Jane Eyre prompt

Why do people travel to different environments? In the Victorian novel Jane Eyre, Jane moved from place to place in search of perspective, love, and purpose. Throughout the course of Jane’s life she visits several places that give her a new sense of home and influence her next move to identify that purpose.  

            Gateshead Hall represents the beginning and mostly ending of Jane’s childhood. “Gate” is used to symbolize the gateway that allows her to leave her dreaded old life and enter a new and better life. “Head” means the fore front of Jane’s problems because after leaving Gateshead she must endure years of rough, almost unbearable schooling. The moment when she triumphs over the red room she enters the gate of independence and freedom. Jane’s being is altered after passing through the gate, and she is prepared to handle the obstacles that life has in store for her.  She confronts her most formidable problem in love; love is new and unfamiliar to her because she never experienced the emotion at her first home. She never truly felt love, but later in her life she would be tackling it head on while living with Mr. Rochester.

            Jane’s transition from Gateshead to Lowood was not an easy one. The institution revealed to her that even though her life was terrible at Gateshead she had the luxuries that Lowood could never offer, but at the same time Lowood offered her non-materialistic values that she could never get in her previous lifestyle. Jane meets her best friend Helen and she finds a woman that she is able to dedicate her life to in Miss Temple. Lowood translate to an institution being built in a low valley near wood. A more meaningful example of symbolism is that it represents a low time in her life. Jane is getting accustomed to the life of poverty and must endure freezing weather and most of all her best friend’s death. Jane matures at Lowood and becomes very talented at all the skills they offer but her purpose for living vanishes when Miss Temple leaves to get married; Lowood gave Jane the tools to be able to experience life elsewhere being a governess, and that forces her to find her own purpose. It is ironic that Lowood opened up the world to Jane because in today’s society her school life would be nothing but a cruel example of child abuse.

            Thornfield is the first place that Jane can truly call home. She encounters mystery and love and is determined to press forward and find her purpose in life. She meets Mr. Rochester and is subjected to oodles of mystery and confusing love. Thornfield is a positive place in Jane’s life, but at as the name suggests she will walk through a field of thorns. Her relationship with Mr. Rochester is a thorny one because she must endure stress like social discrimination and the fear of his past. She wishes to love him but knows nothing about his past. Jane enters a deep internal battle at Thornfield because she must choose between leaving Mr. Rochester and being emotionally exiled or marrying him and being intellectually and socially imprisoned. Thornfield treated Jane well and her home life there was pleasant, but it also gave her the insight and certainty she needed to realize that her principals are what’s most important to her.

            The Moor house plays the role of a recovery station for Jane. She is showed hospitality and kindness. Jane meets family there and is also met with the strong spirituality of St. John. The elegance and beauty of the people she surrounds herself with allow her to find her purpose in life once again. St. Johns character forces Jane to reflect on the thoughts that Jane had at Thornfield because he believes in self-sacrifice and holding back emotions and passion. She observes the life John lives and does not want to follow the same path; she realizes she wants happiness and she decides to follow her heart and return to Mr. Rochester. 

            Ferndean is the final Place Jane can call a home. Everything she has endured in her life was to reach "ferny brae", or paradise. Jane is happy being with Mr. Rochester, but more importantly she is the most comfortable she has ever been in her entire life. Ferndean serves as a finish line to a long daunting marathon because it is a place where the internal struggle between Jane’s principals and emotions reach equilibrium.

exam part 3

            In Metamorphoses, by Franz Kafka Gregor Samsa is outnumbered and overpowered by the forces surrounding him. He starts off in a family friendly environment. He has two parents whom he supports by working hard and he has a sister whom he deeply cares about and she reciprocates those feelings. Gregor works for the sole purpose of providing for his family because they are incapable of taking care of themselves. He undergoes huge changes one night and his family goes from respecting him to fearing and lamenting the new person he has become. Gregor is mistreated by his family and even his beloved sister begins to show hate and regret and that is when Gregor becomes a by-product of his environment. He becomes depressed and uncomfortable, he feels abandoned so he unintentionally starts to cause trouble. The family invites borders to live with them and pay rent in order to maintain their fiancés, but instead of staying out of sight Gregor is attracted to the music his sister produces and reveals himself. He is physically hurt by his father and shunned by his sister.

The stress his family bestowed upon him from the beginning and their poor sense of sensitivity and understanding forces Gregor to feel isolated. His one priority was providing for his family and sending his sister to further her education and the very things he worked for have turned on him. He chooses not to eat and becomes malnourished, this suggest how bad it is for Gregor living in his house. The interior world that Gregor held so dearly was destroyed by his family which in hindsight was his environment.

exam essay part 2

In “The Stranger” by Albert Camus, I see the main character Meursault to be immoral. He is utterly emotionless to the events that are happening around him. He catches wind of his mother’s death and as her only child he does not feel any form of grief or sadness. Meursault does not feel self-conscious of how the other people at the funeral are bashing his name. After his mother’s death we learn that Meursault does not have anything of value nor does he hold any values. He is content with doing the same thing every day and is actually afraid of change when his supervisor offers to transfer him to Paris. The Paris promotion could serve as a turning point in his life but just like everything else he disregards it and does not establish a stance on how he feels about it. The lack of opinion urges me to sympathize more with him because it seems like he is missing out on life. Life is all about choices and the reasons why we make them, but Meursault refuses to make any choices. The one person who may hold any real significance to him is ignored. Meursault goes out on dates with a woman named Maria and her feelings grow like they naturally should. Maria say, “Hey do you love me?” and Meursault replies with “I don’t know.” He is incapable of describing her personality to the reader but he shows happiness when he describes her physical features. I feel sympathetic towards him because when a man uses a woman for her body and ignores her feelings that are frowned upon, but Meursault does not do that on purpose he truly cannot help it. He takes pride in describing her beautiful tan skin and luscious breast but he cannot make a single comment on how he feels about her personality.

