Eng. 11 - April 28 - Studying for Test

The best way to study for this test is to go over your notes - very helpful if you kept good notes during our class discussions.

Think about character growth and symbolism and how they tie in with themes.  Can you talk about each character and each symbol? Think about the most important quotes in this novel.

Try to brainstorm your own questions.  Remember there are 8 questions and 2 quotes to analyze (10 paragraphs).

The absolutely best thing to do is to study by yourself, then ask your friend your brainstormed questions and come up with 5 point answers.

Your paragraphs need to have 5 main points with good examples from the novel.

Make sure you keep the movie and novel separate in your head.  There is a question on the movie.


ULTIMATE PLAYERS: Your re-writing time is Tuesday, May 3rd after school!!!

Lit 12 - April 26,27

Have 2 x QQ for Pepys (personal and political) + text for Wed.

Have QQ for "To the Ladies" for Wed.

Control/Power, Hope, Society - block 1

 

Goal: to show what this novel says about human nature and fear, or society, or power

 

Ideas - find quotes - and credit the source - as a way of synthesizing or jump starting your essay

 

• When constructing your quote sheet, make sure you record the page numbers!

 

People who have control: Nurse, McMurphy

Society

-charisma gives Mack power

-what types of power

-"it's society that decides who's sane and who isn't" - said by Chief

-Chief has a lot of power - since he pretends to be deaf and dumb and finds out people's secrets

-manipulates other people

-Big Nurse has a subtle form of control

-Mack has a more likeable form of control (government vs. revolutionaries)

-"now who will start… eyes like a turning beacon" - Nurse manipulates the men - turns the men against each other with log book

• Symbols which represent power and control?
• If we reduce the novel into a power struggle between the nurse and McMurphy, we diminish the scope of the novel - how does what the novel show us about power and control apply to our lives?
• Control panel:  "At least I tried" - no one else is trying to overthrow the Nurse [also, he's trying to take control for himself VOLITION]

• When the patients take control over themselves, Nurse loses power

• Wolf and rabbit [are the patients fearful of the Nurse or themselves?]
• Group therapy sessions - Nurse's form of control
• Mack knows he can't lift the control panel by himself
• We (audience) enjoy the underdog - rather than those in power - rise up (we are actually the rabble)

• Chief: "they don't bother not talking about their secrets"

• What is the nature of power?  How do the patients lose and gain power?  Do we want to focus on the Nurse?  What about Cheswick, Chief, Billy Bibbit and Harding?

• What does Harding tell us at the end about society and shame?

• Nurse says it's "my ward" but then corrects herself and says "our ward"
• Why does Nurse want control?   Just to make her life better?
• Why does Mack fight for the patients? [justice; he thinks the vulnerable are being manipulated]
• How does Chief get better - he becomes big again.  How?  Control panel shows his control over himself
• Mack has a hatred for authority - part of his character -
• Control panel, pillow (Chief has power), EST (Nurse could threaten) Nurse's new uniform (in the end she just gets a new uniform, whereas Mack is dead), fog, world series/TV, window, combine

 

 

• Hope -

• Hope that patients will get better [does the Nurse make them lose hope?]

• Mack set off a switch which lead the patients to try - give hope
• Mack tries to lift the control panel - gives patients hope

• In the pool Mack finds out he's committed - he decides not to help - then Cheswick commits society

• [it's not about the Nurse - she didn't put the patients in the hospital!]
• What does Mack do to give the patients hope?
• When Mack gets EST and comes back - sees it doesn't break them

• TV - represents hope - they watch the blank screens [like a sit in - mass peaceful protest - rise up against the power structure]

• The nurse represents the power structure (government, or in our times big corporations)
• Who is controlling us now?
• Nurse is flustered - McMurphy shows this
• Mack gets hope - when Chief talks to him for the first time - he realizes he's getting through to the patients
• Control panel - Chief gains control of himself
• How does the Nurse crush the patients' hope?  When Mack gets a lobotomy

• Not letting them watch the World Series, keeping cigarettes

• Patients don't believe that Mack has become a vegetable (loss of hope)
• Loss of hope when it comes to Nurse's new uniform (like a new regime of power)
• How does hope work in our world
• When Mack comes the patients realize they can be united (isn't this true of all rebellions - the masses can get together and overcome a tyrant)
• Billy Bibbit was slowly gaining control - gained so much from "date" - also learning to dance, stopped burning himself with cigarettes
• Cheswick - big symbol for hope - loses hope when it seems that Mack has given up his fight
• "you guys are no crazier than the average a'hole on the street" - what is it Mack does to
• Nurse hopes the patients get better - she doesn't have the knowledge - society she creates is toxic
• Lobotomy is not supposed to be a punishment - research showed at that time that lobotomy was helpful

 

Society

 

• How does Kesey present society? As a machine combine

• Anyone who doesn't fit in goes to the institution to be "fixed"

• Society = unnatural - patients are different - individuals - society oppresses him (think of Harding)

• What is normal?

