Kyle’s Comments (group member since May 13, 2016)

Kyle’s comments from the Mills AP Lit and Comp group.

Kyle Friesen
Period 1

Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie,
Which we ascribe to heaven: the fated sky
Gives us free scope, only doth backward pull
Our slow designs when we ourselves are dull.
What power is it which mounts my love so high,
That makes me see, and cannot feed mine eye?
The mightiest space in fortune nature brings
To join like likes and kiss like native things.
Impossible be strange attempts to those
That weigh their pains in sense and do suppose
What hath been cannot be: who ever strove
So show her merit, that did miss her love?
The king's disease--my project may deceive me,
But my intents are fix'd and will not leave me.

The last spoken words of the first scene of All’s Well That Ends Well are not only a near miss of a sonnet, but also a near miss of being about anything specific. In this monologue, Helena talks about love and how magically intangible it is. Plot-wise, this passage is great at setting up conflict with both Helena’s quest for Bertram and introducing her plot with the King. Helena makes a couple of assertions as to love, claiming that it’s so vast as to be so powerful and relentless. What she’s saying is also a form of self-validation for herself, saying that love can’t let her down in her quest.

Similar sentiments appear in pop music lyrics all the time, but more importantly, Helena’s thoughts and feelings here embody a sense of purpose, a belief that we get what we deserve if our ambitions and our person are in the right place. So in a sense, Helena is speaking of the power of individuality, of how our world is shaped by those who live in it.

Natalya wrote: "Natalya Hill period 2
An introduction written by David Trotter discussing Dickens’s Great Expectations, brings up the concept that the book “does not suppose that lost paradises can ever be regain..."

(Kyle Friesen P1)

Let's say an audience of theatre-goers didn't know anything about the plot and ending to Romeo and Juliet. If they want Romeo and Juliet to be together and get a happy ending, would you say that the actual, tragic ending is ineffective because it doesn't deliver happiness?

A lot of your argument is based on the assertion that Pip getting what he wants, or even maybe getting what he wants, makes the published ending emotionally satisfying and therefore better than the original. What about happiness is inherently better than anything else? If happy endings automatically have more artistic value than sad or melancholy endings, then why do artists even write tragedy? The answer is that no singular mood, tone, or ending is better than all the rest. So even if the published ending is effective at eliciting positive emotions, it doesn't matter if the original is more effective, and therefore better at its job. I agree that in general, as an audience we want and maybe even expect happy resolution for our protagonists. For this exact reason, the original ending hits home harder because it doesn't meet those expectations. Subverting expectations has been immensely effective in literature for the longest time. If it wasn't, plot twists wouldn't be nearly as effective as they are, and stories wouldn't be interesting because we would know exactly what's coming. It's the basis for get vs. expect comedy and dictates the ways in which (good) authors create high stakes and conflict.

So when you say that the published ending is superior because it aligns with the Hero's Journey, I disagree with your analysis. I agree that the story looks and reads like Campbell's archetypes, but like I said, the fact the fact that the original subverts the ending of the journey makes is more effective in its goal. Additionally, using certain literary techniques is not somehow mean a work is a great work of art. It's all about how the work effects the reader, and like the book's central theme, sometimes our expectations do not live up to reality, and isn't that more impactful than anything else?

I also disagree with your analysis of Estella's character. (For the sake of argument let's put aside endings for now.) You say that Estella is more or less a plot device , and I get your reasons for saying so, but I think it's important to delve deeper into the purpose of her character. Everything that happens to Pip, everybody that he meets and that he talks about is there for a reason. One interpretation is that Estella is there to make painfully real to the audience that Pip will never fully realize his expectations. From this point of view, the original ending works better to drive home the point of the plot, because we see that Estella still represents the inevitable hopelessness of Pip's ambitions. The original ending drives the last nail into the coffin of Pip's expectations, and gives the audience the impression that Pip never stood a chance. This ending actually uses Estella's character to do more than incur emotion in the reader. On top of that, I don't buy that before either ending Estella is a, "one-note plot device." For one, Estella is not very present in the plot, so of course the reader won't see as much growth in her as we do in Joe, for example. Even then, she goes through dramatic changes, and you even allude to this in your response, but you gloss over the fact that we do actually see her become the person she is in either ending. Her character never gives Pip a full account of how marriage changed her of course, but the reader and Pip do hear from others, and that is still development. We see Herbert develop in the same way in terms of his relationship with Clara, and if that isn't character development, then it could be said that Herbert is a, "one-note plot device" whose entire existence is to make Pip aware of the reality of his own goals and expectations.

