Harry potter web quest

1)      Feminist reading of Harmione’s character in Harry Potter:

  Researcher Michele Fry states that “readers can see Hermione not only as a strong female character, an essential part of Harry's life, but also as a feminist protagonist in her own right” (165). Fry argues that Hermione can be seen as another main character in the series, and this is an interesting point that she brings up. Many strong female characters appear throughout the series, and they play many differing parts, including a friend, mother, sister, student, etc. Hermione Granger is a good example of the many parts a character might represent because she is a friend and a student, and she is portrayed in many different lights throughout the novels. As author Meredith Cherland points out, throughout Harry Potter “we see Hermione the giggler, Hermione the helpful and capable, Hermione the emotionally expressive, and Hermione the clever” (278).  She states that Hermione is depicted in many different ways, and this shows that all of these distinctive attributes put together make her a strong female, because she can be all of these things without losing herself. In some pieces of pop culture, males are represented as braver, wiser and more powerful than the women. Among many movies and books, this can primarily be seen in the Spiderman trilogy, where Spiderman’s enemies capture his girlfriends to force Spiderman to fight, and in every movie the male is always the one who has to defeat evil to save the female. However, Harry Potter is different in the sense that you can find a ton of important women in the series, as well as men, and there is no difference in the genders. The women often have to fight their own battles with evil in order to overcome things, and they don’t rely on the male characters to save them. Hermione fights battles differently than do the boys in the novels, she uses her reason and logic in order to solve problems and mysteries, and her strength can be seen from this. Cherland would agree with Fry that the female characters have crucial, non-stereotypical roles within Harry Potter, and we can see this clearly by examining the character of Hermione Granger. 

Discourse on the purity of Blood and Harry Potter:

~ PURE BLOOD

HALF BLOOD

MUD BLOOD

This discourse comes time n again in Harry Potter. i think that it is not limited to that only. deep inside, it represents RACISM within. 

-WHITE

MULATTO

BLACK.

As we know that white is always been privileged over black community. 

Children’s Literature and Harry Potter

Charges against the Harry Potter Series The Harry Potter series has been condemned, banned, and withdrawn in several schools (e.g. in the U.S.A. where freedom of speech is guaranteed) based on the allegations from parents who fear that the Harry Potter series does profess views that would contaminate the minds of children.1 Rowling has faced criticism from some quarters on grounds of packaging and promoting racism, subversion, homosexuality, black magic, and anti-government, anti-globalist, anti-capitalist, pro-Third World sentiments in the Harry Potter novels. The Objective of this Paper This paper intends to examine the issue of politics in the context of recent controversies surrounding the Harry Potter novels. It claims that reading the Harry Potter novels as a political discourse would tantamount to misreading the novels and their literary merits. This paper further aims to establish Harry Potter as a child hero, and therefore as an ideal role model for children. In doing so, this paper conducts an alchemical reading of the text. 

online discussions

here I am sharing some of the samples of online discussion.


[eng_dept_bu} OD1: Atheism and Morality

my response.

We can devide this into parts. Two things are there.

1) who believes in the things which is BEYOND six senses.
2) believers of the reality which comes through our real senses.

It simply means that those who do not believe in supernaturals, certainly they believe in something, which is more real, more rational.

Franz Fanon, in one of his non-fiction "Black Skin, White Masks" says that

"NOT ALL MAN CAN BE COLONIZED, ONLY THOSE WHO EXPERIENCE NEED"

Likewise, I would like to say,

"NOT ALL MAN CAN BE RELIGIONISED, ONLY THOSE WHO EXPERIENCE THE FEAR"

They are doing good, because they fear something which is unearthly, which is above their senses. If there is no any reward, perhaps their morality would get changed.

But in case of those who do not believe in supernaturals, they do the things for sake of doing it. So any good or evil rewards does not affect their doings or moralities.

[eng_dept_bu} OD5: Psychological Advantages of Literature

With which of the following FOUR advantages of reading literature you agree?

Can you add one or two more advantage/s of reading literature from your experience of studying literature for last 4/5 years.

Reply your response without changing the subject line of this email.

Happy reading!

What Books Do for the Human Soul: The Four Psychological Functions of Great Literature

by Maria Popova

“Writers open our hearts and minds, and give us maps to our own selves.”

The question of what reading does for the human soul is an eternal one and its answer largely ineffable, but this hasn’t stopped minds big and small from tussling with it — we have Kafka’s exquisite letter to his childhood friend, Maurice Sendak’s visual manifestos for the joy of reading, and even my own answer to a nine-year-old girl’s question about why we have books today.

