Connecting with Romeo and Juliet

As for the characters in Romeo and Juliet, it's difficult to compare myself to any of them because like most fictional characters, their life and personality is grossly overexaggerated for the good of entertainment. If I had to pick one, Romeo would be my choice because like him, I find myself feeling sorry for myself and whining a bit more often than I should. Also similar to Romeo, I will always have someone to calm me down and get my spirits up.

Reading at home without having to take annotations is a much more efficient process than Great Expectations. I find that I am reading on time and understanding what is there for me to read. I can read knowing that we are going to go over the material and I will have a chance to annotate after the fact. This provides a calmer reading experience and I actually enjoy reading chapters now.

Reading Great Expectations

Reading Great Expectations was a task for me, partly because I had to interrupt my reading every few moments to insert a sticky note for annotationg. As a result, I spent less time focusing on the content of the novel and more time scanning for things I could annotate for. Dickens took a very long time to come to his point, and used more extraneous details than I would like. The book seemed like it was devoid of emotion for the most part, and while you were reading, you felt like an impartial deity watching over events with a cold eye. It was hard to feel any emotions for the characters, and the plot seemed like it could have used more action and examples of the theme.

I read whenever I had time, whether it was on the soccer bus at 10:30 or after school in the library. I read more for the assignment than for enjoyment, and that's generally not the case for "assigned" reading. I felt like the annotation system promoted skimming and skipping sections. As discussed in the previous paragraph, it detracted from the overall experience of reading and throughout the reading, I felt like just stopping annotations and simply reading the book itself. Hopefully units in the future will have a different structure regarding annotations and discussions.

Great Expectations Question

A bell with an old voice - which I dare say in its time had often said to the house, Here is the green farthingale, Here is the diamondhilted sword, Here are the shoes with red heels and the blue solitaire.


What is Dickens trying to symbolize with this? Is the bell meant to represent a warning sign to the house? If so, why use benevolent objects as examples?

Theme

Charles Dickens uses all of his characters to stage a rise and fall scenario that underscores his theme that people are and always will be more valuable than material wealth no matter what time period you happen to be living in. He uses various characters to show how you can count on friends regardless of your current financial status as well as examples of "bad" friends that shouldn't be trusted. Bad friends generally are your friends because they have something to gain from that friendship. As soon as that value goes away, they will desert you in a heartbeat. Dickens uses all these examples to prove his point that you can't place a value on friendship.