Response to course material #4

Hamlet has pretty much consumed the entirety of this past month in AP Lit. We’ve read Hamlet out loud during class, read it at least once more at home to annotate it, watched half a dozen movie version of it, listened and read a story about it, read a poem about it… I don’t think I’ve ever done such in-depth work on a book or play and I am amazed at how much there is out there on Hamlet. I had always known it was supposed to be one of Shakespeare’s greatest plays, but I just never heard much more than that.

It’s kind of funny that I write that though, because as a kid I probably would have had the opposite reaction. As a kid, if I saw a great movie or read a great book I would watch/read the same one over and over again and if I mentioned the title to someone else and they happened to not know what I was talking about, I would be in shock because I figured if I had heard of it, everyone else must have too. If I had had this reaction with Hamlet, I would have been spot on, because not only has everyone else apparently heard of it (I mean, it is a play that is constantly referenced), but people have written long articles on it, even taken the play to be preformed in prison.

I actually really liked listening to the story about Hamlet being preformed in prison. I didn’t enjoy the other forum assignments quite as much, but the one about prison was really interesting. It’s cool to think about how Shakespeare, without actually being a criminal himself, could write so accurately about how a criminal thinks. As a reader, I feel like his writing is pretty convincing without being a criminal myself. This feeling is only heightened after listening to the prisoners talk about how they can really connect with Hamlet and how some can even learn more about themselves through the play. The only thing I really didn’t like about listening to that recording was that is was so long; if only there was a shortened version, it would be a perfect forum assignment.

The various movie adaptations we watched on Hamlet were also interesting, but after a while they just got really repetitive. Watching the first couple really allowed me to understand the play a bit better, since I was actually able to see certain scenes acted out on a screen, but after a while I don’t think it would have made a difference how many more Hamlet movies I saw, they all started to become kind of the same and I felt like I wasn’t learning anything more about the play. That being said, I did really enjoy a couple of the versions that we watched. I thought the Tennant version was pretty well done. I liked that it was somewhat modern but that they didn’t really change the story to modernize the movie like in the Ethan Hawkes version. I also thought the Branagh version was good. The casting wasn’t the best, but I liked the setting and I thought Branagh played Hamlet well, despite his age and his super pale skin. I similarly liked the Olivier Hamlet, even if the kiss shared between Hamlet and his mom was a bit much. The two versions of Hamlet that I really didn’t care for were the Jacobi and Hawkes Hamlets. I just felt like the Jacobi version wasn’t quite as interesting as the others and the scene with his mom shouldn’t have been more than just a kiss, but it was. I didn’t like the Hawkes version because I felt like the modern interpretation took a lot away from some of the themes of the play, and the ghost hardly even seemed like a ghost in the film. I also thought that Hawkes didn’t play that great of a Hamlet because he was so one-dimensional.  

Open Prompt #4

Open Prompt 2004:

Essay N: Overall, this was a pretty good essay (it received an 8 from the AP graders), but I didn’t think that it started off very well. I didn’t like how the thesis was incorporated into the introductory paragraph: it was broken up into three sentences, one of which was a question from the character, not actually a question from the writer. The student also didn’t give a road map of the essay to outline the literary devices used in the work being discussed. I guess this is because the student didn’t actually divide the paragraphs by DIDLS or anything of that sort, but instead divided them by ideas about the book, such as the character’s journey of answering the question of “why would God create a world that is not the best possible?” Dividing the paragraphs like this worked for this essay because the student still managed to stay on task and write about the theme through each paragraph. The only other flaw to the essay is its lack of complex vocab. The essay is developed, but not in its vocab.

Essay J: This essay starts off with an ok thesis: it isn’t the worst, but could definitely be much more developed. What makes the thesis a lot weaker is that the word “explore” is repeated within the same sentence. I also didn’t like the organization of  the essay; there is way too much summary. The essay is about Huckleberry Finn and the first paragraph is about how Huck and Jim are free; the second is about how they “explore” their limited freedoms; the third is about how they are both freed from their “masters.” Only the second body paragraph has more analysis than plot summary, but even that is not very well developed. I think this student has all the building blocks to create a good essay, but this simply lacks depth. The AP graders gave it a 6, but I would probably give it a 5 or maybe even a 4.

