English 1000

In the early days of Christianity after it had been legalized and no longer outlawed by Rome, churches and cathedrals began to be built.  In the west they followed a basilica plan and in the east they followed a central plan.  The basilica plan was the most widely used and still to this day is the most common plan because it is the style of all Roman Catholic churches and cathedrals.  Most catholic basilica cathedrals are big, dark, and made of stone.  This makes them rather uninviting to people and can cause people to make assumptions about Catholicism.  People sometimes assume that the church uses scare tactics to get people to go to church and give money to the church. A person can tell around what time period a cathedral was built because of its architecture and ornamentation.  For example a Romanesque church has lots of archways and radiating chapels.  It is also very big.  Its sculpture was almost always about the Last Judgment.  The people are not life like and they have sort of a herky-jerky stance.  There is not understanding of controposto, or weight shift.  A gothic cathedral is also big.  It has a lot of stained glass.  There is rib vaulting, pointed arches, buttresses, flying buttresses and triglyphs.  The Gothic period was considered the cult of the virgin because almost all of a cathedral’s ornamentation had to do with the Virgin Mary. Floor Plan of a Typical Basilica Cathedral Plan 

How does Emily Brontë distinguish the servants from the masters in Wuthering Heights?  She has the people speak differently.  The people who are in a higher class speak better then those that are in a lower class.  A reader can tell when a person of lower standing in society is speaking because Brontë wrote his or her speech in his or her vernacular.  A reader sometimes cannot tell what some of the characters are saying because the dialect is very different, a lot of words are put together, and there are a bunch of conjunctions that are not widely known.  This factor helps a reader differentiate between the classes in the novel Wuthering Heights.

How does Ian McEwan fit a story spanning decades into a novel in the novel Atonement?  He splits the story into parts.  He makes different parts in the novel different time periods.  McEwan makes the most important time periods the parts.  The events that transpire during these time periods are the most important to the story.  If there are things in between the time periods of the parts that are important they are told through a story or flashback.  Breaking the story helps keep a reader interested.  It makes the story faster because a reader is reading parts instead of reading life stories that span decades.

How does Ian McEwan make the historical fiction novel, Atonement new and interesting?  He writes the novel so that all of the events in the novel are told in different points of view.  By telling the story in multiple points of view the story stays interesting.  The story changes when another character tells the story.  There is always something new added to the story that each character reveals in his or her point of view. Readers are able to see the story from every angle.  This keeps the plot moving and interesting for the reader.

How does Ian McEwan make the England during the World War II era interesting for modern readers in Atonement? McEwan explains every single action and setting.  He writes every little detail.  It makes it easier for a reader to imagine especially if he or she was not alive during World War II or has never been to England.  With all the details a reader can see what he or she is reading.  The meticulous detail in the novel can make it hard to read.  It makes the story slow and drag on.  While including the detail makes the novel easier to picture, it also has the negative effect of making the novel sluggish.

How does Allan M. Winkler keep his audience interested in his book Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Making of Modern America?  He uses a lot of actual direct quotes from Franklin D. Roosevelt.  He uses things that were actually spoken.  By including things that Roosevelt truly said makes a reader feel like he or she is actually listening to Roosevelt.  It makes the book seem like it is by Roosevelt himself, which keeps a reader’s attention.  The quotess also give the book credibility.  Readers can believe that Winkler took time to research and get the facts correct because there is no other way that including the quotes would be possible.  

How does Tim O’Neil connect with a younger audience in The Things They Carried that did not experience The Vietnam War?  O’Neil uses colloquial language.  He uses everyday common speech to tell his stories from Vietnam.  O’Neil does not use military terminology to convey his stories.  Most young readers that read his novel do not know military terminology, so his not using it makes the novel easier for a reader to understand.  He also does not use large words that a young reader has to look up in a dictionary to understand.  The language in the novel is simple. This is so the story flows and a young reader is able to connect with the stories.

How does Cormac McCarthy get readers to relate to the post-apocalyptic world in The Road?  Cormac McCarthy connects readers by not naming the characters.  This is so a reader can insert whomever he or she wants as the characters.  The novel could be about any father and son.   A reader can picture his or her own father as the father in the novel, or it could be a reader and his son.  McCarthy also purposely puts little description on physical appearance, so a reader can further imagine whoever they want a certain character to be.  McCarthy knows that most of his readers have never been in a situation like the characters in the novel, so he gives a reader freedom to envision whomever he or she wants as the characters in the novel, so that the readers can relate to The Road.

How does the author, Andre Ariew, keep the reader’s attention in the first lesson in Philosophy 1200 online?  It is quite simple. He includes jokes. The subject he is writing about is new to most of the people that read it, which Ariew knows, so he puts in jokes to help communicate his message.  The jokes keep a reader grounded when learning novel ideas that are somewhat difficult to grasp.  A reader is able to pay attention to the lesson, which makes the material easier to learn.  The jokes are not included only for entertainment, but also to teach some of the concepts.  This helps a reader apply these ideas to the real world and everyday life.  A reader is more likely to give consideration to the lesson if he or she can apply it to his or her own life.

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