Rationale

I chose to write a letter from Georg Koves to his father, with the context of the chapter 3. I did this to express what might Georg will think about the Regime that was punishing his race and tell about the situation in which the protagonist was, during the chapter 3, and because a 'secret letter' seems to be the only way to communicate with his father, I 'create' this moment in the story and also a character (no named, but is the one who will deliver the letter) because I think that in the chapter 3, the story leave many things unconclused during the time that they stopped and when they were  taken to their new destiny, so I decide to 'join some things'.

The audience of the letter is a small audience of people that maybe are studing the book or are intersted in the context in which the story takes place (1940's).

The language that I used is informal, but always in a respectful way, because its a letter of a son to a father, and also because of the themes that Georg mention in this letter related to the context of the story, such as Nazism, discrimination to his race, etc (serious themes). Mainly I took this themes and I create kinda confusion in Georg teenager's head about what really makes him different to other humans, and if the cultural reason its a justification for being discriminated by others.

About the title I decide 'Father, I really don't know what to expect' in honor to the confusion in Georg head, who knows that his destiny its a very cruel place, in which he will have to survive, knowing that the conditions will not be the most desired, but he keeps the faith.

Written Task 1

Father, I really don't know what to expect'

Dear Father: 

                I think that this is the correct moment to send you a letter. I have been waiting more than 2 month to communicate with you, and now the opportunity it’s presented.  Things have change before you left us to go and work in a labour camp. The Nazi Regime is more powerful nowadays and the discrimination to our race has reached a high level. Also I was assigned to a permanent work-place, in Csepel at a company called the ‘Shell Petroleum Refinery Works’ and I must go and work every day.

                Today I was going to work as normal as every day in the bus, but in my way, a policeman stopped the bus and make all the Jewish people get off the bus. Now I’m stop in the middle of a highway, waiting to the order to continue our journey to the work-place. Through time passes more busses have came, and as my bus, the policeman have stop them and make the Jewish passengers to get out of them. I have been here all the morning and I have talked to a man, that will help me to deliver you this letter. He is against the Nazi Regime but he have access to classified information about all that is related to labour camps, the Regime, etc. Also I have talked with many of my friends like ‘Leatherware’, ‘Smoker’ and ‘Fancyman’, and they agree that the situation here is very complicated, because they affirm that the situation here is not very favorable for us. They said that the policeman has stopped us, to join Jews and later take us to another place.

                The labour camp is my next destiny, I think. Hitler, Father, that man isn’t satisfied with sending you and the Jewish fathers to the labour camps, now he want to send all the Jewish people of all ages. That man it’s completely mad! I knew it, when the 1^st of September of 1939 Hitler invaded Poland that our race will suffer by the hand of that evil man, because of the ideology that he manifested in his book ‘Mein Kampf’. His idea of trying to ‘create’ a perfect race called the Aryan have blind the reality of this world, full of diversity of races. By the war continues, the Nazi Regime increased its power as same as Germany advanced to different parts in Europe. That isn’t good for us, because it seems that nothing can stop the Germans advance, and the ideology (anti-Semitism) will continue expanding. What came next before Germany won the war? Germany will invade Africa to purify the world?

                Are we too different from other races? I don’t think so, because when I look myself in a mirror, I look like a normal young boy, the only thing that I have different is that I’m Jew and I have to wear this Yellow Star that make me different to others. But, it’s too bad to be a Jewish? I don´t know or I don’t find something bad in being a Jewish , considering that I’m a human as anyone in this world, but my culture obviously is different from others.

               

                In this moment I’m very confuse. I don’t know what to think now. I already heard 2 policemen talking about Auschwitz, and it seems that Auschwitz will be my next destiny. People here talk bad things about labour camps, but no one here have been in one, so they are supposing things. It’s obviously that a labour camp isn’t the best place in the world, but what can I make, it’s my destiny. Don’t worry about me; I have received some recommendations from the man that I told you at the beginning of the letter, about how to survive in the labour camps, in things like to lie about my age and things like that.  I will never lose my hope of see you again. I know that in this context it’s impossible to have hope, but my need of see my mother, Annamarie (long story, not for this time) and to see you, it’s stronger than the adversity that I’m living in this moment. It’s important to survive from these moments, and the person who will give you the letter, would help you as must as we can. I trust that he will find you.

