Monday, May 09, 2005

hmmm.. today's an eventful day for 3104 to say the least. don't remember seeing mark so happy before. haha.. but how come news always reach me so slowly?? ain't fair!! haha.. on a more personal scale, i found out some stuff from ya ting i never knew about. yea. i kinda sympathize with you (YOU) but he really ain't a bad guy. there's alot to understand for a small fella like him.
anws, for once i completed four sides for a lit test and i actually felt that i wrote something relevant. hope i pass... but lit tests with the arts fac's always kinda fun. noisy. and cheaterbuggied. gideon wrote an amazing essay. was so proud of it that he went to the bookshop to photocopy it for his class before handing it in. and before you know it, guess what? copies of his paper's circulating around like some newspaper lit style.
here's his essay:
Gideon Sim
3404
Discuss how the visit to Lyme contributes to Jane Austen's purpose in this novel.
When life gives you a Lyme, make Lyme juice, as they say. that is the feeling i got upon receiving the question. And that must have been the feeling on Jane Austen's mind when she, through the character of Captain Wentworth, introduced us to the township of Lyme. Jane Austen certainly squeezed as much as she could out of Lyme, in order to achieve her purpose. Much happens in Lyme, though they are mostly sour or bitter experiences.
The first experience is Louisa's accident, leaving her with a concussion and badly injured. Captain Wentworth and Anne Elliot both feel obliged to help nurse Louisa back to health. As we can see, under this care and concern, Louisa does indeed make a speedy recovery and comes away from the experience none the worse for wear. As the doctor expressed, she was very likely to recover. It is obvious that the care and concern showed by Anne and Captain Wentworth played a big part in Louisa's recovery. This highlights one of Jane Austen's purposes in writing the novel. That is, to show the importance of a strong social support network. It is through and with the support of her friends that Louisa manages to regain her health. Without such strong support from others around her, she might well have been left to die. Similarly, we that the people around Anne, specifically Lady Russell, did not initially approve of Captain Wentworth due to his being in dire financial straits. Because of the lack of social approval and support for Anne's decision, she called off her engagement to Captain Wentworth, not because she does not love him, but because her social strata disapproved of it.
Another highlight of the visit to Lyme is Anne's meeting with Mr Elliot. This brings out the purpose of showing that there are wolves in sheeps' clothing. Mr Elliot's intentions seem to be driven by love attraction to Anne but we later discover that this is not the case. We cannot judge a book by its cover, Jane Austen seems to be trying to tell us. Despite what seems to be the obvious, outward, harmless intentions of people, inside it might actually be alot of bitterness and sourness. If we investigate further, we might be able to extract the seeds of evil, as Anne did. Therefore, Jane Austen seems to be shouting out to us, "Don't be taken in! Always be suspicious, even paranoid, and nothing you here is the truth." A parallel is also drawn to this incident when Anne discovers that Captain Wentworth does not treat her as well, and she assumes his feelings no longer exist, and does not bother to question further. In actual fact, Captain Wentworth is still enraptured and full of desire for her.
Lyme is thus an extremely crucial point of the book, and serves to highlight and reinforce many of Jane Austen's purposes in writing the book. Lyme is certainly not just for added flavour, but is in fact a necessary ingredient.
full and unabridged version (other than the words i can't see properly through no fault of my own). talk about weird...