Essay UU: This essay has some major issues. First, the student doesn’t always use proper agreement between nouns and adjectives or nouns and verbs. Also, the writer does not demonstrate a very strong vocabulary and, when he/she does try to throw in a bigger word, it’s incorrect (they write “apprehendable” rather than “apprehensible”). On top of this, there are quite a few sentence fragments. One example is in the opening paragraph, then student writes, “Especially through the main character Okonkwo.” Aside from mechanics, the essay does not have a very clear structure at all. The thesis statement is a question and most of the assertions in the essay are pretty vague (the student writes, “the author…introduces a society of traditional and contemporary beliefs that reflect their culture”). I think this student has some ideas demonstrated in the intro paragraph, but he/she fails to ever expand on them with any analysis in the rest of the essay.

Close Reading #4

Nelson MandelaExpanded Government Health Care. Rick Santorum Uses His Death to Attack It.

            Nowadays, everything is political, even death. The author of this article, Amanda Marcotte, writes about Rick Santorum’s response to Nelson Mandela’s death. She uses diction, language, and detail to portray how ignorant she believes Santorum is.

            First, Marcotte uses diction to portray her message. She uses very strong words to paint Santorum in an adverse light. She starts off the article saying that she cannot believe how “ignorant” Santorum is and that he “hijacked” Mandela’s spotlight when Santorum appeared on the Bill O’Reilly show to speak about him. Both “ignorant” and “hijacked” have very negative meanings and connotations. She continues her article by saying that all Santorum wanted to do was “exploit” Mandela’s death to “whine” about current social welfare programs. “Exploit”, again, has a very negative connotation and the word “whine” almost conjures the image of a little kid or a baby. All these words clearly show how much disdain Marcotte has for Santorum.

Next, Marcotte utilizes language to negatively depict Santorum. Marcotte says that many conservatives mourned Mandela’s death despite their differences. She continues by saying that “Santorum really outshone the competition” by choosing not to mourn over Mandela and instead to use Mandela’s death as an opportunity to attack Obamacare. Marcotte figuratively uses the word “outshone” to express how she believes that Santorum was just trying to outclass than the rest of his party.

Finally, Marcotte uses detail to convince the reader that Santorum really is ignorant. She does this in two ways: by telling the reader about all the great things Mandela has done and by telling the reader of all the terrible things Santorum has done. She writes about how Mandela pushed for women’s reproductive rights and how he even made sure that the government could pay for a woman’s abortion if she could not. Marcotte is also sure to mention that Santorum is strongly against reproductive/abortion rights. Marcotte then writes about how Mandela was in favor of a national health care system and did his best to make sure all the South African population could have good health coverage. She contrasts this to Santorum, who is against Obamacare and believes that Mandela was communist for his health care reform. Marcotte uses detail to convince the reader that Mandela is all good and Santorum all bad.

            Writing about Mandela’s recent death, Marcotte composes this article to praise Mandela and condemn Santorum. To relay her message, she uses detail, language, and diction.

Response to Course Material #3

            I cannot believe this is already our third response to course material blog post. This year has already been flying by so quickly and we have done quite a few different things in AP Lit.

            We finally finished our Death of a Salesman fishbowl discussions and wrote our summary and analysis blog post on it. I had never done a fishbowl discussion before, but I think for the most part it is a pretty good idea. I know that I am not the most talkative person in my class, so being part of a fishbowl discussion allowed me to contribute more of my thoughts. The only thing that I don’t think is so great about these types of discussions is that it can sometimes be hard to pay attention when you’re not in the center, especially when you’ve already been part of the discussion during that class period. It would have been nice to do about half the discussions as a group discussions and the other half as fishbowl discussions.

