for thoughts that didn't get full play in class - comments on other people's thoughts - odds and ends that come to you on the bus, in sleep, in queues - words and other things you want to share
Thursday, November 1, 2007
Nov 2006 Paper 2 (SL and HL)
Why are so many people asking me for this paper? It's on LMS - I put it there a week or two ago and I just checked and it's still there.
Go look again, OK?
4 comments:
Anonymous
said...
Dear all, I'm Kenneth from 6.1. I would first like to thank madam for her patience in answering all my questions. She is really quite heroic in having so much patience. Below are my e-mail questions and madam's answers. She encouraged me to post them because she thinks the questions "show a really good personal engagement with the text" and she "would like other people to learn" from me.
How is realism achieved?
Um, is this a trick question? :) Through many ways, obviously.
What is the purpose/ effect of describing the houses, stores and street in great detail before the shooting of Boggs? Does Twain create a sense of anticipation?
Perhaps. Does it also establish the setting and atmosphere? Particularizes the setting (i.e. this is not just any generic town) so that he can get us to believe in its reality?
Does the detailed description of the setting enhance realism and if so, how?
Yes - it doesn't have to, but it can enhance realism. Details flesh out character and setting and helps us to imagine that it could really exist. For example, compare a child's simple line drawing of a house (in primary colours) to a very detailed painting (almost photographic in nature). As long as the details remain 'realistic' (no fairies or dragons lurking in the bushes), more details tend to convey realism.
Is realism achieved by representing reality?
Well, yes.
Is realism achieved by having minimal intrusion by the narrator?
Yes. So that we are encouraged to forget that we are only reading a book (a 'work of fiction').
Is realism achieved by showing and letting readers see events for themselves rather than by telling?
Yes. But I would suggest you avoid questions that ask you compare the difference between 'showing' and 'telling'. These are 2 loaded terms that I didn't explain in class because I didn't think the IB would be so cruel as to ask questions about them in an SL paper.
Can you say that Siddhartha's opening which begins the story by saying that "In the shade of the house .... in the shade of the sal forest, in the shade of the fig tree, Siddhartha grew up" is a stereotypical opening as it is similar to the stereotypical once-upon-a-time opening?
Yes. 'Conventional'/'traditional' sounds better than 'stereotypical' in this context.
Can you say that the stereotypical opening enhances the feel of the epic as the story opens in a conventional way?
Yes.
Can you say that the opening to Siddhartha is similar to an opening for a fairy tale?
Yes.
Does a fairy tale open by giving us a name and then filling in details about the character?
Yes.
Is Siddhartha told like a fairy tale?
To an extent. It has some fantastic elements, but also some realistic elements.
Do unusual or even fantastic elements (such as walking on water, letting your soul slip into a heron and a dead jackal, and making the eldest of the samanas mute by catching his gaze) in Siddhartha make it seem like a fairy tale?
Yep!
Does Siddhartha have the stereotypical fairy tale ending where they lived happily ever after? Siddhartha ends on a positive note for both Siddhartha and Govinda which is similar to the stereopytical they-lived-happily-ever-after ending.
Well, yes... But not really happily-ever-after like a fairy tale, more ascending-to-a-new-level-of-existence like a legend/myth.
Can I say that speech and acess to Siddhartha's thoughts make Siddhartha and the other characters more real, more lifelike?
Speech? But the speech was quite formal - not really realistic? Access to thoughts, etc, lifelike, etc - yes.
Siddhartha is told by an anonymous narrator who is not involved in the events, but has an outsider's perspective where the narrator views things externally but can go into Siddhartha's mind to clarify things and show Siddhartha's thoughts as well. The third-person point of view lends an impersonal and objective feel that enhances the feel of an epic.
Yep!
How is Siddhartha a poem?
In the lyricism (i.e. song-likeness) or rhythm of the language. It's poetic sort of language.
The distance created by third-person narration makes the characters such as Siddhartha seem foreign and faraway sometimes.
OK.
Thoughts of Siddhartha allow us to understand what is going on inside him which thereby allow us to identify with and feel for him.
Yep.
Does the extensive use of direct speech in Siddhartha help create the sense that the story is happening in real-time, and thereby enhance realism?
Hm. It could. The only thing is that the speech, like I said earlier, tends to be rather formal. But you have an interesting idea there.