            Meursault is imprisoned but he does not suffer from the worries you would expect him to, for example never seeing Maria again, losing his job, and surrendering his life and reputation. He only thinks about his cigarettes, sex, and nature itself. The pitiful aspect is that he stops caring about those things and everything else in general and fines a home or a sense of comfortableness in a prison cell.

AP exam essay part 1

“Sonnet 30” by Edmund Spencer, the speaker is infatuated with something he can never harmonize with. In “Bright Star, Would I were Steadfast as Thou Art” by John Keats, the speaker is also attracted to an entity that baffles him and he to tries to understand it. The speaker in “Sonnet 30” is the element of fire while his lover represents ice. He continually tries to melt her icy, cold demeanor through his actions but results in failure each time. The speaker constantly questions himself about why he is pursuing this opposite entity, but at no point does he give up. He wonders why he is own desire for her is not discouraged because of her behavior towards him. Instead, her repeating rejections make his fire burn brighter which increases his love for her. The speaker realizes that his fire is hardening the ice as well and concludes that no force can oppose love, not even utter opposites.

            The speaker in “Bright Star” is not trying to understand a woman, but a star. The star is millions of light years away but the speaker envies it and longs to exhibit its nature and status He wants to live his life observing humanity in a passive superior perspective. Conflict arises when he realized that being a star means being immortal; he will be forced to leave his lover behind to die by herself. The common qualities of romanticism that these poems share are the expression of love and how both speakers desire things that should be out of their reach. In “Sonnet 30” the speaker goes against all odds and reality to be with his lover, in “Bright Star” the speaker deeply loves a specific way of life, never moving and unchanging, but his love for his girlfriend exceeds all.

             

A.P. exam 3 essay

In Richard II by William Shakespeare, the queen hears a plethora of statements made by two commoners about her king. They describe the king’s decline in power and desire change, specifically equality. In the gardener’s first paragraph he says, “Give some supportance to the bending twigs,” and “Go thou, and like an executioner, cut off the heads of too fast growing sprays. All government must be equal.” The gardener demands support for the people that are bending over backwards for their king and are receiving nothing, and the wealthy that are depriving other commoners like him must be rooted away because they are “Sucking the land’s fertility from wholesome flowers.” The gardener and servant use weeds to describe blemishes in their kingdom just like how they blemish and taint a garden. The best points of society are being killed by these weeds because the king refuses to maintain his kingdom. The servant says “The whole land is full of weeds, her fairest flowers chocked up,” and “Her fruit tress all unpruned, her hedges ruined, her knots disordered and her wholesome herbs swarming with caterpillars.” The king’s laziness is costing him his country’s beauty.

            The gardener continues to ridicule the king for not maintaining his land. He relates running a kingdom to trimming and dressing a garden; the king neglected to take care of anyone from the beginning so now he can never “taste their fruits of duty.” What is a king without loyal subjects? He is no one and that is why his status as king is jeopardy. He will most likely be deposed for disregarding the weeds in his garden.

spring and death

Death is a relevant theme throughout the poem and it is seen from the very first line, “By the road to the contagious hospital.” A hospital is a white pure place of healing and recovery, something that is contagious is usually harmful and dirty. Winter is used to describe how the plants appear before spring. “Twiggy stuff of bushes and small trees with dead, brown leaves under them leafless vines—Lifeless in appearance, sluggish dazed spring approaches. The plants are sluggish and dazed which are human characteristics. The plants are awakening from a cold sleep; they are stripped of life because they are leafless and naked. The cycle of life and death is apparent, “They enter. All about them the cold, familiar wind.”

            In For Jane Meyers by Louise Gluck, spring is introduced to be more warm and energetic. The plants in this poem are like new born babies crying for the first time in the world. Spring has just arrived, “The daffodils flocking and honking.” The daffodils are making the world aware that they exist and will continue to exist for an extended period of time. Life and death is also described in this poem, “Months, years, and then the dull blade of the wind. It is spring I we are going to die I.” Life explodes into existence just to die, it may take months or years but it will inevitably come.

love and clocks

In the poem As I Walk Out One Evening by W.H. Auden, there are several speakers with disagreeing perspectives. The lover deeply believes that he is invulnerable to anything. He expresses that by describing China and Africa meeting and rivers jumping over mountains; he implies that love conquers all. Rules and events have no affect on the lover but when these impossible claims reach their peak the clocks begin to chime and that suggest the start of the battle between the lover and the clock. The lover goes on to say he holds “the flower of the ages, and the first love of the world.” The lover reinforces his belief that their love is invincible because it is the first of its kind and it is so unique that another like it will not come for ages.  The clock retaliates by saying “Time breaks the threaded dances, and the diver’s brilliant bow.” The clock suggests that love is susceptible to aging and that love can only thrive in youth. Love itself not only love for another person but for objects and activities is subject to times will. I believe the clock speaks for societies rules as well.  In society there are several factors that can destroy love, one of them being death. The clock says, Time watches from the shadow and coughs when you would kiss.” Death can come at any moment and through any method such as an unexpected illness. “The glacier knocks in the cupboard, the desert sighs in the bed, and the crack in the tea-cup opens a lane to the land of the dead.” The fact that the clocks speak of societies influence on love is reinforced by the description of poverty which can lead to love’s failure.  Love and time are present together but coincide in different ways. The lover is full of emotions that lead he to be ignorant to times existence. The clocks know they are one of many of the lover’s weaknesses and repeat that fact throughout the poem using references like death and poverty.