Wednesday, February 13, 2013
Notes on The Leap
The Leap – Louise Erdrich
1. What is the leap?
- the leap refers to a leap made by the mother character to save her daughter’s life
- the narrator is a woman whose mother rescued her from an old farm house fire by doing an amazing physical act that was possible because the mother used to be a trapeze artist
- the leap was the mother’s jump from the window to the firefighters’ net with her daughter
- the title makes obvious sense – the event is the KEY moment in the story – the climax and the whole reason for the story to be written
- the literal meaning of the story
- figurative –
Defining these –
Literal – means the obvious actual meaning of something – no interpretation needed – the physical event
You are a pig. Literally. (this would probably mean I was talking to a pig)
You are a pig. Figuratively. (this would mean something more colourful and deeper)
Figuratively – means representationally – something means something else in some other way beyond the obvious – indicates LIKE or SIMILAR TO or SYMBOLICALLY
- means there’s more there and it’s linked to the thoughts and ideas behind it
Connotation – figurative meaning – secondary, deeper, inner, derived, interpreted meaning
- associations
Denotation – the obvious, explicit, literal meaning
These are relevant to The Leap in what ways?
- leap of faith comes to mind immediately – it’s a saying that means taking a chance based on a belief rather than a fact, or taking a chance based belief in another person
- there is another leap here, the leap into sacrifice for one’s child that comes with motherhood –
- the mother sacrificed her career as a trapeze artist, her body, her own life and pursuits, her freedom, etc
- that sacrifice is symbolized by her leap at the end
- what does a child represent (connote) to a parent?
- Investment, themselves, a burden, a memory, love, their own future – this comes straight from our biology
- Our children are our legacy
- Parents die, children live on with the genes of that parent – the child represents the parents’ impact on the world – that’s all we really have
- A leap into a great realization – you are not as important as your child
- BUT who tells this story?
- The daughter – therefore what is the actual realization in this story?
- The daughter has a huge realization about her mother’s love and therefore her own for her mother
- Another element – the breaking of our gods – ie our parents
Notes on The Lottery Ticket
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (29 January 1860[1] – 15 July 1904)[2] was a Russian short-story writer, playwright and physician, considered to be one of the greatest short-story writers in the history of world literature.
His originality consists of an early use of the stream-of-consciousness technique, later adopted by James Joyce and other modernists, combined with a disavowal of the moral finality of traditional story structure. He made no apologies for the difficulties this posed to readers, insisting that the role of an artist was to ask questions, not to answer them.
In 1876, Chekhov's father was declared bankrupt after over-extending his finances building a new house, and to avoid the debtor's prison fled to Moscow, where his two eldest sons, Alexander and Nikolai, were attending university. The family lived in poverty in Moscow, Chekhov's mother physically and emotionally broken. Chekhov was left behind to sell the family possessions and finish his education.
In America, Chekhov's reputation began its rise slightly later, partly through the influence of Stanislavski's system of Method Acting, with its notion of subtext: "Chekhov often expressed his thought not in speeches," wrote Stanislavski, "but in pauses or between the lines or in replies consisting of a single word… the characters often feel and think things not expressed in the lines they speak."
The Leap – Louise Erdrich
1. What is the leap?
- the leap refers to a leap made by the mother character to save her daughter’s life
- the narrator is a woman whose mother rescued her from an old farm house fire by doing an amazing physical act that was possible because the mother used to be a trapeze artist
- the leap was the mother’s jump from the window to the firefighters’ net with her daughter
- the title makes obvious sense – the event is the KEY moment in the story – the climax and the whole reason for the story to be written
- the literal meaning of the story
- figurative –
Defining these –
Literal – means the obvious actual meaning of something – no interpretation needed – the physical event
You are a pig. Literally. (this would probably mean I was talking to a pig)
You are a pig. Figuratively. (this would mean something more colourful and deeper)
Figuratively – means representationally – something means something else in some other way beyond the obvious – indicates LIKE or SIMILAR TO or SYMBOLICALLY
- means there’s more there and it’s linked to the thoughts and ideas behind it
Connotation – figurative meaning – secondary, deeper, inner, derived, interpreted meaning
- associations
Denotation – the obvious, explicit, literal meaning
These are relevant to The Leap in what ways?
- leap of faith comes to mind immediately – it’s a saying that means taking a chance based on a belief rather than a fact, or taking a chance based belief in another person
- there is another leap here, the leap into sacrifice for one’s child that comes with motherhood –
- the mother sacrificed her career as a trapeze artist, her body, her own life and pursuits, her freedom, etc
- that sacrifice is symbolized by her leap at the end
- what does a child represent (connote) to a parent?
- Investment, themselves, a burden, a memory, love, their own future – this comes straight from our biology
- Our children are our legacy
- Parents die, children live on with the genes of that parent – the child represents the parents’ impact on the world – that’s all we really have
- A leap into a great realization – you are not as important as your child
- BUT who tells this story?
- The daughter – therefore what is the actual realization in this story?
- The daughter has a huge realization about her mother’s love and therefore her own for her mother
- Another element – the breaking of our gods – ie our parents
Notes on The Lottery Ticket
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (29 January 1860[1] – 15 July 1904)[2] was a Russian short-story writer, playwright and physician, considered to be one of the greatest short-story writers in the history of world literature.
His originality consists of an early use of the stream-of-consciousness technique, later adopted by James Joyce and other modernists, combined with a disavowal of the moral finality of traditional story structure. He made no apologies for the difficulties this posed to readers, insisting that the role of an artist was to ask questions, not to answer them.
In 1876, Chekhov's father was declared bankrupt after over-extending his finances building a new house, and to avoid the debtor's prison fled to Moscow, where his two eldest sons, Alexander and Nikolai, were attending university. The family lived in poverty in Moscow, Chekhov's mother physically and emotionally broken. Chekhov was left behind to sell the family possessions and finish his education.
In America, Chekhov's reputation began its rise slightly later, partly through the influence of Stanislavski's system of Method Acting, with its notion of subtext: "Chekhov often expressed his thought not in speeches," wrote Stanislavski, "but in pauses or between the lines or in replies consisting of a single word… the characters often feel and think things not expressed in the lines they speak."
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