Poisonwood Bible QQTT

Transcription

1 Poisonwood Bible QQTT THE QQTT ASSIGNMENT: For each reading assignment, prepare your QQTT : one QUESTION, one QUOTE, and two TALKING POINTS from the book. Here s how: QUESTION = Formulate a broad question which pertains to each reading assignment. Write a complete question. Then answer the question based on the assigned chapters. Use the work to answer your question specifically. No fluff. The hardest part will be writing the question. QUOTE = Choose the most meaningful passage from the work in your critical opinion. It does not have to be a piece of dialogue between characters. Yes, write the quote down word for word and document the page number. Then explain why you believe this passage best exemplifies the author s message and purpose of the work as a whole. TALKING POINTS = Write down two different topics you want to discuss with this work of literature. Explain the topic and what you want to say about it. Why is this topic an important talking point for this work? Yes, anything goes as long as it relates to the book! SCORING YOUR QQTT: FORMAT = 10 pts each QQTT Your responses should be typed according to MLA formatting. Please use subheadings to identify Question, Quote, and Talking Points sections. All QQTT assignments will be turned in to on their assigned due date. Since this is homework, no late assignments will be accepted. CONTENT = 60 pts each QQTT Your responses should be rich in thought, demonstrating insight and critical observances of these works. I beg to be impressed by your personal reading ahha s. It s ok if you don t have profound earth shattering breakthroughs while reading. Just show me your struggles to figure it out, how you ve made sense of it all for you alone. Question it all! No, I am not going to give you a quota to meet in length. Rich, developed QQTTs mean I can t say: But what? But why? But how? But if after reading one of yours. You ve answered possible questions, peeled back all the layers of the question, the quote, the topics. WRITING = 30 pts each QQTT Your responses must be well written. Though informal compared to formal essays, your original QQTTs must demonstrate control of language as required on the AP exam. I should not have to stumble through your writing, sludging along spackled sentences, fractured by irresponsible structure, spelling, and sinkholes. You, hopefully, get the idea. READING SCHEDULE: Your first QQTT Assignment is due on Monday, November 17 th by 11:59. The assignment should cover through Book II. If you d like to see an example of an A Assignment, look at the Daily Digest page at

2 Christian González Ms. Harris AP English 3 7 January 2014 Cold Mountain QQTT #1 Question: How does the theme of loss pertain to Inman and Ada and how does this affect the situations they both have to deal with? Inman and Ada both deal with losing something at the beginning of Cold Mountain and through their struggles, they try to fill a hole left by that loss. It's a little difficult to identify exactly what Inman lost through his experiences in the war, but it is evident he is less of what he used to be. In the flashbacks of him, he seems to be ambitious, yet still shy, as he is when he meets Ada. When the reader sees him at the beginning of the novel in the hospital, he seems almost empty. The reader doesn't get much of Inman in the past in the first few chapters, but what is seen is an Inman drastically different from the present one. With Ada, her loss is more obvious and understandable, her father Monroe dies. She isn't very close with other people, and her father being her biggest influence and closest friend, that loss is all the more detrimental. With their loss, the two also gain something. With Inman's spiritual loss, he gains a huge welt on his neck that refuses to heal properly. With Ada's loss of Monroe, he gains a plot of land that she has no knowledge of how to take care of. However, one thing that is interesting about Inman and Ada is that in both of their first chapters, they are quick to identify their losses and situations, and then try to fix them. Inman realizes that the only thing he cares for at the moment is Cold Mountain and being with Ada. And Ada realizes that she cannot leave Black Cove and must find a way to live and work on it. Although they both face loss with their situation, they also try to find something to fill in that loss. Quote: The Tennessee boy had peered up at the star so indicated and said, How do you know its name is Rigel? I read it in a book, Inman said.

