Overview of The Turn of the Screw

The Turn of the Screw by Henry James takes place during a Christmas Eve gathering at a very old house.

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The guest listened to one another telling their stories. One of the guest, Douglas, tells a story about two kids. He starts off the story by reading a written record of the strange experience. He continues on reading how the governess was walking around the grounds and sees a guy in the tower. She then also see the same man looking in the dining room window. She is then frightened and thinks that the ghost will harm the kids. Every night she sees a ghost in her room. To find out what happens in the end, go ahead and check the book out from the library! It's a very good book if you like to read horror books.

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The characters include:

The governess: She is a 20 year old women who has put in charge to watch over Flora and Miles who are the kids of Bly. She feels like she has a lot of responsibility for watching over the kids since she has no help or supervision of watching them. The governess is very intelligent but is also sensitive about her feelings. I would say she is a protagonist.

Mrs. Grose: She is a servant who is also the governess's friend. She treats the governess with great respect. Mrs. Grose is very patient when it comes to listening and is very caring when it comes to Flora and Miles.

Miles: He is 10 years old. He is very charming and attractive for his young age. Miles is very behaved and never gets into fights with his sister and always seems to be pleasing the governess. He got expelled from school for a sinister reason. He seems to be good most of the time, but he like most boys, have their bad sad.

Flora: She is 8 years old. She is very beautiful and well mannered. Everyone says she is a pleasure to be around. The governess loves Flora since she always has a smile on her face.

The book was overall good! The thing that I thought was weird was that they told ghost stories on Christmas Eve. That seemed weird to me because usually people share memories of the good ol' days and old memories of Christmas, not ghost stories. Anyways, I thought this was a pretty good book. On a scale of 1-5, I would give it a 3.5 if you like ghost stories. Some parts were very creepy and gave me goosebumps! Here are some other reviews I found on this book:

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12948.The_Turn_of_the_Screw

http://www.litlovers.com/book-reviews/28-great-works/8368-turn-of-the-screw-review

Semester Reflection

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My favorite piece of literature we have read has got to the the Canterbury Tales. Some of the tales we read were pretty funny, especially the Woman of Bath. I liked the way Chaucer wrote about the characters. You could really tell if he liked them or not. He had a great imagination for making all of that stuff up!

The literature that I didn't really like was Oedipus the King. I was a good story but I got really bored during it. It was also a very weird story! Who would marry their mother and have kids with her? That's really weird and gross!

The things I enjoyed most in class was the RWLD's and reading the stories in class. I think reading it in class was better for me because then I understood the story better than reading it on my own. Blogging is also fun to do! We get to create our own blog and every Friday we had a blogging day!

Overall, I enjoyed this class! We got to read stories from different ages and from different parts of the world. I don't think I would change anything about this class! Mrs. Olson is a great teacher and taught us a lot about literature!

The Canterbury Tales

The Canterbury Tales prologue describes all of the characters. There are some characters Geoffrey Chaucer describes that you can tell he likes, and some he doesn't like. These tales gives us a good understanding about what it was like in the middle ages. Chaucer puts the characters in a pilgrimage, which is a religious journey made to a shrine or holy place. On the way to the shrine of Saint Thomas, each character tells two stories. Those stories make up the Canterbury Tales.

The Nun in the Canterbury Tales
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The character I had in the Canterbury Tales was the Nun. She was known as Madam Eglantyne. Chaucer describes her as a good singer, spoke french, and had great manners. The Nun was also friendly and kind hearted. Chaucer wrote "As for her sympathies and tender feelings, She was so charitably solicitous She used to weep if she saw but a mouse Caught in a trap, if it were dead or bleeding." In describing what she looks like, Chaucer wrote "Her veil was gathered in a seemly way, Her nose was elegant, her eyes glass-grey; Her mouth was very small, but soft and red, Her forehead, certainly was fair of spread, Almost a span (9inches) across the brows, I own; Her cloak I noticed, had had a graceful charm. She wore a coral trinket on her arm, A set of beads, the gaudies tricked in green, Whence hung a golden brooch of the brightest sheen On which there first was graven a crowned A, And lower, Amor vincit omnia (love conquers all)."

Chaucer seems to like this character by the way he described her. He said nothing bad at all about her. Everything was positive and he described her very well so we can have an understanding of what she looked like and we could picture her and what she would look like if she were really alive.

The Aeneid

In class, we have been reading the Aeneid. This past week, we read book IV about the queen. I really enjoyed that one. It was about the queen, Dido, who was contemplating on if she wanted to re-marry after her first husband. She thought bad about it since she thought she was breaking her vow about being faithful to him but then her sister told her to do whatever makes her happy. She marries a Trojan captain, Aeneas,  but he doesn't believe he's a good husband and he thinks he really isn't married to Dido. He sees her as just a "fling".  He then had to choose between Dido or his future country. What did he choose? His country!!! Dido was very mad and told him that she will haunt him. She becomes very depressed about everything and decides to kill herself with a sword.
One of our assignments this week was to do the RWLD. In that was two clips of the opera of  Dido and Aeneas. Both those clips seemed very powerful and you could feel the emotion in it. I enjoy doing the RWLD's. I learn a lot from them along from what's in the book!