                            Remember, Father, that our race have fight from our first years of existence, and we will continue fighting every time that we need, to continue the existence of our race. Now, I have to leave because they are calling us. It’s the time to know what it’s going to be my destiny. However, I promise that I would see you again, when all this bad time came to the end, and our race can live in a normal way, without someone that doesn’t allow us to live as humans. Believe in the Allies who are fighting to liberate Europe from Germany. Believe that your faith will maintain you alive. Believe in yourself Father. We must wait and survive.

Sincerely

Your son.

Seven pilar of Jewish life.

To continue our journey through the book 'Fatelessness', we must understand a little bit about the Jewish life.
Here I will post, the seven pilar of the Jewish life.

Mezuzah: is a sacred parchment inscribed by hand with two portions of Torah. It is stored in a protective case and hung on the doorposts of Jewish homes.

Tefillin: are two small leather boxes that contain verses from the Torah. They are worn on the head and on one arm and are held in place by leather straps. Observant men and boys who have had their Bar Mitzvah usually wear tefillin during the morning prayer services. Women do not usually wear tefillin, though this practice is changing.

The shofar: is a Jewish instrument most often made from a ram’s horn, though it can also be made from the horn of a sheep or goat. It makes a trumpet-like sound and is traditionally blown on Rosh HaShanah, the Jewish New Year.

Hanukkah: is a Jewish holiday celebrated for eight days and nights. It starts on the 25th of the Jewish month of Kislev, which coincides with late November-late December on the secular calendar.In Hebrew, the word "hanukkah" means "dedication." The name reminds us that this holiday commemorates the re-dedication of the holy Temple in Jerusalem following the Jewish victory over the Syrian-Greeks in 165 B.C.E.

Kosher: are those that conform to the regulations of kashrut (Jewish dietary law).

Tzedakah: is a Hebrew word literally meaning righteousness but commonly used to signify charity.

Sabbath: The Jewish Sabbath day of rest, called Shabbat in Hebrew, begins on Friday evening and ends on Saturday evening.









All the informatio that I put, I found it in this website http://judaism.about.com, searching for information of the seven pilar.

Literary terms.

Now I will give a review of the literary terms. Enjoy!

1. allegory: story or poem in which the characters, setting, and events stand for other people or events or for abstract ideas or qualities.

2. alliteration: repetition of the same sound, using some words that start similar to the first one.

3. allusion: a brief reference to a person,place, thing, event, or idea in history or literature

4. climax: The point in the plot that creates the greatest intensity, suspense, or interest.

5. connotation: Associations and implications that go beyond the written word

6. denotation: dictionary definition of a word

7. flashback: scene that interrupts the normal chronological flow of events in a story to depict something that happened at an earlier time

8. foreshadowing: use of hints and clues to suggest what will happen later in the story, often used to build suspense or tension in a story

9. gothic: use of primitive, medieval, or mysterious elements in literature. Dark.

10. hero: a character whose actions are inspiring or noble.

11. hyperbole: boldy exaggerated statement that adds emphasis without intending to be literally true.

12. lyric poem: a melodic poem which describe an object or emotion.

13. metaphor: a lterary device in which a direct comparison is made between two things essentially unlike.

14. narrative poem: a narrative poem tells a story in verse.

15. onomatopoeia: use of words that imitate sounds.

16. personification: human attributes are given to a non-human such as an animal, object, or concept

17. plot: sequence of events in a story, usually involves characters and a conflict

18. point of view: the perspective or vantage point from which a story or poem is told.

19. setting: the time and place of the story or poem’s action, it helps to create the mood of the story

20. simile: a literary device in which a direct comparison is made between two things essentially unlike usiing the words “like” or “as.”

