Project 6: Outline Of My Hemingway Project.

I think I almost come up with the basic structure of my project. 

I will briefly introduce Hemingway first, and bring out the idea of Hemingway’s work is related to his personal experience. I am going to talk about his previous work such as The sun also raises, Farewell arms and For whom the bell rings a little. In these works, I will state the transformation of Hemingway’s thought in different period. 

However, the main body of my project will be focused on The old man and the sea, as it is the book which most influence to the contemporaries and the best novel that Hemingway had ever written. Additionally, this book also strongly connected to Hemingway’s life. It is not only a story of a fisherman, but also represents Hemingway’s thought after he experienced the time that society greatly changed.

I think that will be my structure of my essay.

Project 5: Relevant Research About Hemingway's Work In Different Time Period

Hemingway published The Sun Also Rises and Farewell Arms in 1929. At that time, his work shows the cruelness or the war, and describes that generation of teenagers who lost the direction. The war brings the huge negative impact to human, and that is the basic mood of Hemingway’s work during that period.

In 1940, Hemingway published For Whom The Bell Tolls, a novel based on the Spanish Civil War against the Fascism. In this novel, people who suffered from the wars tried to overcome the loneliness and sorrow, and shows the elevated spirit of devote themselves into the justice and freedom. I think this is the symbol of his mid writing career.

Finally in his later writing career, The Old Man and The Sea shows a positive spirit of “A man can be destroyed but not defeated”.

Therefore, the keynote of Hemingway’s work does not obtain the same but changes as he experiences more. From the negative side to the neutral then to the positive, Hemingway shows the unconquerable nature of human.

Project 4: The Research Of Background Information

It is really easy to understand that the good literary work always comes from the real life. The more the writers experience, the profounder the work will be. Therefore, just like what I mentioned in the last blog post, The Old Man and The Sea must me strongly related to Hemingway’s personal experience. However, what happened to Hemingway’s life? What made Hemingway write this famous story? These are the main questions I was working on during the class today.

First of all, by the information I searched today, i found that Hemingway wrote this story when he was 52 years old. At that time, he was living in the coast of Cuba, and he loved sea and fishing. He knew the life of fishermen very well, and I guess that is one of the reasons the story gets so vivid. However, I think, if Hemingway only wanted to describe a regular 3-days life of a fisherman, he certainly did not have to write down such a moving and tragic story, and absolutely he would not get the Nobel Prize in Literature at 1954. Thus, I think, the Hemingway’s location and his hobbies just provided him with the knowledge of this story. However, the real essence and idea in the story is from his own experience in the past 52 years. Therefore I consider that is the most important factor to make this story famous and let him be the owner of the Nobel Prize in Literature.

In the following time, I did the research on his biography. Hemingway was born July,1899, the several years before the World War 1 happened. After graduated from the high school, Hemingway refused to continue to study in the college. Instead, he chose to work for the war in Europe. On May, 1918, he succeeded to be a worker in the American Red Cross Team, and Italy was the country he worked in. On July, the same year, he got really bad injury since he tried to save a Italian solider. For that injury, he did 13 operations, and lied in the hospital for more than 3 months. Some people might think Hemingway would give up serving for the war as his situation was so bad. But actually he did not stop, he even went to more countries to do the volunteer work.

Also, during the research, I found that Hemingway published this novel 12 years after the last one (For Whom the Bell Tolls). During this 12-years period, Hemingway did not publish any work. Some critics even affirmed that Hemingway could not create any more and was not be able to write anything new. In think, this experience is really similar to the old man in the novel. Santiago have not capture any fish for 84 days, and other fishermen just mock and make fun of him. So, Santiago goes to the sea on the 85th day, just like the author published this novel to prove him self.

I think that is what I did in the class and study hall. By the way, actually, Hemingway’s thought was keeping changing during this writing career, and the best way to reflect the changes , I think, is to find out the ideas of his work in different time period. For this reason, I am going to do some research on his previous work tomorrow.

Project 3: Analysis of The Old Man and The Sea

The old man and the sea written by Hemingway is one of his most famous novel in his career. By this novel, Hemingway establish his important position in the world literature history. Though online research during today’s class, I think I got the main idea this great novel. 

The old man and the sea tells a story of a old fisherman, whose name is Santiago, has gone 84 days without catching any fish at all. However, he gets a big marlin fish on the 85th day. He spends two days and two nights trying to catching it, and finally straps the marlin and thinks about the high price the fish will bring him at the market. Unluckily, on the way to his home, many sharks are attracted to the trail of the blood left by the marlin in the water, eat the most parts of the marlin, and leave the huge skeleton of the marlin. The old man falls asleep as he gets to the shack and has a dream, a dream for forgetting the cruel reality. 

First, from this story, I saw a brave old man who never gives up hope. He does not get anything in the first eighty-four days, and he still believes that he will have good luck in the eighty-fifth day. Thus, because he keeps trying and never abandons the hope, he finally gets the big marlin fish. 

Additionally, although Santiago is so lucky that meets such a big marlin, the process of capturing the fish is really hard to imagine. Santiago spends two days and two nights fighting with that marlin. His hands, arms and back are injured by the rough rope, and he only drinks and eats little water and food during these two days. He never gives up catching the marlin, and he eventually wins the battle after the fish gets tired in the third day. In this part of the story, the old man shows us what a real man should be. I think the detailed description of fighting against the marlin fish just reflects how brave and firm the old man is. The author Hemingway seems to believe that there are only two options: defeat or endurance until destruction; Santiago clearly chooses the latter. That is why Santiago succeeds after a two-days fight. 