So in the end, your argument seems flawed to me because it rests on assumptions about artistic worth that cannot be proven given that artistic worth is extremely subjective. Artistic worth is not defined by positive emotion or character development, but rather by the meaning that can be taken from it, with which the original ending has more of.

Kyle Friesen
P1

Literary worth boils down to audience interpretations and reactions. Since authors won’t be around forever to explain every choice they make, reader interaction is all that matters when it comes to evaluating this medium. In this way, the original ending to Great Expectations works better in the larger context of the story. Not only is it more consistent with the rest of the final chapter and the whole book, it also creates a resolution that leaves the reader in a place of understanding of the world that Pip inhabits.

The story exists in two arcs, one where Pip is living with and to his expectations and one where everything goes wrong. After Provis gets introduced, Pip never gets what he wants, so an ending in which it is implied he will never be together with Estella is consistent. Ending on a down note like that gives the audience a feeling of failure, like Pip’s journey was pointless, which is arguably the point of the story, but in the published ending, none of that gets communicated. Now, it could be said that a more hopeful ending provides the audience with a sense of relief to counteract the negativity of everything else that just happened, making it a better ending. The thing is, aesthetically pleasing art does not have to be satisfying to have worth. Some of the best and most well liked musicals, for example, do not end with everybody being happy, like the endings of Hamilton, or Wicked, or Into the Woods. The published ending being a happy ending does not automatically make it superior over the original. In fact, because it is happy, it gives the reader nothing. There’s no meaning to be had because all that’s apparent is Pip’s happiness. Additionally, the original ending works because it subverts the idea that everything must have a happy ending; the reader doesn’t expect the book to end by throwing the last hope that Pip had out the window, making it a more effective final blow.

The only way to know if something tastes sweet is to taste something sour. Dickens’ original ending makes a complete story, but more importantly will probably make the reader look at their own lives and see their own shortcomings and unrealistic expectations. A book, or any other art form for that matter, is in the end only what we take away from it. In the case of Great Expectations and the original ending, it’s not a cheery thing, but it is effective and it is satisfying in the sense that its greater meaning can be applied to our actual lives.

Kyle Friesen
P1
The film Synecdoche, New York follows a theatre director as he attempts to create a play that truly and honestly imitates real life. The play that is written slowly starts to embody more and more realism and it starts to get closer and closer to real life. However, since real life already exists and cannot therefore be created again, every piece of literature, even that scarily life-like play must be distorted in some way. Dickens’ Great Expectations uses distortion to take an account of “real life” and extract a story from its events.
This novel is a perfect example of how to use Chekov’s Gun. The only characters we meet that get a name and more than a paragraph of interaction with are crucial to the story, even if the reader won’t know why for a while. Miss Skiffins, for example, doesn’t seem like anybody important to Pip because she only gets described as a, “lady by whom [Wemmick] was accompanied” (285). In the end, she advances the plot by giving Pip a way support Herbert and she also helps develop Wemmick’s character. This is great use of distortion because Pip meets many people throughout the story who have very little importance in his life, but Dickens only spends time writing about characters that matter. This gives the audience tunnel vision on only the things that are actually important to the plot, making for a tight and engaging story. Additionally, controlling the audience’s focus through distortion allows for some very dramatic reveals. The man in the stairwell after the formal introduction of Provis diverts the story for a second, avoiding any revealing descriptions of the mysterious man, and is barely mentioned afterwards. The resulting effect being that when Olrick’s identity is revealed, it’s that much more of an important discovery for the audience. Similarly, when different character relationships are revealed, the audience starts to become aware that Pip’s circumstances were inevitable, as the seemingly impossible web of human interactions created adds to the absurdity that story means to convey, giving the readers a sense of the purpose of the story.
In the end, by distorting the reader’s view of Pip’s world, Great Expectations gains a dimension of clarity to the point where, at the end of the book, there is a real sense of resolution as there are no questions left unanswered. In this way, Dickens creates irony and conflict that make Pip’s story something more than just a simple biographical account.

