Short Analysis: Using Examples, Finding Meaning

Today, we talked about the significant objects you found in Bender's short story "Dearth" and the examples in the texts that you used.

We examined these examples and developed a relationship/pattern.

Potatoes

-          Potatoes fill a void

-          “They were that memory, created.”

-          That memory = former life involving Mother (love, food, caretaking)

-          The potatoes have been created in order to provide her the feelings of that memory love, food, and caretaking.

Narrator is lacking love, nutrition, company, family

Nasturniums

Example 1: decorative flowers

-          Hardy (grow easily in difficult conditions) – good for our woman

-          Small, modest (opposite of sunflowers)

Example 2: nasturniums are watered (at moment of love happening in the street)

-          Nourishment/ Love

Example 3: Nasturnium seeds = location of potato death (flowers that have not yet become flowers, but they have potential)

-          Potential for potatoes

-          Potential for flowers

-          Potential for woman

Example 4: potatoes unburied, dressed/accepted, Nasturniums blossom (growth – generation)

Dirt

                Function of Dirt:

1)      Impurity

2)      Place of removal

a.       Grave

b.      Burying bodies

c.       Lack of life

3)      Place of growth: nutrients/love

a.       Plants

b.      potatoes

Example 1: “jabbing the dirt” – frustration/anger at the return of the potatoes

                Example 2: “pushing dirt out of her house” – lack of acceptance/anxiety (function of dirt: impurity, thing to be removed, unacceptance)

                Example 3: eats the potato “taste is like stale dirt” (function of dirt: lack of life/place of removal)

                Example 4: buries potatoes (function of dirt: lack of life/place of removal)

                Example 5: unburies potatoes (function of dirt: growth/generation)

                Example 6: touches dirt, layers of dirt become part of potatoes (function of dirt: growth/generation)

                Example 7: potatoes are root vegetables, they require dirt to grow (function of dirt: growth/generation)

Bathroom – indicating woman’s privacy, closed, lack of love

Example 1: woman hides potatoes in the bathroom (bathroom as a place of secrecy)

Example 2: place of privacy/isolation (woman wants to be alone, sends potatoes out)

Example 3: place of intimacy

-          woman unwilling to share bathroom (lacks intimacy, lacks love)

-          neighbor willing to share (person who has love)

Example 4: reveal her lie (telling the truth – open, vulnerable)

Cemetery/Graves (unrequited love)

-          Cemetery = place of family/family home/absence of life

Woman Loves family (her love is not returned)

-          Bartender’s wife’s grave: epitaph “she was greatly loved” = expression of love made permanent (writing in stone), balance a lack/withholding of love

Bartender loves wife; love is not returned

-          Metaphorical grave: burying potatoes = lack of acceptance of potatoes/love

Potato children love the woman; their love is not returned

Eyes

1.       Eye of a potato (anatomy of a potato)

2.       Organ - Receive information (watching)

3.       Being watched

Example 1: eyes as identifying marks (familiarity)

Example 2: potatoes watching her (watching as accepting) = eyes as communication

Example 3: woman buries potato: potatoes watching the woman, (watching as indicting) = eyes as communication

Example 4: farmer views potatoes, woman views potatoes (watching as curiosity/acceptance)

Topics we did not get to (but are still really good)

• Unrequited Love
• Smell
• Cast Iron Pot
• Sunflowers

Assignment: Draft 1 (minimum of 3 pages) due on Friday.

Post as a Google Doc on your blog [name.sa1.doc]

Today, you presented the articles that you analyzed for your group assignment.

The purpose of this assignment was 1) to investigate further how literary articles work 2) develop further insight into the ways that people analyze one particular topic (in this case, "The Simpsons").

Crawford, Alison. “’Oh Yeah!’: Family Guy as Magical Realism?”

Henry, Matthew” 'Don't Ask Me, I'm Just a Girl': Feminism, Female Identity, and The Simpsons”

(and coming on Friday...)

