Hello all,
For your first blog entry I would like you to give a detailed analysis of either "A Room of One's Own" or "A Chapter on Ears," responding to the ways that either author moves between the personal and the universal. In class today we talked about "writing strategy." What do you think this means? What is Woolf's strategy? What is Lamb's? Feel free to respond and write to each other.
See you Tuesday.
Best,
Laura
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I'm not sure I did this right. I created a blog
ReplyDeletemargaretlatchmanblogjournal.blogspot.com and write a short paragraph
"A room of one's own" is a feminist essay.Virginia Woolf used allegory to show the difference between men and women of that age.She tried to show how women were not getting enough support to study literature. She tried to give different examples that she went through. At the same time she was trying to relate it with other women of that time who were in other professions and were facing similar problems.
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ReplyDeleteVirginia Woolf’s essay, A Room of One’s Own, begins by introducing the topic of the essay, which is universal and can be applied to the entire female population, women and fiction. She then moves to the personal when she says that she will try to explain what that has to do with a room of one’s own. I believe that she shifts back to the universal when she compares the process of thinking and coming up with an idea to fishing. Everyone can relate to this example of thinking about a subject and then coming up with an idea regarding it. She shifts back to the personal when she says “Alas, laid on the grass how small, how insignificant this thought of mine looked …” As she goes on to illustrate the experiences of her day and her opinions about them, she constantly uses words such as “we”, “us” and “ours,” illustrating that she is generalizing to a larger, universal population.
ReplyDeleteWoolf writes the essay as a description of her day. She illustrates her hour to hour experiences and comments on them as well. She sets up examples that we all can, in some way or the other, relate to. She uses vivid imagery and beautiful language. She conveys her emotions very strongly and by taking us through her thought process she is able to convince us that she is a very real person. I found this essay to be very beautifully written. It was well thought out and consisted of interesting examples. The opening chapter of a book is supposed to capture the interest of the reader and Woolf was able to do this very successfully. I think I may go on to read the entire essay!
-Sabiha Siddiqui
In "Seeing" by Annie Dillard she moves between the personal and the universal in subtle ways. She begins the essay speaking about her childhood. She says she used to hide pennies for people to find. This greatly excited her because she viewed these pennies as "gifts from the universe." She used to draw arrows leading up to the pennies to forewarn people of what lay ahead.
ReplyDeleteIn the later part of the essay she begins to describe nature as a "now-you-see-it now-you-dont affair." What this simply means is nature happens very quickly and you have to have your eyes open and ready to take it all in. Nature doesn't wait to be seen. You have to be prepared, and aware, and alive if you want to see nature in all it's incarnations. She skillfully moves between personal and universal as the essay evolves.
In the essay, “Seeing” by Annie Dillard, she stresses that if people see things as if they have no meanings, they will be worth nothing. However, if people have a closer look at them carefully, it is worth investing a value in them.
ReplyDeleteShe narrates her personal story about pennies from childhood, saying that "who gets excited by a mere penny?". however, pennies are described as 'free gifts' by her because she trully sees the value of the pennies. she also convinces people to take a look at little things closely and invest a value in them.
In A Room of One's Own Virginia Woolf states her conclusion, the only thing she could come up with after much thought on the topic of women and fiction. She used personal examples from her day spent at the men's college where she went to speak on the topic of women and fiction. She related that to the history of women's plyte throughout history where they lack the financial wealth that men were honored with.
ReplyDeleteFor centuries men had control over the purse strings and women survived only if the men in their life permitted it. As a comparison of the wealth men had was Woolf's experience at the luncheon at the men's college verrsus the meager dinner she later had at the women's college.
The fact that she wasn't allowed into the library, or the chapel or on the turf, were all examples of the privilege men was honored with and women were shut out from. Finally, as she returns to her inn, she is alone once again. She is the writer, alone with her thoughts, to mull over the events and thoughts of the day. She ended the day as she had begun it. Perhaps she went back to her room at the inn, to a room of her own.
"A room of one's own" is an essay about Virginia Woolf's unique personal incident reflected against a universal issue. She analyzed the topic of "women and fiction" from the point of view that "a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction". She claimed that if a woman had room and money, she would be interrupted less often and therefore could concentrate more on her writing. In Woolf's personal experiences she had been interrupted by numerous unfair rules, such as women could only enter the library when accompanied by a Fellow of the College and the unofficial rule that women could not walk on the turf or go to chapel.
ReplyDeleteWomen could not take ownership of any money they earned for generations so women's colleges were short in funding. All of these restrictions to women limited their ability to become good writers.
