The Sublime

We began the lesson by looking at an image of the sublime in an artistic form followed by Sir making some horrible joke involves a lime and what not.

The Sublime:
That which comes into your mind, under the threshold. Something that seeps in.

We found out that in the 18th century, the general idea was that the sublime is the feeling of being reduced to something truly insignificant in the face of the might of God or nature - particularly nature in the Gothic.

The class were then asked to list some examples of the 'awe-inspiring' feeling denoted by the sublime.
We came up with:
- Massive mountains, time square and massive woods.
- Astronomical scale (How massive the universe is compared to us)

- The vastness of the sea.

We looked at the critic Edmund Burke's view on the sublime in his work 'Sublime and Beautiful':

“Whatever is fitted in any sort to excite the ideas of pain, and danger . . . Or is conversant about the terrible objects, or operates in a manner analogous to terror, is a sources of the sublime; that is, it is productive of the strongest emotion which the mind is capable of feeling.”

We can see that Burke separates the sublime and beauty in two separate spheres. The sublime consisting of obscurity, power, darkness, solitude and vastness while beauty revolves around the ideas of smoothness, delicacy, smallness and light.

Sir told us that a good Burkean example of the sublime (somewhat subdued) occurs when Radcliffe's Emily from The Mysteries of Udolpho first sees the the Campagna of Italy:

"As the travellers still ascended among the pine-forests, steep rose over steep, the mountains seemed to multiply as they went, and what was the summit of one eminence proved to be the only base of another. At length they reached a little plan where the drivers stopped to rest the mules, whence a scene of such extent and magnificence opened below, as drew even from Madame Montoni a note of admiration. Emily lost, for a moment, her sorrows in the immensity of nature."

We see that the references to mountains that "multiply" and the "immensity of nature" are two of several references to the sublime in the extract above.

After taking down these notes, the class was split into pairs and each give an extract describing the sublime in some way; they had to read the extract and tell the class what each writer said about the sublime. The extracts can be found on the powerpoint for the lesson which you can find in: Learning Resources, English, Chatterley.

Next, we looked at the ways in which landscapes in our three texts serve to give rise to the feeling of the sublime.
Some examples of these landscapes being:

- The Yorkshire Moors - Wuthering Heights
- Desolate Place/ Heath - Macbeth
- Town - The Lady of the House of Love
- Castle - The Bloody Chamber

The class went further and actually said that the sublime is more than just a landscape.

We see in 'The Prelude' by Wordsworth the character simmers in the face of the mountains as it reminds him of his limitations.

When the class related this to the Gothic, we were told that this feeling is developed to assign a place for humans in the world but at the same time hint that transgression of that 'place in the world' is still possible.

Homework:
"The concept of the sublime helps to define the gothic genre. Discuss in relation to Macbeth and two other texts."

Sir wants us to plan an intro and three 'Chunkles' about what we are going to write for each text.
For example:
Intro - The sublime is a key tennant in Macbeth...
Chunkle One - Sublime in Macbeth
Chunkle Two - Sublime in The Bloody Chamber

Chunkle Three - Subline in Wuthering Heights

Roman A.

P.S. Blog looks a little weird...I don't care.

Horror, Terror and some Supernatural V.2.0

This is the second blog I'm doing today seeing as my first, actual blog was deleted for some stupid reason.

Here we go.

Lesson started, talked about what is terror and what is horror.
Horror = Physical and external fear.
Terror = Psychological and internal fear.

After understanding this, we made a list of films we thought were terrifying e.g. Paranormal Activity and films that were horrifying e.g. Texas Chainsaw Massacre
Following this we watched some trailers that displayed films from both these spheres.

Next, we read an article by Ann Radcliffe about the supernatural. You can find it here: http://www.litgothic.com/Texts/radcliffe_sup.pdf
If you were not here you need to read it and print it off for yourself.

We made notes on the separate pages of the article and discussed how Terror is shown to heighten and improve the sense while horror simply freezes and incapacitates them.

We discussed why Radcliffe writes her article as a commentary and came to the conclusion that it was so she could voice the concerns of the average Victorian when it comes to the supernatural and address their issues toward it.

Finally we talked about which aspect, terror or horror, was more obscure and which concept this relates to.
I, personally, thought that terror is far more obscure because it is much harder to create a sense of terror compared to the raw, brutal violence needed for horror.

Homework:

- Re-read article.

I know it's late; I tried to do it properly to make up for it but it got deleted and I am not happy at all.

Roman A.

embedding social, historical and literary contexts

We started off the lesson linking words with their meanings regarding the gothic, these consisted of: liminality, oppositions, transgression, byronic hero, uncanny, uncanny of the monumental, fragmented narrative, framing, pathetic fallacy, horror, terror, prolix, heterogenous, supernatural, ambiguous, lexical cluster, ambivalent and cultural parasite.