3 Then that's just a name we give it, the boy said. It ain't God's name. Inman had thought on the issue a minute and then said, How would you ever come to know God's name for that star? You wouldn't, He holds it close, the boy said. It's a thing you'll never know. It's a lesson that sometimes we're meant to settle for ignorance. Right there's what mostly comes out of knowledge, the boy said, tipping his chin out at the broken land, apparently not even finding it worthy of sweeping a hand across its contours in sign of dismissal. At the time, Inman had thought the boy a fool and had remained content to know our name for Orion's principal star and to let God keep His a dark secret. But he now wondered if the boy might have had a point about knowledge, or at least some varieties of it (Frazier 117). This quotation seems to represent Frazier's observations about knowledge and faith. One thing that can be noted about Cold Mountain is that each character has their own unique faith and way of seeing the natural world. Inman has a very scientific way of looking at the world, he reads lots of books on different subjects, and his longing for a place of peace is situated on Cold Mountain itself, a physical, rather than metaphysical or spiritual, location. He doesn't seem to find metaphor in the world around him, as noted by the way he observes his environment, seeing things simply as they are and not any symbolism others put on them. On the night after the Battle of Fredericksburg, Inman meets a boy from Tennessee and the two look up at the night sky and talk about the largest star in Orion's Belt, Rigel. The boy from Tennessee asserts that there are two separate names for the star, the man-made name of Rigel and God's name for it, which is unknown to humans. It can be assumed that if the boy believes in this for the star, then the same could be said for other things in nature. This boy's view on nature seems to imply that a separate order exists outside the one humans observe, and he attaches God's name to that order. He uses the term God very broadly and whether he means it more loosely or rigidly, he seems to have a deep faith in the natural world. Inman disagrees with this viewpoint, however he is able to still find something worth thinking over. The boy makes a good point on the nature of knowledge, that is, that knowing something creates a barrier between the known and the unknown and that the more something is known about, the more mysterious the unknown becomes. But what makes this passage really interesting is

4 how one person with one viewpoint reacts to another viewpoint. Even though Inman thinks the boy is wrong with the way he views the star, he still analyzes the boy's observation and finds something truthful and interesting about it, giving Inman an air of understanding, tolerance, and acceptance, something that is very atypical of the time and place they live in. Talking Points: Place The thing that's interesting about faith is that most seem to include a place of some sort, whether it be physical location or a state of being. Heaven, Hell, Paradise, Purgatory, Hades, Nirvana, Enlightenment, Eden, Olympus, Atzlán, Valhalla, all of these are places linked to faith and signal a destination of some kind. The characters in Cold Mountain each have their own place based on what they put their faith in and these vary on what the characters value. Inman sees the world as is and people as they are. He doesn't put his faith in the afterlife, therefore finds the best and worst of human nature in the world around him. The worst he finds in the war and the best he finds in Cold Mountain and Ada. Cold Mountain is his place, his destination and it is what drives him to risk being killed by the Home Guard hunting him. Ada's place is Black Cove. Although Black Cove is a physical place, her destination isn't going there (as she lives there), but growing and maturing enough to live up to that place. Black Cove is connected to Ada's father, Monroe, as it was the place he came to for a better life and the place he died at. Since Ada was so close to father, the relationship between her and Black Cove also seems an extension of her relationship with her father, beyond his death. Speaking of Monroe, it would seem his place would also be Black Cove and that wouldn't be wrong, but it would also seem that his place extends to the world at large. He accepted the idea of a world with both good things and bad things and the idea that not everything loves back. However, he doesn't let this bitter him, instead he chooses to embrace the world with love for the sake of love itself, a mental filter to a physical world. On the other hand, there's the character of Swimmer, who uses Cherokee spells on his enemies. He is definitely strengthened by his faith and his place, a place he sends his enemies, a place of pain and damnation. He takes joy in reciting his spells and the idea of being powerful enough to condemn those he dislikes to such a state of being. One cannot help but be reminded of the way fundamental monotheists see Hell as a place to send their enemies. Pacing Cold Mountain has a slow pace. Characters take the time to stop and observe their

5 surroundings which are described in painstaking detail. Scenes will stretch on and on and dialogue is few and far between with no quotations to differ it from the narration. In contrast, the few action scenes are not as vividly described and are much shorter. This stylistic choice is probably meant to make the reader experience events in the story as the characters perceive it. The reader sees what they see, hear what they hear, even smell what they smell. The long amounts of time devoted to imagery also help the essence of place in the story. The way the setting is described compliments the characters' inner motives and attitudes. Inman's trek across the South is long and brutal and horribly dull. Black Cove is uneventful, quiet, and stubborn.