Weeks 17-18-19-20-21

Language and Gender

Language is strongly related to gender. Men and women communicate in different forms and styles. Men tend to communicate facts, whereas women tend to communicate thoughts and abstract things. It's part of our nature.
With this introduction, we can differentiate between male centered views and feminism. The first one basically says that men are more than women and women are subordinated to men. The second one speaks about women in a good sense, separating them from men and  vindicating women rights.
Media greatly influences gender and communication, by using stereotypes and generalizations.
In class we had to create two ads, a feminist one and a male centered one.
For the first one, along with my group formed by Sebastian Barriga, Martin Macchiavello and me, we "created" a hammer for men, but not any one. It was a special hammer that, if a woman calibrated it, men would stop hitting their fingers. And if the man didn't have a wife, he should call an emergency service, so they send a woman to calibrate it.
For the male centered one, we "created" an energy drink so that women would have energy all day long to clean the dishes, the house, cook and still have energy for more!

Literature: Texts and Contexts

As we already saw on week 5,  Literature is "a highly developed use of language in that is the stylized manipulation of language for larger effect (purpose) and/or affect (emotional response)"
In this unit we will relate literature and contexts, but first of all, What are contexts?
Context can be defined simply as the circumstances that surround a given text and help to specify its meaning.
Context is best expressed as CONTEXTS (plural) because of the wide variety of external forces that affect the general reception or understanding of a work.While studying a text, we will separate to main contexts, context of production ( Author's life and historical issues by the time the book/text was written) and context of reception (Once approach to the text, with our own backgrounds and livings)
We read two difficult texts: The leopard and Notable American Women and to understand them better we wrote some questions about the texts: What is exactly being described? A place, person, context? What was happening in 1860 (setting of the story? Where does this story take place? Who and why is a creature? What harm has he done? What does "Father of distinction" mean? Is he being ironic?
In class we clearly understood what a context is by applying it to the book we are reading, To kill a mockingbird by Harper Lee. We saw how segregation, prejudice, the dust bowl, the economic depression and the unemployment by the time the book was written and the setting of the story, greatly influenced the meaning of the book.

Some questions about the first chapter of the book:
1. What do you learn in this chapter about Maycomb, Atticus Finch and his family?
The narrator tells us that Maycomb "was and old town","the streets turned to red slop when rainy", "grass grew on the sidewalks". It was unusually hot that year. There were not many kids in town. The family was wealthy, Atticus is a lawyer and not very close to Scout and Jem, his children. Atticus wife died when Scout was 2. Atticus ancestors were immigrants and lost everything during the civil war.
2. Describe Calpurnia as scouts describes her in chapter 1.
Calpurnia is all angles and bones, near-sighted, hard and big hands. Always ordering Scout out of the kitchen and comparing her to Jem. She is afroamerican and has a Tyrannical presence.
3. What does Dill dare Jem to do?
Dill dares Jem to get Boo Radley out of his house and he will give The Grey Ghost to Jem.
4. The townspeople of Maycomb have some fears and superstitions about the Radley place. Describe them.
They thought that the house was cursed because they didn't go to church, never crossed the street out of the house and the doors were always closed. "When the younger Radley was in his teens he became acquainted....formed the closest thing to a gang ever seen in Maycomb. They "bought cotton".
5. How important is bravery to Jem?
It is very important as he is the older brother.
6. That do you notice about the narrative voice and viewpoint of the story?
Scout is the narrator, so we have a childish and innocent point of view. She only tells us what she sees.