I really enjoyed our in class discussions about Death of a Salesman, much more than I did for The American Dream. Watching the movie as our first read through made things a lot clearer as we went through the book, especially during scene changes and flashbacks. I think I would have been a lot more confused about the context of the past and the role of the future without watching that movie.
My class had some extremely insightful discussions to say about this play, with the most memorable discussion being the one where we all sat in a circle in the middle of the room on the floor. We threw out some seemingly crazy theories that actually ended up making a lot of sense, like how Willie Loman represents prostitution. He sleeps with women to "get ahead", implying in a way that he essentially sells his body so that he can make sales.
The other parts of class have been used for researching the Romantic era. To be honest, I had already learned a lot about this era from Dockus in American Literature. We covered Romanticism, and big names like Hawthorne and Melville were already in my repertoire of literature. I did have a lot of fun with this though, because Ms.Holmes introduced me to Prezi! I really like the layout of it and I plan on making many future presentations with this easy to use platform.
I must say, I agree with you in regards to class discussions of Death of a Salesman: they were more enjoyable that those of The American Dream. I also attribute this to the fact that we watched the movie. Going through the play, I kept thinking, "I would never have gotten that if I didn't watch the movie."
ReplyDeleteIsn't it funny how ridiculous, yet insightful class discussions can become? We also had some interesting interpretations in our class. However, I am really intrigued by the one you mentioned. It makes a lot of sense, and reading about it gave me an "aha" moment.
I also found myself doing a lot of review while working on the Eras presentation. However, I did not remember much of the specifics about the eras, and it served as a good review. And yes, Prezi is amazing.
I always have a hard time writing comments for these.
ReplyDeleteI agree with most everything you've said. Death of a Salesman is perhaps the less obviously disturbing of the two works, however, after our class discussions, I find them both equally disturbing in their own right.
So yeah. I can't really critique your personal opinions and you've already read my thoughts on these topics. So here is a monkey: @(O-O)@