Easter Assignment- Mr. Collins

Mr. Collins is a social outcast.
Mr. Collins is Mr. Bennet’s cousin. He is also a clergyman. Though Mr. Collins is a clergyman, he is a very awkward person. He has no aptitude for social interactions like basic conversation. His lack of affability hampers his ability to make friends. But surprisingly his awkwardness has not stopped him from being acquainted with Lady Catherine. Mr. Collins finds his acquaintance with Lady Catherine as a valuable resource, often bragging about it to people in every conversation he has. Mr. Collins is such an inept braggart that he even goes as far as to use his relationship with Lady Catherine as reasoning to marry Elizabeth: “It is the recommendation of the very noble lady whom I have the honour of calling patroness. Twice has she condescended to give me her opinion on this subject […] she said ‘Mr. Collins, you must marry’” (Austen 101-102).
Mr. Collins is like the random colleges that try to get students to attend their college. Mr. Collins is a loser in every aspect. He has no good qualities, characteristics, or traits to brag about. He has only one accomplishment: his relationship with Lady Catherine. And he boasts of his great success in regards to this one accomplishment yet he really has nothing to boasts about. He has no close friends and no one likes him. Yet he brags to people in an attempt to uphold himself as this great person, but it is flagrantly obvious that he is an unknown, inept fool that no one is fond of.
Mr. Collins is like George W. Bush in that they both were unknowns until they got help to their rise to fame, and that they both are absolute losers.

Easter Assignment- Mr. Bennet

Mr. Bennet is an observant and humorous man.
Mr. Bennet is the owner of the Longbourn estate. He lives there with his wife Mrs. Bennet and their five children Elizabeth, Jane, Mary, Lydia, and Kitty. He is an intelligible man, with a sarcastic attitude. He enjoys making quirky remarks about his family and friends: “If my children are silly, I must hope to be always sensible of it […] This is the only point, I flatter myself, on which we do not agree […] I must so far differ from you as to think our two youngest daughters uncommonly foolish” (Austen 30). But unfortunately his sarcastic attitude makes him very detached from his family and society. He does not really care enough about his family to punish his family for inappropriate behavior. Thus his family acts very peculiarly due to the lack of his enforcement of rules. And society ostracizes him and his family as strange people due to his family’s peculiarity.
Mr. Bennet is like a witticism. He is knowledgeable about people, life, and society. He also is humorous and sarcastic which enhances his witty observations. But like any witticism, he may be funny but he is useless to his family or anyone else in day to day life. He does not help to solve problems throughout the book because he is only useful in regards to funny facts about life. Instead of helping to find a resolution to problems in the book he is the actually the cause to most of the families problems. He does teach his children proper or ethical behavior. Instead he separates himself from his family and makes funny observations about them.
Mr. Bennet is like Dick Cheney in the sense that they both talk about problems they observed but they play no role in the resolution of the problem.

P& P # 15 4/9: 16- END

"This is a wretched beginning, indeed! My sole dependence was on you; and I am sure nobdy else will believe me, if you do not, Yet, indeed, I am in earnest. I speak nothing but the truth. He still loves me, and we are engaged" (Austen 346).

- As the book comes to a close, Elizabeth, usually the person to hold prejudiced views, is this time the victim misjudgements. In this scene she is telling Jane about her engagement with Mr. Darcy, and Jane voices her shock due to her belief that Elizabeth had resented Mr. Darcy. Jane made the inference that Elizabeth had hated Mr. Darcy due to the fact that she had only heard Elizabeth say negative things about Mr. Darcy many months before. Since Elizabeth had not mentioned anything else about Mr. Darcy, Jane naturally assumed that Elizabeth's resentment for Mr. Darcy was still present. Thus Jane Austen shows the dangers of judging people based on one experience.

Why do Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy trully love Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner?
a. because they rock
b. Mr and Mrs Gardiner helped Mr Darcy and Elizabeth to see the love they shared for each other.
c. Mr and Mrs Gardiner told Elizabeth that Mr Darcy loved her
d. because they are Elizabeth's favorite aunt and uncle
e. they are great people

P& P# 13 4/7: 10-12

"His behaviour to her sister was such during dinner-time as showed an admiration of her, which, though more guarded than formerly, persuaded Elizabeth, that, if left wholly to himself, Jane's happiness, and his own, would be speedily secured. Though she dared not depend upon the consequence, she yet received pleasure from observing his behaviour" (Austen 315-316).