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For my independent book, I have not found the time to read this week! I've been getting more hours at work  and adding clinicals on to that, I have no time to do anything! Senior year is kicking my butt! Hopefully I find time this week to finish reading my first short story and start on the other one that's in the book! I have three days off next week so I should have plenty of time to finish the book! I'm crossing my fingers!

The Turn of the Screw

My independent reading book that I am reading is The Turn of the Screw by Henry James. This book has two short stories in it from Henry James and the other story that I will be reading is Daisy Miller. Since I had a four hour drive to Minnesota and back, I had the chance to read to page 106 where chapter 21 starts in The Turn of the Screw. I really enjoy reading this book. It is very intense and kind of creepy! I have about 20 more pages to go to finish this short story and to go onto the next one! My next blog I will tell you guys more about the first short story and what's it all about!

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In class, we have been reading the Iliad. We read about 3 different sections from it. I enjoyed reading it too but I think i would have rather watched the movie Troy to fully understand it. From the clips we watched from Troy, it seemed like I understood it better along with reading it. In the stories, I like how they used similes to compare Hektor as a weak and peaceful person like a dove and Achilles and a strong and powerful like a hawk.

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Oedipus the King

In class, we have been reading Oedipus the King together as a class. For me, I thought it was a very odd and messed up story. Oedipus is married to his mother, of which he doesn't know is his mother, and has two daughters. That kind of grossed me out! We also watched the movie too. I think I understood that better than actually reading the story. But, the movie they seemed over dramatic but I guess that's how they were while doing tragedies.

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For my independent reading book, I have not had the time to read any of it :( I hate being busy busy busy! I should get to have time this weekend to read it since I will be going to Minnesota and will have a long car ride!

Review for The Stranger

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Major Characters:
Meursault- He is away from the world around him. Nothing really matters to him like it would to other people. Meursault is not really a sensitive guy. He seems not to care about his mother's death or that Marie is falling in love with him. He really doesn't know what's good and what's bad.

Raymond- Raymond is not a nice guy. He is a catalyst in this book. He beats up his mistress and get's Meursault to kill his mistress' brother who is an Arab since Raymond came into conflict with him and made Meursault come into conflict with him.

Marie- She is Meursault's former co-worker and becomes his girlfriend. Marie loves to be around Meursault even though he could care less. She is a sweet women and is very passionate. She gets very disappointed when Meursault expresses his feelings about love and marriage.

Minor Characters:
The Director- He is the manager of the nursing home where Meursault's mom spent the last 3 years in. He helps Meursault get through his mom's death before the funeral even though he's not very sad as he thinks Meursault is.

The Arab- The brother of Raymond's mistress. He is killed by Meursault even though he did nothing wrong at all. He is very mysterious in the book which makes the crime Meursault committed very strange and difficult to understand.

Plot:
At the beginning of the book, Meursault receives a telegram saying that his mother had died. He then goes to the nursing home where his mother was staying the past 3 years and attends the funeral with a man who his mom had grown very close to while at the nursing home. While staying in the town his mom was in, he meets Marie who is his former co-worker. They go on a date and she spends the night. When Meursault wakes up, Marie is gone. Then that day,  Meursault goes back home and meets up with Raymond who tells Meursault about him assulting his mistress and him getting in a fight with her brother. Raymond wants to torment his mistress even more by writing her a letter so Meursault agrees to do it for him. The next weekend gets a little crazy. Marie goes to Meursaults apartment and all of a sudden they hear a commotion coming from the hallway. Raymond gets summoned for beating up his mistress and Meursault agrees to testify on his behalf. A few days later Marie and Meursault get engaged after a very long conversation about both of their views on marriage. Marie, Meursault, and Raymond go to a beach. While Marie is away in the room, Meursault and Raymond run into the Arabs which one of them is Raymond's mistress' brother. Raymond wants to shoot him but Meursault takes away the gun. Later on that night, Meursault shoots Raymond's mistress' brother. Meursault gets thrown in jail.....If you want to know what happens to Meursault, please go check The Stranger by Albert Camus out! :)

Rating:
I would give this book a 3 out of 5. At the beginning it was hard to get into the book but as I read I got more and more into it. I think more towards the end was my favorite part. I really don't want to ruin the ending for anyone so lets just say the ending gets very suspenseful. Meursault character also confused me. He just seems like a very creepy guy. He doesn't care about anyone or anything. He is very careless. I feel bad for Marie and her having to deal with hi. Otherwise I would recommend this book to anyone who likes very characters in a book and who likes suspenseful books.

Other reviews
http://teenink.com/reviews/book_reviews/article/101121/The-Stranger-by-Albert-Camus/

http://www.ratracerefuge.com/bookreviews/camus-the-stranger.html