Hi Derek, I very much enjoyed your presentation from a few days ago, and just had a few comments to share and questions to ask. Regarding McCarthy's continual morose tone, with rather pessimist motifs and attitudes, what do you think he does to keep readers truly engaged? Some hope must be offered, or at least some message pushed, right?
In addition to this, specifically regarding your open question 1, you mention that there is an unnamed setting, with the journey being shrouded with ambiguity. However, do you not think that this might result in some confusion for a reader? With this negative effect potentially coupled with perpetual pessimism, do you also think that extra confusion might result in his message not being as clear as he wanted it to be to get across?
I would like to address your first open AP prompt in particular. I think the prompt you chose was quite appropriate, given that the title is, The Road. Just from looking at the title readers are able to inference some type of journey will occur throughout the story, whether it be physical or mental. Thomas Foster even said that a quest is more than just a quest, or journey. Foster says, “The real reason for a quest is always self knowledge” (Foster 3), and I think you captured this point well as you described how the physical journey led to the loss of innocence in the son. I think you did a nice job juxtaposing
I liked how you also connected the unknown destination of the journey to not only the novel, but to the world as a whole. From the descriptive sentence structure of the environment and journey, readers, such as yourself, were able to understand the uncertainty of the journey and how hopeless the characters are, yet they continue to push to the end, even though the end is unknown. I was wondering if there was any research that you had done that led to this perspective Cormac McCarthy possessed while he was writing this novel. Did he share the same perspective on the world in the future? Overall I enjoyed your presentation and thoroughly enjoyed the rice cakes!
I love the prompt that you chose for this novel, especially considering the nature of it. Whether you meant to or not you got me particularly interested in you novel and I'm disappointed that nobody in my class presented on the same thing. I would love to learn more about you novel and I may just have to read it myself. Regarding your actual writing, stylistically and analytically I think that you did a fantastic job. The way you inserted support and textual evidence from you novel into your essay was superb and flowed seamlessly with your writing. I would, however, maybe suggest a few longer quotes so that the reader can really get a sense of the authors writing style without having to necessarily hear your interpretation. With enough support and analysis, which you have, you will convince the reader that your view is correct and this type of writing is what will get you from a paper previously seen as an 8 to an excellent level 9 paper.
Hi Derek,
ReplyDeleteI very much enjoyed your presentation from a few days ago, and just had a few comments to share and questions to ask. Regarding McCarthy's continual morose tone, with rather pessimist motifs and attitudes, what do you think he does to keep readers truly engaged? Some hope must be offered, or at least some message pushed, right?
In addition to this, specifically regarding your open question 1, you mention that there is an unnamed setting, with the journey being shrouded with ambiguity. However, do you not think that this might result in some confusion for a reader? With this negative effect potentially coupled with perpetual pessimism, do you also think that extra confusion might result in his message not being as clear as he wanted it to be to get across?
Thanks,
Harsha
I would like to address your first open AP prompt in particular. I think the prompt you chose was quite appropriate, given that the title is, The Road. Just from looking at the title readers are able to inference some type of journey will occur throughout the story, whether it be physical or mental. Thomas Foster even said that a quest is more than just a quest, or journey. Foster says, “The real reason for a quest is always self knowledge” (Foster 3), and I think you captured this point well as you described how the physical journey led to the loss of innocence in the son. I think you did a nice job juxtaposing
ReplyDeleteI liked how you also connected the unknown destination of the journey to not only the novel, but to the world as a whole. From the descriptive sentence structure of the environment and journey, readers, such as yourself, were able to understand the uncertainty of the journey and how hopeless the characters are, yet they continue to push to the end, even though the end is unknown. I was wondering if there was any research that you had done that led to this perspective Cormac McCarthy possessed while he was writing this novel. Did he share the same perspective on the world in the future? Overall I enjoyed your presentation and thoroughly enjoyed the rice cakes!
I love the prompt that you chose for this novel, especially considering the nature of it. Whether you meant to or not you got me particularly interested in you novel and I'm disappointed that nobody in my class presented on the same thing. I would love to learn more about you novel and I may just have to read it myself.
ReplyDeleteRegarding your actual writing, stylistically and analytically I think that you did a fantastic job. The way you inserted support and textual evidence from you novel into your essay was superb and flowed seamlessly with your writing. I would, however, maybe suggest a few longer quotes so that the reader can really get a sense of the authors writing style without having to necessarily hear your interpretation. With enough support and analysis, which you have, you will convince the reader that your view is correct and this type of writing is what will get you from a paper previously seen as an 8 to an excellent level 9 paper.