Daniel+Lee's+Summer+Reading

=**Slaughter House - Five by Kurt Vonnegut- approved** = = **(on the list)** = = =  //Each essay should include the following:// a. book title and author in the introductory paragraph b. a thesis statement that encompasses the main idea of your essay which should be how the selected chapter is reflected in your novel c. brief summary of the section to be discussed (no more than a paragraph)--just enough to get a sense of the context d. analysis of the section through the lens of one of the chapters from //How to Read Literature Like a Professor// e. a quotation you think is significant and your explanation of how the quote reflects the selected chapter f. each essay should be approximately three hundred words g. Copy and paste the essay! Do not upload a document!

**Essay #1 Symbolism**
 If one reads the book __Slaughterhouse-five__ by Kurt Vonnegut, the reader would figure out that there are many symbolism used in the book. The most apparent symbolism might be the bird that appears. The bird gives an ironic mood because in the end of the book, the scene of demolition is explained, with no character speaking. At the very end, though, a bird sings. This bird probably denotes the peace after the war, and also the hope people might have.

“The trees were leafing out. There was nothing going on out there, no traffic of any kind. (...) One bird said to Billy Pilgrim, “Poo-tee-weet?” (Vonnegut 215)

Normally, the first thing people would think is that this bird symbolizes peace. In the book, the bird appears in a totally ravaged place, which might seem awkward. But because the bird does not know what is going on, and is making its sound like usual, people can feel hope from the bird: hope of returning to the past, before the war. Thereby, the bird can represent the peace that comes after the war. Furthermore, it can also convey the possibility of starting again, from zero.

Is that all, what the bird symbolizes? Probably no. Thomas C. Foster, in his book __How to Read Literature Like a Professor__ wrote that symbolism might not only imply one meaning. It can have several different meanings. According to Foster, then, the bird itself can have another meaning other than peace.

With that being said, readers would also be curious: what is the bird telling us? To think about the bird again, the bird’s presence itself seems odd, and what it says, the “Poo-tee-weet?” is not a sound that is appropriate to say in the war scenes. It is interesting that at the end of the book, no human being says anything. Everyone is quiet. The book explains the scene, which has nothing normal left. Everything is destroyed. What can one say in a demolished place? In such a wrecked place, there is nothing one can say, and there is nothing appropriate to say. Nonetheless, the bird says "Poo-tee-weet?". Since the bird, with no doubt, knows nothing about what just happened, it is like a little innocent baby, smiling and laughing whenever it wants to without knowing what is going on. Therefore the author might want to say that wars, no matter how destructive, cannot destroy the optimistic view of human mind.

Comment Rachel Choi

Hi Daniel! How was your summer? Well, we will see each other tomorrow at school. Your ideas were quite interesting and sensible. However, apart from grammatical errors, some of the ideas were cloudy and unclear. I also liked how you to engage the reader with questions, almost as if you were talking to them. This really made me read your essay without any stress. However, this can also be a problem. You tend to overuse questions and place them continuously, one right after another. This does not give the reader any information about factual evidence. However, your quote did well to explain the themes and basic ideas behind your particular chapter of your novel. Overall, it's quite easy to follow and well written. Enjoy your last day of summer! 




 One of humans' wishes for a long time was flying. According Thomas C. Foster’s __How to Read Literature Like a Professor__, flights in a literature not only mean the physical flight, but also mean “freedom, escape, return home, largeness of spirit, love.”(Foster 128) This assertion is represented in Kurt Vonnegut’s __Slaughterhouse-five__ too. Billy, the protagonist, experiences a special flight with aliens that free Billy from the shock he got from the war scenes, and teaches him how to compromise with the real world.

In the novel, Billy says the Tralfamadorians, or the aliens kidnap him. In the Tralfamadorians’ flying saucer, Billy hears that the universe will end by a Tralfamadorian pilot's pressing a starter button to test a new fuel. Puzzled, he questions the Tralfamadorians. "If you know this, isn't there some way you can prevent it? Can't you keep the pilot from pressing the button?"(Vonnegut 117) The Tralfamadorian’s answer was simple.

