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Knowledge (Innocence and Wisdom)

Page history last edited by PBworks 16 years, 4 months ago

Knowledge (Innocence and Wisdom) Notes page. To work on our paper in progress click here: Knowledge Paper

 

 

I think that we shoould use this page for notes and then write the paper on the pages below.

 

I think that this is a coming of age story. He gains knowledge over time.

 

p.47 "I flinched and a part of me said leave,run,now before its's to late, before you hear something you can't unhear.Before everything changes.But i pressed myself closer to the house and hung on."

 

 

 

 

In the first few pages it kind of alludes to the fact that before "everything" happened, he considered himself innocent and pure. He describes himself changing at a specific moment in time-

"From the summer of my twelfth year I carry a series of images more vivid and lasting than any others of my boyhood and indelible beyond all attempts the years make to erase or fade them..." (page 11)

From what I take from that quote, it seems like he considers innocence to be the OPPOSITE of wisdom, because before this specific point in time, he was somewhat naiive, but after that summer, the "series of images" refers to what he saw that made him wise.

 

Ok, so I've been reading this book, and trying to figure out how this topic fits into the book, but I just can't seem to figure it out. The only connection I really see is that David gains more knowledge about everything that's going on as the story continues. Other than that, I can't really see a connection.

 

I think for our paper we should write and intro with all of its parts and then our body paragraphs.Miss Boeser said that if we make the body paragraphs people such as Frank, Wes, Grandpa and say how David recivied knowledge from them would be a good way to write this paper. So start looking for info on how each character, main characters, David got knowledge from.

 

"The reason Wesley, the reason Marie didn't want to be examined by Frank is that he-he has...is that your brother has moleste Indian girls." Gail says this. David is hiding at the time listing to Wes and Gail talk.

"From there i was able to crouch down and double back to the side of the porch, staying below the screen and out of my parents' line of vision." David hiding putside his house.

 

 

I agree, I think that's a good way to write the paper.

Ok so here's what I was thinking: Maybe this paper is more of a compare than a contrast. It seems to me he is only wise when he is innocent (as a child). David knows what is right and wrong. He doesn't try to make excuses for Frank like his dad does. Everything has much more of a clean-cut answer: put him in jail. As a child, David is a good judge of character. He knows who around him he can trust and who is making good and fair decisions.

 

"I felt strangely calm, as if I had been in a state of high agitation but had now come down, my pulse returned o normal, my breathing slowed, my vision cleared. I needed that, I thought; I hadn't even known it but I needed to kill something. The events, the discoveries, the secrets of the past few days- Marie's illness, Uncle Frank's sins, the tension between father and mother-had excited something in me that wasn't released until I shot a magpie out of a pine tree."

------This quote displays how as he gains more information, he loses his innocence. Killing something isn't innocent. Reading it, the act of kiling the magpie seemed out of character, but as he had gained so much knowledge he just about went crazy.

 

This is a research paper too, remember. So we can't just have Monta 1948 evidence/facts, we need to find facts online. We really need to get this started! I say we start a new page and on that page can be outside research

 

DEFINITION: BULDUNGSROMAN: A novel whose principal subject is the moral, psychological, and intellectual development of a usually youthful main character.

 

-I talked to Boeser about how we can intertwine the research element and the straight-from-the-text element and here is my suggestion for the outline of the paper:

 

 

 

not necessarily a 5-paragraph, but I arranged it into 5 subjects to make it more manageable

 

 

 

I. Intro:

 

-P.O.C.: Montana 1948 is the classic example of a bildungsroman; the plot is percieved as a product of his moral, psychological, and intellectual development of David's young character. David moves from innocence to wisdom by gaining knowledge.

 

Innocence is equalivement of David earlier in the story, classic to literature. As he gets older he leaves this stage of innocence and progresses slowly into "wisdom" until the final product: end of story (or beginning) before flashback starts/after flashback ends 40 year difference In this paragraph make sure we talk about how the knowledge he gains makes them smarter, and through gaining knowledge he can't pretend to not see things and turn away, he can't plead ignorant/innocent.

 

 

 

 

 

II. Moral: to know what is right and wrong

 

What Uncle Frank did how David found out eavesdropping, no one directly told him

 

-how David reacted

 

-did he think it was right or wrong? was his opinion affected by his age? [pre-pubensence, adolescence, etc.]

 

- how he viewed other things that occured as a product of his age [example: the thought of his uncle molesting his teacher ((NOT HOT)) made him mad, compared to the thought of his uncle molesting the younger woman ((HOT)) which turned him on. This is typical example of adolescence.