Now comes a four-point perspective on the rewards of reading by writer and philosopher Alain de Botton and his team at The School of Life — creators of those intelligent how-to guides to modern living, spanning everything from the art of being alone to the psychology of staying sane to cultivating a healthier relationship with sex to finding fulfilling work. In this wonderful animated essay, they extol the value of books in expanding our circle of empathy, validating and ennobling our inner life, and fortifying us against the paralyzing fear of failure.

IT SAVES YOU TIME

It looks like it’s wasting time, but literature is actually the ultimate time-saver — because it gives us access to a range of emotions and events that it would take you years, decades, millennia to try to experience directly. Literature is the greatest reality simulator — a machine that puts you through infinitely more situations than you can ever directly witness.

IT MAKES YOU NICER

Literature performs the basic magic of what things look like though someone else’s point of view; it allows us to consider the consequences of our actions on others in a way we otherwise wouldn’t; and it shows us examples of kindly, generous, sympathetic people.

Literature deeply stands opposed to the dominant value system — the one that rewards money and power. Writers are on the other side — they make us sympathetic to ideas and feelings that are of deep importance but can’t afford airtime in a commercialized, status-conscious, and cynical world.

IT’S A CURE FOR LONELINESS

We’re weirder than we like to admit. We often can’t say what’s really on our minds. But in books we find descriptions of who we genuinely are and what events, described with an honesty quite different from what ordinary conversation allows for. In the best books, it’s as if the writer knows us better than we know ourselves — they find the words to describe the fragile, weird, special experiences of our inner lives… Writers open our hearts and minds, and give us maps to our own selves, so that we can travel in them more reliably and with less of a feeling of paranoia or persecution…

IT PREPARES YOU FOR FAILURE

All of our lives, one of our greatest fears is of failure, of messing up, of becoming, as the tabloids put it, “a loser.” Every day, the media takes us into stories of failure. Interestingly, a lot of literature is also about failure — in one way or another, a great many novels, plays, poems are about people who messed up… Great books don’t judge as harshly or as one-dimensionally as the media…

Literature deserves its prestige for one reason above all others — because it’s a tool to help us live and die with a little bit more wisdom, goodness, and sanity.

Complement with the greatest books of all time, according to 125 celebrated contemporary authors, then revisit The School of Life’s imaginative exploration of Heidegger’s philosophy via a shrimp and Alain de Botton on how art can save your soul.

my response - 

Almost all the things said about reading literature, it becomes important to study. And most of the time, I have agreed the points except those given by Plato .

Here also all four points are really very interesting to observe that it becomes harder to choose one or two. As they are true in its own sense. But still ..

The thing I agree the most is,

Quote

*IT SAVES YOU TIME*

It looks like it’s wasting time, but literature is actually the ultimate time-saver — because it gives us access to a range of emotions and events that it would take you years, decades, millennia to try to experience directly. 

Unquote.

This gives us a range of maturity that we can feel the maturity of 60 years old person and 6 years old child. We don't have to grow up physically to understand things in better way.

Another point I would add here is =

*IT EXPANDS OUR HORIZON*

it is literature which makes us free and helps us climb the cliff higher. It is as vast and giant as life itself. We can settle down with two of the contradictions without giving a weight to single one. We can settle with two opposition without believing in single one.

[eng_dept_bu} Online Discussion 2: Post-truth: Word of the year 2016

After reading attached files and videos, the sense of reading post-truth seems developed.

To describe this, again I would like to quote an image as an example of post truth.

In this image we can see the sides of truth and something like ultimate truth. Now, in postmodernism, everybody is aware of truth and the conception of truth is not at the center, but how TRUTH have emerged as TRUTH that becomes interesting to study.

So, why the light have put in certain direction that goes with post truth kind of thing. The focus of lighting is at fault that truth have to emerge in different pattern. That is the concern.

[eng_dept_bu} Online Discussion 4 (OD4_16-17): Literature and Politics: Dystopic Novels: BNW and 1984

my response -

Probable reasons for the rise of the selling of the books.

1. Applicability.

We have several series of events which goes back and finds its' dots or connection with these kind of books. For example, Brexit ; trumponomics etc.

Where trump is perfectly suitable for one of the characters in these novels "big brother".
And whatever we produce as a form of post is smartly controlled by state apparatus. And with passing of span of time, our thoughts become a crime and it is handled by a police metaphorically.

2. Universality.

The text have to pass the test of time & place. After the text is written, is it appropriate to other place other time or not. So, texts like brave new world, nineteen eighteen four, passes that test.

