posted
Living in the United States, I know all of you have gone through the same type of educational system I have, especially the literary/political classes. In all of those areas, what have you guys studied?
Chances are it's going to be Shakespeare; Mark Twain; the local newspaper.
Most of you are probably forced to read their works, study their history, then take some type of test or waste your time writing a completely unimportant essay.
All while hyping up the genius of such men. Stating that these people are wrong will automatically fail you, since the teacher can always come up with a counterexample convientently provided by the hundreds of scholars who have rewritten essays for money. Or at least it happens where I live.
What genius? Have you noticed that one of the most recurring topics in their works is the representation of the culture they came from? Twain represented the Giled Age; Shakespeare was the paradigm of the Renaisssance.
Their whole method involves putting a single, cohesive idea into a whole play, or story. Basically, you see a problem or hypocrisy in society, you symbolize it in the characters or plot of the story. There's nothing really special about that. Orson Scott Card does the same thing in about a paragraph in an essay (not a story).
But I agree with one thing: the works of the famous people we read about have included some good insight of human nature and various other themes. And yet most of these are always tied to their overall goal. The ones that are universal are the only ones that matter to me.
I don't know about you guys, but just looking at the story, nothing else, of the books OSC writes is comparable to such great writers like Tolkien. I've seen so many debates about this very topic alone. Now that's just taking the story; Tolkien wrote about good and evil, OSC writes about virtually everything, from love, to good/evil, to justice, to responsiblity, and so much more.
O.o
You guys can finish the conclusion, but first I have two things to say.
First, Mr. Card, if you would write an autobiography about your life, I bet everyone who read Ender's Game will read it. (Think of the money even if you don't want to!)
Second, does anyone know if OSC ever failed his driver license test?
Posts: 102 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
Yeah, I know whether or not he every failed his driver's license test The answer is - No. But that is not the interesting thing about OSC and his driver's license. The intersting thing is he never even went to try to take the test until he was 22. His high school did not offer "driver's ed" -- which was a requirement to take before getting a license. Then he finished high school early and went to college at age 16. The college he went to was the same one where he father taught and his mother worked so he got free rides every day. No need for a license. He finally took the driver training class and got his license after returning from his mission. (He served as a missionary in Brazil from the age of 20 - 22).
quote: All while hyping up the genius of such men. Stating that these people are wrong will automatically fail you, since the teacher can always come up with a counterexample convientently provided by the hundreds of scholars who have rewritten essays for money. Or at least it happens where I live.
I just finished a Shakespeare class (took the final on thursday) and I had a great experience. The teacher was really enthusiastic and had acted in a lot of Shakepeare plays, and he encouraged us to challenge the notion of Shakespeare being the best. Every couple of weeks he would ask us why Shakespeare was so popular, why does everyone compare good writers to him? My teacher freely admitted that Shakespeare had written so not-so-good stuff early in his career and that he wasn't a perfect playwright. And we didn't always have to agree with what he said. But I think I just got lucky. Your experience sounds about right with everything else.
Posts: 981 | Registered: Aug 2003
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posted
Wow. I think Gosu, drawing on his own limited experience, has completely missed the point of literature. Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
Shakespeare was a great writer. I really believe that. Same goes with Mark Twain. We study the works of these men so we won't forget them. Immortality: any writer can get it if what they write can mean something to the next generation.
Both Shakespeare and Twain were wildly popular in their time, and the reason we study them hundreds of years later is because they hit some things right on the nose. You say they only write a "representation of the culture they came from"? Of course they do. That stuff comes out anyone's writing, it's impossible not to. The reason why we study these men is because this stuff still happens. Whatever prompts Huck Finn to save his black friend or Othello to murder his wife didn't die in Elizabethan England or the Gilded Age.
They were both prolific writers, and so their life's works cover all kinds of subjects and themes. Likewise, Orson Scott Card makes some great observations on us human beings, and he's prolific enough that the whole of his work can give us a really good slice of life, what drives us to do what we do.
Just think, in a few hundred years, some high school graduate will lament the fact that his entire education consisted of writing completely unimportant essays "hyping up the genius" of Orson Scott Card.
posted
I'd also like to say that I've disagreed with my teachers many times in my timed writings. In my Sr. AP english class my (very excellent) teacher only wanted a coherent thought expresses well on paper. She didn't care if I disagreed with something we discussed in class.
Posts: 4089 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
I was 20 before I got my drivers license. I lived within walking distance of the university and couldn't afford to own a car. I would have had to ask someone to borrow their car to get a license, so why bother?
But back to the subject: Literature isn't great because people are sheep. Watch some Shakespeare. It never really was meant to be read anyway, unless you are dissecting it for a class. Shakespeare is great because the situations and characters do transend time. Shakespeare is great because people discover him over and over again and love the stories (even as they hate it, sometimes) They are drawn to the stories. If he weren't great, he would have disappeared from the radar already.
But I will agree, you may not like Shakespeare. Not everyone does. And you may have a teacher who does and will countenance no one talking ill about him. Oh well. That's life.
Posts: 3495 | Registered: Feb 2000
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