• Combine = society in general
• People who don't fit into the mechanism - have to be changed

• Billy Bibbit's first attempt on his own life - he stutters and people judge him for it

• "society is what decides who's sane and who isn't"
• "the deadly pointing finger of society pointing at them" - Harding feels insane because people judge him for being gay
• Society is still similar - think of the rest of the world - has society really changed that much?
• Are institutions there to cure people?
• Not everyone is "fixable" - some people cannot ever go off medicine

• If the patients can't change - they stay there

• Society doesn't want hard, complicated solutions - they want easy ones - in the institution people don't need to look at them

• What is society?
• Implied majority

• What is our society?  What are our values?

• Nurse is just a fraction of the power of society - society is manipulative and has power
• Some of the patients are on the side of Nurse
• Nurse is a representation of what society can do
• There's always something bigger driving people
• Lobotomy and EST shows what society thinks of these patients.
• People don't "get better" when they are lobotomized
• Is society ignorant?
• Some of the patients are there because society misunderstands them?  Look at Billy Bibbit
• "The ward is a factory for the combine…" (beginning of Part One)
• "we need a good strong wolf like the Nurse to teach us our place" Harding
• What about the fact that most of the patients are there voluntarily?
• Combine, machinery, structure of the asylum,
• Is it possible to cure people of mental illness?  How do we integrate them back into society?

 

 

 

 

 

Eng. 11 - block 3 notes on power, realty vs. illusion, conformity

Goal: to show what this novel says about human nature and control/power, reality vs. illusion, conformity

 

Ideas - find quotes - and credit the source - as a way of synthesizing or jump starting your essay

 

• When constructing your quote sheet, make sure you record the page numbers!

 

Controlling ideas

 

 

Power and Control

 

-"the nurse riding you like this…" Chief says this - Big Nurse seems to have control, but Mack says it's something more

[blaming the Big Nurse excuses people and society from responsibility]

• Cheswick - lobotomy - discussion with Harding, Mack realizes that Big Nurse actually controls the hospital - Mack doesn't realize this ["you'll end up over on that side"]

• Chief thinks Nurse controls the clock/time

• Symbols - clock, control panel, combine (conformity, control, power)
• "you don't have to apologize for my inadequacies" (Harding to Mack) - pillow - taking away power from Mack, but Chief has his power
• Nurse has power, but also loses her power
• "you know how society persecutes…" - the combine is a symbolic word - machine that causes conformity (cookie cutter/ hay bale)
• "what worries me, Billy is how your mother is going to take it" (Nurse to Billy)
• Monopoly game - together
• "if she can't cut below the belt, she'll cut above the eyes" - Nurse's power
• Mack rips off her shirt and strangles him and Nurse takes away his life
• Power and control and patients - insanity/sanity
• Is power bad?  Is there a way it's good?  VOLITION
• Does Nurse actually choose her staff the way Chief reports, or is this Chief's delusion - doesn't the Nurse have less power as Chief gains more control over himself?
• First Nations people
• Patients are voluntary - what does this say
• Society shapes people (perfect image)

• Window - restrictions in the ward - keeping Chief in the ward - Chief breaks it showing his progress - [also the he finally gets out of his own head when the ringing in his head stops, he hears the dog, and feels the linoleum under his feet]

• The Nurse SYMBOLIZES the power structure -making it about the Nurse minimizes the universality of the novel as well as limits personal responsibility - when the patients accept personal responsibility they become healthier

• Chapter 22 - (165 - old book) - "something bigger [is] making all this mess."

• Mack treating people like individuals help make them healthier

 

Reality vs. Illusion

 

• Nurse thinks she's helping everyone, but she's not (see Billy Bibbit and Cheswick)
• She thinks she's sane, but maybe she isn't
• Hospitals are where people get well -
• Mack's illusions - afraid when he realizes he's committed
• What about Mack's gambling?  Does he take advantage of the patients

• "only then did he consider that he was anything but sane" - Mack near the end

• At the very start we see Chief's delusions/hallucinations "black boys cleaning up sex acts" [Chief doesn't like anyone who might have power over him - Nurse, black attendants, time…

• Fog, time - these symbolize Chief's delusions - indicate his mental illness - he thinks these are "done" to him

• Wolves and rabbits

• Medicine - symbol - eg. Dilantin - not necessarily making them better (1950's psych drugs were not precise]