Can I say that the extensive use of direct speech in Siddhartha make characters more lifelike?
See my last comment.
Direct speech shows the interaction between characters and conversation is an element of everyday life. Without any form of interaction happening in real-time, I suppose that characters would not seem so lifelike, but they would instead become faraway and alien to the reader and the reader will find it hard to identify with the characters and feel a sense of engagement.
Perhaps. You can make this argument, but also acknowledge that the formality of the speech compromises its realism. Is that OK?
This is another set of questions from Kenneth and madam's answers.
> Is there an implied author in Huck Finn? Yes, we can suggest there is - meaning it's not Samuel Clemens, but a persona (i.e. Mark Twain) that Clemens that taken on to write the book. Someone who is bitterly disappointed in how civilization has turned out.
> According to a book I'm reading, it says that "Huck can't see the > irony his own reasoning reveals" but I couldn't grasp the point. > What is the irony that Huck can't see in his own reasoning? For example, on p.149, Huck had just lied to the 2 slave-hunters to save Jim. He tells us that he felt "bad and low" because he knew lying was wrong. Then he questions himself and asks, would he have felt "better" if he had "done right" and given Jim up? And he concludes, no, he wouldn't feel better.
See, his reasoning here should have made him realize that therefore what society has taught him is also wrong.
But he doesn't conclude that - he can't see the irony his own reasoning reveals - the irony that what society teaches as 'right' is actually 'wrong'. Instead he says he is all confused, can't figure it out and will not try to figure it out anymore.
Does that make sense?
> The book also says there is a viewpoint which "exposes the ironic > contradictions and limitations of a pre-Civil War narrator whose > love for an individual slave does not allow him to see the problem > with slavery in general". What does the statement mean? OK, it's quite a complex statement.
First, the "pre-Civil War narrator" = Huck The "individual slave" = Jim
So, Huck loves Jim (as a friend!) and that's why he lies and lies to keep him free. But, Huck doesn't think any further - he doesn't think, oh, other slaves are like Jim, so if Jim should be free, then other slaves should also be free. In other words, he does not extrapolate from Jim's example; or he doesn't generalize from Jim's example. Meaning - he thinks Jim should be free, but he doesn't see the problem with slavery in general.
Follow me?
So that's ironic. Because he sees A, but doesn't see B, when B is a logical progression of A.
It's like, I love my dog, I think that my dog deserves to be treated kindly. But when I see other people's dogs being abused and locked up, I don't think or feel anything. So that's ironic, because my attitude towards my dog has not extended to the way I feel about dogs or animals in general.
> Why is Widow Douglas not a hypocrite? Isn't she being hypocritical > when she takes snuff herself but does not allow Huck to smoke? Because 'hypocrite' is quite harsh judgment. Widow Douglas is, on the whole, quite a nice person (character) - she is so nice that Huck feels bad about making her sad. Sure, when she takes snuff and tells Huck not to smoke, Huck sees that there's a double-standard there. That's fine. But to then conclude that she's a hypocrite is too extreme. i.e. we don't call every meat-eating person out there a 'murderer', even if we can argue and give justification - it's just too harsh.
> What is wrong with saying that niggers are viewed as sub-human? > Isn't this true in Huck Finn? Huck Finn is set in the 1830s/1840s > before the Civil War which led to the emancipation of slaves. The > time period in which Huck Finn is set is when slavery is still > prevalent and racial inequality/ prejudice is present. Niggers are > clearly viewed as sub-human when Aunt Sally in chapter 32 says > "it's lucky" when Huck tells her that a nigger got killed when a > cylinder-head blew. If niggers are not viewed as less than human in > the above example, then what should it be called? Now, there are many types of white people in the book. There are the outright racists - i.e. Pap - who think that black people are far inferior. We can perhaps say that this group thinks that "niggers" are sub-human - although they could also think that "niggers" are human, just inferior ones.
When Aunt Sally say "Well, it's lucky; because sometimes people do get hurt" - I agree, that sounds callous and it implies that she thinks that a slave is not even a person. But, on p.321, Jim says that "Uncle Silas come in every day or two to pray with him, and Aunt Sally come in to see if he was comfortable and had plenty to eat, and both of them was kind as they could be". You see, how do we then reconcile these two views of Aunt Sally? Why would she look after Jim's comfort and be kind to him if she thought he was sub-human? Can our understanding of how black slaves are treated be more complex. It might be that they were thought of as property, but that didn't mean that their white owners didn't care for them (i.e. Mary Jane, or Silas Phelps). But to say that "niggers" are viewed as sub- human is, again, to assert something quite extreme (and simplistic; black and white) that better scripts don't do.
