A little late I know, but so what is a question that may or may not haunt me for the rest of my literary analysis. It’s a question that I presumed used to have a “simple” answer, but even that is putting it lightly. Being in this class made me realize that there are so many interesting interpretations within literary analysis and criticism, and that no one thing is truly correct even if it is the big consensus that people believe. I always had a small fear behind saying something incorrect, or saying something that really didn’t go anywhere, but ultimately, so what?? Literally, so what. There’s always a so what attached to someone half of the time, and I really do think this class helped in fixing a very ingrained mindset. Struggle might not feel nice, but it is important to have. Smooth-sailing just sounds a little boring anyways, and I really do appreciate the way this class has built on some previous foundation of writing skills that were a lot weaker because wow, standardized testing really messed me over. Reading is an important skill, and just about anything can be “read” to this level if you just try hard enough.
This class was challenging and overwhelming to me. I was really REALLY intimated by everybody in this class which made me feel stupid when it came to discussing about the book because everybody had an understanding about the chapters, characters and the book in general. So it made me question myself a lot during the semester. I never knew what close reading meant and taking this class made me gain a skill and hopefully improve it when I’m reading for class or for myself. While my skills are still improving and gaining knowledge on certain aspects in my education, it was an okay and good class.
Thinking about which body of water feels the most personal to me was an interesting exercise. I come from the middle of the desert; Imperial Valley, CA, one of the hottest places on Earth, and the bodies of water in my immediacy are not naturally occurring. In my county, the largest bodies of water I see on a daily basis are canals running through our desert land. Despite being one of the hottest regions in the world, we do not experience water shortages because these canals, supplied by the Colorado River, feed our agricultural community with potable water year round. This, to me, exemplifies the blend of nature and man’s intervention in the creation of life: both factors had to be combined to sustain the life we lead today. I grew up watching these canals through my car window as we rode through town. It was when I started entering my teenage years that I realized I also had water to cherish in my own home, and I was lucky enough to not just be able to use it everyday, but also see it with my own eyes as I drive through my desert town. The flat, open landscape is the perfect backdrop to appreciate the contrast running water makes on dry land. It is difficult not to appreciate the ordinary beauty of these canals under the sun. The powerful rays bounce off the surface on a clear day and they sparkle in your vision. The water is constantly clear and mesmerizing, and perfectly reflects the deep blue sky. The edges of the water are framed by tangled vegetation that grows through the cracks of the concrete and it reminds you that life always finds a way.
And yet, these givers of life also bring death. One of the most shocking sights to me has always been at the edge of these canals, where you can often find a cross sticking out from the ground. The crosses are often simple; just two pieces of wood nailed together, with maybe an inscription of the name. Sometimes they are decorated with small fairy lights or artificial flowers, and sometimes they might even include a picture of a person. These are shrines to people that have suffered accidents, maybe gone swimming in the canal or tried crossing them for another reason, and have died by drowning as a result. Ever since I was a kid, this has been a constant motif in my landscape (in my hometown particularly, which is a border town), a reminder never to get in the canals, and of the fragility of life. We are an overwhelmingly Hispanic population, and these colorful shrines are just one more example of how Mexicans culturally deal with and process death. And yet that which can kill us also constantly gives us abundant life and prosperity as a community. Life and death coexist together in the running water of the canals. I was privileged enough to have grown up occasionally travelling to the beach on summer break, sometimes over here to San Diego or to beaches in Ensenada and Rosarito, or having access to a pool to play in once in a while. The people who played and died in the canals might have done so because they lacked this privilege, so their experience with water was tainted with considerably more danger than mine. It is in these situations that we can see how access to water recreationally (and otherwise) is not only a geographical question, but an economical one, and sometimes it means the difference between life and death. It isn’t something to be taken for granted.
In my hometown, we have a bridge that goes over one of these canals, and every time I cross it, I look over my shoulder to admire the calm surface of the water, even if for a second. Something I got from my mom, it has become a habit to always check the water level, see how we are doing. When the water is high, I always take a moment to mutter a quiet prayer: “Thank you, God,” for the blessing of water.
This class was challenging and rewarding, a bit of a wild ride. I think my biggest takeaway from it would have to be the importance of doing stuff imperfectly. This challenging book we read was a lot, but it helped me develop the discipline to stick with it despite not reading every single word or line. I normally refuse to say I’ve read a book until I’ve read every single page until the end (for this reason, a lot of times I end up leaving books for school unfinished, because I feel like I have failed to read them perfectly), but this has shown me that this is not necessarily true. Close reading this, though not every single line, was one of the most valuable and enriching reading experiences I’ve had, at least in a long time. The process to learn close reading was a gradual one too, and it forced me to make failed attempts many times until I hit the mark. However, the opportunities to revise and correct our work were a very important step in this learning process. I tend to shy away from doing things unless I absolutely know exactly what to do, but this class has helped me realize my work is not of less value if it’s not perfect, it just means I’m human and I’m learning.
In terms of the content of the book itself, I feel like I’ve gained a new perspective of America as a country and us as a people. As a Mexican-American, I tend to separate my two nationalities with that hyphen: I am both, but they are distinct from one another. The discussion of what makes an American an American has caused me to question if this separation is really necessary. I am newly interested in what it means to be a person of the United States and why, what American culture might be, and what that means for our society. I’ve always thought that the strength of this nation lies in the combination of so many backgrounds and contributions that enrich us. I still believe this and the book has challenged me to think more deeply on this and how that relates to the American identity.
