This blog is an educational and literary teacher training project, and your participation will ensure its success (and your passing the course). That means commenting on each one of the works of literature we will be reading in the coming months - a day before class, so that your teacher and the other students have the chance to read your thoughts.
TIP: write your blog comments in a Word document first (which you save, of course) and then copy & paste your comment into the blog. If for some reason the blog is not working correctly at that moment, you won't lose your comment.
Each student in the HR Literature course is expected to post or comment - in the correct week - on each of the works of literature we will read in Blocks 1 and 2. Please make sure you comment on the right book, under the right post; we will all get confused if Othello gets comments in the middle of A Clockwork Orange. If you quote another source directly, put the quote in quotation marks and give the source (such as the author and title, or the URL). If you paraphrase someone else's words or ideas, indicate what ideas came from someone else, and give the source. One of the requirements of the course is to systematically acknowledge your sources, also here!
Always put your first name and your class (VENS3A, DENS3A, etc.) at the top of your comment so each teacher can find his or her students' comments easily.
To comment, click on "comments" under the relevant post and leave your comment (which you have saved in a Word doc. first) in the text box which will appear. Follow any other instructions and your comment will be visible on the blog under "comments" after a few minutes. Don't forget to add your NAME (first name) at the end of your comment; if it only appears as "Anonymous", we have no way of knowing that you have commented.
Please note: Posts or comments which I consider to be offensive or wildly disrespectful will be deleted.
Tthe full-time and part-time Literature courses will use the same blog topic (and posting/commenting space) for the novels, plays, and short stories, so there should be close to a hundred comments for each work.
You may find it interesting to check the world map at the very bottom of the blog (when it's working...) to see where the blog visitors come from.
Each week there will be one or two trivia questions, just for fun: the early bird gets the worm!
And now for this week's quiz questions:
The photograph at the top of this post is of which building?
Name some of the famous figures who have used this facility.
12 comments:
Great expectations
Anissa Fatah (0890314) VENS3D
Great expectations was quiet difficult to read through. Since, it had a lot of challenging words. The overall tone of the book was serious, somewhat playful and very detailed with some highbrow language such as ‘infallible’, ‘auspicious’, ‘perpetually’ and ‘infirmity’. I liked the way the writer describes the life of Pip and all the challenges that comes with it. I have also watched the movie and have seen a lot of resemblance between the book and the film. However, the book is rather detailed, focussing more on the death of Pip’s sister, the departure of Pip’s friend Herbert and the love and devotion which Pip has towards Estella. Joe Gargery is one of the characters I really admire from the book. Mr.Gargery is a marvellous example of a good character. He did not have any education and had a difficult background but still he wanted the best thing in the world for Pip (his nephew) and for the convicts. He is a honest and righteous person. In the end of the story he finally got his peace when he settled down with Biddy a good-hearted wife.
Iyanthy Cranston, 0884626 – VENS3D
Great expectations by Charles Dickens
This book makes me feel very confused and demotivated, but at the same time, I am curious to know to which extend Pip is considered to have GREAT EXPECTATIONS. The main character is also a very emotional young gentleman, in my opinion. The moment Pip leaves the countryside you feel kind of sad for Joe. Because, on the one hand, he does not want to let Pip go but on the other hand, Joe knows that this is the best opportunity for Pip’s future. When you think about wanting a better future for your loved ones. It might be a bittersweet feeling. In the beginning, but at the end you know it is for their own good.
Vens3D
Hadassa
When I started reading this book I didn’t have great expectations at all. I didn’t like the first few chapters. However, over the course of a hundred pages or so, the pace of Great Expectations increased quickly. Overall the book made me think that it is always good to have great expectations, but it is as important as knowing where you came from. Pip had great expectations and over a period of time he changed, he lost himself. He was even ashamed for Joe, his first true friend and only father figure he had, his standards had shifted. He redeemed himself in the end though. The only thing I didn’t like that about the last 100 pages the twist and turns were a bit predictable. Apparently unconnected people and events were suddenly linked.
Sybren (0892741)
I found Great expectations very difficult but in a different way also very challenging on a personal level. Due to the high level of and old English that was used. The character that I could relate most to was Pip: he had to deal with a lot of stress and different things that kept coming towards him. Mostly when his sister died, he didn't know what to do. Furthermore, earlier in the story, he had to lie to his own family in order to avoid punishment, but having this inside his head kept haunting him, mentally but also when the strange man spoke to him and showed him the file. Other things like his love for Estella didn't make his life easier either.