“He has always pressed it, and he always will. We always let him and we always will let him. The moment is structured that way.”(Vonnegut 117)

This quote reveals the attitude of Tralfamadorians toward the time and events occuring, which is basically 'Just accept everything that occurs because it cannot be prevented or changed'. As Billy learned the perspective of the Tralfamadorians, he learns how to accept things, and is relieved from the shock he got from viewing the destruction and death of people. Billy also learns to view the world and his life as something not able to change, but is structured to happen. After he figures this out, his accepting the time-travel also gets easier for him. This is shown in his way of accepting his wife's ugly outlook. When Valencia, Billy's wife, says she will lose weight for Billy, Billy tells her that she looks the best she is, because he knew that "it was going to be at least bearable all the way."(Vonnegut 120)

Billy’s lesson from the Tralfamadorians not only teaches Billy but also teaches the readers to accept things as they are, and compromise with the reality. The flight Billy had in the Tralfamadorians’ flying saucer soothes Billy’s trauma from the war, thus freeing him from the trauma.


Hey Daniel! I’ll start off with the positive feedbacks. By reading your essay, I can tell you truly understood the section in //How to Read Literature like a Professor.// You successfully proved you understood the section by clearly stating the thesis. One reason I envy your style of writing is because you don’t add any useless junk. It’s very concise and straight to the point. Unfortunately, I have a habit of writing down all my jumbled thoughts—including useless junks. Since your essay is straight-to-the-point and concise, it is extremely easy for readers to follow. However, maybe because of your conciseness, you forgot to mention the connection between freedom and Billy accepting whatever he had trouble accepting. Another minor flaw is that some of your sentences are a bit awkward—don’t worry; I have the exact same problem. For example, “After he figures this out, his accepting the time-travel also gets easier for him” is a bit awkward. “his accepting the time” could probably be phrased better. Other than that, your essay reflected your understanding of the section and your book in a clear and concise way. -Elaine- 


 “When your character goes underwater, you have to hold your breath. Just, you know, till you see her come back up.”(Foster 162) Like Foster wrote in his book __How to Read Literature Like a Professor__, drowning in literature deserves special attention because it not only means the physical drowning. A character’s drowning on purpose can also represent the character’s effort and choice to start a new life. However, when this choice to restart is bothered by someone else’s rescue, it can convey a meaning of failure to restart.

This is shown by Billy, the protagonist of Kurt Vonnegut’s __Slaughterhouse-five__. In the book, Billy is traveling randomly through his time, and remembers when his father took him to the YMCA swimming pool in order to teach him swimming. Anyway, his father’s method of teaching was ‘sink-or-swim’ which is basically throwing the kid into a deep pool. Billy’s father thought that as Billy tries to survive in the water, he would learn how to swim. However, unlike Billy’s father’s expectation, Billy decides to sink. He even felt bitter about someone saving him, against his free will to drown.

“His eyes were closed. When he opened his eyes, he was on the bottom of the pool, and there was beautiful music everywhere. (…) He dimly sensed that somebody was rescuing him. Billy resented that.” (Vonnegut 44)

Billy, because his effort to drown was pestered, failed to symbolically start again. Thus he is depicted as the weak man, an unprepared and an inexperienced soldier depending heavily on others for his survival. Roland Weary would serve as an excellent example for Billy’s dependence on others because Roland saved Billy several times during the war.

If Billy was able to restart by himself, with no intervention, he might not have been the weakling as he was in the book. But because Billy’s baptism was disturbed, he is the same weakling as he was when he was a boy throughout his entire time travel.


<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; color: rgb(19, 19, 88);"> Eating is one of the basic necessities for sustaining life; its dictionary definition from ‘Dictionary.com’ is to put food into the mouth and chew and swallow it. However in literature, people’s eating together normally represents communion. Thomas C. Foster states that eating together means, “I’m with you, I like you, we form a community together.”(Foster 8)

Kurt Vonnegut’s __Slaughterhouse-five__ is not an exception. In the story, many of the POWs (prisoners of war) were sent to the syrup-making factory. While some of the prisoners worked inside the factory, the other prisoners had to work outside of the factory. Prisoners who worked inside the factory were able to steal and eat some scoops of syrup secretly. Of course, scooping syrup was a crime in the factory. Nonetheless, the prisoners stealthily ate the syrups with the spoons around the factory. While the prisoners were busy scooping the syrups for themselves, Billy, the protagonist of this book, shares the scoop of syrup with Derby, a prisoner working outside the factory, despite the danger of scooping syrup.