We then read an article named the homely gothic, it talked about how the gothic has been domesticated and how the victorian audience were more frightened of domestic issues, for instance Wuthering Heights.

Our homework was to answer these seven quesions
1. Why does the writer suggest ghosts are significant?
2. Why is victorian society lacking value, spirit, imagination etc.?
3. What does this have to do with the Lady of Shalott?
4. What is 'the privileged site of Victorian culture'?
5. Why is this significant in Wuthering Heights?
6. Why do you think this article is called 'homely gothic'?
7. Which elements could we see as being domesticated by Bronte?

Leigh

Cultural Parasite

The title of the lesson was Cultural Parasite. (obviously).

We were then asked what we wanted to learn today as our 'starter;. There were many options but I chose 'I want to know about parasites and hwo they relate to Heathcliff'. After that we looked at a painting that we had "seen loads of times before" (we'd never seen it before). It was called The Sleep of Reason Berings Forth Monsters by someone called Goya.

After that we moved on to our 'main course'. The question I picked for this was 'has any of this lesson been about you'. The answer was no. Then we read 'Victorian Gothic' by Julian Wolfreys and analysed it. We then split up in to small groups, with each one of the 3 groups being given one of Macbeth, Bloody Chamber or Wuthering Heights. My group was assigned the Bloody Chamber and we had to make a table showing the book's "relevant societal fears or 'deeper wounds'" and then display "how these fears are shown in the text". After gathering this information we swapped one person in our group who then went off to another group and shared the knowledge.

Finally, the dessert was served and the question on the menu I chose was "what has this lesson reminded you of?". My answer was 'parasites'.

Homework: Re-read the article we read (Victorian Gothic by Julian Wolfreys) and make notes.

Before any moans, I realise I wrote this late, but of couse thats no excuse for not doing your homework. And we have english after school, too (cant wait!!!!!!!!!!)

Daniel.

Return of the Blogger

Welcome to my (belated) first blog of the new academic year!

During our last lesson with Mr Sadgrove for this half term we focused on the aspect of pathetic fallacy in reference to Wuthering Heights.

We started off the lesson by being asked to find suitable questions for this set of answers:

Horror

Terror

Liminal

Uncanny

Opposition

Heathcliff

Byronic hero

Fragmented Narrative

The questions I came up with go as follows:

What is psychological fear?

What is the word for mental fear?

Give the term for when something is in a state of "in-between".

What is the term for when two contrasting things are put side by side?

What is the name of the male protagonist in Wuthering Heights?

What is the term for an individual who can be described as bein "mad bad and dangerous to know"?

How can the narrative structure in Wuthering Heights be defined?

On to the actual aim of the lesson...

What we know:

Heathcliff's emotions are often reflected by his surroundings.

What we need to know:

Examples of pathetic fallacy in the novel

Literary symbols

We then watched an extract from the marveling Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring where we examined how the surroundings of the characters influenced and contributed the overall atmosphere of the scene.

e.g. green = peace and tranquility

Here are Ruskin's views on pathetic fallacy:

Ascribing human feelings to the inanimate for Ruskin was a derogatory term in that it does not describe the "true appearance of things to us", rather than the extraordinary or false appearances.

We were then asked to use pathetic fallacy to create mood and atmosphere in a given scenario.

To conclude I shall reveal to you what the homework is:

Mr Sadgrove gave us a piece of paper with several extracts on it, we must write a paragraph on each of those looking closely at the language and commenting on the use of pathetic fallacy.

Pathetic fallacy can be any or a combination of these:

Sound

Colour

Wather

Light

Time of day

Season

(Animals also but they are a theme of their own)

Also re-read the Bloody Chamber (pathetic fallacy is also used in that)

Enjoy the holidays guys and girls

Much love,

Aleksandra.

Homework for over half term...

You will all be reading all your texts again. This is especially important for The Bloody Chamber.

As you're reading you will be making notes on the following gothic themes. You can do this any way you like, but I suggest having a page for each and making notes / brainstorm as you read through the texts. You should concentrate on your specialist subject which you'll be presenting to the class on first lesson back, Monday 1&2.

Your notes should explore links between your texts, not just Macbeth, but The Bloody Chamber and Wuthering Heights too!

Rosie - Liminality
Aleks - Opposition
Chris - Uncanny
Akanksha- Howwor and Tewwa
Emma - Ambiguity
Aisha - Twisted “gothic” love
Saways - Setting
Roman - Supernatural
Craney - Byronic Hero

Once you have eight pages of superb notes, which will include initial thoughts, quotes, and explicit links between texts and themes - you will flesh out your presentation on your specific theme to teach the rest of the class.

