E12 Quarter Two Wrap-Up: Critcal Approaches

The duration of quarter two of English 12 we mainly focused on the different perspectives/lenes that could be explored throughout forms of expression. We read articles, watched movies,watched documentaries and read novels. During the time we mainly focused on aspects of the social class, feminist approaches, cultures and the main way that historical events have shaped them . We had the option of choosing out of a few diffrent books that were about social class and feminist view points. I chose to read a book to read called Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen. As our close-up of the quarter my class had a chance to watch one out of two movies that reflect on many of the aspects we have covered in class. We watched Water for Elephants directed by Fransics Lawrence. This film showed many if not all of the major aspects that we have covered in class. For example the feminist approach was very much there. All of the woman were for show and on display while all of the men were either running the show or some type of dirt worker. Social class to me was the most apparent throughout the film. When Jacob was going to college I considered him to be an upper- middle class citizen. Unfortunately everything fell through for Jacob, his parents were both killed in a car accident and he was left with absolutely nothing. On the train for the circus social class was very blunt. There was the end of the train which was filled with the dirty animals and the low class workers who had very bad sleeping and living conditions. There was the middle part of the train where it was the performers who were mainly the woman performers. Then there was the high part of the train which included August and all of the other men who were in control and could basically do whatever he wanted. August showed this a lot during the film when he would abuse Rosie with a pole and when he threw workers off the train and had no apparent consequences. In the matter of race there wasn't too much that was apparent to me. I'm sure during that time period when the whites were in  control there was a lot of mistreatment of the underclass race citizens it just wasn't presented in this film. Something that impressed me was how during the day the cast/workers of the circus could put on this amazing show making it look like a dream to all of these children. Where in reality it was all fake, at night their was a completely different show people were being killed off and starved and they weren't receiving money. This just really showed how during the Great Depression many people wanted to think that there was this "dream" and this circus made them believe that there was, when there really wasn't.