The Purpose of this Blog

Your task on this blog is to write a brief summary of what we learned in class today. Include enough detail so that someone who was ill or missed the lesson can catch up with what they missed. Over the course of the term, these 'class scribe' posts will grow to be a guide book for the course, written by students for students.

With each post ask yourself the following questions:
1) Is this good enough for our guide book?
2) Will your post enable someone who wasn't here to catch up?
3) Would a graphic/video/link help to illustrate what we have learned?


Tuesday 4 October 2011

A Streetcar Named Desire - scene three.

We began by focusing on an image by Van Gogh.

colours in the image = bold, harmonising, warm, autumnal and exaggerated.

brush strokes in the image = flowing, vertical.

composition in the image = claustrophobic and cramped around the edges due to clutter, but spacious and open in the centre.

The setting of Stanley's poker night is based around this image, so from this we identified that the atmosphere would be rather tense, anxious and also serious as poker is often classed as a serious game.




Next we focused on A02 language analysis which consists of 6 different types of imagery. We found examples of each of these within scene three.

1) visual = descriptions of what you can see
- poker table with chips, cards and whiskey on it

2) auditory = descriptions of sound
- blue piano music in the background
- Stanley slapping Stella
- shouting amongst Eunice and Stanley

3) olfactory = descriptions of smell
- whiskey
- watermelon

4) gustatory = descriptions of taste
- whiskey
- watermelon

5) kinaesthetic = describes movement
- Stanley hitting Stella
- the men pinning Stanley down
- Stanley chasing Stella
- Stanley slamming the radio down

6) tactile = descriptions of touch
- Stanley placing his head on Stella's belly
- Stella pulling him up to her
- the men pinning Stanley down




Finally we looked at arguments both for and against the quote "poker shouldn't be played in a house with women."

FOR:

- poker is considered to be a man's game, therefore women shouldn't be connected to this.

- the environment during a poker game can become manly and rather aggressive, an environment women should not be subjected to.

- it's time for men to spend away from their partners and to bond with their friends.

- its a serious, money centred game, and is therefore not connected to femininity.


AGAINST:

- the game would continue all night and the men would not go home without a woman calling it off.

- women may need to supervise the men's drinking habits as they could become rowdy and rather argumentative.

- with women around, the atmosphere would become more light-hearted and not so tense.

9 comments:

  1. really detailed blog, thank you - it really helped me catch up on what I missed :)

    btw i notice how all the "Against" points show women as the means of order, as if without them men would be savage...?

    Samiha

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  2. This is a really useful blog, the examples for each of the different types of imagery are helpful as well. You seem to have covered everything, the only thing you could add to the "For" argument in terms of men being aggressive is that women could get hurt if they do turn to aggression.

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  3. A really good blog. I like how there are loads of arguments for and against the women/poker issue.

    Mumtas

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  4. Well done Shaz! :-)
    It's very detailed and has refreshed my memory of what we done in the lesson. I thought looking at Van Gogh's picture and Wiliiams setting the start of the scene around it was very effective as it gives the reader a vivid portrayal of how the stage would be set. Also, the colours and cramped atmosphere is a significant representation of the wealth and lifestyle Stella and Stanley live.
    I cannot possibly find fault with this entry as it is so well detailed, and organised!

    Sophie.

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  5. well done shazia:-).
    this is a really detailed blog and it helped to refresh my memory of everything that we went through in the lesson. There was also some points in the FOR and AGAINST section which you helped me out on. There's nothing else to write on here as its really good.

    Rebecca.

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  6. very descriptive shazia, the for's and against's about poker not being played in a house with women was a lot more detailed than mine wouldve been, so thank you for helping me with that, and the same with the different senses. so very helpful for me as i didnt get very in depth with those two sections
    Raydog

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  7. Shazia

    Thanks for posting your detailed and relevant blog. It is excellent to note that others are learning from your blogging: that is why the blog is so important.

    Mr Gall

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