Epic Hero

Beowulf is an epic hero. He would be considered a larger than life figure from a legend. He endures great quests or journeys, in which he faces challenges that try to defeat and destroy him, but he comes out on top and returns home with a new outlook on life due to his experience. Beowulf displays morals that are valued by the society he protects. He has superhuman characteristics such as being smarter, stronger, and braver than average human beings. He is in a way a warrior. He performs the most difficult task of fighting Grendel with such grace and confidence. This is an amazing accomplishment to the people of Herot. Not one individual from the society would have ever had the nerve to do what Beowulf did.

Allegory of the Cave discussion questions

1. Would it be possible for the prisoners to adapt to the outside world?

2. How does the prisoner react to the outside world?

3. How would you react if you were the prisoner?

4. Do you think the prisoners communicated with each other?

5. How do you think the prisoner felt after he returned to the cave?

The White Album

1. The premises were all the struggles she had undergone throughout her life.

3. Looking back on 2001 I would say many people questioned or reconsidered their basic narratives. With such horrific events occurring that year, anyone who was not directly affected probably felt as though nothing that terrible has ever happened to them. I think it happened to everyone in the society. Everyone was affected by the events of 2001, whether it was directly or indirectly. If the affect was indirectly placed on individuals I would assume they struggled with the events just as those who were directly affect. It is difficult to see those around us suffering.

4. "missing on the written examination only the question about the financial responsibility of California drivers." is an example of humor in this essay. It is humorous because it is so specific and almost ironic. It develops her argument by giving specific details.

Figures of Speech

Figures of speech are broadly defined as a way of saying one thing in terms of something else.

Simile- makes an explicit comparison between two things by using words such as like, as, than, appears, or seems.

She is as pretty as a flower.

He ran like the wind.

Metaphor- makes a comparison between two unlike things, but it does so implicitly without words such as like or as.

The cookies she made were bricks.

The assignment was a breeze.

Implied metaphor- is a less direct metaphor.

The man's feathers were a bit ruffled.

He brayed his refusal to leave.

Extended metaphor- a comparison between two unlike things that continues throughout a series of sentences in a paragraph or lines in a poem.

All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages. At first the infant, mewling and puking in the nurse's arms....

The fog comes in on little cat feet.

It sits looking over the harbor and city

on silent haunches

and then, moves on.

Controlling metaphors- a symbolic story, where the whole poem may be a metaphor for something else.

"Catch"

"She being Brand"

Pun- a play on words that relies on a word having more than one meaning or sounding like another word.

I finally found a spotter at the gym. It is like a huge weight has been lifted from my shoulders.

The new weed whacker is cutting-hedge technology.

Synecdoche- a figure of speech in which part of something is used to signify the whole.

He is behind bars.

She paid for it with plastic.

Metonymy- something closely associated with a subject is substituted for it.

At exactly ten o'clock the paper shufflers stopped for coffee.

She preferred the silver screen to reading.

Personification- the attribution of human characteristics to nonhuman things.

The wind howled.

The ocean waved hello to us.

Apostrophe- an address either to someone who is absent and therefore cannot hear the speaker or to something nonhuman that cannon comprehend.

"Thou still unravished bride of quietness."

"Hello darkness, my old friend, I have come to talk with you again."

Overstatement/Hyperbole- exaggeration that adds emphasis without intending to bye literally true.

The teenage boy ate everything in the house.

He has tons of money.

Understatement- says less than is intended.

When the neighbor hood is flooded saying "We have had a little rain."

Bill Gates is financially secure.

Paradox- a statement that initially appears to be self-contradictory but that, on closer inspection, turns out to make sense.

"The pen is mightier than the sword."

"Nobody goes to that restaurant, it is too crowded."

Oxymoron- a condensed form of paradox in which two contradictory words are used together.

Bitter sweet

clearly confused

Furnace Emergency Safety Update

The phrase, "In fact, most furnaces die in middle age" is one example of personification. "I'll actually make money on this in the long run anyway" is an example of a metaphor.

A few things come to my attention while reading this. The first is the author's credibility. The whole offer makes me a little skeptical. It really just seems like it is too good to be true. The author does a good job at making his case. He points out all the benefits of his service and mentions his competition's higher prices. To top that he even goes as far as making a risk free money-back guarantee. These are all good things for the consumers, but something just isn't right about the situation. It is almost as if the author is a bit too biased, which we would expect I suppose. However, I do believe there may be details the author is leaving out.

Another thing that came to my attention was when the author mentioned how his business is slow in November. Being a heating company would make me suspect that November would be a pretty busy month since that is about the time everyone usually starts looking into heating their houses. I also don't quite understand how stripping out everything except the raw costs of the company would be a wise idea. If the author claims November is a slow month, how can he afford to pay is technicians and still offer such a great deal?

Two Poems about Snowmen

4. The assonance and repetition combine to help the rhythm of the poem flow more smoothly. In the last stanza the author repeats the word 'nothing' quite often. Using repetition with such a strong word gives readers distinct emotions, such as solitude, loneliness, or even depression.

8. Wilbur's poem is very ironic, creating its humor. Lines like "having no wish to go inside and die" are humorous because they are ironic. Logically, readers can assume the snowman is going to die when the it warms up anyways. The author also adds to the irony and humor by giving the snowman more insight then the boy. These elements help prove that there is a tragicomic complexity of the human condition by using the boy's ignorance as a prime example.