            We also did another practice in-class essay on the “Century Quilt.” I have written in-class essays before, in previous lit classes and in other AP classes, like APUSH, but I thought this essay was kind of hard to write. I just think it’s hard to have to analyze a poem you’ve never read before, then formulate an essay right afterwards. I think writing essays for history classes (like APUSH) is easier than writing an essay like this for lit because in history everything is fact-based and you don’t really have to formulate a new idea about the work on your own. All you have to do is remember the facts you learned in class. Lit is a lot different because, although we’re given all the tools for writing and analyzing (like DIDLS), when you write a timed essay like this one you have to think up something new off the top of your head (although I guess it’s not really off the top of your head since the information is in the poem that is given to you). Even though writing the essay on the “Century Quilt” was difficult, I think with more practice I will improve, and I still have quite a bit of time before AP exams come around.

            Our class has also done a couple mood and atmosphere exercises.  I think the idea is great, to describe the picture using different techniques without using the mood word that we chose at the beginning. I think this is a great way to prepare for the AP exam. The only thing that kind of annoyed me about the activity was how long our class took to finish the last one (nearly the whole hour).

            Finally, we started and finished reading Hamlet in class. I hadn’t realized Hamlet is such a long play (or at least it felt long to me), but I really enjoyed it. The plot is a bit complicated and the vocabulary and syntax a bit difficult, but I liked reading it in class because every so often Ms. Holmes would explain to us the significance of the plot, or the history behind it, etc.

            Overall, I feel like I have continued to learn a lot in this class, especially through the discussions, and cannot wait for more!

Open Prompt #3

2006. Many writers use a country setting to establish values within a work of literature. For example, the country may be a place of virtue and peace or one of primitivism and ignorance. Choose a novel or play in which such a setting plays a significant role. Then write an essay in which you analyze how the country setting functions in the work as a whole.

Essay 3A: This is a great essay and is super easy to follow. It is well written and evident that the author put some time in to planning the essay before hand, because the organization is great as well. The author makes a wonderful choice using Jane Austin’s Persuasion to write this essay. The question asks how setting influences the work. The author writes about how the protagonist, Anne, sometimes stays in the country and sometimes goes to the city. Whenever she is in the country, she seems at piece, intelligent, and wise, but whenever she is in the city she acts rashly without thinking through her actions. Even though the student did not spend time memorizing quotes for this essay, they provide plenty of examples from the text to support the points made in the essay. The only thing that might have prevented the essay from receiving a 9 could be the student’s lack of use of literary terminology. Although the student does seem to have a clear understanding of the literature discussed, they did not use DIDLS to outline the essay. Nonetheless, the student still received an 8, which I think is a pretty good score.

Essay 3B: This essay is ok. It gets the point across, that in the play, The Importance of Being Earnest, the use of the city and country settings create confusion. The essay is not very well developed. The student writes about confusion at the beginning of the essay, but does not really expand upon the thought in the body paragraphs. Instead of writing in greater depth about the thesis, the student gives a lot of plot summary. The student also does not write about the theme of the play. They do write about how the contrast of city and country setting create confusion and give examples, but they do not write about why it matters and what it means for the work. The essay received a 6, though I might have given it a 5 due to its lack of depth.

Essay 3C: Honestly, this essay is kind of funny. The student writes about William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying. The story takes place in the south, and the student writes about how, because of the setting, all the characters are backwards and stupid. The student actually uses the word “stupid” in the essay and even writes, “because of the setting, the reader thinks…that it is only because she grew up in the twisted south that she is so dumb.” The student outlines the incompetence of several characters in the work and concludes that their incompetence and stupidity are due to the setting. The student ends the essay writing: “in the end, all the ridiculous dilemmas, poor decisions, and numerous oddities are answered in the mind of the reader by, ‘Well, it is the South…’” The writer does not really give an in-depth analysis of the work and fails to portray how the setting affects the overall meaning of the work.

  

Death of a Salesman

Author and setting: Written by Arthur Miller in 1949; takes place in the late 1940s, although sometimes earlier due to Willy’s flashbacks. Most of the play takes place in New York in the Loman’s house.