21. soliloquy: A long speech made by a character who is onstage alone and who reveals his/her private thoughts and feelings to the audience.

22. stanza: a group of lines in a poem that are considered to be a unit. They function like paragraphs do in prose writing.

23. symbol: something that means more than what it is; an object, person, situation, or action that in addition to its literal meaning suggests other meanings as well.

24. theme: an insight about human life that is revealed in a literary work

25. thesis: the organizing thought of an entire essay or piece of writing and which contains a subject and an opinion

26. tone: the writer’s attitude toward the story, poem, characters, or audience.

27. understatement/litote: literary device that says less than intended. Oppositive of hyperbole. Usually has an ironic effect, and sometimes may be used for comic purposes.

28. Mood: Is the atmosphere created by the author words. It's what we get (feelings that we recive).

Chapter 3 quotes

I continue working in 'Fatelessness'. Now I read the chapter 3, and I will post some quotes about it to and explain them. Enjoy.

1. 'The next day I had a slightly odd experience (...) When the bus braked very suddenly, and then I heard from outside snatches of a voice issuing orders' (p.40). In this quote its explain us the first part of the chapter, in which he is starting a normal day, but something rare happened.

2. The atmosphere of this chapter is kinda misterious because how the things occurred. More busses of jewish people were comming and being stopped. 'The policeman then stopped all subsequent buses runing from the city'(p.41). As I said, not only Georg bus get stopped by the policeman.

3. Finally, the misterious atmosphere finish in that all the people that the policeman join there were going to a specific place. 'Columns drawn up in ranks of three abreast (...)' (p.54), 'They led us on into a maze of gray biuldings, ever farther inward, before we suddenly debouched onto a huge open space strewn with white gravel.' (p.56). Sadly Georg Koves was sent to a Concentration Camp with all the jewish that the police officers join together.

Chapter 2 Fatelessness Analysis

Title of selection: Fatelessness, Chapter 2

Author: Imre Kertész

Genre: Autobiographical Novel

Setting: Budapest, the capital city of Hungary in 1940s. 

Historical context: During the Second World War, when the jews were sent to Concentration camps.

The author wrote this piece to: (author’s purpose): 

To tell us the situation in which Georg was, before his father left him. Specificly in a pshycological way.

The main idea of this piece is: 

All the emotions that Georg feel during the chapter, such us love to a kinda girlfriend that he have, confusion about the situation of his mother/stepmother, etc.

The message (or theme) of this selection which the author would like us to “take away” is: 

I think that the theme of the chapter is the 'diversity of opinions' that people might have. Other example is when Goerg have a kinda of discussion with Annamarie's sister, in which both have differents points of view.

Characters: 

Protagonist: Georg Koves

Antagonist: Annamarie's sisters, because of the fight that she had with Georg, things with Annamarie wasn't the same. And in a symbolic way the Nazi Regime.

Static characters: Mr. Süto.

Dynamic characters: Annamarie, she changes her actitude in a radical way.

Did the author use any special literary devices in this selection such as: personification, metaphor, simile, foreshadowing, suspense, flashback, imagery, irony, humor, poetic sound devices such as rhyme, etc.

In this Chapter we can find a Flashback, that means that the narrator makes a fast turn about something that happened in the past. 'The incident occurred the day before yesterday, during the aler on Friday night, down in the air-raid...' In this quote the narrator clearly go to the past to remember something, in this case, the moment when he kissed Annamarie.

What was the author’s “tone” toward the subject/person/idea he wrote about? 

The tone its very particular, because its informal but also it's like a young boy like of my age its telling me what is happening in the story.

What “point of view” was this piece told from? List word clues that indicate this. 

As the whole book is in first person, the point of view its the author point of view. 'That lousy feeling may perhaps have been the reason why I was none too eager to take leave of Mother' (p.31).

List the conflicts in this selection (internal and/or external): 

Internal conflict we have all that have to be with Georg head's problems such us the problem with Annamarie (that things wasn't as normal with her) and the problems of what to do in terms of his mother conflict.