“So Billy made a lollipop for him. He opened the window. He stuck the lollipop into poor old Derby’s gaping mouth. A moment passed, and then Derby burst into tears.” (Vonnegut 161)

Billy’s act of sharing the syrup with Derby is definitely a sign of communion. The day before Billy gave Derby a scoop of syrup, Billy tried the syrup. After Billy ate the syrup, “every cell in Billy’s body shook him with ravenous gratitude and applause.”(Vonnegut 160)

For the readers, it is not hard to guess that Derby’s tears show the same gratitude Billy felt. By eating the syrup together secretly, Billy and Derby is not only sharing the syrup but are also sharing the happiness they feel while eating the syrup. The fact that eating syrup is forbidden and should be a secret adds another type of communion because they are also sharing a secret together. Thus, in the book, when Billy and Derby are eating the syrup, they are not just filling their stomach, but are also sharing the gratefulness and the secret about scooping syrup.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; color: rgb(19, 19, 88);">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; color: rgb(19, 19, 88);"> Literature can get confusing because whenever sex comes out, it conveys another meaning than sex. But sex itself is also represented in other ways in literature. This means that readers should be aware of the fact that sex is not just sex, but something that is not about sex can mean sex. Thomas C. Foster argues that sexual activities can convey a meaning of submission; this seems to be true in the book __Slaughterhouse-five__ by Kurt Vonnegut.

In the novel, when the protagonist Billy and a woman named Montana Wildhack first meet in the alien Tralfamadorian’s flying saucer, Montana Wildhack acts like a hysteric woman. As time passes, though, Montana starts to accept the reality, thus showing submission.

“In time, Montana came to love and trust Billy Pilgrim. (…) she asked him shyly if he wouldn’t sleep with her. Which he did. It was heavenly.” (Vonnegut 133)

As Montana accepted her situation, her trust in Billy grows, which leads to her sleeping with Billy. This sexual action then, means that both Billy and Montana is compromising with the reality, or being submissive to the truth.

In another chapter, Billy shows the same submission to reality and to the fact that he cannot change anything. In his honeymoon with Valencia, he accepts the truth that Valencia was going to be “at least bearable all the way”(Vonnegut 120) and accept Valencia as she is, although Valencia says she will try to lose weight. This also results in making love with Valencia.

Just like many other different literature works, __Slaughterhouse-five__’s sexual interaction is not just a sexual interaction. It shows that the characters involved in the sex is giving in to their surrounding and is beginning to deal with the reality they are in.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; color: rgb(19, 19, 88);"> 1. Select and read two of your peers' essays. 2. Underneath each essay, thoughtfully comment on the ideas put forth. 3. This comment should be no more than one succinct paragraph. 4. Post and label the comment on //the writer's page// with your name at the bottom of your comment. 5. Copy and paste the comment onto //your// summer reading page in the comments section. 6. Write the writer's name and essay # underneath the comments on your own page.


 * Comment #1 Jay Park's essay about Journey**

First of all, you did a great job analyzing your book through the lens of __How to Read Literature Like a Professor__. I really liked how you break down the main character's journey into several parts to match with what Thomas C. Foster wrote in his book. I'll have to say that the essay is really well written. However, it seems like the quotes are in the essay so that it is coordinated with Foster's idea. In other words, the essay lacks analysis of the quote. Although the quotes are supporting your thesis, it would have been better if there were some deep thought about the quote itself. To make my point really simple, your essay did a great job using Foster's idea, but needs more inspection of the book itself. This is what I believe (:

P.s. Um.. and also, I'm pretty sure that we're supposed to __underline__ the book title. Or am I wrong? :P

Daniel Lee

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; color: rgb(19, 19, 88);">
 * Comment #2** On Kevin J. Lee's Vampire Essay

First of all, I think you need to quote the very first sentence if it is from a book; also, it is THOMAS C. Foster, not Tomas (:

Your essay is really interesting, mainly because of your description of Mr. Harvey. I really liked how you used the quotes to explain the 'spookiness' of Mr. Harvey. The thesis of this essay is really clear, and the essay therefore has a strong voice. I get the point very easily: Mr. Harvey is the bad vampire here, and vampires stands for people who victimize other, usually young girls, and take their innocence. After reading this essay, I got interested in this character, Mr. Harvey, and also in this book.

Nonetheless, I think the essay would've been better if you did not use a lot of quotes. Quotes from the book is necessary for sure, but I don't think the quotes from Foster's book is necessary. You can easily analyze Foster's quotes and write your thoughts in the essay instead of quoting Foster several times.

Daniel Lee