Characters:

·      Willy Loman: Willy is the main character. He has been a salesman for most of his life and has always romanticized the life of a salesman. He seems to believe that the only way to be successful is to be well liked and is not particularly fond of the idea of hard work to achieve success.

·      Linda: Willy’s wife and supporter. She protects Willy’s pride and almost always does what she is told, even if Willy is being completely rude to her.

·      Biff: Willy’s older son. He has lost faith in Willy and seems to be lost in general. He does not really know what he wants to do with his life, but he still loves his mom and wants to please her which means pleasing his dad as well.

·      Happy: Willy’s younger son. Happy tries to make others happy, but does not seem to be truly happy himself. He over-exaggerates things and is often ignored or not taken seriously.

·      Uncle Ben: Willy’s brother. He symbolizes everything Willy is not and Willy idolizes him to an extreme. Ben is already dead, so in Willy’s mind he is forever big and powerful.

·      Charley: the Lomans’ neighbor. He leads a successful life and is always lending money to Willy. He offers Willy a job but Willy is too prideful to accept and promises that he will pay back every penny that he has borrowed from Charley.

·      Bernard: Charley’s son. Bernard serves as a foil to Biff. Growing up, Bernard seemed to really like Biff, wanting to hold his equipment to his sports games. Bernard also nagged Biff a lot to do his work. In the end, Bernard worked harder than Biff ever did and it is Bernard who leads a successful life as an adult (he ends up being a lawyer).

·      The Woman: is a secretary and has an affair with Willy. Willy gives her stockings and in exchange she sends him customers.

·      Howard Wagner: Willy’s boss who eventually fires him.

Plot: The play begins as Willy returns from a sales trip. He enters the kitchen and talks to Linda about how Biff hasn’t made anything of his life or of himself. Biff and Happy are also in the house, and they discuss their past and talk about how worried they are of their father.

Later, Willy begins talking to himself and reminisces on the past. He thinks about how successful Biff used to be, as a high school quarter back, and how happy their family was in general. Soon Charley comes to the house and plays cards with Willy. Willy still is in the past and thinks about Ben too. Ben had everything Willy wishes for: a wonderful job and great success and wealth. Willy simply cannot get Ben out of his mind. Charley leaves and Willy walks outside.

While Willy is outside, the rest of his family talks about him. Linda tells Biff that he is not being fair to his father and that he should try to show some compassion. Biff calls Willy a fake, because he knows that Willy had an affair, but Biff does not tell this to Linda. When Linda reveals that Willy has been trying to commit suicide, the situation seems a bit different to both Happy and Biff and Happy suggests that he and Biff going into the sporting business as the Loman Brothers.

In the next act Willy seems happy but quickly becomes upset about their financial situation and not being able to pay off all their appliances. He becomes happy again though when Linda tells him all the great things that are going on with their sons.

Willy goes to work to talk to Howards about working in New York and not traveling so much. Howard is distracted by his new tape recorder and becomes tired and annoyed with Willy and fires him. Howard claims that he has wanted to fire Willy for a while now. Meanwhile, Biff asks Bill Oliver for assistance and is similarly rejected. Biff leaves and steals Oliver’s fountain pen.

At the end of the days, Happy and Biff take Willy out to dinner but completely ignore him the whole night and spend it instead with two girls. The day has gone horribly for Willy and in another one of his flashbacks about Ben, Ben influences Willy to kill himself so that he can give money to his family.

In the end, Biff decides to leave and Willy decides to kill himself. 

Quotes:

“I realized that selling was the greatest career a man could want. ‘Cause what could be more satisfying that to be able to go, at the age of eighty-four, into twenty or thirty different cities, and pick up a phone, and be remembered and loved and helped by so many different people?”

Willy says this line and it pretty much sums up his take on life. He wants everyone to remember and love him, and he believes that being a salesman will allow him to achieve such a dream.

“The jungle is dark but full of diamond, Willy.”

Ben says this to Willy towards the end of the play as Willy gets closer and closer towards his decision of suicide. Ben is trying to convince Willy that being well-liked does not matter so much; what really matters is wealth. Sometimes the road to wealth, or diamonds, is dark like a jungle, but it is worth it in the end (according to Ben). 