Saways G

We started the lesson by saying what we like/disliked about Heathcliff. Someone said how when Heathcliff was young we could sympathise with him because of how he would be attacked by Hindley, which may reflect why he grew to be the character he is. Sir then showed us a quote which links to this idea: 'the child is the father of the man'

Then we played the game just a minute.

And then we split Heathcliff as a character into four sections: Heathcliff as a child of the storms, as a demonic figure, as a product of his circumstances and as an outcast.

Heathcliff as a child of the storm: This links to to the house 'an arid wilderness'. However, could be seen as a romantic figure: 'my Heathcliff' 'my love for Heathcliff resembles the child benath'

Demonic figure: 'imp of satan' 'devild daddy'. However, we could say he was pushed to evil by his upbringing. He has some good sides to him: ' papa' 'father' 'uncle'

As a product of his circumstances: this could be linked to the 'the child is the father of the man' quote. We could see he is a product through his rejection by Catherine for Edgar. He could have married Catherine and be far better off. However we could say this is not true because Mr Earnshaw treated him like his own

As an outcast: Heathcliff is an outcast through what people call him 'devil daddy' 'frightful' 'vagabond' showing he has no place with the other characters. However, he could be shown as the opposite through 'my Heathcliff', 'capital fellow'

H/w: what contribution does Heathcliff make to our reading of 'Wuthering Heights' as a gothic novel?

By Saways (Written by Roman because his computer wasn't working...thought I should take some credit.)
P.S Title also by Saways.

Macbeth in the modern world.

Drew the four apparitions with quotes, read up to Act 5 discussing specific points in the play and watched a movie. That is all.

Homework: - Mark Essays.

Roman A.

Heathcliff

Sorry for the late blog everyone,

Now in this lesson we looked at Heathcliff, his character and how he is described. For the start sir asked us to write three things we know about Heathcliff. Although most of us knew much about him, yet we knew little, he seemed like a mystery to us. Sir then gave us a sheet with descriptions of HEathcliff from the book and asked us to put them in order of least respectful to the most. We all had them in similar orders, "papa" and "my Heathcliff" being at the top and "imp of satan" and "dark devil gypsy" at the bottom. We then discussed what the words mean and what they represent.

We then, began to write an essay about Heathcliff. In the essay we focused on AO2 and how they create effect, we also DRIPPED in a bit of AO4 not CHUNKS. But most importantly, we focused on the narrative structure and how it is linked to Heathcliff.

Homework:
Finish the model answer essay so it flows well. Continue your reading of Wuthering Heights

Thats all
Aisha

The witches again

We started off reviewing gothic themes in Macbeth - and the witches / supernatural / evil were central to these.

Then we read through A1s4 and discussed the four apparitions.

We then reviewed iambic pentameter and introduced trochaic tetrameter, which the witches' verse mostly appears as. This distinction between iambic pentameter and trochaic tetrameter can be used for AO2 in essays, because it highlights the othernesss of the weird sisters.

STRESS
Banana is not pronounced BAR-NAR-NAR, it is b'NAR-na. So the stress is on the second syllable. Compare Canada. Native speakers have an ear for these natural rhythms, but people who are not native English speakers can fluff up the stress and pronounce things like BAR-NAR-NAR.

IAMBIC PENTAMETER
An iamb is a unit of meter (or foot) made of two syllables – unstressed then stressed. EG:
He said - goodbye - instead.
We speak using iambs in day to day English.
The pentameter bit means there are five iambs per line (ie 10 syllables).

TROCHAIC TETRAMETER
A trochee is a “foot” consisting of two syllables, one stressed and one unstressed (the opposite of an iamb). Eg ENGland.
Tetrameter means there are four feet (ie 8 syllables).

MAIN TASK
Writing a spell with “ingredients” of gothic genre in Macbeth.
In pairs... Write it in trochaic tetrameter. Include all of your gothic elements from your starter and anymore you can think of.

HOMEWORK
Mini Essay on Macbeth’s relationship with the supernatural.

semantic fields

We started the lesson carrying on from Fridays looking at liminal images and discussing what they showed. We then came up with 3 liminal elements in Wuthering Heights, 2 questions we wanted to know about oppositions in the text, as well as an analogy. My analogy was Wuthering heights is like reverse skittles where the outside is juxtaposed to the flavour inside.

We then held a long discusiion based upon the oppositions and the liminal that existed in Wuthering Heights and bloody chamber. We discovered oppositions are fixed whereas the characters who have liminal aspects can alternate between the two.

We were then all given a sheet where we linked characters with an adjective or a noun, and compared our opinions with one another and how they related, or opposed eachother. On the other side of the sheet was a critic's intepretation of Wuthering Heights with all the words we involved.

We then read two extracts where we had to find a pattern of words with similar meanings and group them up, these are known as semantic fields, some of the semantic fields found within the two extracts were; hidden, battle, household/domestic, colours and luxuries.

