Great Expectations and everything that comes with them

This week was, you guessed it! Great Expectations. I had an absolute blast this week, it was as if I was stepping a bit into my past. This book was something that I had enjoyed as high schooler but never got to sit down and discuss it as a class or with any of my friends. I had the opportunity to do so with my online class and got to participate and finally dissect the book a little. There was some dissecting that I had already done on my own. Pip's aunt and her abusive attitude and Joe's sympathetic but submissive attitude towards what happens to Pip. Some of the discussions that came up that I had not considered before was Estella's attitude towards Pip and then what the actual Great Expectations turned Pip into. He lost sight of his family and became hurtful towards his old home and those left within it. Overall it was a very interesting but entertaining week.

ciao 4 now,
Arwen

Victorian Era

This week we discussed the Victorian Era, we talked about the huge progression made forward during this time and the almost dreamlike state in which people wrote. There were more female writers I noticed as we have begun to me closer to the age in which we are now in. We read Tennyson's "The Women;s Cause is Man's", and Arnold's "The Forsaken Merman". The dreamlike state and the wishes for gender equality, that a woman has as much right as a man and that they hold an equal and important role. That one needs the other to fully operate ad provide the best in a society. And Arnold's poem was a very interesting commentary on the relationship between religion and imagination. Discussing how over time we tend to lose a piece of our imagination and surrender to "growing up", religion if you will. How religion take over our minds and gives us something more concrete to work and play. I cannot wait to see what next week has in store for the class.

Frankenstein

So, Frankenstein was this week!!!!! I was REALLY excited to read this week. I have never read Frankenstein so this was anew one for me.I knew the basic gist of the story, mad scientists creates crazy monster to come to life using dead people spare parts. What I was not prepared for was the romantic side of it, the family that the scientist misses, the cousin/lover (this really bugged me for some reason, it felt like Elizabeth was just a charity case to the rest of the family). The need to fulfill that but the want to not deal with it as well. And of course the big fact the it is not Frankenstein but Frankenstein's monster. That Victor Frankenstein is the scientist that could also be called the monster, but that's for another discussion, but not the actual, created, flesh and blood "monster" that we immediately picture. This week was a heavy week but a good one and I cannot wait to get the rest of the week started.