Theme:

Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman portrays that valuing words over actions to achieve conventional success and maintain personal dignity will lead to eventual self-destruction.

            Willy never really seemed to believe in hard work. His philosophy was that, as long as he remained well-liked, he would never have to truly work for anything. If a person is liked, other people will do things for them; everything will come naturally. Of course, this did not actually work out for Willy because this logic is flawed. If anyone ever wants to achieve anything, they have to put effort in to doing so.

Willy also believes that if he said that simply says something is great, it might become so. For instance, Willy continuously lies to his wife about how great work is going and to keep up his charade, he borrows money from Charley and pretends that it is his paycheck. Willy also talked Biff up, always telling Biff how great he is and how he would be a star one day. It is hard to tell whether or not Willy actually believes everything that he says, but either way Willy thinks that simply saying something is more important that actually doing something. He seems to think that success can come simply from words.

In the end, Willy never realizes that he should have put more value in his actions. He concludes that he has failed and that the only way out of his horrible mess is to kill himself so that his family can be left with some money.

Close Reading #3

This article can be found at: http://www.slate.com/blogs/business_insider/2013/11/09/thomas_edison_his_light_bulb_invention_was_a_publicity_stunt.html

Alison Griswold writes Thomas Edison and the Myth of the Lone Inventor. As the title suggests, she disputes the perception that many people have of inventors, primarily Edison, laboring away to single-handedly create something fantastic. To do this, she uses syntax, diction, and detail.

First, Griswold uses syntax to portray the endless evidence there is that Edison did not invent the light bulb on his own (or at all, for that matter). Throughout her short article, Griswold consistently repeats the word “myth” to emphasize that the story of Edison is just that. She also uses many lists and cuts off her sentences, as if she could go on and on but does not have the time to do so. For instance, she says, “even if the actual details are fuzzy – he tested 1,000, 6,000, 10,000, or some other number of filaments…” She also choppily adds at the end, “Edison, in other words, is not so much the man behind the myth as his story is the myth behind the man.” She uses syntax to illustrate that she is only putting forward a fraction of the evidence that there is proving that Edison did not invent the light bulb himself. 

Griswold also uses diction to express her strong disapproval of the perception people have of “lone inventors.” She starts off her article saying that Edison’s story is America’s “favorite,” but it resulted of a “tremendous” publicity scam. She says that “in short” it was Edison’s partners, the muckers, who “created” him. Griswold uses diction to dismiss all the credit that it typically given to Edison and hopes to change people’s view of him.

Finally, Griswold employs specific detail in her article to validate her points. She explains how oftentimes people think of how hard Edison worked to create the perfect light bulb when actually the laboratory he worked at “was famous for generating more than 400 patents in just six years.” She also quotes an author that writes about “‘the muckers at Menlo Park’” and how they “‘were such a fertile source of source of ideas that it seems odd that their presence is typically dropped from the story.’” She finally concludes that the muckers decided that it would be better to market only Edison rather than the entire group, so they “capitalized on that by mythologizing him.”

Griswold uses details, diction, and syntax to dissuade people from believing that Edison invented the light bulb “in a dusty workshop by himself.” He perfected the light bulb with the help of others, but certainly did not invent it by himself.

Responses to Course Material #2

This past month we finally finished discussing and analyzing the American Dream and wrote that in-depth summary and analysis for our blogs. Maybe I should just be taking more notes during class discussions or pacing myself better with my blog posts, because I thought that writing that summary and analysis was super time-consuming. I guess it’s supposed to help us later as a study guide, so it’s better than having to re-read the book or something like that, but I just found it a lot harder to write than any of the other blog posts that we’ve written up to now.