Our last task of the lesson was to read an article called Life on the Edge - opposition and fragmentation in Wuthering Heights, we then repeated our initial task of the lesson; findind 3 oppositions, 2 questions and an analogy. 'Lockwood is like an X factor contestant he has more potential than he knows'.

Our homework was to comment on this blog and to sum up each article in 10 bullet points.

Leigh

Liminality, symbols, motifs and themes

Hello Class and welcome to my blog!

We entered the class to be confronted with two questions:

1. Males: Would you describe yourself as a boy or as a man? and why?
2. Female: Would you describe yourself as a girl or a woman? and why?

Many came to the conclusion that they would describe themselves as a boy/girl because they didn't want to be fully responsible like a adult has to. I myself said I don't feel mature enough to call myself a man (which was certainly proved towards the end of the lesson)

Mr Sadgrove then taught us what the word Liminal meant, so he presented us with this definition:

• The unfixed position between any two oppositional terms; the experience of being on a threshold or a boundary, marginal.
• Liminal- of, pertaining to, or situated at the limen (threshold)

To help us remember the word, we were told to draw a picture representing the meaning . So if you were not present in the lesson, do this.

The class was then given an article from Emagazine (which sir has posted the login details below this post). This article consisted of liminality within Wuthering Heights and which characters had barriers, keeping them separate to others in any different way).

We came to the conclusion that Heathcliffe's Liminality was:

• He's different to the others because `Heathcliffe` is the name of a dead child. So he is, in a way, in a marginal position between the living and the dead.
• He is also on the borderline of a supernatural creature because the Earnshaw's call him the "imp of Satan" and when he first arrives, he is known as "as dark almost as if it came from the devil"
• He is also inbetween the "gypsy brat" and the rich Earnshaws. (Inbetween two barriers is the key point in understanding what liminal means.)

The article also mentioned Life and Death:

• In Chapter 3, when Catherine’s ghost appears, the window acts as the barrier between the living and the supernatural. Therefore Catherine also has liminal elements.
• Catherine is seen as a ghost before she dies, so she is once again trapped between the real world and the dead.
• Heathcliffe's dies, but his eyes are still open. From this we can say that he is, like Catherine, within those boundaries of life and death.

Nature and Culture:

• The window pane breaks down the barrier between nature and culture. It's the portal between instinct and civilisation.

Lastly, we were given a sheet, with a table labelled with Symbol, Motif and Theme. we had to decide which of the following went with what word.

• Power
• Weather
• Windows
• Love
• Confinement and escape
• Books
• Dreams
• The Bible
• Animals
• Childhood and Family
• Suffering
• A Whip
• Communication
• Transcendence (above other things)
• Religion
• Economic and Social Status
• Violence

Homework:
-Essay- Discuss the idea of the liminality with reference to Wuthering Heights.
Focus on how it is communicated through (symbols, motifs, windows, doors, ghosts, dreams) Use AO2 and some dripped in AO4

-Annotate the rest of the symbols sheet

-Read Chapter 6

Feel free to add anything I may of missed out on, due to the extreme laughing!! Thanks :D

Chris W

Wuthering Heights Radio

In order to help you help yourselves you should go on BBC iPlayer and listen to the radio drama which dramatises Wuthering Heights.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b007jlky/Emily_Bronte_Wuthering_Heights_Episode_1/


Some questions to think about:
1) What is the effect of the removal of the narrative structure?
2)How is the dramatic version diffrent from the written novel?
3)Does this change your view of any of the characters; are they more or less "monumental" ?

Roman A.

Emagazine login

This year's emagazine log in details are:

Login: emagazine9
Password: cs349qt

There's bare stuff on the Gothic. Happy reading.

DB

Unrelated

Aleks on the Telly - fwd to 12 mins.

The Uncanny.

During our lesson we dealt with the aspect of "The Uncanny" and how it related to the Gothic genre.

Mr Sadgrove began the lesson by showing us several pictures, each of which contained an aspect that we could not comprehend because we did not understand it; this included images like a foot connected to a wall with no visible body and a woman's body strangely distorted.

Sir went on to reveal that these images all represented an aspect of the Gothic called the uncanny and put up the definition which was:

" Strange or mysterious, especially in an unsettling way."

From this definition the class began to associate certain words within the definition to a character, setting or narrative within the novels and plays they had read. For example, it was said that the character of Heathcliff fit this definition well along with Wuthering Heights itself.
Although the class was able to easily grasp the 'official' definition of the uncanny, we pressed on and explored the deeper meaning of the idea and, especially, how it relates to the Gothic.

We had a task where sir gave out three quotes relating to the uncanny and how it interacts with the Gothic printed on A4 paper and we, as pairs, had to read and annotate the quotes about how they relate to any of the Gothic literature we had read previously.
After this task, we looked at an example of the uncanny in Wuthering Heights. This was the scene where Lockwood meets the ghost of Catherine and how, to the reader, the interaction between the un-mysterious Lockwood and the mysterious and supernatural ghost becomes uncanny.