External conflicts are more the conflicts that Georg must 'show the face. The different of the internals and externals problems is that the externals problems are more like 'in person' and the internal are before Georg already have the external conflict

Fatelessness Chapter 1 Activity.

Now I will post some questions that we worked in classes about 'Fatelessness'.

1. What characters are introduced in this chapter?

Georg Koves (main character), his parents that are divorced, his stepmother, the baker, the baker's wife, Annamarie, Mr. Süto who is in charge of some things of the family, many uncles which I think that the most important is Uncle Lajos.

2. Choose two characters and select a quote to describe them physically or psychologically.

• Uncle Fleischmann: 'a diminutive man of immaculate appeareance, with white hair, ashen skin, owlish spectacles, and a perpetual slightly worried air on his face'(p.23) Here it describe the physical aspects of one of his uncles and also it say that in that moment he was kinda worried for something.

• Annemarie: 'is fourteen years old, or thereabouts. She has a long neck and is already starting to round out under her yellow star'(p.13). It describes not only physically, because we can deduce that she might be passing for hards times of reflexion about life, because of her age and the situation that she is leaving (Holocaust).

3. What is the narrative technique? Provide evidence

• Point of view: The narrator is the Protagonist, as in the first part of the book said: "Ididn't go to school today".

• Narration: indirect narration, because he is telling us the story but his words aren't specificly to us. 'We were already on the upper floor when it occurred to my stepmother that she had forgotten to redeem the bread coupon. I had to go back to the baker's.' (P.12) As I said, he is telling the story but not directly to the reader.

• Speech: I think that is a convination between direct speech and reported. Direct because in some cases the things that the characters said appears directly. Reported because the narrator sometimes summiraze the information that happens.

• Tense: the tense is in past (things that already happened) 'I didn't went to School' (p.3)

4. Describe the setting of this chapter

Budapest, capital city of Hungary, when the Second World War already started and also the Holocaust take place.

Anna Frank's Diary

As we are studing all what is about the context of the Holocaust, its important to mention one of the most important memories and primary source of those times. I'm talking about the Diary of Anna Frank. 

Anna Frank was a German jewish girl, that lived in Amsterdam. She was one of the million of Jewish children who died in the Holocaust. During 1944 the secret police, called Gestapo, discovered the Franks hidding place and they were send to different Concentration Camps. The 2 girls (Anna and her sister) were send to Bergen-Belsen and the fathers were send to Auschwitz. The girls died in March of 1945 by typhus, only a few weeks before the Allies liberate the jewish from the Concentration camps. In Auschwitz, the mother died, and Otto, the father, survived. Anna wrote some experience that she have while her family was hidding. When they find them, Miep Gies kept the diary and later he gave it to Otto. 

Now I leave you a video to learn more about.

Holocaust timeline

Here I leave you a timeline of the Holocaust context. Its going to be very important during our reading of the book 'Fatelessness'.

Men writting as Women; Women writting as Men

In an online research that I made, I founded the following information of men writting as women and conversely.

Daniel Defoe

Defoe had already impersonated one indomitable woman, Moll Flanders, when he produced The Fortunate Mistress, a novel often called after its anti-heroine, Roxana, who tells the story of her life as a Restoration courtesan. She offloads any children, but is punished when she finds herself pursued by her own daughter.

Roddy Doyle

Doyle's The Woman Who Walked into Doors tells of an abusive marriage from a woman's point of view. Paula is married to charming petty criminal Charlo, who oscillates between tenderness and violence. Partly a story of sexual intoxication, it certainly does take us into the bedroom and gives us the pleasures of love from Paula's point of view.

What are the benefits and limitations of this approach?

I thing that this situations of a men writtin as women gives benefits, because it show the way a men thinks that  a women might think (or conversely). Also it a different way of writtin, so I think is kinda interesting in many ways.

Why do other authors, like McEwan, take the opposite approach?

