Geography How to Read Literature Like a College Professor

1. GeographyHow to Read Literature Like a College Professor Ms. Garcia AP Lit

2. Notes from Reading Geography Matters… • What represents home, family, love, security? • What represents wilderness, danger, confusion? i.e. tunnels, labyrinths, jungles • Geography can represent the human psyche (Heart of Darkness) • Going south=running amok and running amok means having a direct, raw encounter with the subconscious.  • Low places: swamps, crowds, fog, darkness, fields, heat, unpleasantness, people, life, death • High places: snow, ice, purity, thin air, clear views, isolation, life, death

3. Notes from Reading • Landscape, architecture, and weather set tone for story • Geography can define and develop a character Ex. The Bean Trees, character lives in a desolate, barren world and moves out to the West (representing new ideas, expansion, etc.) • Geography can be a character in itself Ex. Going After Cacciato tunnels of Vietnam become the American soldiers’ nemesis • Geography mirrors topics Ex. “Bogland” poems digging and finding historical remnants (physically and metaphorically)

4. Bogland by Seamus Heaney • In Bogland, Heaney describes the landscape of his native Ireland and in particular, the peat bogs for which the land is renowned. The bogs are an archaeologist’s dream, preserving layers of history and pre-history to be revealed by digging.

5. Case Study from a Text Why is the novel set in New York? Why does this location work for the themes in the story? The Great Gatsby • juxtaposition of rich and poor in New York City -West Egg district of Long Island, a wealthy but unfashionable area populated by the new rich -East Egg, a fashionable area of Long Island home to the established upper class -valley of ashes, a gray industrial dumping ground between West Egg and New York City • 1920s and the Jazz Era– moral corruption, Prohibition, women’s roles changing -1920s Jazz era booming and NYC was a hub for it -Gatsby’s parties make sense here (going against moral codes and standards) -organized crime (Which Jay Gatsby finds himself involved in) -1920s novelty of the car (makes sense with the crash) -1920s women exploring their freedoms (Daisy’s inability to drive well/intoxicated, character allowed to have an affair with Gatsby) • NYC area of immigrants and low-wage workers that helped build NYC’s skyscrapers and performed “lower” class jobs, (George and Myrtle) Why else does the setting work for this novel? (discuss)

6. Examples from other pieces of art • Movies Romeo and Juliet (modern) -Two families feud in a metropolitan city where guns and violence are part of life Superman -from Smallville, a place no one would expect for a superbeing to come from

7. Examples from Texts: Student Practice For each piece of literature, please answer the following questions: • What geographic setting does the story take place? • How does this location affect the characters? The plot? The themes? • Things Fall Apart • The Awakening • Othello • Heart of Darkness • Choose a book you have read before

8. Questions