3. Vision.

If the writer is able to see the past and how well can he connect the dots with future. And we see with passing of time that his metaphor still works or not. The historicity of history he have to keep in mind in order to observe what is going on in present and how well he can see the future.

4. Perhaps, to find a way out.

Why people go on revisiting book than reason might be this also.

Attachments area

How study Literature

   How to study Literature

I have been dealing with Literature as a subject for my academics since last five years. I have seen people underestimating literature as a subject, or by n large it is the problem with almost all the arts’ faculties. It is seen as derogatory in comparison with technical subjects such as science.

It is not their fault. Because we take it so lightly as a subject. Sincerity is what lacks.

·    It is not so...

Studying literature is not that easy. A text contains much more than we just imagine. That is why, throughout our programe, were told to read ORIGINAL TEXTS on our own. It remains bulky sometimes, thus not possible to read it thoroughly in the classroom. Well earlier also I used to read text. But after the discussion is over in class.

·     Even that is not enough.

Real Charm of studying literature lies somewhere else, what we are supposed to do is to read the text BEFORE its discussion starts in the classroom.

Why?

Because what we have to observe is NOT just the summary, but much more than that. A teacher cannot teach it thoroughly.

For example, watching a film

If we have seen the film earlier, than we can discuss the other components of the films such as “direction of the film”, “cinematography of the film”, “Acting of the actor”, “role of so and so characters” etc. And all will get agree with fact that no summary can take the experience of watching film by our own. It pops up our imagination.

Just like that, if we have read the text earlier, than teacher and student both have to focus on other components of text such as “CRITICISM”. Or else the classroom show will just have to deal with summary portion.

It is to see what we have missed out.

What really we need to observe is that what we have missed out. I would like to share my personal experience of reading a text like this method.

·     “WHITE TIGER” by Arvind Adiga

I just read the book without any external reference, introduction regarding the book. I took some notes and kept it in my mind. What I’ve seen in classroom was totally a different picture. I read the episode of lizard crushed out by the teacher of class. It was just besides the painting of Buddha. So, I was not able to grasp at the time that okay, what Adiga is doing is putting a contrast out of it.

And then, it was even more beautiful to observe that how my teacher, Dr. Dilip Barad sir connected it with contemporary situation. He connected the book with current political, economic condition of India.

That is how it becomes important. This was at the 10^th semester of my academic journey. But I would strongly recommend this to try out. I really want to pass a message to all those who is about to start their career. This will surely heighten the experience of studying literature. 

How literature shaped my life

MAKES ME STRONGER

I can clearly see the difference how I was dealing my problems then and now. There is clear cut demarcation that it used to happen. Now I can deal with it more smoothly than earlier.

EXPANDS MY HORIZON

Things, situation, people, circumstances will be the same. Not much difference will be there. But what matters is how we look towards it and from where we see those things.

The higher we climb towards cliff, smaller will appear those things which lay beneath. Roads, people, houses, buildings, vehicles will get smaller n smaller as high you go.

Deeper we go inside the well; stars will start appearing even at the day-time.

What literature looks like is a spiral wire. It will help move you very swiftly from lower to higher. It helps to see the things with dimensions. Much deeper understanding will get developed.

HELPS ME UNDERSTAND WHAT IS GOING IN MY LIFE

What do we have?

Bunch of personalities and their lives

We see that how it all went. In a way we have several lives examined by us. So it helps to see what happens with us.

 

To The Lighthouse

Author: Virginia Woolf

Genre: Kunstalroman novel, Stream of Consciousness.

Date of publication: 1927

Plot: Part I: The Window

The novel is set in the Ramsays' summer home in the Hebrides, on the Isle of Skye. The section begins with Mrs Ramsay assuring her son James that they should be able to visit the lighthouse on the next day. This prediction is denied by Mr Ramsay, who voices his certainty that the weather will not be clear, an opinion that forces a certain tension between Mr and Mrs Ramsay, and also between Mr Ramsay and James. This particular incident is referred to on various occasions throughout the section, especially in the context of Mr and Mrs Ramsay's relationship.

The Ramsays and their eight children have been joined at the house by a number of friends and colleagues. One of them, Lily Briscoe, begins the novel as a young, uncertain painter attempting a portrait of Mrs. Ramsay and James. Briscoe finds herself plagued by doubts throughout the novel, doubts largely fed by the claims of Charles Tansley, another guest, who asserts that women can neither paint nor write. Tansley himself is an admirer of Mr Ramsay, a philosophy professor, and his academic treatises.