Because as I said before, they want to show the way they think that women think, by a women character. Also it can be, bacause they think that the story would be more interesting if the narrator is a woman, than if a man tells the story.

Using Quotations

Using quotes is always important in the moment of writting an essay or something that you want to prove or to give more power to your ideas. A quote gives support/prove your point, and it makes easier to show your point of view about a topic (author's point of view). There are many ways of using a quote, but its important to remember that you must put (in most of the cases) the quotations marks.

Here I leave you a very complete video about using quotations marks. Enjoy!

PEE Structure

In literature is usual to use the PEE structure to give more power to the text that you are writting, by providing evidence that argues what you are talking about. PEE means Point, Evidence and Explanation.

• Point: Is what you affirm or what you are talking about.
• Evidence: Is something that you take from a book, or tyou take it from someone words (quotes).
• Explanation: Is the explanation of the the quote and you make a relation between the quote and the point.

Here I leave you a video that will explain better the PEE structure.

Teachers Day

Friday 12th in the school we celebrated the 'teachers day'. During the day some activities take place to thank the job that teachers make, not only teaching us the different subjects, also in the values education. An assembly was done by the 'Ceal' in which they play some songs and they give some diplomas to the teachers who have oustanding because they actitude or talent.

Later it takes place one of the most expected event of the year: Headmasters XV vs. First XV. The Headmasters XV was consisted in some sport teachers, normal teachers, people from the directory and old student that nowadays play for Old Macks. Most of the students think that the youth of the First XV will destroy the other team, but the technique of the Headmaster XV was superior, highlighting, as in the football match, the English teacher 'Nate Sprague.

I think that this activities should stay throughout the years, because its a good time to laugh and see good rugby inside our school.

Year 12 Day

Wednesday 10th of October take place a very interesting and one of my favourite school traditions, the Year 12 Day. Not only because all of the jokes that year 12 made, like mess up the school, kidnap students, teachers, etc. because the Year 12 vs The rest of the School match. This match is a real show, in which Year 12 try to defend their honor as the 'biggest students in the school' in a rugby match vs the rest of the school team, conformed by students of year 11 and 10 mainly.

This year was a very interesting match in which both teams fight each ball as the last one. Sadly the score was favorable to Years 12, who won 30-18. I want to highlight the performance of 2 students of our class: Thomas Reynolds and Rafael Labra, both who played very well in this tied match.

Sport Day!!

Tuesday 9th of October was the famous Sport Day of our school in which it takes place the athletics interhouse competition in the campus of Mantagua. Sadly I was with an injury in my knee so I didn't make any of the activities that were planned, such us 100 meters, 800 meters, long jump, etc.

Before lunch it take place the football match between year 12 and Teachers team. The result was 7-2 in favour of year 12, highlighting the performance of Nicolás Aguirre who scored 4 goals. From the Teachers team I was impressed by the performance of the English teacher 'Nate' Sprague, who played really well.

School Week: School Aniversary

The 8th of October our school, The Mackay School, fulfilled 155 years since Peter Mackay create the school in Valparaiso. The birthday of our school significated the opening of the School Week. That week is full of different activities (that I will later specify) that includes all the school.

That monday we have an assembly to celebrated the school aniversary. Later we have a very interesting competition: The General Knowledge, an interhouse competition that test the level of knowledge of students from year 5 to year 12 from the different houses.

Narrative techniques

Many writters have their own way of how they write a novel, because they have different narattive techniques. Now I will make a short review of some of them.

1. Point of view:  it refers to 'Who tells the story?'

• Narrator
• Reader
• Someone looking outside.

2. Narration: it refers to 'Who is the narrator speaking to?'

• Direct
• Frame
• Indirect

3. Speech: it refers to 'How do the narrator and the characters of a story speaks?'

• Direct
• Reported 
• Free indirect

4. Tense: it refers to 'When did the events of a story happens?'

• Past
• Present
• Future

For other side also we have the Flashback, that is mainly use in dreams or in retelling of memories. Also the foreshadowing, third person omniscent (God) and dual narrative.