> Mrs Loftus' attitude also reveals that niggers are seen as less > than human. Doesn't she treat niggers as property, things to be > peddled, or commodities when she says, "Does three hundred dollars > lay around every day for people to pick up?" Yes.
> When she says that, she doesn't seem to view niggers as proper > human beings. What fellow human being deserves to be sold into > slavery? Yes, but please again understand that the white community is made up of many disparate characters - kind and generous ones as well as greedy and unscrupulous ones. If you maintain that the only view is that slaves are subhuman you only make me itch to challenge you.
> Also, how could Miss Watson even have the heart to decide to sell > Jim down to Orleans which is a place where slaves are mistreated? > Doesn't she have at least some concern about Jim's welfare over the > eight hundred dollars she is going to get? Please keep in mind that Miss Watson is a very very minor character who was not fleshed out well. At the end of the book, Twain tries to absolve her by saying that it was just a momentary weakness for money on her part and that she repented of her actions later.
Personally, I believe that Miss Watson's lapse into greediness is only a plot device (so that Jim can run away and meet Huck, etc). I don't think there's any real point wondering about her character and motivations - I think she's a fairly 2-D, cardboard figure whose weakness and eventual repentance are really only good to advance and tie up plot.
I suspect the problem may be due to the nature of the LMS, and its seemingly unnavigable system. When you log in, click Students -> Year 6 - > My Classes. This should take you to 'ACS(Independent) Classes' Here, on the right toolbar, click on your class, whether it be 6.01 or 6.15, and then click on 'shared documents' on the left toolbar. This would lead you to the Paper 2s. For Paper 1 related material, you have to take a different path, which is also slightly easier. Students -> Subjects -> English Language -> English Language A1 -> Year 6, and click on 'materials' on the right toolbar. Hope this helps!
4 comments:
Dear all, I'm Kenneth from 6.1. I would first like to thank madam for her patience in answering all my questions. She is really quite heroic in having so much patience. Below are my e-mail questions and madam's answers. She encouraged me to post them because she thinks the questions "show a really good personal engagement
with the text" and she "would like other people to learn" from me.
How is realism achieved?
Um, is this a trick question? :) Through many ways, obviously.
What is the purpose/ effect of describing the houses, stores and street in great detail before the shooting of Boggs? Does Twain create a sense of anticipation?
Perhaps. Does it also establish the setting and atmosphere? Particularizes the setting (i.e. this is not just any generic town) so that he can get us to believe in its reality?
Does the detailed description of the setting enhance realism and if so, how?
Yes - it doesn't have to, but it can enhance realism. Details flesh out character and setting and helps us to imagine that it could really exist. For example, compare a child's simple line drawing of a house (in primary colours) to a very detailed painting (almost photographic in nature). As long as the details remain 'realistic' (no fairies or dragons lurking in the bushes), more details tend to convey realism.
Is realism achieved by representing reality?
Well, yes.
Is realism achieved by having minimal intrusion by the narrator?
Yes. So that we are encouraged to forget that we are only reading a book (a 'work of fiction').
Is realism achieved by showing and letting readers see events for themselves rather than by telling?
Yes. But I would suggest you avoid questions that ask you compare the difference between 'showing' and 'telling'. These are 2 loaded terms that I didn't explain in class because I didn't think the IB would be so cruel as to ask questions about them in an SL paper.
Can you say that Siddhartha's opening which begins the story by saying that "In the shade of the house .... in the shade of the sal forest, in the shade of the fig tree, Siddhartha grew up" is a stereotypical opening as it is similar to the stereotypical once-upon-a-time opening?
Yes. 'Conventional'/'traditional' sounds better than 'stereotypical' in this context.
Can you say that the stereotypical opening enhances the feel of the epic as the story opens in a conventional way?
Yes.
Can you say that the opening to Siddhartha is similar to an opening for a fairy tale?
Yes.