- In this scene, Elizabeth is at a party observing Mr. Bingley and Jane. And we see that like in the beginning of the book, Elizabeth still eagerly makes observations and inferences about other people. But in this scene we see that instead of applying what she infered as fact, she leaves her inferences as hypotheses. Her not applying her inference about Mr. Bingley's feelings for Jane reflects upon how her previous rash judgements and prejudices of Mr. Darcy resulted in her rejecting Mr. Darcy, her perfect match. Ergo, she is not hasty to jump to conclusions when she observes Mr. Bingley.

The relationship shared between Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth in chapter 5 is like the relationship between:

a. Mr. Bennet and Mrs. Bennet

b. Mr. Collins and Charlotte

c. Mr. Wickham and Lydia

d. Mr. Bingham and Jane

huck essay

William Lai

AP American Literature- Mr. George

March 21, 2009

Huck Finn contrasted to Tom Sawyer

            Have you ever compared yourself to one of your friends? How do you two differ? Usually there are some similarities but looking past those similarities there are vast differences. Mark Twain compares two characters in his book The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. He compares the lives and development of two boys: Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. And at first glance they seem to be quite similar due to their age, playfulness, and curious nature. But when you look deeper into their personalities, their actions, and their development through the story, the reader can see that there is a big difference in how the characters developed along the lines of their morality and their perspective of the world. Tom draws from the values and beliefs that he grew up with, while Huck adopts his own view of the world.

            Huckleberry Finn, the protagonist, is a young boy who lived in two worlds. He lived in the wilderness with his father, where he was brought up in a rough environment, learning survival instincts and a very crude perspective of the world. He also lived with Miss Watson, a devout Christian, who would instill societal and religious teachings upon him. As result of two totally different people teaching him, a drunk and a devout southern Christian, he has developed a conflicting moral compass. This conflicted compass has two polar opposites: one being a crude view of the world, the other being the societal views of the south. With these contradictory influences he has two wells of knowledge to draw from when he must drink from his moral goblet.

            Huck having two opposite perspectives of what the south offers as moral perspectives, realizes that both perspectives are wrong for him. For example, Huck clearly understands that his father is a bad example of how to live so as result he knows that most of what his father has taught him should be avoided. And at the same time we see that the societal view that Ms. Watson tries to teach him also does not seem right to him. Both perspectives have good qualities as well as their vices. One can see this when he travels down the river with Jim, and their adaption of the concept of borrowing:

Pap always said it warn't no harm to borrow things, if you was meaning to pay them back, sometime; but the widow said it warn't anything but a soft name for stealing, and no decent body would do it. Jim said he reckoned the widow was partly right and pap was partly right; so the best way would be for us to pick out two or three things from the list and say we wouldn't borrow them any more--then he reckoned it wouldn't be no harm to borrow the others… We warn't feeling just right, before that, but it was all comfortable now (Twain 76).

Thus we see that Huck recognizes that there is some good in what his Pap has taught him, so he tries to use a combination of what Ms. Watson has taught him to create a hybrid of what his Pap taught him and what Ms. Watson taught him. But as Huck journey’s down the river with Jim, Huck begins to formulate his own ideas of the world around him.

            One of the most flagrant violations of what both Pap and Ms. Watson have taught him is Huck’s perspective on slavery. Both Pap and Ms. Watson would agree that slavery should exist. But on his travel down the river, Huck is given a chance to have a fresh perspective on the world. On his journey, he is free from the influences of his father, Ms. Watson, and the rest of society, allowing him to build his own value system. As result, he is given a fresh perspective on slavery. On his journey down the river he sees a side of Jim that he would have never seen if he had been living with either Pap or Ms. Watson. He sees that Jim is a human being with feelings: “It was fifteen minutes before I could work myself up to go and humble myself to a nigger–but I done it, and I warn’t ever sorry for it afterwards, neither. I didn’t do him no more mean tricks, and I wouldn’t done that one if I’d a knowed it would make him feel that way” (98). That is why he finds the wilderness so diverting because he is free from Pap and Ms Watson’s influence. The wilderness is where he can be “lazy and jolly, laying off comfortable all day, smoking and fishing” (34), carefree of what others have taught him as right or wrong, free to live and learn on his own. And through this journey he formulates his own beliefs due to realizing the injustices that exist in society’s view of the world. Tom Sawyer on the other hand accepts this regimented perspective of world.

            Tom Sawyer, Huck’s best friend, is nearly identical to Huck besides the fact that he is educated and has lived in society all his life. These subtle differences play a crucial role in Tom’s moral development. By living in society he is not given the chance to develop his perspective of the world, but instead must take on the views of society. He is told what is right or wrong through the community, through his education, and even through books. He is forced to live with a set view that is structured around what society dictates to be proper, rather than be allowed to formulate his own opinions as Huck can. That is why Tom Sawyer is a by the book character, “Any book will tell you that” (275). Even when he is questioned on what society dictates as right but is flagrantly wrong, he is ignorant to the truth saying that “It don’t make no difference how foolish it is, it’s the right way—and it’s the regular way. And they ain’t no other way, that I ever heard of, and I’ve read all the books that gives any information about these things” (Twain 257). Thus Tom epitomizes the social views of the time due to his adoption of its social views and beliefs.

