Thursday, September 30, 2010

Blog Assignment #2

"A Clean Well-Lighted Place"

1. The setting is a cafe that has an outside sitting area, its around 1 o'clock in the morning.  The cafe faces a dirt road that has trees along the road as well as street lights.  It's really late at night, and the cafe is about ready to close.

2.  The characters are nameless because he's trying to express the characters personalities based completely on their ages.

3. An old man who suffers from insomnia, depression, and being lonely goes to a cafe and orders a drink for company.

PART II
1.It takes place in a train station in Spain in the mid-1920's while the characters discuss abortion.

2. Third Person

3. whose style is characterized by crispness, laconic dialog, and emotional understatement.


PART III


Ernest Hemingway was born in Oak Mills, Illinois.  He started his career writing for a newspaper until he quit to become an ambulance driver.  In 1922 he married Hadley Richardson the first of four wives. He joined the military and served in the world war I. Then He also served in World war II.  After his many divorces he went on safari to Africa where he almost died in a plane crash.  But in the end he ended up committing suicide.




Fact.


1.  Ernest Hemingway commited suicide while his character attempted it.  
2.  Ernest Hemingway suffered from insomnia like his character in A clean Well-Lighted place.
3.  Ernest Hemingway also suffered from depression.




Work Cited:


http://www.neh.gov/news/humanities/1999-07/hemingway.html
http://www.leninimports.com/ernest_hemingway.html
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1954/hemingway-bio.html

Monday, September 20, 2010

Blog Assignment #1

1.  In harlem in the 1950's heroin was on the rise in harlem, and the police force had been thoroughly corrupted by bribes from numbers bosses. These bosses became financial powerhouses, providing money for loans for those who did not qualify for them from banks. Remarkably, one of the powerful early numbers bosses was a woman, Madame Stephanie St. Clair.  The rise of heroin in harlem creates complications in Sonny's life because he gets mixed up in the addiction which in turn. 
2.  Black men were allowed in the miltary but they were segrated from the white troops. There were many black troops.  They did have their own victories and the north may not have won the civil war without the help of black troops.  Its ironic that sonny wants to join the miltary because their father died in a drunken state durning a war.

3.  I feel like Stormy Blues by Billie Holiday best represents Sonny because its about struggling but not letting it get you down.
Billie Holiday

I've been down so long
That down don't worry me

I've been down so long
That down don't worry me

I just sit and wonder
Where can my good man be
When it rains in here
It's storming on the sea
When it rains in here
It's storming on the sea

Every time I come here
Everything happens to me
I lose my man
I lose my head
I lose my money
Feel like I'm almost dead
I need you honey
Need you bad as can be

I've been down so long
That down don't worry me
4. Bebop emerged in the 1940s a as a style of jazz in great contrast to the music of the big bands. It featured a small group of musicians -- four to six players -- rather than the 10 or more associated with the big bands. The smaller size allowed more solo opportunities for the players. The music itself was characterized by more complex melodies and chord progressions, as well as more emphasis on the role the rhythm section. Furthermore, phrases within the music were often irregular in length, making bebop interesting to listen to, but in contrast to music of the big bands, unsuitable for dancing.
Charles Mingus, Roy Haynes, Thelonius Monk, Charlie ParkerThe development of bebop is attributed in large part to trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie and alto saxophonist Charlie Parker. The unique styles of Gillespie and Parker contributed to and typified the bebop sound. They experimented with unconventional chromaticism, discordant sounds, and placement of accents in melodies. In contrast to the regular phrasing of big band music, Gillespie and Parker often created irregular phrases of odd length, and combined swing and straight eighth-note rhythms within the swing style.
Other influential bebop musicians included saxophonists Sonny Stitt and Dexter Gordon, trumpeters Red Rodney and Kenny Dorham, trombonists J.J. Johnson and Bennie Green, guitarists Tal Farlow and Kenny Burrell, pianists Oscar Peterson, Bud Powell, and Thelonius Monk, drummers Kenny Clarke and Max Roach, and bassists Charles Mingus and Paul Chambers.


This form of jazz shows the divide between the black community at that times.
This opposition can be seen mainly in several conversations between the brothers.  First, when the younger narrator confronts the teenaged Sonny about his plans for the future, Sonny avers that he would like to become a musician.  Seeing this career goal as an impractical and therefore dangerous choice, the narrator says, "Well, Sonny, you know people can't always do exactly what they want to do--."  This quotation sums up the narrator's personality: he is cautious, responsible, willing to deny himself the things he might want so that he can maintain his foothold as a middle class family man.  He's also afraid for Sonny, afraid that Sonny will fail or, because he doesn't understand them, that Sonny's goals are not lofty enough.  Sonny responds with "No, I don't know that.  I think people ought to do what they want to do, what else are they alive for?," (Norton Introduction to Literature 59) indicating his unwillingness to subordinate his dreams and goals to someone else's standard of success.