Imre Kertesz

In this entry I'll answer some questions about a video of the author of 'Fatelessness'.

1. Before the interview, the presenter visits a monument to the Holocaust created by the American artist Peter Eiserman. Considering the shapes, architecture and general design, in what ways do you think he represents the reality in the concentration camps?
I think that the monument make you feel like you don't have scape, you have no destiny and you are vulnerable.

2. Which is the paradox the presenter mentions regarding Imre Kertész and the place where he lives?
He said that he lives in Germany and its the only country that make him feel free, despite that 'Germany once want to kill him.

3. Refer to antisemitism before and after Auschwitz according to Kertész.
The antisemitism of 1940's was like the 'first antisemitism', so they were learning about it, and all that implies torture and damage to the human body. Nowadays, we know all that and are avaible more tools to make antisemitism worst and more terrible.4. In what way do reminders of the past in historical books make us "much richer"?
We must remember what we have done in the past, to learn about it and to don't repeat things thar weren't good.

Fatelessness Context

This period we started reading a new book: 'Fatelessness' from Imre Kertesz. This book is about a jewish boy that was affected, as many of the jews that lived in Europe, by the Holocaust. First of all, its important to make reference of the context in which the story take place.  

The story take place in the 1940's, when the Second World War have already started. the specific place is Budapest, the capital city of Hungary. As many countries in Europe, Hungary was affected by the ideology that provoked that the war started: Nazism. The Nazi Regime, directed by Adolf Hitler held the idea, sustained by their lider, of create a perfect race called Aryan. For that reason the jew people of all Europe were literally hunted and send to labour camps or they simply kill them. In simple words the world in those times was attemp by a man that things that only 1 race deserves to live.

In the book, the author narrates his own life experience about this episode, but he change the name of the protagonist, calling him Georg Koves, maybe to make it more interesting or to create something in the readers head like: 'this can have really happened'.

Image Analysis

In classes we saw some images and we make some reflection about them. I specificlly chose this one.

In this image we can see a lot of people represented in a type of stone. This people is all together trying to reach something or trying to scape desesperated. Whatching this image it came to my head the many things such as: The Holocaust (Jew people persecution during WWII), Nazi Regime, WWII, etc. Also it make me ask myself, 'what make the jews different form other people, considering that we all are humans?'.

As I said before the monument shows the people all together in an attitude of desesperation trying to reach their objetive: to be free. It also make me feel the pain that jew people feel in those bad times for jews.

About the context of the Holocaust, I know that Hitler develop to reach a perfect race, considering black people, jews and others as an obstacule to reach his objetive, so they start 'hunting those people

Dunkirk Evacuation

One of the most interesting setting presented in 'Atonement' is the Dunkirk Evacuation. This was a real event that take place during the Second World War and McEwan make use of this event, to show or describe the felling or atmosphere in a situation like that. Above I will put a piece of a letter that a soldier wrote and a video to explain better this historical event.

From soldier Stevenson:
'It was the last few days of May 1940. I was fighting in Dunkirk, France to support the French from the German takeover. Unfortunately, things were in favour of the Germans. On 25^th March 1940, Four Hundred Thousand allied troops were trapped in a French port called Dunkirk. The fall of France was obvious. What was even worse was that Hitler’s tanks and troops were only 10 miles away. We only had a few days to escape from Dunkirk. The Germans were using Blitzkrieg Warfare, so if we didn’t think of something fast, we would be prey to the Germans. We had no shelter and no supplies. We had guns and tanks but they had very little ammunition left in them. To make it worse, the German Luftwaffe was constantly attacking us. Our only option was to evacuate.'