The section closes with a large dinner party. When Augustus Carmichael, a visiting poet, asks for a second serving of soup, Mr Ramsay nearly snaps at him. Mrs Ramsay is herself out of sorts when Paul Rayley and Minta Doyle, two acquaintances whom she has brought together in engagement, arrive late to dinner, as Minta has lost her grandmother's brooch on the beach.

Part II: Time Passes

The second section gives a sense of time passing, absence, and death. Ten years pass, during which the First World War begins and ends. Mrs Ramsay dies, as do two of her children - Prue dies from complications of childbirth, and Andrew is killed in the war. Mr Ramsay is left adrift without his wife to praise and comfort him during his bouts of fear and anguish regarding the longevity of his philosophical work. This section is told from an omniscient point of view and occasionally from Mrs. McNab's point of view. Mrs. McNab worked in the Ramsay's house since the beginning, and thus provides a clear view of how things have changed in the time the summer house has been unoccupied.

Part III: The Lighthouse

In the final section, “The Lighthouse,” some of the remaining Ramsays and other guests return to their summer home ten years after the events of Part I. Mr Ramsay finally plans on taking the long-delayed trip to the lighthouse with daughter Cam(illa) and son James (the remaining Ramsay children are virtually unmentioned in the final section). The trip almost does not happen, as the children are not ready, but they eventually set off. As they travel, the children are silent in protest at their father for forcing them to come along. However, James keeps the sailing boat steady and rather than receiving the harsh words he has come to expect from his father, he hears praise, providing a rare moment of empathy between father and son; Cam's attitude towards her father changes also, from resentment to eventual admiration.

They are accompanied by the sailor Macalister and his son, who catches fish during the trip. The son cuts a piece of flesh from a fish he has caught to use for bait, throwing the injured fish back into the sea.

While they set sail for the lighthouse, Lily attempts to finally complete the painting she has held in her mind since the start of the novel. She reconsiders her memory of Mrs and Mr Ramsay, balancing the multitude of impressions from ten years ago in an effort to reach towards an objective truth about Mrs Ramsay and life itself. Upon finishing the painting (just as the sailing party reaches the lighthouse) and seeing that it satisfies her, she realises that the execution of her vision is more important to her than the idea of leaving some sort of legacy in her work.

The Scarlet Letter

Author: Nathanial Hawthorn

Date of publication: 1850

Place: America

Plot: In June 1642, in the Puritan town of Boston, a crowd gathers to witness the punishment of Hester Prynne, a young woman found guilty of adultery. She is required to wear a scarlet "A" ("A" standing for adulteress) on her dress to shame her. She must stand on the scaffold for three hours, to be exposed to public humiliation. As Hester approaches the scaffold, many of the women in the crowd are angered by her beauty and quiet dignity. When demanded and cajoled to name the father of her child, Hester refuses.

As Hester looks out over the crowd, she notices a small, misshapen man and recognizes him as her long-lost husband, who has been presumed lost at sea. When the husband sees Hester's shame, he asks a man in the crowd about her and is told the story of his wife's adultery. He angrily exclaims that the child's father, the partner in the adulterous act, should also be punished and vows to find the man. He chooses a new name – Roger Chillingworth – to aid him in his plan.

The Reverend John Wilson and the minister of Hester's church, Arthur Dimmesdale, question the woman, but she refuses to name her lover. After she returns to her prison cell, the jailer brings in Roger Chillingworth, a physician, to calm Hester and her child with his roots and herbs. He and Hester have an open conversation regarding their marriage and the fact that they were both in the wrong. Her lover, however, is another matter and he demands to know who it is; Hester refuses to divulge such information. He accepts this, stating that he will find out anyway, and forces her to hide that he is her husband. If she ever reveals him, he warns her, he will destroy the child's father. Hester agrees to Chillingworth's terms although she suspects she will regret it.

Following her release from prison, Hester settles in a cottage at the edge of town and earns a meager living with her needlework. She lives a quiet, sombre life with her daughter, Pearl. She is troubled by her daughter's unusual fascination by Hester's scarlet "A". As she grows older, Pearl becomes capricious and unruly. Her conduct starts rumours, and, not surprisingly, the church members suggest Pearl be taken away from Hester.

Hester, hearing rumors that she may lose Pearl, goes to speak to Governor Bellingham. With him are ministers Wilson and Dimmesdale. Hester appeals to Dimmesdale in desperation, and the minister persuades the governor to let Pearl remain in Hester's care.