We read two articles, one about Sigmund Freud - a famous psychiatrist and another about Punter - a critic.
The former of the pair discussed the uncanny in a way that introduced it to us, in our own homes. Freud used two words:
Heimlich - Literally translating to 'homelike'
Unheimlich - Literally translating to 'unhomelike'

Freud said that it is when these two things interact, the heimlich and the unheimlich that the uncanny is formed. When the unhomelike elements invade our sanctuary, the home.

However Punter argued alternatively, explaining that the uncanny can be present even in the home, with Bronte's Wuthering Heights serving as a prime example of how the home is not safe and can be violent, mysterious and unsettling.

Rather then the Oxford and Freudian definitions, I prefer one that states the uncanny is when the barrier between the unknown and the known cracks and breaks down. If we go by this idea, even the most ordinary and 'known' ideas can become 'unknown' and uncanny.
An example of this being when you hear a loud sound at night, noise is not, in itself, unknown to you but it becomes so because you 'know' that the night should be quiet and this creates the sense that it is uncanny.

Since there was no homework that I am aware of, feel free to comment on anything I may have missed or what you interpret as the uncanny in your eyes and how it may relate to other literature such as the Bloody Chamber and Macbeth.

Roman A.

Macbeth Act 3

Today we read and summarized act 3.

Macbeth is worried that Banquo and his child, Fleance may take his place as king, like the witches predicted. Macbeth hires two murders to kill Banquo and Fleance.

The murders now joined by another murderer sneak up on Banquo and Fleance, they kill Banquo but Fleance manages to escape, murderers take Banquo's body to Macbeth. Macbeth isannoyed that they never killed Fleance.

At the feast Macbeth is holding with the other lords, Macbeth see's Banquo's ghost sat in his chair, no one else can see Banquo. Macbeth speaks/shouts at the ghost Lady Macbeth tells all the guest to leave immediatly.

The witches meet with Hecate the goddess of magic who is angry with Macbeth as he is trying to stop fate, Fleance becoming king, she tells the other witches that they are going to lie to Macbeth about visions to confuse him.

Later that night Lennox is with another lord discussing Macbeth, he talks of Banquo's death,which is being blame on Fleance who has fled, Lennox says how he thinks Macbeth was to blame and not Fleance. Lennox says Macduff has gone to king of England to get help, and save Scottland from Macbeth.

Homework: Research historical and gothicky context for Macbeth and two essays,

1) "Ghosts are projections of our innermost anxieties" -disuss this in relation to Macbeth.

2) How are horror and terror used in act 3.

Effects of using comic relief - focus on whole of Act 2.

The first thing we learnt in lesson was what is Comic Relief and why has Shakespeare used it in Act 2. Comic relief is basically the inclusion of a humorous character, scene or witty dialogue in an otherwise serious work, often to relive the tension. In Act 2 it’s used when the Porter talks in a drunk state. We then were asked to read Act 2 Scene 3 and answer the question "Why did Shakespeare use comic relief here? and also link to other text eg: Nelly's stories. We then went on to do an activity which was to making six boxes in our book. Then give each box the following headings and find 3 quotes for each of the following and explain what they show or represent. The headings were:

ANIMALS:
1) "the wolf, whose howls his watch"- shows the personification of Murder.
2) "owl scream and the crickets cry"- shows The Great Chain of Being has been disturbed.

WEAPONS:
1) "A dagger of the mind"-shows a fight in himself.
2) "As this which now I draw"- shows the oppositions or reality vs imagination.

BLOOD:-
1)" and wash this filthy witness from your hand "- shows guilty conscience or horror/terror.
2)"Sliver skin laced with golden blood"-shows the fact that he has killed a King.

NATURE:
1)"It was the owl that shrieked"-shows The Great Chain of Being been disturbed.
2)"The night has been unruly........and did shake"[lines 46-53 Lennox speaking]-shows that something extremely wrong has happened. There is a use of Pathetic Fallacy here.

SLEEP:
1) "Macbeth shall sleep more"-shows the extent of wrong he has done.

DARKNESS:-
1) " A desolate place-thunder and lighting. Enter witches"-shows dark imagery.

These are a few of quotes we came up with as a class. We then proceeded to reading Act 3. We read up to Act 3 Scene 2. Through this Macbeth plans on killing Banquo and finds a way to this dreadful act.

This was all we did in lesson today. Now coming on to the home-work we are suppose to comment on this blog and the comment should include a home-work of your choice and don't forget 2 people can’t do the same home-work. :D

19th September’11 – Mr. Sadgrove—focused on the narrative voices in Wuthering Heights.