The essay "Seeing" by Annie Dillard is an attempt to show the reader how to properly see the world around them. Dillard uses many tactics to enforce her message including, anecdotes, personal experiences, and scientific research. She believes that if we are able to see the small mundane events for more than what they are worth, we would be handsomely rewarded by achieving a feeling of personal happiness. To gain this happiness we must be willing to invest our time and imagination to what we are seeing.
ReplyDeleteDillard uses many example to prove this point. In a certain sense she is actually trying to teach us how to "see" her way. Using her own experiences, we learn by example what see really means. She also makes it clear that it's not simply "seeing" the world but "viewing" it. What this mean is that the act of visually seeing is not what brings us our happiness, but rather, what the images mean to us, their symbolic meaning. Using the example of the blind folks who were giving their sight back, "seeing" meant nothing to them without the symbolic meaning towards the images they were viewing.
Dillard style of writing is very interesting. They way she moves around the topic of "seeing" really makes it a fascinating read. By drawing from her own experiences, thoughts, outside research, and philosophical questions her essay feels like it fully covers the process of "seeing." The style of wandering around the topic also makes the reader pay close attention to the little points she states in the essay, which is probably another tactic she uses to prove her thesis. We must closely examine her writing to be able to pull out all the important information she puts in. This is the only way we can get the full meaning of her essay.
Woolf cleverly uses personal experiences to a explain a universal truth during the turn of the century that, in order to write fiction a woman must have money and a room of one's own. To further wchao60's point women were expected to marry for finical security. Men were able to go to college, work and, invest their money to increase their wealth. Women were expected to be subservient and restricted from many of the activities men were allowed to do making them dependent. Therefore it was a challenge for women to have money and even a place of their own because they were in such a disadvantage.
ReplyDeleteWoolf explains her point in a diary structure talking about her day at the university she will give a speech for. She constantly come across challenges. She is not able to enter into the library, walk near the river, go into a church all because she is a woman and needs permission. She needs some explanation as to why she should be allowed simply because she is not a man. She uses these mundane examples to prove a woman can not be creative or expand her knowledge with so many restrictions. Overcoming these restrictions are so draining there leave little time to write.
Virgina Woolf shifts between the universal and personal throughout her essay, "A room of ones own." The universal is something anybody and almost everybody can relate to. In this essay females can relate to virginia woolf. Especially those women that have attepmted to write fiction. As for the personal, Virginia Woolf explains her few days on her quest to actually attempt to write fiction. NOt everybody can relate to this because this is her personal experience, however a person can wirte a very similar essay by using the same universal experiences while adding their own personal experience.
ReplyDeleteAfter her attempt to write fiction, she comes to the conclusion that women need money and a room of their own if they are to write fiction. The reason they need money is because in history women never has possesion of their own earnings. Their husbands owned their money. When women have money this grants them intellectual freedom. As for a room of ones own is a place where a women can write in freedom without being interrupted or disturbed.
I think that the universal theme in "A Chapter on Ears" is that when you love something so much it becomes painful. Lamb loves music so much that it hurts to listen to it. By calling himself Elia he can have both of best worlds by mocking himself. The way he structures the essay and starting off with a lie can also be seen as universal because people are lying to themselves all the time. He is always contradicting himself just like how an active society runs. We live for contractions.
ReplyDeleteWriting strategy refers to the style and flow of a piece literary work. It is the form or process the writer uses to convey their main idea or personal thoughts across to the reader. An author can use humor, vulnerability, intentional digressions, and in the case of Charles Lamb, deception.
ReplyDeleteIn the personal essay, “A Chapter on Ears” by Charles Lamb the narrator immediately begins by misleading the reader to believing that he doesn’t have any ears. Lamb continues to clarify his point by expressing that he doesn’t possess an ear for music. The author uses elaboration and a pretentious sense of humor to explain his unique relationship with music. Lamb’s introduction is effective because the reader realizes that he is not a credible narrator through his main idea when he states, “When therefore I say that I have no ear, you will understand me to mean –for music. To say that this heart never melted at the concord of sweet sounds, would be a foul self-libel.” Through his falsities, it is evident that he has a very well equipped appreciation for music because he “does not always mean what he says.”
After Lamb confesses that he has an ear for music he elaborates on his talent and goes on to say, “I even think that sentimentally I am disposed to harmony. But organically I am incapable of a tune.” He uses false modesty to admit that he is more than capable of organically carrying a tune.
in the essay "see" by Annie Dillard the universal message is to keep your eyes open for the gifts in nature to see how the nature is really beautiful. she also explored the question of what in mean to really see and she evolved that by giving a lot of description about beautiful things in nature. she also talked about the blind people and how the can get confusion of forms and colors then she end up by talking about the two different ways of seeing the verbalization and involve a letting go.
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