In the last part, the marlin is eaten by many sharks, and Santiago gets nothing but the huge skeleton of the fish. Some people might consider Santiago is a loser here as he loses everything after a long battle. However, in my opinion, I do not agree with that. Although Santiago gets so exhausted, although he does not have a completed marlin fish, he has never been defeated. He tries and pursues for his dream at least. He is not afraid to challenge, and he never surrenders to the sharks. Just like what Beethoven said, “ I can be destroyed, but can not be conquered”. I think the old man just did what Beethoven said, and he is definitely a winner in idealism. No matter if he gains or loses, he should be respected by everyone. 

I think Hemingway uses the different things in the novel to represent the different things in the real world. Apparently, the marlin fish is the dream to the person, the shark is the destiny that people have to undergo, the sea represents the human society, and the process of capturing the fish reflects the fights between people and adversities. Also, I think this story is related to Hemingway’s personal experience at that time period. As we know, Hemingway joined the World War 1, World War 2 and Spanish War, and people were still in the great fear. Therefore, the chaos and confusion of the society hurt Hemingway deeply, and I guess that is one of the reason why Santiago is so old, but still has hope in his blue eyes. Santiago may represent Hemingway himself. 

I will find out more information in the next following days.

Project 2: Guiding Questions and Locating the Source

Today I mainly search the background information of Ernest Hemingway. As my guiding question is to find out the influence on Hemingway’s works by his personal experience, I consider the background information is really important to know. However, I have to say, this guiding question is just the elementary direction of my project, I might find something more interesting and change the idea in the following research. 

Through today’s research, apparently, Hemingway’s personal experience is strongly related to his work. I also found something interesting which is that most of Hemingway’s work is based on the wars or revolutions during the period from mid-1920s to mid-1950s and won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954. Additionally, he has a really distinctive writing style which is characterized by economy and understatement. 

For his works, I am going to choose two or three as the examples to analyze. For now I am only sure The Old Man and The Sea is one out of three, and I still have not chosen the rest yet. 

Today after school, I almost finished reading The Old Man and The Sea. However I do not think I get the idea of this novel. Thus, I will do some background research and try to understand it during the tomorrow’s class. 

Everything is going well.

Macbeth Analysis

we finished Macbeth by reading the book online and the movie in the class. I think Macbeth is the most interesting character to me in the play, thus I want going to analyze Macbeth in this blog post.

A lot of people consider Macbeth is one of the most famous tragedies in Shakespeare’s work. However, I did not have a really sad feeling after I got the main idea of this play. At the beginning, Macbeth was a brave man, a hero fight for his king. But what factor leads to the death of Macbeth, what makes him keep doing the cruel things and could never come back?

In my view, first, it is because of his enormous ambition. It is absolutely right for a warrior to have ambition. It is definitely true that almost every great emperor in the history was ambitions. However, in this play Macbeth did not get what he wanted from his ambition. Why Macbeth has such a huge ambition? As we know, in the Act 1, Scene 1, Macbeth met the three witches on the way back to the country. The three witches predicted that Macbeth would be the Thane of Cawdor, and then the king of Scotland. Since the first prediction came true a little time after the three witches left, Macbeth paid attention to what they said and believed he would be the king later. The words witches told him became the catalyzer, activated the dark character deep in Macbeth’s heart, and made him get crazy to pursue the kingship. Therefore, he killed Duncan, although he knew Duncan was a good king.

Secondly, through the book, we can tell that Macbeth did not want to kill the king when his wife told him to do. Thus the instigation from his wife is also a main factor. I consider Macbeth had conscience when he and his wife started to plan to kill the king. As shown in the book, Macbeth was hesitated and scared. However, his wife said “To be the same in thine own act and valour, As thou art in desire? Wouldst thou have that Which thou esteem'st the ornament of life, And live a coward in thine own esteem, Letting 'I dare not' wait upon 'I would,' Like the poor cat i' the adage?”(Act 1, Scene5). I think these words that lady Macbeth said strongly influenced Macbeth behavior. It is a common sense that a man does not want to be looked down on by the other. Thus, lady Macbeth’s instigation increased Macbeth’s motivation of killing the king and get the kingship.

If we say Macbeth felt nervous or anxious of killing Duncan, his action of killing Banquo was cruel and without any guilty feeling. The reason why Macbeth killed Banquo was that he felt Bnaquo might be the future problem to him. He became so arrogant and ruthless after being the king. He trusted the witches too much, and that made a lot of nobles leave the country.

Although Macbeth is a tragedy, a lot of people think that the death of Macbeth is resulted by himself. This play not only presents the tragedy of Macbeth, but also the tragedy of that time.

That is my understand to Macbeth.

Project 1: The Reschedule For The Project

I got my schedule for project changed today. I was trying to work during the break, and finish the first two parts of the projects, which are finding the guiding questions and locating and evaluating the sources. However, the break seemed to be so attractive to me that I did not do the homework at all. My friends and I traveled around in South Carolina, went to the North Myrtle Beach, and shopped in several big malls. It was really a wonderful time.

Since I enjoyed such a nice break for about ten days, I have to reschedule everything for my project. I feel the time is really tight as I have to finish all the research parts in the half month. I am going to finish the first two parts in before Apr 18, start making the notes in the next week, and finish both outlines and draft in the next following week.

I think I can do the research part well. However, the first several days of May will be a difficult time for me. I have some AP tests and SAT 2 Tests at the beginning of May to parpare, and I need to finish the final paper at that time.

Thus, I am going to complete the research part as soon as I can, and start the writing part earlier to save the time for the tests.