Unit 6: Contemporary Literature

Unit 6: Contemporary Literature began about World War II and hard it affected the country. On December 7, 1941, the Japanese bombers attacked the American naval base as Pearl Harbor. That moment was life changing moment, such as the Holocaust, Vietnam War, and September 11, 2001, the attack of the Twin Towers. All these horrific events were documented by writers who experienced them. Elie Wiesel a Holocaust survivor writes a memoir of his tragic experience at 15 years old boy to a Nazi concentration camp.  Other writers like Elie Wiesel used modernist style which is giving detailed, realistic, and somewhat detached accounts of the war. Writers such as John Hersey’s and John Steinbeck writes about their responses to war in their books. Literature began to be modernized, writers like Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams served as models of the liberated playwright experimenting with stagecraft and drama. At this time of the period, civil rights movement was still continuing. Dr. Martin Luther King lead this movement, in 1964 Civil Rights Act was passed outlawing segregation in public places and legal equality to black citizens. Protest literature helped moved this act. 

Unit 5: The Harlem Renaissance and Modernism

As I started to read Unit 5: The Harlem Renaissance and Modernism, the topic begins about World War I and the Great Depression. After the troubled years, the Jazz age came along and brought a booming economy known as “the Roaring Twenties.” Writer F. Scott Fitzgerald called this decade “the greatest, gaudiest spree in history” this was the time where people experimented with new fashion and new attitudes. The Great Depression was a big struggle for many people, including the Dust Bowl era. Writer John Steinbeck was able to capture the “uncertainty and despair of the times.” Dying in need for help and support, in 1932 President Franklin Roosevelt was able to fulfill the country’s promise and create New Deal programs. During this time, the 1920s was the decade that created mass media, full of advertisements, commercials, and magazines. This was also the time when African-American arts started to rise with their literary talents, musicals, and arts. Journalism became a very popular literature during this time, many well known writers for their fiction made over thousands of dollars. Also such as the very popular magazine the “New Yorker” which first came out in 1925 founded by Harold Ross, became a big hit during the 1920s. 

Unit 4: Regionalism and Naturalism

In the beginning of Unit 4: Regionalism and Naturalism, it talked about the Civil War and how it affected the South so much. As the years went by, the country began to change dramatically economically. The first transcontinental railroad was finally completed being able to transport many goods around across America. Local color writers such as Mark Twain and Bret Hart named this period “the Gilded Age” for it was the time of money and riches. Many other writers such as Stephen Crane found their literary voice in naturalism where they focused on the impact of social and natural forces on the individual. Realism on the other hand started to grow, but regionalist writers such as Willa Cather shared the realist goal of every day lives.  For many past lives, the Native Americans had passed down their own ways of literature, called oral literature. Then a new role for women took a big part of this period. Women writing became very important, in which they were able to make a movement to give women the right to vote.    

Unit 3: From Romanticism to Realism

Unit 3: From Romanticism to Realism, starts this unit off about how slavery is tearing nations apart. Writers such as Henry David Thoreau and Nathaniel Hawthorne write about the incident concerning John Brown in which he led a raid for slavery, both of these writers had different opinions on this. The Civil War was one of the many reasons where great writing came from, thanks to Abraham Lincoln the Emancipation Proclamation and Thirteenth Amendment he was able to end slavery. Later in that time, writing became more truthful with itself, a new style called realism, would appear. Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson were two of the many poets who challenged themselves. Poetry to them was about their personal feeling, Whitman however wrote in free verse, unconfined by formal patterns of rhyme and meter. Dickinson believed in traditional poetic forms to which she wrote about love, death, and nature. The literary time for the Civil War encouraged many soldiers and families to write, including diaries and letters. Overall I believe that realism took over romanticism ever since the war, it shaped new ideas for the poetic minds. Creating poetic structure, traditional, epic, run-on and so many more. 

Unit 2: American Romanticism

I continued on to the next reading unit, Unit 2: American Romanticism and I remembered learning about this from history last year. Writers of this period wrote about the growth of the American nation. “Manifest destiny” is the idea that it was the destiny of the United States to expand to the Pacific Ocean and into Mexican territory. Writer Henry David Thoreau figured out that war is immortal and mainly to expand slavery.  During the 1800s, the Industrial Revolution had formed and started to change the economy of the country. Later in the time, slavery became the biggest issue. For slaves it was a tough time, many which were abused and were sold from their families. Romantic poets such as James Russell and John Greenleaf Whittier wrote abolitionist journalism and poetry and even Henry Wadsworth Longfellow published a whole volume of antislavery poems. Romanticism had first emerged in Europe in the late 1800s, in reaction to the neoclassicism of the period that had continued it. Many of these neoclassical writers looked at nature for inspiration, they valued reason and celebrated emotions. Other writers influenced in forging an American literature were the Fireside Poets, a group of New England poets who work was morally uplifting and romantically engaging. Over time, many writers began noticing the dark side of poetry creating gothic elements such as grotesque characters, bizarre situations, and violent events in their fiction. 