Kyle Friesen
Period 1

Sense of place has a strong bearing on our identity and The Great Gatsby confirms this. Throughout the book, different characters are either tethered to the places they frequent or make judgements and decisions based on where they are. From the beginning of the book, Nick makes pointed delineations between East Egg and West Egg (22), and in the following scene, place is discussed a lot as Jordan talks about California and Tom has to deal with business from Chicago. In this way, Fitzgerald develops characters based on where they are and how they see their surroundings.
The contrast of birthplace to the rest of the unfamiliar world is really an exercise in identity, then, as moving from place to place changes our sense of place. Staying at home would mean a singular world view and an identity based around that world view. Seeking adventure is a way of experimentation that, while having incredible potential awards, could bring danger into our lives in both a literal or figurative sense. When Nick talks about the leading character’s “deficiency in common”, Fitzgerald is saying that these characters put themselves at odds with each other because they didn’t understand something about their interactions with each other, probably based on their own personal beliefs and identities-especially those surrounding their sense of place. Not to say that the setting of the book is the sole reason for the conflict of the plot, just that where these characters were put them in the mindset to be in the situation that they were in. For instance, Gatsby’s relationship with Daisy’s house, specifically the green light on her dock, as an “enchanting object” (88) led him to romanticize a possible romantic relationship with Daisy, which drove the plot towards the events in chapter 7.
So in the end, experimenting with identity can be healthy and wise from time to time, and changing setting can be an efficient way to do that. However, like a lot of things in life, an element of pragmatism must kept up in order to keep our lives together, or else romanticized, uncommunicated conflicts like those in The Great Gatsby are bound to happen.

Kyle Friesen
Period 1

While Nick Carraway is the narrator and protagonist of the book, The Great Gatsby is about Gatsby. So after almost four whole chapters of obscurity surrounding him, it is a relief to the reader when Jordan gives Nick, and therefore the audience, insight into Gatsby’s motivation (76). This moment in the story makes clear to the reader why Nick decided to document his encounters with Gatsby. With this realization, the book makes a shift from exposition and description to the meat of the conflict, and gives a reason for Nick’s earlier comment that Gatsby, “represents everything for which I have an unaffected scorn” (20). This moment is the first time the reader gets to see Gatsby’s true character, unclouded by rumor or self-projection from Gatsby himself, showing the essence of what Fitzgerald wanted to explore in his book, the ways in which our circumstances and upbringing effect our judgement and actions.

Kyle Friesen
Period 1

Given that The Great Gatsby is read by a majority of high school students, there is obviously something that many teachers think should learned from it. With fantastic syntax, well-developed characters, and an accurate description of the Roaring 20’s, it’s clear why F Scott Fitzgerald is part of modern America’s literary canon. While the book is seemingly flawless in terms of technique, it remains unclear what the purpose of the book is just from reading it. Without researching what Fitzgerald or his editors or literary scholars have said on the matter, you could take anything from the plot. It could be a warning against the dangers of riches, a parable about choosing the right kind of friends, or even a sardonic commentary on love and relationships.
The first scene that seems to have no direction is when Nick gets drunk for the second time and meets Myrtle’s sister and neighbors, (39-46). Even in retrospect, it’s hard to see why Fitzgerald had Nick engrossed in Catherine’s gossip about Tom and Myrtle’s marriages (42) or an entire paragraph of things that Myrtle wanted to do (44). With these two separate moments, it could be said that Fitzgerald means for the scene to illuminate the toxicity of 1920’s social interaction with the former or he could be commenting on his perception of how women make men’s lives harder with the latter. Or, the scene, even the entire chapter for that matter, could be there solely to develop Tom and the Wilsons’ characters, or even simpler, just to introduce Myrtle and George for the roles they play at the very end of the book. This ambiguity along with the fact that the entire chapter takes place in a setting unfamiliar and underdeveloped for the reader makes this section of the book seemingly have a lack of direction. Even when it is later shown how the Wilsons factor into the story, on a first reading it clears nothing up about the overall purpose of the book. Similarly, the scene in which Wolfshiem is introduced (69-72) seems to be purposeless, and direction is up in the air for the narrative until Gatsby encounters Tom.
The Great Gatsby has a concrete plot. Chapter 7 is an obvious candidate for the climax when the confrontation between Gatsby and Tom comes to a head, and the minimalistic and abstract way that Gatsby’s death is handled lends itself to a neat and quiet resolution. When we reach the resolution, however, it’s unclear where we’ve arrived or why we even were going there in the first place. This is the largest flaw with this otherwise fantastic book. Most non-academic readers come off of the story with a feeling they haven’t gained anything from the book; there’s barely any reason to recommend this book to your friends except its technical brilliance.