Paper 2: Extended Essay

3.- To what extent do male and female literary characters accurately reflect the role of men and women in society?

Throughout history we've seen a massive change in female characters. In the old era females and males were a completely different reality than nowadays, huge changes have been made for better justice. Rights of each gender were distorted so females could be able to have more participation in society itself, a society of chovinism which through time changed to a more stable and equality based society. This is how we are able to see that the extent of accuracy that characters reflect on males and females according to the setting of the novel is not so accurate for the case of Fatelessness. For instance, we are able to see that Georg father was about to be sent to a labor service, a labor that would abuse physically males and females of Jewish descent, but during the novel, we're not able to see any woman being involved on labor service or any concentration camps, knowing that there were concentration camps made only for woman, so is the case of Ravensbrück. So is the case on To kill a Mockingbird, Scout is a character who presents a completely different behaviour than most females n 1930's.

In Holocaust times we are able to see that women and men were threated completely different, but, we should analyze both aspects, the Jewish and the Nazi side. Jewish females during the Holocaust had their own concentration camps such as Ravensbrück, but during the novel there are almost none  woman being physically abused by being forced to work on unhuman conditions which would lead us to the conclusion that the reflection of the roles of males and females from 1940s is not quite accurate. As well if we look to the role of females supporting the Nazi ideology we are able to determine that it does reflect the role of them accurately since females from that era were in charge of ammunition, nursery, etc. so is in the novel.
Now if we analyze the role of men of course we would lead to the conclusion that the accuracy reflected on the characters for the Holocaust is very good, for instance we are able to see that Georg, his father and most of Nazi males have their role almost completely well set, the abuse on camps, the lack of food given to them, the whole way they have to live on Auschwitz.

In another aspect that we should take into consideration on To Kill a Mockingbird is the way that Scout thinks, acts and dresses is a completely different way of being for a girl of 1930s this is how we're able to come to the conclusion that this character doesn't precisely reflect the image of a girl from 1930s, it reflects a completely different image, more sort of a boy's one. But if we look throughout the rest of the characters, such as the Afro American decendants we could say that those characters do reflect almost perfectly the behaviour of them in 1930, the group of females, Atticus all represent an image of 1930 persons, we could tell because most of the things that happen during the book were a representation of the life of Harper Lee's childhood. This is how we're able to reach the conclusion that the characters seen through To Kill a Mockingbird have a good accuracy in comparison to the way of being from people of those days.

In conclusion we are able to determine that is almost imposible to see if wether the book reflects or not the role of the characters according to their setting, of course, at least, not in a general way, what we have to do to reach an optimal conclusion is to pick each character and analyze it in a way that we could determine wether it does or not fit into it's setting of time. However according to the previous analyze made above we could say that both books have it's own good reflections and bad reflections of the way that each character should behave according to their setting, for example as we saw above, in Fatelessness, not every character does have this good reflection but however we could say that the roles of males fits along with the Holocaust times, but, however, females doesn't really fit on what we were able to see during the Holocaust, and this is why we should agree that the extent of role reflection is hard to determine. In To kill a Mockingbird we saw that the extent here is way easier to appreciate, it demonstrates most of the attitudes that people had in that era, except for Scout and Atticus which had a completely different ideology of being, the best way to determine this is analyzing the behaviour of Afro American decendants which have an perfect reflection of their roles during that era.

Abraham Lincoln Speech

“My friends: No one, not in my situation, can appreciate my feeling of sadness at this parting. To this place, and the kindness of these people, I owe everything. Here I have lived a quarter of  a century, and have passed from a young to an old man. Here my children have been born, and one is buried. I now leave, not knowing when or whether ever I may return, with a task before me greater than that which rested upon Washington. Without the assistance of that Divine Being who ever attended him, I canot succeed. With that assistance, I cannot fail. Trusting in Him who can go with me, and remain with you, and be everywhere for good, let us confidently hope that all will yet be well. To His care commending you, as I hope in your prayers you will commend me, I bid you an affectionate farewell.”

As we can see on the speech, Lincoln refers to the audience as "friends" which would make the whole composition of words more sentimental, affectional, etc. In another aspect we are able to descry the way that Abraham uses words to achieve a closer proximity between him and his followers.

Truth Assumptions, Idioms and Ambiguity!

Today in class we did a few exercises on Truth assumptions, stating if some statements were factive or not. The use of certain verbs can imply the actual or probable status of events in a statement. In the sentence “I know the dog died”, the verb “know” is FACTIVE as it assigns the death of the dog as true. In “I believe the dog died”, the verb “believe” is NON-FACTIVE as the clausal object (the dog died) may not be a true fact.

 Are the following statements factive or non-factive? 

I thought that today was your birthday. NON-FACTIVE
I forgot that today was your birthday. FACTIVE
The teacher scolded me for not studying hard enough. FACTIVE
The teacher acknowledged that I hadn’t really studied. NON-FACTIVE
The teacher realized the student had cheated. FACTIVE
The teacher assumed that the student had cheated. NON-FACTIVE

 As well we analysed some sentences which had some ambiguities and rhetorical devices. Meaning can often be complicated through the use of metaphors, idioms, or simply through ambiguous relationships between words. What are the actual meanings of the first two idioms below? What are the possible meanings of the next ambiguous sentences?

Bite your tongue - Metaphor: Stop talking.
Pull my leg - Metaphor: Are you joking on me?
He is my English teacher - Ambiguity: Is he your English teacher or just a teacher from England?
I saw the person with a telescope - Ambiguity: Were you watching him with a telescope? or was he the one looking through it?
She doesn’t like short men or women - Ambiguity: Not clear of wether she has a problem with short men or woman, or short people in general.

Register: Paper 1 Skills and Practice

FROZEN register is pre-determined or scripted language used in prescribed, often ritualistic contexts such as a court of law or a church.
 FORMAL register is used in speeches and presentations, as opposed to discussion, that demands precise technical jargon.
 CONSULTATIVE register is language more often used in dialogue that includes some off-hand, informal language, impromptu corrections and non-technical explanation.
 CASUAL register is used in group discussions with friends that can include gaps, interruptions, pauses, errors and personal “inside” words.
 INTIMATE register is used in private conversation between close friends and family where tone, volume and unspoken hints or suggestions may be just as important as the denotation of words. 

Examples: “Honoured guests, members of the board, Superintendent Johnson, and most importantly, graduates of the class of 2012, it is an honour to speak to you on this occasion.” The predominant register here is the Formal register, since it's a speech and it addresses "Superintendent Johnson" 

“While I was pleasantly surprised by the menu selections for dinner service, I was disheartened by the lukewarm eggs at breakfast.” This sentence is based on a Casual register since the speaker is giving us a personal opinion.
 “Yeah, right” This affirmation falls into the Casual register since it gives a correction or personal thinking of himself.
 “I doubt it” This correction falls into the Consultative register since it gives an announcement against some fact.
 “I’m tired of your rubbish” Intimate register since it expresses something from the deep of someone “I’m tired” Intimate register since the narrator is telling his/her mood at the moment.