Reading List: English 11/12 (HUMANITIES CORE)
“A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us.”
—Franz Kafka
Fall
—Franz Kafka
Fall
Focus on Two American Poets:
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The Great Gatsby
The Great Gatsby is a story told by Nick Carraway, who was once Gatsby's neighbor, and he tells the story sometime after 1922, when the incidents that fill the book take place. As the story opens, Nick has just moved from the Midwest to West Egg, Long Island, seeking his fortune. Little does Nick know that he is about to meet a man who has everything money can buy, but desperately desires the one thing he can't.
Considered to be Fitzgerald's best work (many regard it as the greatest modern American novel ever written), The Great Gatsby explores themes of decadence, idealism, resistance to change, social upheaval, and excess, creating a portrait of the Jazz Age or the Roaring Twenties that has been described as a cautionary tale regarding the American Dream. |
The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail
"If the law is of such a nature that it requires you to be an agent of injustice to another, then I say, break the law." So wrote the young Henry David Thoreau in 1849. Three years earlier, Thoreau had put his belief into action and refused to pay taxes because of the United States government's involvement in the Mexican War, which Thoreau firmly believed was unjust. For his daring and unprecedented act of protest, he was thrown in jail.
The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail, a two-act play by Robert E. Lee and Jerome Lawrence, was written in 1969, at the height of the Vietnam War, and modern themes abound. It is a celebrated dramatic presentation of this famous act of civil disobedience and its consequences. Poignant and lively, the play's accessible scenes offer a compelling exploration of Thoreau's philosophy and life. |
Spring
The Autobiography of Malcolm X
Through a life of passion and struggle, Malcolm X became one of the most influential figures of the 20th Century. In this riveting account, he tells of his journey from a prison cell to Mecca, describing his transition from hoodlum to Muslim minister. Here, the man who called himself "the angriest Black man in America" relates how his conversion to true Islam helped him confront his rage and recognize the brotherhood of all mankind.
An established classic of modern America, The Autobiography of Malcolm X remains essential reading for those seeking to understand the motivations and message behind both the Civil Rights and the Black Lives Matter movements. Still extraordinary, still important, this electrifying story has transformed Malcom X's life into his legacy. The strength of his words, the power of his ideas continue to resonate more than a generation after they first appeared. |
The Catcher in the Rye
Over the course of three days, a rich kid who can't stop getting expelled from every school he attends wanders around Manhattan trying to get (1) drunk and (2) lucky.
No, it's not the plot of an unreleased Gossip Girl season (RIP). It's the plot of The Catcher in the Rye, J. D. Salinger's beloved, banned, reviled, worshiped, and—well, let’s just say polarizing 1951 novel about a depressed prep school boy with a heart of gold. After rocketing almost immediately to the top of the bestseller lists, The Catcher in the Rye began its run on the banned books list. Not surprising (profanity, sex, alcohol abuse, prostitution—need we go on?), but it is a little surprising that it’s also so common in high school English classes. Is there’s something more going on than the ramblings of a depressed and admittedly immature sixteen- year-old? Boy (as Holden would say) is there. Reaching all the way back to the coming-of-age tradition, The Catcher in the Rye is a book about a teenager trying to find a way to be true to himself while growing up in a world full of phonies—and a book about post-World War II America burrowing into the “phoniness” of consumerism while trying to pretend that the trauma of the atomic bomb didn’t happen. No wonder The Catcher in the Rye ended up as a symbol of alienation and isolation for the disillusioned and restless post-war generation. |
The Crucible
Imagine a super-constrictive time in history. Think confining apparel. Think proper social etiquette. Think mass hysteria that makes entire communities suspicious and paranoid.
If the first image that popped into your head was of a 1950s housewife, you're 100% correct. If the next image was of a pilgrim homemaker of the 1600s, you're also on track. Arthur Miller's The Crucible gives us a parable that spans centuries. This play is a commentary on the claustrophobic Puritanical-code-of-conduct-fear-of-witches nonsense of Massachusetts in the 17th century and a commentary on the claustrophobic, girdles-white-picket-fences-fear-of-Communists nonsense of America in the late 1940s and 1950s. Sure, on the surface this play appears to be totally about the Salem Witch Trials. But Arthur Miller intended to use the Salem Witch Trials as an allegory for the anti-communist Red Scare and the congressional hearings of Senator Joseph McCarthy going on in the United States in 1953, when the play was first performed. |