We as a class started off on a very artistic note. We were asked to draw a man(Lockwood) and to the right of the man we had to state what we as readers think of Lockwood as a narrator with evidence i.e. AO2 analysis and to the left of the man we had to state what the other characters of Wuthering Heights think of Lockwood along with evidence i.e. AO2 analysis and in the center of the character we had to state what Lockwood thinks of himself again with evidence. After this activity we went on to reading an article from E-magazine. This article is written by Sue Hemming who takes into consideration the narrator's role of Nick Carraway and Lockwood in The Great Gatsby and Wuthering Heights. We were then asked to write a summary of we understood from the article and this is what I said:-

• compares Wuthering Heights to The Great Gatsby and shows the similarities between Nick and Lockwood and also between Gatsby and Heathcliff


• talks about the importance of "fragmented narratives" in these texts i.e. they make the text easier to understand

So for the people who were not in lesson please go and collect this article from Mr. Sadgrove and read it for next lesson as this would help while writing an essay... :)

And here goes the home-work due for our next lesson which is on the 27th :-

1)Read chapter 1-4

2)What impression do we get of our narrator -Lockwood? 2-3 paragraphs.

3)Draw the exterior of Wuthering Heights(the house) - and label with evidence from the text.

4)"The opening of Wuthering Heights sets up what essentially is a Gothic novel"? Do you agree? 3-4 paragraphs.

A2S1 - Is this a dagger?

Today we had people read out the dagger soliloquy, then re wrote the soliloquay in our own words..
we then read Act 2 scene 1 and 2.
Then we planned the homework which was....WHAT DO THE LANGUAGE AND BEHAVIOUR OF MACBETH AND LADY MACBETH TELL US ABOUT THEIR RELATIONSHIP IN ACT 2-SCENE 1 & 2
Things you could add for this essay are split into 2:

Gothic themes:

• supernatural


• ambiguity


• wolf


• great chain of being


• visions


• stormy/dark setting


• women/men


• powerful figures


• opposition


• horror/terror


• exaggeration


• blood


• God/religion/amen

Language Structure Form:

• foreshadow


• soliloquay


• verse/prose


• adjacency pairs


• pathetic fallacy


• dramatic irony

We started the lesson by doing a task representing how we (the reader) get information from the novel Wuthering Heights. The 1^st person would tell 2^nd person about their weekend. 2^nd person then told the 3^rd person who wrote about it. Then this note would be passed on to the 4^th person, who would read it and pass on what they remember to the 5^th person. Then that person would summarise it to the 6^th and final person. From this task we learned how unclear the specific set of info is when going through the entire filter.

The type of narrator Lockwood is, is a frame narrator, where the "frame" is where we hear the story, which is in the inside. We hear things about the inside of the story from the somebody at the outside. This could cause only peices of the story being fed to the reader. This makes Lockwood also a fragmented narrator. This links to the gothic genre because it shares the uncertainty and ambiguity that the typical gothic story would have.

We then read the opening of chapter 1 and spoke about Lockwood’s narrative style. We discussed how Lockwood was an unreliable narrator, evident in his misjudgement on certain things e.g. “Mr Heathcliffe and I are such a suitable pair to divide the desolation between us”. This is completely wrong, because Heathcliffe actually hates Lockwood. Lockwood also seems like a very big talker and judgemental on everything in the opening chapter. “This is certainly a beautiful country!....I do not believe that I could have fixed on a situation so completely removed from the stir of society”. “A capital fellow”. This contradicts with the change in punctuation when Nelly speaks. Nelly is more basic and straight-forward. This may be due to her simplicity as a maid.

HOMEWORK:

· Complete the questions on the sheet

· Annotate the other sheet

Macbeth

The learning objectives were:
- To review the witches predictions.
- To understandhow language of Act 1 reflects the characters personalities.

After that, Mr. Chatterley gave us a quick quiz on the story of Macbeth so far. I can't remember the questions and they went too fast for me to write down, so here's the answers:

1- You'll be King, the Thane of Glamis and Cawdor
2- Your decendants will be King.
3- How can I be the Thane of Cawdor? Why did you tell me this?
4- Excited and confused.
5- Doesn't know what to think.
6- Going to be the Thane of Cawdor.
7- Reference to the devil.
8- The original Thane has his title stripped.
9- Thinks he must be destined to be King.
10- "Two truths are told,
As happy prologue to the swelling act,
of the imperial theme."

I don't know if that helps anyone at all but it's what I had written in my book.

We then moved on to answering the question "How could Lady Macbeth's thought's be revelaed through the delivery of the script?" (studying form and language). We discussed her possibly using a more aggressive tone. Afterwards, we discussed how Lady Macbeth would read the letter sent to her. The conclusion was she'd probably be "intrigued".