Does a fairy tale open by giving us a name and then filling in details about the character?
Yes.
Is Siddhartha told like a fairy tale?
To an extent. It has some fantastic elements, but also some realistic elements.
Do unusual or even fantastic elements (such as walking on water, letting your soul slip into a heron and a dead jackal, and making the eldest of the samanas mute by catching his gaze) in Siddhartha make it seem like a fairy tale?
Yep!
Does Siddhartha have the stereotypical fairy tale ending where they lived happily ever after? Siddhartha ends on a positive note for both Siddhartha and Govinda which is similar to the stereopytical they-lived-happily-ever-after ending.
Well, yes... But not really happily-ever-after like a fairy tale, more ascending-to-a-new-level-of-existence like a legend/myth.
Can I say that speech and acess to Siddhartha's thoughts make Siddhartha and the other characters more real, more lifelike?
Speech? But the speech was quite formal - not really realistic? Access to thoughts, etc, lifelike, etc - yes.
Siddhartha is told by an anonymous narrator who is not involved in the events, but has an outsider's perspective where the narrator views things externally but can go into Siddhartha's mind to clarify things and show Siddhartha's thoughts as well. The third-person point of view lends an impersonal and objective feel that enhances the feel of an epic.
Yep!
How is Siddhartha a poem?
In the lyricism (i.e. song-likeness) or rhythm of the language. It's poetic sort of language.
The distance created by third-person narration makes the characters such as Siddhartha seem foreign and faraway sometimes.
OK.
Thoughts of Siddhartha allow us to understand what is going on inside him which thereby allow us to identify with and feel for him.
Yep.
Does the extensive use of direct speech in Siddhartha help create the sense that the story is happening in real-time, and thereby enhance realism?
Hm. It could. The only thing is that the speech, like I said earlier, tends to be rather formal. But you have an interesting idea there.
Can I say that the extensive use of direct speech in Siddhartha make characters more lifelike?
See my last comment.
Direct speech shows the interaction between characters and conversation is an element of everyday life. Without any form of interaction happening in real-time, I suppose that characters would not seem so lifelike, but they would instead become faraway and alien to the reader and the reader will find it hard to identify with the characters and feel a sense of engagement.
Perhaps. You can make this argument, but also acknowledge that the formality of the speech compromises its realism. Is that OK?
Thank you.
No worries.
This is another set of questions from Kenneth and madam's answers.
> Is there an implied author in Huck Finn?
Yes, we can suggest there is - meaning it's not Samuel Clemens, but a
persona (i.e. Mark Twain) that Clemens that taken on to write the
book. Someone who is bitterly disappointed in how civilization has
turned out.
> According to a book I'm reading, it says that "Huck can't see the
> irony his own reasoning reveals" but I couldn't grasp the point.
> What is the irony that Huck can't see in his own reasoning?
For example, on p.149, Huck had just lied to the 2 slave-hunters to
save Jim. He tells us that he felt "bad and low" because he knew
lying was wrong. Then he questions himself and asks, would he have
felt "better" if he had "done right" and given Jim up? And he
concludes, no, he wouldn't feel better.
See, his reasoning here should have made him realize that therefore
what society has taught him is also wrong.
But he doesn't conclude that - he can't see the irony his own
reasoning reveals - the irony that what society teaches as 'right' is
actually 'wrong'. Instead he says he is all confused, can't figure
it out and will not try to figure it out anymore.
Does that make sense?
> The book also says there is a viewpoint which "exposes the ironic
> contradictions and limitations of a pre-Civil War narrator whose
> love for an individual slave does not allow him to see the problem
> with slavery in general". What does the statement mean?
OK, it's quite a complex statement.
First, the "pre-Civil War narrator" = Huck
The "individual slave" = Jim
So, Huck loves Jim (as a friend!) and that's why he lies and lies to
keep him free.
But, Huck doesn't think any further - he doesn't think, oh, other
slaves are like Jim, so if Jim should be free, then other slaves
should also be free. In other words, he does not extrapolate from
Jim's example; or he doesn't generalize from Jim's example. Meaning
- he thinks Jim should be free, but he doesn't see the problem with
slavery in general.
Follow me?
So that's ironic. Because he sees A, but doesn't see B, when B is a
logical progression of A.
