besides they wouldn´t even have the chance to). Mr. America (meaning the government and the civil establishment) should fear the horde of hungry freaks, because they are tired of further injustice. Representative for the injustice stands the great society (the left behinds of the great society), as a set of domestic programs on the initiative of President Lyndon B. Johnson in the mid 60s. The programs were designed to solve import domestic problems like strengthening civil rights, fighting poverty and bringing progress in the domains education, health system, environment and infrastructure.
If you listen to the song, you get the feeling that Zappa isn´t comfortable with the results of this project. For him there are a lot of left behinds who are still hungry. The song ends with the warning that Mr. America has to be afraid of “those who aren’t afraid to say what’s on their minds”.
10.Turner: The Significance of the American Frontier in American History
Lina + Nina
11.The Dixie Chicks: Wide Open Spaces
Stefan
Dixie Chicks – Wide Open Spaces (Summary)
In the song “wide open spaces” by the Dixie Chicks they sing about girls which go their own way, realizing their dreams and leaving their families. This way is far away from the old home and they don´t know what they will experience.
The singer starts with the lyrics: “Who doesn’t know what I’m talking about”, so the song begins with the feeling that the hearer can identify with it. The metaphor in line 4 says that the girl, who is leaving, wants to build up her own house and “the clouds” (line 4) should show the distance to home. They sing that she has to do her own mistakes (l. 10) to learn. Then there is a flashback to the young days of the girl and she realizes that she will never live like this again.
At the end the, the girl says goodbye to her parents which are on the one hand very tired, but on the other hand they can understand the decision of their child and remember the time they were young.
In the chorus, the singer sings that the girl knows how high the stakes are and that the way she wants to go is very important. This part of the chorus is repeated in the end of the song four times, so with this anaphora the singer wants to underline how important it is to know how high the stakes are.
12. Bill Bryson: Wide-Open Spaces
Arthur
In this text Bill Bryson talks about the big area of the US. For example, he says that we are closer to Johannesburg than he is to the outermost tip of his own country.
Another example are the areas of Wyoming and Montana. These states have twice the area of France but a population smaller than that of South London.
He tells about New Hampshire. There are 85 per cent forest and most of the rest are lakes. You can drive through this place and just see trees and mountains not a house or the like.
Bill Bryson speaks about a trip he wanted to make with a couple of friends and all they had to do was to cross New Hampshire which is the fourth tiniest state in America. For this trip they drove 7 hours. Still, many Americans believe that the US are too crowded.
Bill Bryson talks about an article in the New York Times calling for an end to immigration as the country was too crowded. He points out that such reasons are obsolete, thinking of those ‘wide open spaces’ that are certainly not too crowded.
He says that getting rid of immigrants would not open employment oppertunities but lead to unwashed dishes and unpicked fruits instead because the Americans would not do these low paid an dirty jobs. Just six per cent are foreign born people, 8 per cent from Britain and 11 from France.
America is one of the least crowded countries with an avarage of only 68 people per square-mile (256 in France and 600 in Britain). Only 2 per cent of the US are classified as built land. A fact that many Americans are unaware of.
At last Bill Bryson states that Daniel Boone (pioneer and hunter) was an idiot because he looked out of his cabin and saw a wisp of smoke and so he felt the urge to move on because his neighbourhood was getting too crowded.
13.→ Zusammenfassung “Easy Rider” + Road Movie
Sabrina
The American film “Easy rider” by Dennis Hopper was first published in 1969. The Film is about the two friends Wyatt and Billy who achieve their life dream, a motorbike trip through the USA. In the movie the attitude of life in the 1960s is described.
At the beginning of the film, the two protagonists, Wyatt and Billy, buy cocaine in Mexico and sell it at the airport of Los Angeles. With this money they travel through the USA. In the first evening, they want to stay in a motel in Arizona but they are refused by the owner and so they have to sleep outside, next to a bonfire.
Their next goal is New Orleans. On their way they meet a hospitable family and a Hippie-Community. After having left the Community, they bump into a parade and join it. They are arrested and brought to prison where a young lawyer, George Hanson, is sleeping after a drunken night out that ended in his being arrested for being drunk. By reason of his connections they are released from prison whereupon they take the young lawyer with them.
On the continuation of their journey they want to eat in a restaurant in Louisiana. There some girls flirt with the trio, but they are affronted by the male inhabitants so they leave the restaurant before getting served. The three men have to sleep outside again and at night they are attacked by the villagers. George Hudson dies.
In the next morning Wyatt and Billy ride to New Orleans where they visit a bordello in the remembrance of George which had been advised to them by him when he was still alive.
The next day, they ride on the highway where they get ahead by a pick-up. The co-driver threatens Billy and after his reaction, an outstretched middle finger, the man in the pick-up shoots at him. Wyatt tries to get help but the pick-up turns and after a loud explosion the motorbike flies in the ditch and begins to burn.
Rena
What is a road movie?
- A film genre in which the plot takes place on the road
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A road movie usually ends in one of the four ways
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having arrived at their ultimate destination, the protagonist(s) return home, wiser for their experiences.
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at the end of the journey, the protagonist(s) find a new home at their destination.
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the journey continues endlessly.
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having realised that, as a result of their journey, they can never go home, the protagonists either choose death or are killed.
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14.The Byrds: I Wasn’t Born to Follow
On Friday 13th… February 9, 2009
… I won’t be there once again (sorry for that!). It is your job to write the summaries for the texts of the first semester and to prepare to present them in class! Please send the summaries to me this weekend!
Wednesday, Jan. 28th January 28, 2009
This time a full-time homework:
1. Read the background information at pages 54-56 and answer the questions 1+2 at page 56.
2. Write an article for a newspaper about ‘The Free Radio’.
- either in the style of a tabloid newspaper that turns the story into a scandal
- or in the style of a quality newspaper that tries to illustrate the bad social situation with one representative example
- or in the style of a local newspaper as if the narrator himself had written the article
Wednesday, Jan. 21st, 2009 January 20, 2009
A short interruption from our journey back to India: New US-president Barack Obama held his inaugural address! As it holds both, important points from a real utopian view on a nation and keywords explaining the American Dream (we had a look at that in the first semester), today we’ll have a close look at it.
Here’s the source:
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Inauguration/story?id=6689022&page=1
Please do the following assignments:
1) Summarize the main points of the beginning of Obama’s speech.
2) Name the problems of today’s America that are mentioned. How does he plan to solve these problems and what (Utopian?) picture of the future does he depict?
3) Have a look at the language of the text. How does Obama describe himself – especially between the lines? Also, look for rhetorical keywords that underline your analysis.