 

-David also throughout the story wants to let people know what he knows. Espeically when he goes and talks to Len.

 

-He also at the end of the book criticizes his father for not putting Frank in jail. This happenes when his mother asks him what he wants to do. He reply by saying that he should be the Sheriff of Mercer county.

-"He'll shake him up and shout in Franks face that he'd better straighten up and fly right or there'll be hell to pay." Even David doesn't go to church he still knows his morals. He knows what Frank is doing is wrong and he wants him to stop.

 

 

 

III.Psychological

 

 

The theory that David devloped psychologically throughout the book is dependent on the stage theory of development: “the belief that development moves through a set sequence of stages; the quality of beavior at each stage is unique but is dependent upon movement through earlier stages (“Divorce and Seperation”).”

-due to the unusual familal circumstances and high stress levels at home (where David spent all his time), he had no escape and thus progressed through maturity at a faster rate. FIND EVIDENCE

 

-In the beginning, he was in awe of his dad's ability, and didn't understand why he wouldn't take full advantage of having a gun. Childlike expectation that if you have a gun, you use it.

-”As long as my father was going to be a sheriff, a position with so much potential for exceitment, danger, and bravery, why couldn't some of that promise be fufilled? (Watson 17)”

-”...My father didn't fit my ideal of what he should be in his occupation...(Watson 19)”

-

 

 

How his parents are authority figures seeing them weak, how does it affect him?

-makes him mature faster

-”take over” for dad when he wasn't there

-realize more deeply how his actions/words affected others

-could read body/language better as he matured, how what people said wasn't always what they meant (not usual for children, comes with age)

-”general signs of distress in children, which may be caused by family violence or other stressors, include depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, hyperactivity, disruptive behaviors, aggressivness, and lack of friends. (“Domestic Violence”)”

 

-His father leaves family to fend for themselves and some of Grandpa's people come around. Seeing his mother take the gun was a shock and seemed wrong to him:

-A psychological study at Kansas State University showed that 8-12 year olds expected their parents to react to conflict in a way that was representative of traditional sex-role steretypes. (Dino)

 

-mental state as a product of age

 

-He matured, could take things into his own hands helped his mom defend the house, tried to take gun from her

 

-As he gained knowledge, he became more physcologically mature. he akncowledged he had to step up and handle things for the family

 

-how the idea of uncle frank in his basement changes as he matures

-scared?

-scared for self

-as matures, scared for family. can see past his own feelings, feel for others (empathy)

 

wanting to kill uncle frank childlike solution to pain? or frightingly adult?

-may go back to youth- father having gun? didn't understand why you wouldn't use it to solve conflict

 

sexuality/adolesence has a lot of sexual thoughts product of age &innocence

 

-After Frank comits suicide he feels love for him.He feels that he did that so every one could live a better life.

 

-As David and his family leave Bentrock he feels as if he should not go. He says that he should stay here and let "those two people" sort life out. At the end of the story he also says something about Marie and Ronnie playing football with him. he says that at that moment he felt like he belonged to a family.

 

------ego defense mechanism: “ways in which people distort reality in order to reduce stress” (Divorce and Seperation)-----

 

 

 

 

IV. Intellectual

 

-How he observes things and takes things that he sees/experiences. Does he do this because he is naiive?

 

Thought proccess begins to change example: thinking that killing Uncle Frank would solve problems--adult way of thinking ex: war.

 

-As he develops intellectually, people give him a lot of information directly, people can appreciate that he is maturing and growing.

 

He isn't fully intellectually grown: ex Marie talking about the coyotes, David not realizing she was talking about Frank.

-He also has to find everything out by himself. All he wants during these troubling times is to have his parents, or an adult tell if the truth about what is going on.

 

 

 

-Innocence vs. Wisdom?

 

 

 

V. Conclusion

 

 

 

 

 

Ok this is pretty rough, we obviously need to find lots of examples from the text and outside sources. As far as outside sources go, we should look for stuff that talk about psychological development of an adolescent boy. And how traumatic home incidents can affect maturity, etc.

 

Note to group members: Now that we have basic idea and I wrote the outline, I will write the intro paragraph and the physiological paragraph. on the following page.

 

 

 

 

Just so everyone knows, I created a works cited page since we need to cite at least 3 outside resources.  The ones I've cited thus far are for my psychological development paragraph. Please put these in MLA format.  To get to the works cited page, go down to "wikki information" or "wikki pages" or something like that at the bottom of the page, and there will be a "see all pages" list.  click on that and I titled the page "Works Cited for Knowledge and Wisdom Paper".  Add as you use sources.  Have a good weekend!  P.s. this needs to be done monday!

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