Throughout the years, I’ve dealt with many different English classes of varying difficulty, that have all taught me important things to apply to texts whenever possible. This class is no exception, and through the semester I’ve learned many more important skills to use when analyzing texts. There are many things that I have been able to see in a different light because of this class; things that many people don’t even think or worry about in the first place. What I’m trying to say is, this class has probably taught me the most important analysis-based skills I will need, and I think this for a variety of reasons.
One reason I think this is because of what we learned regarding definitions, or more appropriately, the fluidity of definitions, of certain words. For example, one class we discussed how words can change meaning in time, and this came about in our discussion of what we thought a “book” should be defined as. It was interesting and honestly very enlightening to see so many people have different ideas about this. Personally, books can be pretty much anything readable, whether it be online or physical, but I found that people think about it in a much more strict way. We also discussed the fluidity of texts themselves, which was very crucial to the class as a whole. When talking about said fluidity in text, I wrote a blogpost about a text that is considered to be a very fluid story overall–Lewis Carroll’s famous story, Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland. In this blog post, I talked about how the story seems to center around Alice’s struggles with her identity during her adolescence. While this is one interpretation, I have found that there are many, many other different interpretations of this text, including ones that are much more innocent in nature.
On the topic of my blog post, another thing we discussed a lot in this class was the idea of identity–what it is, what it means, how it applies to people, and why it’s important. I think a good example of this idea is found in my blog post, in which I wrote: “The passage raises an important, slightly paradoxical question about identity: how do I know I exist? This passage basically makes us as readers question whether we are actually ‘real’, and if we are who we think we are”. I think this is a good example because it definitely shows the impact of what was learned in class, clearly showing that I have a deeper understanding of identity, and what this story asks us to think about regarding it. I think identity has also been a big thing learned this semester because it comes up in many of the works we have read, including Mrs. Dalloway and A Christmas Carol, as well as the other media we have dealt with such as Nanette and It’s A Wonderful Life. These can all be connected through our learning of identity because each story deals with identity in their own ways. For example, in A Christmas Carol, the reader is led to thinking about what makes Scrooge act the way he does, and the ghosts in the story show him how the way he is can and has affected the people around him, causing him to question the identity he has taken on, ending in him changing his ways. In a similar vein, It’s A Wonderful Life goes through the life of the main character, George, and shows us (and him) just how influential his life has been for many people, forcing him to question his choices, and show us his true identity that eventually leads to him realizing people need him.
However, identity is not the only thing I learned about in this class. I also learned about how to criticize works of media in various ways that lead to asking important questions about how these works should be seen and/or read. What I mean by this is, we learned about the different views one can have on a certain work, and how criticizing said work can make us question those views. An example of this is in our reading and subsequent discussions about A Christmas Carol. During the discussions, we got into groups to write and talk about how certain ideas fit into the story. This led to many different viewpoints on the story, such as ours, influenced by our given ideas on economics in the story. In our particular group, we discussed how Scrooge’s ideas about economics might be an influence on why he was how he was. We figured that he believed in the idea of eugenics, so basically, Scrooge believed that poor people were the issues in the economy, and that them dying would’ve helped. Other groups thought differently however, with some talking about the fact that maybe society in general was the reason, as times were in general pretty tough which led to people with very rough personalities. This supports the use of literary criticism because each group was able to go through the story and find their own areas to pick apart and find the meaning behind them. This example also supports the idea of asking questions about how literature should be read because each group had different views on things based on the angle they were given to look at it from, which made me personally think about how literature can be criticized in many different ways–there’s no 100% concrete way to always criticize literature every time.
Finally, something just as important that we learned this semester was how practice of literary criticism can give rise to theory, and the usage of theories to connect our ideas to works we have read. Basically, throughout the class, we were given different stories, and sometimes other media, to read/watch and analyze, which not only helped us build our analysis skills, but also led to a deeper understanding of media and paved the way for different intellectually driven theories pertaining to the works we saw/read. Like, during our time reading and discussing Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland, we talked about identity, as mentioned before, which ended up allowing me to theorize using examples about how identity fits into the story and what it means, which I discussed in my critical essay. One area where this application of practice leading to theory is in this section of my essay: “I myself would actually consider this story to be no less than dark and dreary–It is a dark tale of loss of childhood, the meaninglessness of life, and the prospect of death being a consequence to everything one does, all wrapped up in a fairy tale world of sorts. There are many examples that can be used to prove what the theme of this story is about and how the scenery and characters involved are a part of it, found within the story both subtly and not”. Here, I basically say that from what I have seen in the story, I can theorize that the story itself is actually a darker tale about loss of childhood and struggle with identity, which is supported even more by my use of the theoretical idea of theme to show this. In short, the discussions about literary criticisms in class helped me learn to theorize about the true meanings of stories using supporting evidence.
Overall. there were many great skills I learned during my time in this class, and I will continue to apply these skills to other works I encounter throughout my college career and beyond, such as literary criticism, evidence-based theorizing, using what I know to question what I’m reading, and more. This was a very enlightening class, and I very much enjoyed the work and our intellectual class discussions throughout.