The first time Great Expectations was used in the book, was the moment I started to like it.
Xin VENS3D (0895829)
Great Expectations. At first, about ten pages into the book, I surely didn't have any expectations at all. The development was rather prosy, the characters were quite flat and I didn't even have any sympathy for the main character at all. Mostly because we're not from the same age group. However, as I continued reading the book, I started to recognize some moments from my childhood. Then, suddenly, I remembered where that deja vu came from. I think that I saw the animated movie adaption of the work in my childhood. I don't remember how this ends, so it's quite a opportunity for me to relive the story and discover the plot.
VENS3D
Ibtissam Youssef
At first I didn't really enjoy the book because it did not seem like there was a clear storyline. It was about Pip who met a lad at the graveyard and he decided to help him out. He did not know that later in life Joe would be really helpful. He had the expectation that he would marry Estella which he later did when her husband died. Pip also didnt expect that Estella was raised in such a matter that she would always be breaking hearts. That is why she did not like Pip in the first place. He also thought that Estella's mother was the one who paid for his expenses, but she did not. It was Joe all along. He also went to London to become a gentlemen. The book revolves around the expectations Pip has and the decisions he makes. I did not like the ending of the book because the ending did not have a climax. It was all really predictable in my opinion.
Brian Strijbos - vens3d
In a time where there where no clear rights for employees in farms and factories, Pip managed to talk himself into a day half day off. His co-employee. Rumors spread fast and Mr. Orlick could not cope with the idea of him going to town.
During the conversation between Master Joe and Mr. Orlick the latter lost his temper. Even the wife of Joe got involved because she was bothered about Joe announcing all employees should have a day off then.
The next case is one of the scenes which give me visual thoughts about how things were going on in the factories. Grey, black dirt and dust with no ground rules to give direction to "simple" men like factory employees.
Case:
The master refusing to entertain the subject until the journeyman was in a better temper, Orlick plunged at the furnace, drew out a red hot bar, made at me with it as if he were going to run it through my body, whisked it round my head, laid it on the anvil, hammered it out—as if it were I, I thought, and the sparks were my spirting blood—and finally said, when he had hammered himself hot and the iron cold, and he again leaned on his hammer: "Now, master!" "Are you all right now?" demanded Joe. "Ah! I am all right," said gruff Old Orlick.
"Then, as in general you stick to your work as well as most men," said Joe, "let it be a half-holiday for all."
Elanur Bilgin (0891711)
VENS3D
The first word that comes in mind when I think of this book is 'mysterious'.The story isn't predictible at all, although I would think it was at first. It includes different genres which could easily be clichés, but it includes twists that gives a surprise effect. Pip, the main character, encounters different obstacles in his life, some of them arise because he had great expectations. One of my favorite things about this book is that it doesn't exactly have a happy ending. It all worked out for Pip in the end though.
Martin Steegmans – Dens2A
I found the reading of Great Expectations difficult and therefore I couldn’t really think of any answer I was perfectly happy with. I did however think the way Pip thought about Biddy and Estella objectified and therefore also dehumanised them. Not in a sense that he compared them to things we can see, but I believe he looked at them of personalisations of the social class. On the other hand Pip personalises the social classes by looking at Biddy and Estella. They represent the respectively lower and high class in society.
He believes Estella is the beautiful and wealthy dream he wants to reach someday. He even says he hopes he one day will be able to live up to Estella’s standards so she will think of him more fondly. But because he is from the lower social classes Estella looks down at him. As you would think the higher classes would to when looking at ‘simple plebs’ like Pip. Miss Havisham and Estella even ‘play’ with Pip as if he was a toy Estella could practice on. Pip is not taken seriously. Pip wants to clim the social ladder and Estella is the personalisation of that goal. The higher class is, as Estella says, without a heart, a cruel world without kindness.
Biddy on the other hand is not what Pip wants. Though he is attracted to her he thinks she is plain and kind. He despises himself from being from his own social class. And he doesn’t want to be with Biddy because he aspires a higher class than she represents. Only when his ‘high class world’ has collapsed he thinks of getting married with Biddy, but then he’s too late because she had already married Joe. He is now abandoned by his own social class through aspiring to be better then Biddy/the lower class. In the end Estella represent the lower class too, in the ruined garden and being kind for the first time through her experience of the bad behaviour of the higher class by Drummle.
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