Atonement

A mischievous girl accuses her older sister's lover of a crime he did not commit, only to find that her words have irrevocably and permanently changed the lives of all involved in a film that re-teams the filmmakers behind Pride & Prejudice to adapt the best-selling 2002 novel by author Ian McEwan. The year is 1935, and as the summer heat takes hold, 13-year-old fledgling writer Briony Tallis watches her older sister, Cecilia, get undressed and go frolicking in the garden fountain on her family's country estate. The housekeeper's son, Robbie, a childhood friend and recent Cambridge graduate, also witnesses the innocent act. When Robbie and Cecilia subsequently cross a particularly sensitive boundary and the scheming Briony accuses Robbie of an unspeakable transgression for which the boy is wholly innocent, the repercussions of her unfounded claim threaten to affect all three for decades to come.

Here are some questions to understand better the novel.

1. What sort of social and cultural setting does the Tallis House create? What emotions and impulses are being acted upon or repressed by its inhabitants?

The Tallis house is a big, old house that show us the power and how rich are the Tallis. Also it seems to be located far away from the city. The impresion that give that huge house is that the people that lived in it, didn't felt as good as they liked.

2. A passion for order, a lively imagination, and a desire for attention seem to be Briony's strongest traits. In what ways is she still a child? Is her narcissism - her inability to see things from any point of view but her own - unusual in a thirteen-year-old?

Briony has a great imagination, and we can clearly see it in the movie, because in the way she changed the reality of what was happening in many situations. I think she iwasn´t conscious of what she was really making.

3. Why does Briony stick to her "version of the story" with such unwavering commitment? Does she act entirely in error in a situation she is not old enough to understand, or does she act, in part, on an impulse of malice, revenge, or self-importance? 

I think is a mixture of all those elements. Briony is still a child so she doesn´t was really conscious of what she was doing and she also didn't understand what was happening, because that she had the impulse of create a version or history of what she thinks that happened.

4. As she grows older, Briony develops the empathy to realise what she has done to Cecilia and Robbie. How and why do you think she does this?

All people, when they grow up, understand better the things that they made in the past. It's something natural, we learn of our mistakes and we don't make them in the future.

INFORMATION: 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/e/e4/Atonement_UK_poster.jpg/220px-Atonement_UK_poster.jpg

Jane Austen; women emancipation

In this entry I will continue analyzing some aspects of the novel 'Pride and Prejudice' by answering some questions.

1. What degrees of emancipation and/or conservative reinforcement of 18th-Century family values does Elizabeth Bennet's marriage to Mr. Darcy support?

She had a very stange way of thinking and acting, according to what was normal for a woman on those times. Elizabeth was more liberal and she lived as a free woman.

2. What attitudes to marriage does 'Pride and Prejudice' convey? What other options did Elizabeth Bennet have?

On those times women had to marry to someone, and many times they didn't want to marry. So in this novel, the idea was to show how did a woman that was in love can get what she want's, avoiding women prejudice of those times.

3. How does the introduction made by Vivien Jones affect your reading and approach to the novel?

Introduce us into the context of the novel, making more interesting our future possible reading of the book.

4. How could the social circumstances and contexts of 'Pride and Prejudice' apply to different cultures and contexts today?

Pride and Prejudice had been present during all human history and it will continue like that for many years.

Pride and Prejudice

During the first days of September we start analyzing 'Pride and Prejudice', a novel of a British author called Jane Austen. In classes we focus in the movie version of 2005, based in Elizabeth Bennet ideology or way of thinking (feminist). We can say that Jane Austen is a pioneer in what means women emancipation, because the book was written in 1813, years after that women started being considered as same as men. Now I will answer some question to understand better the story.

1. Why do you think "Pride and Prejudice" continues to be a referent for modern tales?
Because the 'Pride' and 'Prejudice' are always present in our society during the human history (inherent to humans).

2. What do you think is the effect that these different authors (film directors, producers, modern writers) want to achieve in today's audiences?
Because as I said before, it present themes that are always present in our society, and film directors, producers, etc try to show us how to live with those 2 elements that are always with us.

3. If you had to choose one of the previous versions to analyse, which would be the one and why?
I think that the movie of 2005, because I think it focus more in terms of the topics of the text and the setting its more similar to the setting in which it was written. Also the version of Bridget Jone's Diary because it seems quite funny and the themes can be represented in a very interesting way.