![1. The quality of passing all moral bounds; excessive
wickedness or outrageousness.
2. A monstrous offense or evil; an outrage.
3. Usage Problem Great size; immensity
• Strunk and White advise, "Use [enormity] only in the
sense of 'monstrous wickedness.’ *It is+ misleading, if
not wrong, when used to express bigness."
• Many usage guides suggest enormousness in the
place of enormity.
• Bryan Garner's Modern American Usage says, "The
historical differentiation between these words should
not be muddled. Enormousness = hugeness, vastness.
Enormity = outrageousness, ghastliness."](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/elit48cclass19-130507221429-phpapp02/85/Elit-48-c-class-19-2-320.jpg)
![One of the three shops [the building] contained was
for rent and another was an all-night restaurant,
approached by a trail of ashes; the third was a garage
— Repairs. George B. Wilson. Cars bought and sold. —
and I followed Tom inside.
The interior was unprosperous and bare; the only car
visible was the dust-covered wreck of a Ford which
crouched in a dim corner. (Chapter 2)](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/elit48cclass19-130507221429-phpapp02/85/Elit-48-c-class-19-26-320.jpg)
Elit 48 c class 19
- 1. ELIT 48C Class 19 Enormous versus Enormity
- 2. 1. The quality of passing all moral bounds; excessive wickedness or outrageousness. 2. A monstrous offense or evil; an outrage. 3. Usage Problem Great size; immensity • Strunk and White advise, "Use [enormity] only in the sense of 'monstrous wickedness.’ *It is+ misleading, if not wrong, when used to express bigness." • Many usage guides suggest enormousness in the place of enormity. • Bryan Garner's Modern American Usage says, "The historical differentiation between these words should not be muddled. Enormousness = hugeness, vastness. Enormity = outrageousness, ghastliness."
- 3. Agenda • “Barn Burning” –Historical Context –Themes • Writing a Character Analysis
- 4. “BARN BURNING” BY WILLIAM FAULKNER
- 5. Historical Context Any discussion of William Faulkner in a historical context necessarily involves a discussion of modernism. In modernism, as we have discussed, we observe a conscious breaking with traditional ideas about style, content, and purpose. Faulkner, like Pound and Fitzgerald, typify the moral atmosphere of modernism, which could be summed up as despair over the condition of humanity in the aftermath of the soul-wrenching and materially devastating First World War (1914- 18).
- 6. • Modernism is complex, and while some of these formal experimenters rejected traditional values (Pound), others wanted to uphold old values by new means (Eliot). • Pound's work includes a sustained attack on Judeo-Christian values and embraces the radical relativism of philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900). • Eliot uses his experimentations to plead for the continued validity of traditional morals in a morally degenerate world. • Faulkner is closer to Eliot than to Pound, which means that he is formally a modernist while being morally and philosophically a type of traditionalist. Faulkner could even be called a reactionary—and in truth he was reacting, negatively, to much of the transformation taking place in the world of his time.
- 7. • In the aftermath of World War I the Western nations, including the United States, saw an unprecedented abandonment of small towns for the economic benefits, some real and some illusory, of big cities. • The war had also stimulated the growth of industry and provoked massive technical innovation. With Europe in debt, and with America in possession of thousands of new factories, the United States enjoyed an economic boom. • This coincided with a new, devil-may-care moral attitude best summed up in the ideas of the ''Jazz Age'' or ''the Roaring Twenties.’’ The winked- at consumption of illegal alcoholic beverages outlawed by Prohibition, relaxed sexual attitudes, the unprecedented freedom of the private automobile, mass entertainments in the cinema and radio, gangster wars—all of these things suggested that the sedate world of pre-World War I agricultural and small-town America had yielded to something else. The landscape was changing.
- 8. Themes • Alienation and Loneliness • Anger and Hatred • Loyalty and Betrayal • Morals and Morality • Order and Disorder
- 9. WRITING A CHARACTER ANALYSIS A Strategy:
- 10. Eight ways to look at a character in a story
- 11. 1. Physical Description Physical description is the most common way of describing a character. It identifies physical attributes of the character. height, skin, hair and eye color, short/tall, skinny/fat, glasses, nose size and shape, disability, difference gestures and movements: walking, standing, moving, wrinkling brow
- 12. Tom Buchannan is a “sturdy, straw-haired man of thirty with a rather hard mouth and a supercilious manner. Two shining, arrogant eyes had established dominance over his face, and gave him the appearance of always leaning aggressively forward … you could see a great pack of muscle shifting when his shoulder moved under his thin coat. It was a body capable of enormous leverage—a cruel body.” (1)
- 13. 2. Name Analysis To analyze a character’s name, look more closely at its meaning, allusion, or suggestion. Not all characters have a name with significance to the story. Often though, author’s carefully choose a character’s name to represent a trait or quality about the character or the story.
