LITB3 - The Gothic - Wuthering Heights

In response to requests here are some useful links for you to follow concerned as they are with the Gothic elements in Wuthering Heights:

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/14359/gothic_literature_an_indepth_look_at_pg6.html?cat=38 

 A further, more academic article on the Gothic in Wuthering Heights, can be found here:

http://elizabeth-gregory.suite101.com/gothic-in-brontes-wuthering-heights-a87897


Every character in the novel, male and female, indulges in various acts of violence - both overt and casual, gratuitous brutality and verbal aggression.  These emanate from quite a range of motivations and moods:  love, revenge, isolation, jealousy, frustration and despair.  

Heathcliff and Cathy's relationship, although romantic and spiritual, is full of violent passions and emotive and aggressive arguments.  Their meetings are considered to be more like animals than humans. Heathcliff's relationships with Isabella and Catherine are also permeated with viciousness and malignity.  Heathcliff's elopement with Isabella starts with the hanging of her dog and ends with her attempted murder. Catherine, angry and frustrated at her imprisonment in Wuthering Heights, finds a voice full of anger, hatred and vituperation with shocking physical violence against Hareton and Heathcliff.

Every chapter is suffused with violence and  in order to maintain the power to shock the reader, it escalates steadily and appallingly.  Violence begets violence.

LITB1 - ASPECTS OF NARRATIVE - THE GREAT GATSBY

I am taking as a given that you have read the first chapter, not just watched the film!  Therefore watch this excellent analysis of the first chapter vlog, and navigate through others that you can find on the page -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehjTS6AhMJ8

  

Remembering that AO2 - SRUCTURE FORM and LANGUAGE is what you will be marked on for question 1a (check out an earlier blog in the archive on the right hand side for more information), then I also need you to study the following:

Structure: Fitzgerald uses Nick as a framing device to bring the novel together.  The first pages introduce him and the last chapter is concerned with what happened to him after Gatsby was killed.  It is Nick who chooses what to include in his book and tells us what he remembers of what the other people involved told him as events unfolded.

Jordan Baker tells what information she has about Gatsby and Daisy's former relationship, apparently in her own words.   Fitzgerald, in parenthesis, says that she was 'sitting up very straight on a straight chair' which conveys the impression that her words will be factual and truthful, not gilded by her imagination.  This technique makes Jordan Baker seem a believable witness but not Daisy, we are unclear what she thinks and feels.  Fitzgerald wrote in a letter that:  'The worst fault in [TGG] I think is a BIG FAULT: I gave no account (and had no feeling about or knowledge of) the emotional relations between Gatsby and Daisy from the time of their reunion to the catastrophe.'

However, when Gatsby gives his version of events, Nick takes over and puts all that is said in his own words.  Gatsby's language is child-like, revealing his lack of education and immaturity.  Anne Crow argues that if Fitzgerald had allowed Gatsby to be the narrator, his style would have made for a very dull and commonplace novel, rendering the title wildly inappropriate.

Also look at how Fitzgerald condenses information, the story covers only 4 months, but seems over a much longer period because of Fitzgerald's narratorial technique of having Nick informed of past events by the other characters who were involved.  It is a non-linear narrative structure and by looking at the 60 Second re-cap video clips: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DF7rykLUIU0&list=PLBNXmyDnoU4R8Q6VBhemloC8c_5LYLv_c

 Navigate through further videos once you've reached the link.

                                                                   

  

THE GREAT GATSBY: HISTORICAL CONTEXT

It is esential that you study an understand the historical context that surrounds Fitzgerald's novel as assessment objective four - AO4, demands that students can discuss context when constructing a critical argument. Below are several links to resources that will help develop an understanding of America in the 1920s. The decade is a complex one. At the beginning of the decade with many returning veterans of the First World War, there was a period of economic hardship, in 1925, when the novel was published, rich urban Americans were experiencing an economic boom, and then in 1929 the Wall Street Crash occurred.

'The Roaring Twenties' is a YouTube documentary in three parts that, if you can cope with the excruciating narrator/voiceover, will give you an insight in to the issues and themes which form the backgruonmd to the novel: the jazz age, prohibition, the position of women, advertising, the haves and the have nots.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVOflzLGKCc&feature=relmfu 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MExfjbSmR0k&feature=relmfu 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHZckXwIa5E&feature=relmfu


A further documentary, again in 3 parts, The Century, America's Time: Boom To Bust which contains interviews with people who lived through that period of time, is also required viewing:

One:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foooDFF9Dgs
Two:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJuEi-U6pmo
Three: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJuEi-U6pmo

LITB1 ASPECTS OF NARRATIVE - THE GREAT GATSBY

The following are excellent video resources, you can follow the link to the archive page or follow the link and view the rest from that:

http://cm-englitres.blogspot.co.uk/2011/04/litb1-aspects-of-narrative-great-gatsby.html?showComment=1368472916651#c1135072735839207495 


 










There are two others on SETTING and STYLE and notes on PLOT, but you will need to follow the link for those, whereupon you will find some useful revision notes, a means of testing your knowledge and of checking on how well your revision is going, so do take a look:  

http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/learning/bitesize/higher/english/great_gatsby/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/higher/english/great_gatsby/ 

THE GREAT GATSBY

I would encourage all AS students to consider and digest the following resources to develop their own reading of the narrative and develop an awareness of the possible readings of the story. In particular to look at  Fitzgerald's aims and how he uses character as symbol to shape key ideas. To help, the Channel Four News interview with film director Baz Luhrmann is essential viewing:

http://www.channel4.com/news/baz-luhrmann-the-great-gatsby-film-director

 Di Caprio on Gatsby: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-22338888

More Di Caprio: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxxrehVI0Lk

  The Guardian discusses Gatsby:    http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/apr/30/great-gatsby-movie-fashion-wealth

 A just tolerable interview with Nick, Daisy,Gatsby, Tom and Myrtle:
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQ2woqCbB20


These Crash Course English Literature videos by John Green are useful

 


Make sure you watch all of the following: John Green explores The Great Gatby http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xw9Au9OoN88http:

John Green - IS GATSBY GREAT?:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cn0WZ8-0Z1Y

John Green looks at THE VALLEY OF ASHES:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VhYMdnAsyM 

John Green provides a critical overview of Chapter One:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehjTS6AhMJ8 

THE KITE RUNNER

For those of you starting LITB4 Independent Reading you might want to follow the link to read this article from The Guardian in full:

 http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/jun/01/khaled-hosseini-kite-runner-interview?INTCMP=SRCH  

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/jun/01/khaled-hosseini-kite-runner-interview?INTCMP=SRCH

LITB 1 - ASPECTS OF NARRATIVE - THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER

In what little time you have left before the exam, click the link and view the podcast lectures by Leeds English Faculty.  There are two on The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, looking at the text as an ecological poem 'deeply concerned  with the relationship between human beings and their environment.'

http://www.theenglishfaculty.org/a-levels/item/221-language-and-meaning-in-the-rime-of-the-ancyent-marinere-pt1

http://www.theenglishfaculty.org/a-levels/item/220-language-and-meaning-in-the-rime-of-the-ancyent-marinere-pt2