Because Dimmesdale's health has begun to fail, the townspeople are happy to have Chillingworth, a newly arrived physician, take up lodgings with their beloved minister. Being in such close contact with Dimmesdale, Chillingworth begins to suspect that the minister's illness is the result of some unconfessed guilt. He applies psychological pressure to the minister because he suspects Dimmesdale to be Pearl's father. One evening, pulling the sleeping Dimmesdale's vestment aside, Chillingworth sees a symbol that represents his shame on the minister's pale chest.

Tormented by his guilty conscience, Dimmesdale goes to the square where Hester was punished years earlier. Climbing the scaffold, he admits his guilt to them but cannot find the courage to do so publicly. Hester, shocked by Dimmesdale's deterioration, decides to obtain a release from her vow of silence to her husband.

Several days later, Hester meets Dimmesdale in the forest and tells him of her husband and his desire for revenge. She convinces Dimmesdale to leave Boston in secret on a ship to Europe where they can start life anew. Renewed by this plan, the minister seems to gain new energy. On Election Day, Dimmesdale gives what is declared to be one of his most inspired sermons. But as the procession leaves the church, Dimmesdale climbs upon the scaffold and confesses his sin, dying in Hester's arms. Later, most witnesses swear that they saw a stigma in the form of a scarlet "A" upon his chest, although some deny this statement. Chillingworth, losing his will for revenge, dies shortly thereafter and leaves Pearl a substantial inheritance.

After several years, Hester returns to her cottage and resumes wearing the scarlet letter. When she dies, she is buried near the grave of Dimmesdale, and they share a simple slate tombstone engraved with an escutcheon described as: "On a field, sable, the letter A, gules" ("On a field, black, the letter A, red.

The Old man and The sea

Author: Earnest Hemigway

Date of publication: 1952

Plot: The Old Man and the Sea tells the story of a battle between an aging, experienced fisherman, Santiago, and a large marlin. The story opens with Santiago having gone 84 days without catching a fish, and now being seen as "salao",^[a] the worst form of unluckiness. He is so unlucky that his young apprentice, Manolin, has been forbidden by his parents to sail with him and has been told instead to fish with successful fishermen. The boy visits Santiago's shack each night, hauling his fishing gear, preparing food, talking about American baseball and his favorite player, Joe DiMaggio. Santiago tells Manolin that on the next day, he will venture far out into the Gulf Stream, north of Cuba in the Straits of Florida to fish, confident that his unlucky streak is near its end.

On the eighty-fifth day of his unlucky streak, Santiago takes his skiff into the Gulf Stream, sets his lines and, by noon, has his bait taken by a big fish that he is sure is a marlin. Unable to haul in the great marlin, Santiago is instead pulled by the marlin, and two days and nights pass with Santiago holding onto the line. Though wounded by the struggle and in pain, Santiago expresses a compassionate appreciation for his adversary, often referring to him as a brother. He also determines that, because of the fish's great dignity, no one shall deserve to eat the marlin.

On the third day, the fish begins to circle the skiff. Santiago, worn out and almost delirious, uses all his remaining strength to pull the fish onto its side and stab the marlin with a harpoon. Santiago straps the marlin to the side of his skiff and heads home, thinking about the high price the fish will bring him at the market and how many people he will feed.

On his way in to shore, sharks are attracted to the marlin's blood. Santiago kills a great mako shark with his harpoon, but he loses the weapon. He makes a new harpoon by strapping his knife to the end of an oar to help ward off the next line of sharks; five sharks are slain and many others are driven away. But the sharks keep coming, and by nightfall the sharks have almost devoured the marlin's entire carcass, leaving a skeleton consisting mostly of its backbone, its tail and its head. Santiago knows that he is entirely unlucky now, and defeated now, but not when he caught the marlin, tells the sharks of how they have killed his dreams. Upon reaching the shore before dawn on the next day, Santiago struggles to his shack, carrying the heavy mast on his shoulder, leaving the fish head and the bones on the shore. Once home, he slumps onto his bed and falls into a deep sleep.

A group of fishermen gather the next day around the boat where the fish's skeleton is still attached. One of the fishermen measures it to be 18 feet (5.5 m) from nose to tail. Pedrico is given the head of the fish, and the other fishermen tell Manolin to tell the old man how sorry they are. Tourists at the nearby café mistakenly take it for a shark. The boy, worried about the old man, cries upon finding him safe asleep and at his injured hands. Manolin brings him newspapers and coffee. When the old man wakes, they promise to fish together once again. Upon his return to sleep, Santiago dreams of his youth — of lions on an African beach.