Reaction to act one of the History Boys

• Open scene leaves foreboding- in wheel chair etc.
• Hector moves with a "flourish"- use of phyiscal comedy
• Boys speak french, play piano etc. with great skill- show's them as clever
• Posner- sticks out as a "boffin" type
• Constant quotations of poets etc. shows deep seated enjoyment of literature
• Large contrast between Irwin and Hector- despite similar views on education- Iwin calling the quotations "gobbets"
• Lots of the humour is drawn from a the characters: very teenage boy-like, bawdy, and even racial elements (yet very unmalicious)- could be described as "banter"
• Hector still likeable despite his molestation of the boys

Reading Journal (The Great Gatsby): Chapter 4

Section A:

• List of names: mostly animals, plants and/or humorous sounding- also morbid stories that accompany them
• The car's description "gorgeous" and it's role in the chapter 
• Racial language "American resourcefulness of movement", "Negroes", referring to Wolfsheim as a jew and making multiple references to his nose

Section B:

• Development of nick as narrator and a more spontaneous character "there are the pursued, the pursuing, the busy and the tired"
• Nick also  starts to consider himself on of Crowd that attends Gatsby's parties
• Gatsby's false past is told to us-it is hinted that this is a lie through lines such as "he looked at me sideways"

Reading journal (The Great Gatsby): Chapter 3

Section One:

• Imagery: Musical Imagery- "opera of voices pitches a key higher" "[referring to the Englishmen]  for a few words in the right key"
• Language of excess: "Pyramid of fruit", "corps of caterers", "finger bowls of champagne
• Description of Gatsby's smile
• Use of bright colours- i.e. the yellow of the two girl's dresses

Section Two:

• Superficiality: "introductions forgotten on the spot", the fact people gossip about Gatsby but still attend his parties
• Alienation: Nick's words about his time in new york
• Gatsby: His reputation is juxtaposed with his almost meager introduction to with Nick 

Reading Journal (The Great Gatsby): Chapter two

Section One:

• Metaphor: Valley of ashes, Dr Ecklebergs eyes (consumerism) 
• Use of time: It's a Sunday (god's day)- yet affairs and drunkenness take place. how fast time seems to move at the party- end of chapter a key example
• Perspective: this use of time shows us Nick's drunkenness

Section Two:

• Mr Wilson: summation of the Valley of ashes-  yet still a figure of hope- "yet handsome man"
• Mrs Wilson: described as "large several times", changes clothes several times, reading material non-intellectual ("Town Tattle" etc)
• Tom Buchanan: "cruel body" finally comes to work, rude to strangers and friends "go by 20 more dogs" 

Reading Journal (The Great Gatsby): Chapter 1

Section A

• Setting: Contrast between Midwest and Eastern Coast (new york)
• Perspective: Do we thrust nick? "I'm inclined to reserve all judgement", "I wanted the world to stand to a sort of moral attention forever
• Metaphor: everything is carraway hates about the east, but the reason for this "is what preyed on him"
• Use of speech- gossip (Jordan)

Section B:

• Movement imagery "floating etc."
• Tom's phsyniognomy, Aggressive conversation (use of dashes)
• why is daisy sad?, musical imagery used to describe
• Parallel with musical imagery used to describe Gatsby
• Meet Gatsby- longing for something across the water

Reading Journal: (Much ado about nothing) Act 4

An act of great contrast between it's two scenes:

• Scene one: The climax in terms of drama: Hero is slander, Leonato practically disowns her and Beatrice asks Benedick to kill Claudio. This latter exchange is interesting considering how up until Beatrice and Benedick's Conversations have been witty exchanges of banter- which were extremely comedic- but now they are having an extreme, and emotionally intense exchange
• Scene Two: Another scene with the almost clown like Dogberry. Which relieves the tension from the last scene with more of Dogberry's antics. Specifically the comedic highlight  "let it be written down I am an ass"

Reading Journal (much ado about nothing): Act three

• opens with a scene that mirrors the scene in which Benedick is tricked into believing Beatrice loves him, and in the same way the use of staging and slapstick humour as Beatrice tries to listen in on the conversation
• The next scene sees Benedick mocked by his friends in a very macho and bawdy fashion- with lots of innuendo and references to the cuckolds horns
• the latter half of scene two sees a development of the drama in the play- Don John's intiates his new plan, and informs Claudio of Hero's supposed adultery
• We are now introduced to the Dogberry and the watchmen. Dogberry has a habit of getting his words wrong and is the plays figure of comedic imcopetence
• The watchmen (who are associated with Dogberry so are more often than not portrayed as comedic characters also) are also an important part of the drama since they over hear Borachio and Conrad, and seemingly foil them by capturing them
• Conrad and Borachio's capture should have foiled Don John's Plan, but In the last scene of this Dogberry's comedic mixing up of words andantics confuses Leonato so much that he doesn't get the message- in advertently causing the dramatic climax in act 4