1 In order to fulfill your own happiness you have to hurt or gravely disappoint a family member or a friend. What choice would you make, and why? Is hurting another person ever justified? What price are you willing to pay for personal happiness? Be sure to incorporate at least one example from The Awakening or Ethan Frome in support of your response.

2 Meaningful Vocabulary: a Concrete Look at the Abstract Language of a Text

3 Some words are hard to define because they are not objects, are not palpable to the senses.

4 Creating concrete meaning from abstract nouns is imperative in clearly communicating key concepts and ideas in literature. It’s important to look beyond the lexical (or dictionary) definition of a term and think critically about the everyday vocabulary of a text.

5 For example: In chapter 21 of The Awakening, Mme. Reisz tells Edna Pontellier, “to succeed, the artist must possess the courageous soul.” Edna responds, “What do you mean by the courageous soul?” And Reisz elaborates her definition: “The brave soul. The soul that dares and defies.” In class we used text to debate whether Edna’s final act of suicide was courageous or cowardly.

6 Just as we analyzed the dual life of Edna and the misunderstood gestures of the drowned man in “Not Waving but Drowning,” we must consider the power of everyday language rather than dismiss it.

7 The text of Ethan Frome asks us to consider, and then reconsider the oftentimes taken-for-granted or misunderstood vocabulary of emotion: Duty Desire Morality Isolation Illusion Hardship Personal happiness Love

8 “...there were perceptible gaps between his facts, and I had the sense that the deeper meaning of the story was in the gaps” (Wharton 6).

9 I had the story, bit by bit, from various people, and, as generally happens in such cases, each time it was a different story. ****************** It was that night that I found the clue to Ethan Frome, and began to put together this vision of his story……………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………….

10 What are some benefits to thinking critically about everyday vocabulary?