Part I:
"She craved to achieve this higher being, if not in herself, then in her children." This woman, from Lawrence's The Rainbow, is in a state of questioning, questioning why the men of her family are not willing to branch outwards into a greater scope of freedom. In The Rainbow, D. H. Lawrence employs a mix of imagery and parallelism to convey the woman's longing to escape the struggles in the stagnation of her society which then shifts to a desperate wondering of the contrast between the vicar and common man through rhetorical questions.
To characterize the woman's struggle, Lawrence incorporates a heavy use of parallelism. The woman of this passage was not satisfied with her current position, "It was enough for the men... it was enough that they..." While the men were content to continue laboring on the farmland, the woman, in contrast, is hopeless in wanting more. She continues, "their senses full fed, their faces always turned..." to further display the men's toiling through the old, outdated concept of farming. In a stark compare/contrast of her disposition, "She stood to see the far-off world... She faced outwards to where men moved dominant." From this quote, the woman can see the potential of the outside world; she grasps the understanding that the "world of cities and government" is where greater freedom and opportunity is to be found. But then she also turns back to acknowledge the lack of pursuit of this "magic land" from the men in her society and reinforces the hopelessness that her place and role in the family and society ultimately entails. Through a repeated use of parallelism, Lawrence portrays the woman in a longing but hopeless state.
To characterize the woman's discovery into the deeper, more satisfying meaning of life, D. H. Lawrence uses personification and imagery to convey the world outside of creation availble to her. In addition to the "warmth and generating and pain and death," there faces were always exposed to "the heat of the blood, staring into the sun." This example of imagery and personification reveal the negative feelings that the woman views on the men in her farmland. She searched for a deeper meaning to life past "blood-intimacy," as "her house faced out from the farm-buildings and fields, looked out to the road and the village with church and Hall and the world beyond." The woman of this passage has not experienced what lies beyond her homeland, but she knows that this greater plan will bring her into a better state of life. Contrasting the "far-off world of cities and governments," the woman uses imagery and personification to describe what she already knows: "the pulsing heat of creation... the teeming life of creation, which paired unresolved into their veins." While the woman longs to enter into the heavenly world outside of her farm, she contrasts what she already knows about her house through personification and imagery with the longings and hopes that a change in labor and culture could bring, which is ultimately a deeper meaning in life.
In the final paragraph, the woman shifts her thoughts fro ma sheer longing to an admiration of the vicar and questioning of her own men. In admiration she observes the vicar, noting that he "spoke the other, magic language, and had the other, finer bearing, both of which she could perceive." Although this nature was "beyond her knowledge, she questioned why the other men in her society could not emulate the vicar's model. "Did she not know her own menfolk... What was it in the vicar, that raised him above the common man as men is raised above the beast?" These rhetorical questions demonstrate confusion of how there could be such a large difference between a vicar and men. She continues, " That which makes a man strong even if he be little and frail in body... why was it?" The vicar is a mystery to her, a person of admiration, a person different from the stagnant men of her society. The vicar was better than all the men around her; why? "She decided it was a question of knowledge."
Part II:
1. My initial score was a six, given to me by Nick Martin. He was convinced that I gave a "reasonable analysis" of Lawrence's literary devices but did not offer enough to make my essay "persuasive," a requirement for a score of 8-9. In such a surprising situation and time crunch, my ability to employ a "consistent command of the elements of effective composition" was reduced severely. Nick also highlighted how I was able to demonstrate a "sustained, competent reading of the passage" and how I often referred "to the text for support." After reading over my essay a couple more times and norming the essays in class, I now disagree with the score Nick assigned me. I think I should have received a 5, as I found that much of my passage contained areas of "summary or paraphrase." While I used multiple examples of literary devices as well, I felt that my details in analysis tended "to be superficial or thin in their discussion" due to a great deal of rambling and repetition of the same point. Also my thesis was quite wordy and awkward, failing to address the complexity of the work as a whole. In the future, I must improve.
2. In order to improve my essay, I need to spend more time pre-writing and planning my essay. While I saw the "blood" motif and references to "knowledge" in my initial readings, I neglected to make a specific point about their importance in the piece as a whole. While I highlighted the importance of rhetorical questions, parallelism, and imagery, I was unable to clearly articulate that while the woman wants knowledge, she cannot attain it. The tension created by the metaphors and specific images could have been weaved into my essay if I had more carefully considered the complexities in my thesis. In order to better identify these deeper meanings of the passage, I need to be able to view the writing through different perspectives. From "5 steps to a 5", I could have incorporated both a sexual level of interpretation as well as a social level of interpretation. Also, while I hurried through my body paragraphs, the "5 Steps to a 5" workbook instructed me to avoid a summarizing ending, freeing me from the extra time I always dedicated to craft a nifty rewording of the thesis. In the future, I will definitely think twice before writing a final conclusion paragraph, asking myself whether I really have some more important to contribute in my body paragraphs. If the AP readers will not learn anything new from my final paragraph, then sometimes - when time is limited - it is not worth writing.
The contrast between men and women were necessary to craft a good essay, as the woman in Lawrence's passage is continuously questions the men in her society and how they are perfectly content with staying stagnant. She, as a woman in her time, has almost no right to question them into moving out of the working class. In a novel that was banned for obscenity because of its references to sexual desires, the juxtaposition between men and women, farmland and industry, create the complexity of the piece. Also, I could have compared how the woman looked outward into the industrial society while the men looked inward towards their land and sun as the source of generation. The irony in the sun, as discussed in class, lies in the fact that while the sun is scene as a source of life and generation, it is preventing the men from moving out of their social class and into a potentially more rewarding industrial business. Any of these complexities would have been a solid addition to my dry, repetitive essay. Once again, a better planned outlined would have prevented my lack of a deep analysis into the literary devices.
After norming the essays, I have found the higher scoring essays are always the longer ones, as they demonstrate a better control of language in addition to an obviously well-planned pre-write. If I know what I want to say, then saying it would be easier. It is as simple as that. One of the topics I addressed, but not to a full extent, was the comparing and contrasting between complacency and desire. The more the woman rambles about the complacency of the men in her life, the stronger the desire for her to escape. She eventually moves on to address the vicar, a decision that begins her search of knowledge. She rhetorically questions how the vicar was different from the common man, struggling to see how the owner of the Tom Brangwen's farmland could pass beyond her own knowledge. Again, comparing my essay to this in-depth analysis, I am almost there. I identified change in style into the use of rhetorical questions but could not quite convincingly convey how this related to the repeating motif of knowledge. Overall, my largest problem lies in connecting the final dots. I can handily locate the devices and the main themes of the passage, but connecting the two is where the most improvement must be aimed toward.
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