Aside from wrapping up the American Dream, we’ve also talked a bit about poetry. I thought it was interesting when Ms. Holmes mentioned how Shakespeare used prose, rhymed couplets, and blank verse throughout his works to portray different messages, such as class or to identify the supernatural. I remember touching on the topic in Brit Lit last year, but we never did much with the topic so I had pretty much forgotten it until Ms. Holmes mentioned it again during class. This time, I think the information will actually be useful since I’ll be taking the AP exam this May and I might come across a Shakespeare passage. Other than just talking about Shakespeare, we read and analyzed Promises like Piecrust and wrote a practice essay prompt on it, as well as responded to a peer’s.

The other major thing that we’ve been spending our time on is the play Death of a Salesman. We watched the movie, then annotated the play and now have read a couple critiques on the work and have begun class discussions on it. Personally, I feel like the class discussions on this book haven’t been as mind-blowing as the class discussions on the American Dream. Part of the reason might just be because DOS is a lot easier to understand (there aren’t as many theater of the absurd elements) and there don’t seem to be as many symbols and hidden meanings. Maybe I’m wrong and after our discussions on the work are finally over I’ll realize how much of the book I didn’t understand after doing a close-reading, but that’s just how it seems to me at the moment.

Although we haven’t gotten too deep into our discussions of the book, it seems like one of the central themes is that being too fixated on the American dream can lead to disaster and dissatisfaction. I always find it hard to try to wrap up the theme of a work in just a sentence, and this is probably way too general. As we discuss the book further though, we’ll probably all come to a more precise conclusion of the theme.

Open Prompt #2

2008. In a literary work, a minor character, often known as a foil, possesses traits that emphasize, by contrast or comparison, the distinctive characteristics and qualities of the main character. For example, the ideas or behavior of a minor character might be used to highlight the weaknesses or strengths of the main character. Choose a novel or play in which a minor character serves as a foil for the main character. Then write an essay in which you analyze how the relation between the minor character and the major character illuminates the meaning of the work.

Essay 3A

Overall, this was a pretty good essay. It was well written, well thought out. It has a wide range of vocabulary while still being accessible to a wide variety of readers without being overly pompous. While the student is very thorough in their explanations and analyses, I felt like at times they were being a bit of a tour guide. The beginning was a bit rocky and maybe had too much summary. I think the student realized this mid-way through the essay though and tried to fix it as best they could, because the second half of the essay is definitely much better. Even though there was summary, there was still plenty of analysis to make up for this. The student has a pretty concise conclusion, wrapping up all the main points and bringing all the analyses together, leaving the reader with a positive impression.

Essay 3B

This essay was simply ok. AP graders gave it a 6, which is probably just about the same score I’d give, if not a number lower. While the essay was clear and easy to understand, it wasn’t very well developed. It starts off with a somewhat vague intro paragraph. It talks about how the character Celie’s father abused her but how her friends helped her “find meaning in life”. The prompt is about foils, and beginning the essay in such a way makes it unclear as to whether or not Celie’s father or Celie’s friends are her foil. The rest of the essay is equally unfocused, going back and fourth between Celie’s father and her friends. The writer finally states that Celie’s father is her foil. Even though it’s good that the author finally stated a foil, I think they state it too late in the essay and wasted time/words writing about Celie’s friends. The writer also throws in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, but doesn’t really explain how it applies to the novel in enough depth. Overall, this essay could have been good but needed more development and focus.

Essay 3C
This essay wasn’t very well written. The introduction starts off with “Baba is a foil to Hassan in many ways”, but then the author only lists one such way. Then the author compares the similarities of the two characters, suggesting that the author might not actually understand the meaning of a foil. The essay was very short and simplistic with very little analysis. The student states their conclusions/opinions but gives very little to back them up. The conclusion is especially weak. The student states that the two characters are super similar and ends the paragraph and essay with: “Baba’s foil to Hassan helps show this throughout the novel.” This sentence is super ambiguous. Not only did the student not clearly explain “Baba’s foil to Hassan”, but the student also uses an ambiguous “this” and it’s unclear what they’re referring to.