Mittell, Jason. “Cartoon Realism: Genre Mixing and the Cultural Life of The Simpsons”

Henry, Matthew. “The Triumph of Popular Culture: Situation Comedy, Postmodernism and The Simpsons"  

We developed a model for the way that these articles work in which
A = the primary text, or the main focus of the article
B = the context, meaning the relevant history or comparative text (i.e. other television shows) that the author uses to compare/contrast with the primary text
C = the particular view/theme/focus that the author takes (do they focus on gender roles? class? race/ representation? etc.).

For example:

We determined that in Jessica Neuhaus' article "Marge's Blue Hair: Defining Domesticity in the Simpsons" that we read as a class:

a = The Simpsons

b = traditional 1950's American sitcoms

c = domesticity

in Crawford's article "'Oh Yeah': Family Guy as Magical Realism,"

a= Family Guy

b = The Simpsons

c= representation
In Henry's article, "Don't Ask Me, I'm Just a Girl"
a = The Simpsons
b = Murphy Brown + the history of feminism
c= the evolving and ambiguous definition of feminism

Please think about this model as we finish the Mittell and Henry articles on Friday.

Assignment: Please read the assignment sheet for our upcoming project: Short Analysis Paper. This assignment requires us to read a text together as a class. I invite you to post a specific text AS A REPLY TO THIS POST by Thursday evening. The more specific the better. I will appreciate links, if available.

Posts for Tuesday's Presentations

In preparation for our discussion on literary articles regarding The Simpsons, please post the links to your visual aids [prezi, etc.] as a response to this post. Only one post per group.

Tuesday, 3/17

Today we discussed the Kim article, "Designing Gamification."
As you determined, Kim's field is Education or how to best get students to learn, retain, and apply information. In this article, she was examining how to do this with games.

Kim's data collection involved collecting a number of different sources. Most of these sources performed their own studies (this would be a very normal method for the Education field), Kim grouped the different studies together in order to arrive at her own conclusions.

As you pointed out, designing games are determined by a few different factors. Kim's discussion addressed 1) the content and type of content 2) audience. The type of game created naturally depends on this information. And we spent some time discussing different game types.

Kim elaborated on these points by using examples from her sources.

As an exercise, I asked you to imagine what kind of game you would create if you were going to teach this article, using our class as an audience. You determined that the information here was process oriented; so according to Kim's text, you would build a game that emphasized software challenges and practice such as Data Miner.

Your assignment for Friday is to read: Andrea Barret's short story "The Forest."
While the format here is a short fictional story, it also contains the same elements of research that we have examined in literary research and educational research. I would like for your response to address these elements.

Monday, 3/10

Today we discussed The Simpson's episode "She Used to Be My Girl." I asked you to watch the episode and determine a several meaningful objects.

You identified:

• the puppy that the mayor uses to distract the media
• Krusty the Clown
• The Media Circus
• Homer's fatness

The media circus was especially interesting. You identified the purpose of the media as finding/telling the truth. But in this episode, the media [with the exception of Chloe] are easily distracted by the cuteness of a puppy.

Likewise, the traditional purpose of a clown is to entertain children. However, Krusty the Clown does no such thing. He is irritable and often inappropriate/corrupt, drinking in public and yelling at passersby. Lin Peizhi suggested that Krusty was a reflection of society that was also corrupt and inappropriate. 

So we can see how The Simpsons uses Krusty the Clown and the media to mock each other. Each have their traditional purposes, but they perform the wrong roles: the media, which is supposed to inform, is focused on entertainment; meanwhile, Krusty, who is supposed to entertain, reflects society.

Traditional Roles

In the same way that The Simpsons satirizes the media and clowns, we talked about the way it makes fun of other traditional meaning. Especially traditional roles of male and female. 

As we saw in early American sitcoms such as "Father Knows Best," males are the traditional figures of power and strength in a family. They provide money, are the centers of knowledge, and are also problem-solvers.

Meanwhile, traditional female roles involve domestic maintenance: women should maintain a clean and nurturing environment for their families. This involves providing spiritual guidance, nourishing food, and also maintaining their own appearances.

These sitcoms also have a traditional structure of ending with a moral [and usually sentimental] lesson that emphasizes the morals of 1950's America: Christianity, truth, and family. We watched a conclusion of "Father Knows Best" (a traditional television sitcom) in which the son Bud confessed to lying about stopping a burglary [a very male thing to do]. Rather than being rejected as a male, Bud was rewarded by his parents and clergyman for telling the truth, emphasizing the values Truth and Christianity over performing traditional male roles.