            One social view that Tom accepts is the concept of slavery. He believes, just as society believes, that slavery is fine. Contrary to Huck, Tom has not seen the pain and suffering slavery can cause, and the humanity in the people who are being enslaved. He has only heard from society and books that it is a necessity and as result is justifiable. One may say that Tom does not believe in slavery because he had tried to help Jim escape, but looking deeper into Tom’s actions while trying to save Jim, one can see that Tom was not trying to save Jim for Jim’s sake. Instead Tom only helped Huck to save Jim because he wanted adventure and excitement that is preached and praised in books and society, comparably to Huck who actually wanted to save Jim. One can see this through his actions on the night they attempted to dig Jim out. Tom and Huck could have easily broke open the door and got Jim out immediately, but instead Tom elects to dig him out. And when Huck offers that they dig him out with picks, Tom elects to use case-knives, saying that “I’ve read all the books that gives any information about these things. They always dig out with a case-knife […] And it takes weeks and weeks” (257). Ergo, Tom is only trying to have a good laugh at the expense of Jim and his friend Huck, showing that Tom as result of society, has adopted its morally corrupt views of the world.

Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn are two characters that are so similar in their age, curiosity, and playfulness. But underneath that, Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn are actually very different characters when it comes to their view of the world. Tom Sawyer, growing up in society, requires rules and regulations that are dictated to him by society. Comparably, Huck who lives and finds peace in the wilderness, apart from civilization and society, lives life based on what he believes to be right or wrong. Thus Mark Twain creates a comparison of two boys, showing the affect of their surroundings on their development as adults and members of a seemingly unjust world, one boy being the upholder of this society’s unfair beliefs, the other, the beholder of its trully cruel nature.

P&P #12: Ch. 7-9

"Into one house in this neighbourhood they shall never have admittance. I will not encourage the imprudence of either, by receiving them at Longbourn" (Austen 288).

- Here Mr. Bennet is talking to Mrs. Bennet about the Lydia and Mr. Wickham. And while talking about the two, Mr. Bennet openly shows his contempt for the two by not letting them in his house. But he does not clarify why he does not want them in house. The only word he uses that may explain his reasoning is when he says that he will "not encourage the imprudence of the either" (288). Thus the reader can assume that the Mr. Bennet maybe upset that his daughter was dumb enough to hastily choose to run away and marry a mercenary that only wants money to repay his debts. Ergo, Mr. Bennet is upset that he was used by Mr. Wickham through his daughter as a means to pay off his debt. And what made it worse was that fact that Mr. Bennet does not really have the money to pay Mr. Wickham, and instead Mr. Bennet had to rely Mr. Gardiner to pay him back. This makes Mr. Bennet think about how poor of a father he has been due to the fact that he has not saved enough money for his family.

Is the love shared between Lydia and Mr Wickham:

a. shared equally

b. unequally shared with Mr. Wickham loving Lydia more

c. unequally shared with Lydia loving Mr. Wickham more

d. none of the above

P& P #11 4/3: 3-6

"Yes [...] but that was only when I first knew her; for it is many months since i have considered her as one of the handsomest women of my acquaintance" (253).

-Mr. Darcy is responding to Miss Bingley's rude remarks on Elizabeth, mocking him on how used to marvel her as a beauty. And suprisingly he agrees with her saying that he had thought she was beautiful. And surprisingly Elizabeth has become attracted to him, inverse of how the story played out in the beginning of the book: "never had she so honestly felt that she could have loved him, as now, when all love must be vain" (259). This goes to show that sometimes ones first impressions or prejudices of a person can and most likely are misleading. For example looking at Mr. Darcy, he believed Elizabeth to be a simple girl with a bad family, so he assumed he could easily win her hand in marriage. Instead he was rejected. And the reason he was rejected was because Elizabeth held prejudice views of him only looking at him the way Mr. Wickham described him to be and based off her first impressions. Both never took the time to learn about each other through actual interactions they had with each other; instead they just chose to hold prejudice views of the other person that they formed from a couple of observations.


Why does Elizabeth feel she is partially to blame?

a. she hated Lydia
b. she liked Wickham
c. she thought should have been with Lydia so that it would not have happened
d. she didn't tell anybody about his true nature
e. none of the above