• Shock treatments - not very exact (actually destroyed people's brains back then)
• Shaver, combine - everyone's life is his/her own illusion
• Irony - Nurse's reality - her illusion is that she's helping people
• Dramatic irony - almost everything Chief sees - eg. Sexually abusing patients at night, machinery
• What if we viewed the whole novel from a First Nations viewpoint - machinery, sexual abuse, white power structure
• Chief feels small when he's the largest patient (irony)

• Patients give the hospital the power and responsibility = their illusion

• Kesey: society's illusions (what is he showing us about illusions vs. reality): for a female to have any strength, she needs to be more like a man
• Acting the way that you look ("McMurphy didn't let what he looked like shape him")

 

Conformity

 

• Ward can be seen as a microcosm of society
• Hay bales/combine - society wants people to conform to narrow rules
• Nurse represents society - her job is to "fix" those who don't fit in [can we relate this to our society?]
• Ward is for people to be fixed they are "mistakes of society"
• "McMurphy hasn't let...combine mill him" - though he looks rough he paints

• Nurse has the idea that patients are crazy

• Mack treats patients as individuals and they get healthier

• Nurse: "a good many of you are here because you don't conform to society…" - think about Harding - we now have legalized gay marriage, but at this time the judgment of society was too much for gay people"

• "a guy needs to conform…" "you gotta measure up" - the "therapeutic meetings along with the log book symbolize conformity
• Mack: "you're no crazier than the average 'a-hole'"
• Mack ridicules the idea of normalcy (owns it by calling everyone lunatics)
• "they worked on him" - Chief's view of how his father fared - also blames his mother (who is white = society = power structure) - people belittle father (sense of being First Nations/ culture / traditions)

• Self medication - Chief's father uses alcohol to escape society, Chief has his fog

• Wolves/rabbits - rabbits have less power, have trouble combining
• Individuality vs. society -

 

 

 

 

Eng. 11 - April 21

Make sure ALL of your questions are finished for Fri. April 22

Lit - Renaissance Test - April 21

Everything from "Whoso List to Hunt" to "On His Blindness"

6 marks - vocab
24 marks - sight reading poem
30 marks -  six 5 mark paragraph questions on individual poems - style, theme and form


The following people need to bring $21.00 for Bard: Anna, Nicole, Katie, Sara, Evan, Molly and can all of you nag Daniel Sad?

I have one more ticket: first one who pays me can come!

For Tuesday: RESTORATION NOTES

Eng. 11 - April 21 - Fishbowl Duties

For the fishbowl:

Everyone brings question, notes, thesis ideas and quotes as if you were going to write your essay.  The captain's job is to make sure the discussion keeps moving and to make sure each person in the group has a chance to speak.  Every person must discuss.

Eng. 11 - April 18

Ch. 21-23 questions for Tues. 19
Presentations: Wed. 20
The rest of the novel for Thurs. 21

Fishbowl: Wed. April 27
In-Class Essay: Thurs. 28
OFOCN Test: Fri. 29

Lit - April 18

Paradise Lost - debate: Tues. April 19
In-Class Essay: Wed. April 20

RENAISSANCE TEST: Mon. 25

Lit 12 - April 15

Bring your money for BARD!

Also, RENAISSANCE TEST: Mon. April 25

Lit. 12 - April 14

3 x QQ, text questions Paradise Lost

Debate: Tues. 19
In-Class Essay: Wed. 20

Eng. 11 - April 13

Group Day: Thurs. April 14
Have Ch. 15-17 for Thurs. 14

Library Day: Mon. April 18
Presentation Day: Wed. April 20

Fishbowl: Wed. April 27
In-Class Essay: Thurs. 28
OFOCN Test: Fri. 29

Eng. 11 - April 12

Read and complete questions for Ch. 11-14 for Wed. April 12

Vocab: 50 for block 3, 40 for block 1

Lit 12 - April 11

Complete "To the Virgins" and "On His Blindness"

Eng. 11 - April 6

block 3 - complete chapt. 4-6 for Fri, chapt (also 40 vocab). 7-10 for Mon.

block 1 - Complete chapt. 4-6 for Thurs. 7, chapt. 7-10 for Fri.  (also 30 vocab)

Lit 12 - April 5

Prepare "Valediction"/"Death" (Holy Sonnet 6)

Eng.11 - April 5

Anyone who missed the CONTENT test - there will be a make-up test after school Wednesday, April 6.

Read, answer questions and analyze the quotes for Ch. 1 - 3.

Have up to and including Ch. 10 read for Friday.

Friday - block 3 = 40 vocab words,             block 1 = 30 vocab words.

Lit 12 - April 4

Prepare Q and Q for sonnets 29, 116, 130