But, as Zhou Xinhe pointed out, The Simpsons challenges these traditional male roles. Homer is not the problem-solver, he is the problem-maker. Further analysis of Homer [and his fatness] revealed a man who was unintelligent, lazy, and violent: rather bad father material. But, as you pointed out, he was a loving and supporting husband to Marge (essentially playing the emotional supportive role of the traditional female).

Similarly, the episode showed us a clash between Marge [the traditional female] and Chloe [the professional female]. The figure of Chloe is public, accomplished, and widely desired. By contrast, Marge is only desired by her husband and has never left her hometown. The two women are opposite figures of femininity. 

However, Marge triumphs in the end of the episode by saving Lisa [we did not talk about whether this reinforced to challenged the traditional meanings and structures, but what do you think?]

Jessica Neuhaus will interpret the way The Simpson's deals with traditional roles of femininity.

Assignment:

For your homework, I would like you to find the academic article by Jessica Neuhaus "Marge Simpson: Blue-Haired Housewife, Defining Domesticity on the Simpsons" (2010). Please use the Kean Library databases.

This is a difficult article. Don't be intimidated. Please use the 4 steps of academic writing to help you make sense of this article.

1) Identify the topic

2) Define key terms

3) Discuss (the development of the argument)

4) Examples (to illustrate/reinforce the argument)

Friday, 3/6

Today we talked about Symbolism, the use of an object to represent a larger idea.
Analyzing symbols can help you to interpret the meaning of a text and build an argument about it.

Steps of Analyzing Symbols:
1) Summarize the text
2) Look for Objects: things/places/people that have deeper meaning
3) determine the meaning of the Object
4) How does this help you interpret the text as a whole?

We began by reading a few paragraphs from Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby.
We summarized the paragraphs (the main character is standing alone, staring at a green light, and wanting it).

1. You identified the object of the green light as significant.
2. We determined that green often represents ambition and greed, as well as (American) money.
3. We looked at an existing interpretation of the green light.

• The author's claim is that the green light represents Gatsby's desire for Daisy (another character)
• Notice that the author uses quotes (but perhaps too extensively--and without citing).
• Toward the end, he makes the claim that the green light might also represent society's desire for the American Dream.

Next we examined Dylan Thomas' poem "Do Not Go Gently Into That Goodnight."

1. The poem is written to Thomas' dying father and lists different groups of men who regret not having accomplished more or put their gifts/talents to better use

2. There are few objects here, but you noted the repetition of the words "rage," and "night."

3. We interpreted "Night" as "Death" and "Rage" as a resistance to death, or a desire to accomplish more in one's life

4. Rather than dismiss this poem as the grief of the poet, you determined that this poem instructs the reader "to want more."

Finally, we looked at Carolyn Forche's poem "The Colonel."

1. We noted that the poem describes a dinner inside the Colonel's house. We see family and domesticity and normalcy. This is interrupted by moments of violence in the shape of a pistol, broken glass, and finally the Colonel himself who dumps a bag of ears on the table.

2. You identified ears as a symbol.

3. We interpreted the ears as:

• proof of dead/murdered people
• instruments of listening/hearing

4. The final lines divide the ears, some of them listening, some of them "pressed to the ground." We interpretted this as the Colonel's disregard of human life as well as his subjects' listening or waiting for what is coming, looking into the future when the Colonel is deposed.

Assignment: Using your knowledge of symbolism, read and respond to "She Used to be My Girl," an episode of the popular American television show The Simpsons.

You will need to 

1) summarize the episode 

2) identify at least 5 symbols 

3) interpret at least 3 of these symbols 

4) state what these symbols suggest about the meaning of the episode/show as a whole.

(The scheduled assignment of reading Jessica Neuhaus' academic article, "Marge's Blue Hair..." is pushed back one class session; however, it is a long article. I suggest you begin reading early. Please find this using the Kean Library database.)

First Day

Introductions, Syllabus, etc.

Please complete your NIH Training