We did a little more reading and got up to Act 1, Scene 7 which brought us to a point where Macbeth was trying to convince himself not to kill Duncan. He had a long speech and with this we were required to analyse parts of the speech wich we believed to show that he didn't want to kill Duncan - among these were:

- "Could trammed up the consequences." = He doesn't like the consequences that may occur.
- "be-all and end-all" = might ruin everything for him.
- "we still have judgement here" = possibly afraid of being judged, possibly by God.
- "pity's like a newborn" = pity's Duncan.
- "I am his Kinsman and his subject" = doesn't want to stab him in the back (literally) and betray him after all the faith Duncan's shown in him.

Homework:
- What does conversation between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth tell us about about each character? Show how she bully's him.
- Learn Act 2, Scene 1 soliloquay. I'll post the soliloquay below later just to make my blog post look longer.

Never speak or make contact during the blog selection.

Daniel.

First Lesson on Wuthering Heights and Roman's Return

After a mix up with the timetables, I, Roman, was transferred to another class. But I am back so don't worry.
Today we had our first lesson with Mr Sadgrove. We began it by discussing the course, including the exam structure and the way that we would be handling the coursework. After a few questions regarding this matter, we began the lesson.

We were told that we would be doing McBeth with Mr Chatterley and Wuthering Heights with Mr Sadgrove.

We began the lesson with Mr Sadgrove making sure that we had all read the book by asking certain questions to test our knowledge of the Heights. After this, a few of us were asked what 'Wuthering Heights' was about, in refrence to the overall theme; the most common answer being that it was a "tragic love story"

Sir went on to show us a song by Kate Bush which was about Wuthering Heights asking us to observe the setting in which her music video was in and the way that she acts. We were asked what the song meant and who's point of view it showed.
The class came to the conclusion that the song focused on the lost soul of Catherine Earnshaw who is haunting Heathcliff and wants to go back to him after dying.

After the song we were given a list of blurbs which we all read as a class and described what impressions the independant blurbs gave us of what kind of novel Wuthering Heights would be and how this differs from what we know and our own interpretation of the novel. Following this, we were asked to write our own blurb which was more inclined to the gothic nature of Wuthering Heights.

Homework:
- Read the poems by Emily Bronte and annotate/make notes in your book about them and how they may link to Wuthering Heights focusing on:
- How do these extracts relate to the idea of gothic?
- What links can we draw between the poetry and Wuthering Heights?
- Anything else interesting about the poems.
The annotations/notes must be at least one page in length.
- Use the words within Bronte's poems to rewrite a poem from a diffrent characters point of view. e.g. Hareton
- Try to make it ambigious as the class must guess who your poem is about.

Macbeth, lesson one

Welcome back my fellow students!

We kicked off the lesson by mind mapping some of the characteristics of witches. The following is what we agreed to be the most common among witches:

- Old women

- Isolated from society

- Alone and ugly

- Black cat

- Devil worshipper/ assistant

- Sorcery/ does evil magic

- Broom stick/ hat

- Witches are bad side to religion- opposite to God.

Then Sir asked us, as to why Shakespeare would use witches to open the play Macbeth. The class struggled to answer this question. Mr Chatterley, kindly told us that it is due the Historical context of the play (1606, or 17^th century). This is indeed AO4, he then told us when using AO4 to consider the context in which the text is written, as well as the context the piece is received. Before we began reading we read a little about the context of King James I who was the King during the period the play was written (although the play is set 600 years before). We then read a bit about the structure of theaters and how they used to have limited crops, therefore had little scenery. This is part of AO2 as the FORM of the text is a PLAY, which we need to consider when writing essays.

Finally we began to read Macbeth, we read up to Act 1 scene 3. We stopped each time to make sure everyone understood what was happening. After reading the play, Sir asked us to consider the elements in the play that could be considered GOTHIC. He then asked us to make a plan for the following question:

“How does the start of Macbeth confirm it as a gothic text?”

We came up with the following :

- The use of Witches.

- The theme of oppositions , i.e. foul/ fair

- Use of Kings, castles and battle. (Although, the battle seems less gothic )

- However, to argue against the question, you can mention that the play was in fact written before the Gothic Genre was invented.

Homework:

-Research about James the first and other historical context, see page 162 of Macbeth.

That’s all I can remember, I hope it helped. Aisha M

Macbeth, lesson one

Welcome back my fellow students!

We kicked off the lesson by mind mapping some of the characteristics of witches. The following is what we agreed to be the most common among witches:

- Old women

- Isolated from society

- Alone and ugly

- Black cat

- Devil worshipper/ assistant

- Sorcery/ does evil magic

- Broom stick/ hat

- Witches are bad side to religion- opposite to God.