Attempting to read Moby Dick, and finish it, was definitely not something that I was expecting to do this year. Before this class, I have definitely heard of the book and have been one of the people that thought it was only about a whale attacking whalers. Not only do I feel a big sense of accomplishment for finishing the book but I also have a lot of appreciation for being surrounded by intelligent students and professor Pressman throughout this whole process. This book was a tough one for me and I would not have made a dent in this book if I was reading it on my own. I most likely would have not finished it and not pick it up again, which means I would have missed out on how great this book was.
During this class, I realized how much I needed to work on my analyzing skills and now at the end of class I feel like I have made an improvement. Even though I am not where I want to be in this aspect, I will continue working on this. Outside of this class, I find myself practicing this with other texts and even movies! I keep asking myself why is this relevant or why are certain scenes a certain way. This makes my learning so much fun as I come up with different interpretations. I also want to point out how amazing the structure for this class was, from the pre-reading material, the actual book, to the post-reading material. All of it made perfect sense in the order it was scheduled.
I was a little intimidated by this class at first but I overall really enjoyed my experience. I liked how this class focused on one novel and diving into it was definitely an interesting and challenging journey, but one I enjoyed nonetheless. With this class, I feel my close reading skills have improved. I was able to focus on individual chapters, characters, and even the class discussions helped me with paying attention to certain things I skipped over or missed. And while my skills still have a lot of room for improvement, I am still very pleased with the class.
Through the course of the class, I have learned so much! Learning about Melville was so interesting and has not left me once since the day of learning about it, especially about how the novel transformed after reading his large print copy of Shakespeare. Personally, however, I feel that last class we had was really the biggest moment of learning. Hearing others felt insufficient as students and writers really did comfort me as I have been feeling much of the same for as long as I can remember. It’s a beautiful reminder than we all are so harsh to ourselves, and yet can have such empathy for those around us. I feel so fortunate to have been able to take this class this semester, having the novel be one of the final classes seems poetic, especially since I’m not the biggest fan of American Literature around this time; definitely not the case any longer and am very excited to read more from this period. My peers are so brilliant and have such new and different ways of processing information and seeing the world so uniquely, I really can’t help but have hope in writers and artists to create something profound, something moving, something akin Moby-Dick of our time.
Hi Everyone! I wanted to say thank you to Professor Pressman, and everyone in class for providing such a wonderful experience reading this book. I can’t lie and say that it was not a challenge, because it definitely was, but I think that this epic monstrosity of a book and its difficulty made the experience all the more amazing. My experience with this book is far from over, and I know that even after getting through this book this semester, I’ll need to come back to it eventually. I’m already planning on watching a bunch of film adaptations during winter break!
I consider myself lucky to have read this book in such a supportive setting, where even if I struggled to understand, our discussions in class assisted in helping me to not only decipher the confusing places Melville would take us, but to look deeper into the text and see the symbolism and references that made this novel so wonderful. It was truly a Jigsaw puzzle of a of a book, but one that I was not alone in completing! I felt pushed and pulled in my effort to take this book further in our discussions, which although was difficult, encouraged me to better writer and reader.
I confess, that if I had been reading this book alone I would have put it down and not have returned for a long time, which would have sucked! Reading and discussing this novel in a group setting felt so much like a book club, rather than a typical english class, and I felt it was so much more engaging, to the point that I looked forward to coming to class, and hearing everyone’s thought’s and ideas! Thank you for sharing this space with me, and I hope you all enjoyed it as much as I did! I hope you all have a happy holiday season!
This class has to have been one of my favorites I have taken in college so far. Most of my classes haven’t really had the type of collaboration we had in this class and it’s really great to not have to just come in and be lectured to. It also helps that the subject matter was more interesting than I thought it would be. I initially looked over this class because it was listed as American Literature and those have always been my least favorite as I find myself bored and uninterested in the topic as a whole; but I looked at the description again and saw that it was just on Moby Dick. I had read it before and understood absolutely nothing, but I was intrigued more by the fact that we would get to spend an entire semester on such a whale of a book. It only made me wish that there were more classes like this where you really get to go in as much depth as we did for bigger works.
The depth we went into also came with the whole “so what” of close reading. I’ve gotten used to analysis of texts over the years but I don’t think it was ever to this extent. Even if it was, I never felt like I was good at it, but coming to this class to share my thoughts and doing the essays really did help me feel better in my skills as a reader overall. But this class also helped me remember to not feel bad about not mastering this novel, or anything really. Especially with the discussion last week, this class has shown that what we all take from reading is really more of a reflection of ourselves, so therefore there can’t really be anything “wrong” as long as you’re showing where you’re pulling from the text. I’ve always struggled with thinking my interpretation is wrong or sounds dumb or nobody would get it, but this class has helped me get over that more than any other has, so I’m excited to continue in a similar environment in the AI literature class because that’s a topic I’m even more interested in.
Coming into this class, I was shocked we were focusing one semester on one book. I am very happy we got the opportunity to do something new. Instead of jumping around and spending a few classes on a book, it allowed us to be fully immersed in Moby-Dick.
My close reading has improved immensely. I could focus on one section, chapter, or even passage and analyze it. Practicing this, even when it was difficult, made me a better reader overall. Our class discussions also taught me to pay attention to passages that don’t seem interesting to me. When I would read, I would skim over some parts of the book since I didn’t find them interesting. When we got into small groups, other students would talk about those sections, and I would see a totally different perspective.
This class is one that I will never forget. I also would probably not have read Moby-Dick in its entirety. This class forced me out of my comfort zone and I am happy it did.