Unit 1: Early American Writing

As I read Unit 1: Early American Writing, it felt like I was reading history more than I could be learning English, which is understandable considering that writing took place in a very meaningful matter during our time. The chapter started off with a little history of Jamestown and the establishment of its colony. In the section “A Break with England” the remarkable writing of Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson was acknowledged for the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States of America. To my surprise, many great writers started with religion and beliefs of God. The Puritans were a group of English Protestants who had sought to “purify” the church of English and return to simpler ways of worshipping. In the 1500s many explorers such as Christopher Columbus described their discoveries of the world so vividly. Later in the 1700s many writers of this period were drawn to the political effort in propaganda and pamphlets. Such as Thomas Paine who helped propel the colonists to revolution. I learned that writing will always be important to our world, from constitutions to poetry, writing is what allows us to speak our minds. 

On Writing by Stephen King

1. As I began to read Stephen King’s book On Writing I was clueless about what this book was even about. The first couple of pages I started to create the feeling that this book was just another autobiography about the author, personally I get very lazy and bored of autobiographies. Although my statement was slowly beginning to be incorrect. The book starts off by his past memories from being a child to fast forwarding it to present day as he writes the book. In my opinion he includes his childhood memories to show all the mistakes and lessons he made throughout his younger days. I believe it creates a metaphor to his writing in which he uses to give advice about. In the first chapter he talks about where he grew up, how his family was, and how he was as a kid. Nothing more and nothing less.
2. It truly amazes me how a guy like him, who grew up not in a big house with so much money, but just a simple casual guy end up being a talented writer. I read every word of his carefully because behind it I feel as if there’s a message to it all, and there is! He talks about how writing is and how the art of writing is defined by the writer him/herself. He uses the example of telepathy in chapter two “what writing is,” as a point to get across the fact that writing should be taken serious. Writing to Stephen King is like a drug to a crack addict. He needs writing in his life, its what makes him function properly everyday.
3. In this part of the book that I’m currently reading makes me so interested that I just can’t put down the book (yet I have to since I have summer school) he names this chapter “toolbox.” Why is it that he named this chapter toolbox? I asked myself that before I read further. When I got to the part where he talked about his Uncle Oren and old fellow’s toolbox, I began to wonder more why that this toolbox he was describing so vividly is important. Finally, the brilliant metaphor for this toolbox symbolized as tools to help a writer construct their story. The toolbox has three or four levels, the first part of the toolbox was vocabulary. He made a very good point about vocabulary, and how you shouldn’t “dress up” your words. I thought that was well said considering many people do that where they can easily just use the word an average person would use. The second level of the toolbox was grammar. He insisted to not, nor never ever use adverbs. I found this little squeal of adverbs was insanely very amusing, yet true. Adverbs are not your friends.  
4. It makes me frustrated having to put down a book where your finally getting to a good part, but you can be optimistic about it and say that when the next time you pick up your book your at a good part! The third level of the toolbox is grammar style. He compares formal writing to creative writing, indeed he makes a great statement about how formal writing is useless. As I continue to read on I came across a sentence that stood out to me, “Language does not always have to wear a tie and laced-up shoes.” I truly agree with him on that, some writers shouldn’t need to think about impressing readers on their use of wording but more on their whole story. The last level of the toolbox is the fundamentals of being a writer. There are two things I learned if I ever wanted to become a writer that I should read a lot and write a lot. To focus and put passion in a story you must have a “closed door” in which it tells the world and yourself that you mean business. 
5. Overall, I believe that the book On Writing by Stephen King was a simple yet intriguing book. It started off with metaphors of his childhood that somehow tied up with his present day writing and showed advice through it all. On the last chapter of the book caught me by surprise of how he continued to write even through his critical condition. As a young reader to understand and connect with Stephen King, it shows what type of writer he is to his audience. I really enjoyed the way he put together this novel, especially how he uses examples of previous book he wrote or read. To my surprise, I was interested in reading his book about how he began to write, how he fell in love, how he struggled through his addiction, and how today he still was able to finish this book. I can honestly say that I can never get enough of Stephen King’s book, he’s a talented writer and I loved every second of this book.