Then Sir asked us, as to why Shakespeare would use witches to open the play Macbeth. The class struggled to answer this question. Mr Chatterley, kindly told us that it is due the Historical context of the play (1606, or 17^th century). This is indeed AO4, he then told us when using AO4 to consider the context in which the text is written, as well as the context the piece is received. Before we began reading we read a little about the context of King James I who was the King during the period the play was written (although the play is set 600 years before). We then read a bit about the structure of theaters and how they used to have limited crops, therefore had little scenery. This is part of AO2 as the FORM of the text is a PLAY, which we need to consider when writing essays.

Finally we began to read Macbeth, we read up to Act 1 scene 3. We stopped each time to make sure everyone understood what was happening. After reading the play, Sir asked us to consider the elements in the play that could be considered GOTHIC. He then asked us to make a plan for the following question:

“How does the start of Macbeth confirm it as a gothic text?”

We came up with the following :

- The use of Witches.

- The theme of oppositions , i.e. foul/ fair

- Use of Kings, castles and battle. (Although, the battle seems less gothic )

- However, to argue against the question, you can mention that the play was in fact written before the Gothic Genre was invented.

Homework:

-Research about James the first and other historical context, see page 162 of Macbeth.

That’s all I can remember, I hope it helped. Aisha M

Macbeth, lesson one

Welcome back my fellow students!

We kicked off the lesson by mind mapping some of the characteristics of witches. The following is what we agreed to be the most common among witches:

- Old women

- Isolated from society

- Alone and ugly

- Black cat

- Devil worshipper/ assistant

- Sorcery/ does evil magic

- Broom stick/ hat

- Witches are bad side to religion- opposite to God.

Then Sir asked us, as to why Shakespeare would use witches to open the play Macbeth. The class struggled to answer this question. Mr Chatterley, kindly told us that it is due the Historical context of the play (1606, or 17^th century). This is indeed AO4, he then told us when using AO4 to consider the context in which the text is written, as well as the context the piece is received. Before we began reading we read a little about the context of King James I who was the King during the period the play was written (although the play is set 600 years before). We then read a bit about the structure of theaters and how they used to have limited crops, therefore had little scenery. This is part of AO2 as the FORM of the text is a PLAY, which we need to consider when writing essays.

Finally we began to read Macbeth, we read up to Act 1 scene 3. We stopped each time to make sure everyone understood what was happening. After reading the play, Sir asked us to consider the elements in the play that could be considered GOTHIC. He then asked us to make a plan for the following question:

“How does the start of Macbeth confirm it as a gothic text?”

We came up with the following :

- The use of Witches.

- The theme of oppositions , i.e. foul/ fair

- Use of Kings, castles and battle. (Although, the battle seems less gothic )

- However, to argue against the question, you can mention that the play was in fact written before the Gothic Genre was invented.

Homework:

-Research about James the first and other historical context, see page 162 of Macbeth.

That’s all I can remember, I hope it helped. Aisha M

Fairy Tales

The main purpose of our last lesson of the year was to re-imagine a fairy tale in a carter fashion.

The lesson kicked off with the class discussing intertextual motifs in "The Bloody Chamber" and their meanings.

We came up with:

Mirror = society’s opinions. How we see ourselves through society’s eyes.

Moon = reason / truth / Aufklarung.

Blood = maturity / sexuality

Virginity = innocence.

Roses = Sexual feelings / danger

Snow = Purity

Chinese Boxes = different layers / ambiguity

Transformations = people not immutable characters.

Animals = men’s sexual Grrr. Or lovely soft feminine softiness (Lamby).

Houses = Patriarchal status quo.

We then discussed our homework from last lesson which was centered around the question:

Could Carter's use of the present tense, then, be related to the distinction between the human and the animal?

This question was answered by most of the class on the last blog post. The answers seemed to be in line with what Christopher Williams commented: "In the case of Wolf-Alice herself, this question can relate to her quite significantly. As the past tense is occuring, she is mostly classified as an animal; due to her being brought up by the wolves. However, as the present tense takes place, she learns the ways of human living and begans to understand what is the norm throughout society in order to gain attraction towards herself"

After this the class considered what Fred Botting Said about carter: "In her late twentieth-century fiction, Carter powerfully and often critically demonstrates the reversal of values and identifications that occur via the Gothic genre. Otherness takes centre stage: sexual transgression, dark desire, and fantastic deviance wonderfully subvert the restrictive orders of reason, utility and paternal morality… In Gothic times margins may become the norm and occupy a more central cultural place."

The final task of the lesson was to reproduce a fairy tale using Carter's style. We done this in groups of 3/4 and had a chance to either write the story out or to perform as a play. The group was thoroughly entertained by all performances as they all involved a degree of creativity. This task also consolidated what we had learnt throughout the last few months about the Gothic genre and Angela Carter.

Homework for the summer holidays can be found in the previous blog by Chris C

Thanks for reading, enjoy your holidays & take care.

'Sonny.