The American Dream

 Characters, setting, plot: The American Dream by Edward Albee is a play about materialism and the search for satisfaction. It takes place around the 1960s, in the apartment of the two main characters, Mommy and Daddy. Most of the play is simply conversation between Mommy and Daddy, if you can consider their cyclical speeches conversation. Mommy dominates the room, always controlling everything and making sure Daddy is always paying attention to her. Grandma is also present throughout most of the play. Mommy, however, resents her presence. Mommy, to continue to assert control, constantly threatens to have Grandma taken away by “the van man”.

Soon, Mrs. Barker arrives at the front door. No one seems to know why Mrs. Barker is there, and even Mrs. Barker can’t explain it. Mommy and Daddy eventually get distracted and begin looking for Grandma’s things, but can’t seem to find anything. While they’re busy, Grandma talks to Mrs. Barker and tells her a story about how people like Mommy and Daddy adopted a “bumble” but destroyed it. Not too long afterwards, a young man comes into the house and Grandma recognizes him as the American Dream. She thinks up the plan to allow everyone to be happy: this young man is looking for work, so she will have Mommy and Daddy hire him. Mommy and Daddy are looking for a new “bumble”, so this young man will work out perfectly. Mrs. Barker will also be satisfied because she will be off the hook; the reason why she went to Mommy and Daddy’s house was to give them a replacement “bumble” and this young man will do just the trick. The play ends with all characters being mostly satisfied, and Grandma escapes from the scene and is with the audience.

Style: Albee uses various techniques to get his theme across the work. First is tone. There isn’t a single tone used throughout the play, but each character takes on his/her own specific tone. Mommy, for example, is very bossy towards Daddy and rude and disrespectful towards Grandma. Daddy doesn’t have too strong of a tone and seems to agree with most things Mommy says. Grandma seems to be the voice of reason of the play. She represents the old American dream and often takes on a tone of disappointment towards the younger generation, especially towards Mommy.

Another technique Albee uses is symbolism. The major symbols of this piece are the new and old American dreams. Grandma embodies the old American dream; Mommy mentions that Grandma can’t stop working and Grandma even calls herself “pioneer stock”. The young man is the new American dream, which is made pretty obvious since Grandma actually calls him “the American dream”. This also ties in to different points of views. Grandma and the young man, being such opposites, have very different views: the young man will do anything for money, while Grandma seems very much against everything this new American dream embodies.

Finally, Albee uses imagery to reach his audience. Once of the major images in the play is the destruction of the “bumble”. Grandma talks about how a two parents like Mommy and Daddy cut the hands, tongue, and private parts of the bumble because it wasn’t perfect. Eventually, because Mommy and Daddy tried so hard to create the perfect child, the bumble simply stopped working; it died.
 

Quotes:

“That’s all that’s important… a sense of dignity.” (Grandma)

            While Mommy and Daddy had been stressing satisfaction, Grandma stresses having a sense of dignity. It doesn’t matter what one looks like or how much money one has, what matters is that one has a sense of self-worth.

“So let’s leave things as they are right now…. while everybody’s got what he wants… or everybody’s got what he thinks he wants.” (Grandma)

            This quote suggests that satisfaction – the one thing Mommy and Daddy seem to be striving for – is only ephemeral. People try so hard to get what they think they want, but once they get it, they realize that it’s not that great after all. Suddenly, they’re no longer satisfied and look for the next thing that they believe will finally grant them “true” satisfaction.

Theme: Albee’s The American Dream warns that the current generation of Americans has gutted the heart and soul of the traditional American values and replaced them with a superficial longing to acquire complete satisfaction.

Albee’s play is simply called The American Dream, as though there is only one, but the title is really a question: which American Dream will you choose? Albee presents two versions of the American Dream through his work: the old (represented by Grandma) and the new (represented by the young man, as well as Mommy and Daddy). The play seems to be about the negative aspects of the new American Dream and the positive aspects of the Old American Dream, proving Albee’s bias. There is the literal image of Mommy and Daddy gutting their bumble of all its substance, but this can be taken figuratively; the couple can be seen as stripping the old American Dream of all its substance, until it simply looks perfect, but has no real value. Albee wants to portray to his readers the horrors of becoming too materialistic and hopes that you will choose to embody the old American Dream.