It's like, I love my dog, I think that my dog deserves to be treated
kindly. But when I see other people's dogs being abused and locked
up, I don't think or feel anything. So that's ironic, because my
attitude towards my dog has not extended to the way I feel about dogs
or animals in general.
Make sense? If not, ask me again.
This is a third set of questions and answers.
> Why is Widow Douglas not a hypocrite? Isn't she being hypocritical
> when she takes snuff herself but does not allow Huck to smoke?
Because 'hypocrite' is quite harsh judgment. Widow Douglas is, on
the whole, quite a nice person (character) - she is so nice that Huck
feels bad about making her sad. Sure, when she takes snuff and tells
Huck not to smoke, Huck sees that there's a double-standard there.
That's fine. But to then conclude that she's a hypocrite is too
extreme. i.e. we don't call every meat-eating person out there a
'murderer', even if we can argue and give justification - it's just
too harsh.
> What is wrong with saying that niggers are viewed as sub-human?
> Isn't this true in Huck Finn? Huck Finn is set in the 1830s/1840s
> before the Civil War which led to the emancipation of slaves. The
> time period in which Huck Finn is set is when slavery is still
> prevalent and racial inequality/ prejudice is present. Niggers are
> clearly viewed as sub-human when Aunt Sally in chapter 32 says
> "it's lucky" when Huck tells her that a nigger got killed when a
> cylinder-head blew. If niggers are not viewed as less than human in
> the above example, then what should it be called?
Now, there are many types of white people in the book. There are the
outright racists - i.e. Pap - who think that black people are far
inferior. We can perhaps say that this group thinks that "niggers"
are sub-human - although they could also think that "niggers" are
human, just inferior ones.
When Aunt Sally say "Well, it's lucky; because sometimes people do
get hurt" - I agree, that sounds callous and it implies that she
thinks that a slave is not even a person. But, on p.321, Jim says
that "Uncle Silas come in every day or two to pray with him, and Aunt
Sally come in to see if he was comfortable and had plenty to eat, and
both of them was kind as they could be". You see, how do we then
reconcile these two views of Aunt Sally? Why would she look after
Jim's comfort and be kind to him if she thought he was sub-human?
Can our understanding of how black slaves are treated be more
complex. It might be that they were thought of as property, but that
didn't mean that their white owners didn't care for them (i.e. Mary
Jane, or Silas Phelps). But to say that "niggers" are viewed as sub-
human is, again, to assert something quite extreme (and simplistic;
black and white) that better scripts don't do.
> Mrs Loftus' attitude also reveals that niggers are seen as less
> than human. Doesn't she treat niggers as property, things to be
> peddled, or commodities when she says, "Does three hundred dollars
> lay around every day for people to pick up?"
Yes.
> When she says that, she doesn't seem to view niggers as proper
> human beings. What fellow human being deserves to be sold into
> slavery?
Yes, but please again understand that the white community is made up
of many disparate characters - kind and generous ones as well as
greedy and unscrupulous ones. If you maintain that the only view is
that slaves are subhuman you only make me itch to challenge you.
> Also, how could Miss Watson even have the heart to decide to sell
> Jim down to Orleans which is a place where slaves are mistreated?
> Doesn't she have at least some concern about Jim's welfare over the
> eight hundred dollars she is going to get?
Please keep in mind that Miss Watson is a very very minor character
who was not fleshed out well. At the end of the book, Twain tries to
absolve her by saying that it was just a momentary weakness for money
on her part and that she repented of her actions later.
Personally, I believe that Miss Watson's lapse into greediness is
only a plot device (so that Jim can run away and meet Huck, etc). I
don't think there's any real point wondering about her character and
motivations - I think she's a fairly 2-D, cardboard figure whose
weakness and eventual repentance are really only good to advance and
tie up plot.
I suspect the problem may be due to the nature of the LMS, and its seemingly unnavigable system.
When you log in, click Students -> Year 6 - > My Classes. This should take you to 'ACS(Independent) Classes'
Here, on the right toolbar, click on your class, whether it be 6.01 or 6.15, and then click on 'shared documents' on the left toolbar. This would lead you to the Paper 2s.
For Paper 1 related material, you have to take a different path, which is also slightly easier.
Students -> Subjects -> English Language -> English Language A1 -> Year 6, and click on 'materials' on the right toolbar.
Hope this helps!
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