- 14. • Daisy: A common, yellow centered flower with white rays. A flower is something we look at, appreciate for its beauty. Is Daisy a common beauty? • Jordan: A gender neutral name. Is Jordan less of a woman because she is an athlete?
- 15. This method of characterization is the reader’s description of the character’s attitude and behavior. The character’s attitude is how the character appears to feel about what is happening to him or her in the story. Sometimes we read attitude in behavior rather than words.
- 16. Gatsby, his hands still in his pockets, was reclining against the mantelpiece in a strained counterfeit of perfect ease, even of boredom. His head leaned back so far that it rested against the face of a defunct mantelpiece clock, and from this position his distraught eyes stared down at Daisy, who was sitting, frightened but graceful, on the edge of a stiff chair. (Chapter 5)
- 17. 4. Dialogue Dialogue refers to characters’ words Dialogue includes the characters diction (word choice) and syntax (word arrangement). It also includes the tone of the character when he or she speaks. Is the character serious? Sarcastic? Shy? Obnoxious? Ignorant?
- 18. “I almost made a mistake, too,” [Mrs. McKee declared vigorously. “I almost married a little kyke who’d been after me for years. I knew he was below me. Everybody kept saying to me: ‘Lucille, that man’s ‘way below you!’ But if I hadn’t met Chester, he’d of got me sure.” “Yes, but listen,” said Myrtle Wilson, nodding her head up and down, “at least you didn’t marry him.” “I know I didn’t.” “Well, I married him,” said Myrtle, ambiguously. “And that’s the difference between your case and mine.” (Chapter 2)
- 19. 5. Thoughts The thoughts of a character can only be analyzed if we are inside the head of the character. This means that you can only include an analysis of a character’s thoughts if you are told what the character is thinking.
- 20. Jordan Baker instinctively avoided clever, shrewd men, and now I saw that this was because she felt safer on a plane where any divergence from a code would be thought impossible. She was incurably dishonest. She wasn’t able to endure being at a disadvantage and, given this unwillingness, I suppose she had begun dealing in subterfuges when she was very young in order to keep that cool, insolent smile turned to the world and yet satisfy the demands of her hard, jaunty body. It made no difference to me. Dishonesty in a woman is a thing you never blame deeply — I was casually sorry, and then I forgot. It was on that same house party that we had a curious conversation about driving a car. It started because she passed so close to some workmen that our fender flicked a button on one man’s coat. (Chapter 3)
- 21. 6. Reactions of Others When analyzing the reactions of others, you are looking closely at how other characters in the story react to or treat the character that you are characterizing. Reactions include verbal responses and physical or emotional treatment. Character reactions can tell you if the character you are analyzing is liked or disliked, popular, honest, trustworthy and so on.
- 22. “Daisy! Daisy! Daisy!” shouted Mrs. Wilson. “I’ll say it whenever I want to! Daisy! Dai ——” Making a short deft movement, Tom Buchanan broke her nose with his open hand. (Chapter 2)
- 23. 7. Action or Incident Characters can be analyzed by looking at an action or incident and how it affected them or how they reacted to it. What action did the character take when confronted with a certain situation? Is there and incident in the character’s past that has shaped him or her as a character? The action or incident determines the way the character develops as the story goes on.
- 24. “I just got wised up to something funny the last two days,” remarked Wilson. “That’s why I want to get away. That’s why I been bothering you about the car.” *…+ The relentless beating heat was beginning to confuse me and I had a bad moment there before I realized that so far his suspicions hadn’t alighted on Tom. He had discovered that Myrtle had some sort of life apart from him in another world, and the shock had made him physically sick. I stared at him and then at Tom, who had made a parallel discovery less than an hour before — and it occurred to me that there was no difference between men, in intelligence or race, so profound as the difference between the sick and the well. Wilson was so sick that he looked guilty, unforgivably guilty — as if he had just got some poor girl with child. (Chapter 7)
- 25. 8. Physical/Emotional Setting: The setting of a story affects the characters’ development as well as the plot. The physical setting of a story is where the story is actually taking place and can affect the way a character develops. The emotional setting of a story is the series of emotions that the character deals with throughout the story.
- 26. One of the three shops [the building] contained was for rent and another was an all-night restaurant, approached by a trail of ashes; the third was a garage — Repairs. George B. Wilson. Cars bought and sold. — and I followed Tom inside. The interior was unprosperous and bare; the only car visible was the dust-covered wreck of a Ford which crouched in a dim corner. (Chapter 2)
- 27. HOMEWORK • Read: “Barn Burning” 800-12 • Post #19 Provide a brief character analysis or discus a symbol – de Spain – Sarty – Abner Snopes – Lennie Snopes – Fire – The soiled rug – Blood