UNIT 15: UNIVERSAL THEMES

Micah Wong, Kaska Tomasik, Diana Oliyarnyk, Leslie Mota

IDENTITY

GORILLA, MY LOVE

• Hazel desires to think like an adult and to be treated as one but still acts and thinks like a young adult

• On one hand:

Hazel is impulsive and immature (theater incident, defying teachers/movies)

• On the other hand:

Hazel believes people should mean what they say and is both confident and assertive in her beliefs

GORILLA, MY LOVE

• Thus:

Hazel struggles to identify herself with either a child or an adult and is left in tears after Hubba Bubba merely rejects her

ARABY• The narrator/boy in Araby initially struggles to grow

out of his “puberty” phases

• The narrator wishes to be one of the “knights” in his books and “sweep away” the girl (his friend’s sister)

• Therefore, the narrator is willing to go the distance with this girl (who is totally oblivious to his motives) and embarks on his destiny (a lame fair called araby)

ARABY• The narrator struggles to understand the concept of

love, and soon wishes to identify himself as a man, filled with hatred and anger for his former self

DEATH OF A SALESMAN• Biff, under the false pretenses and failures of his

father, struggles to find his true purpose in life

• Biff struggles to grow out of the shell he and his father had created:

A star football player who only knows success (but cant pass math)

• Biff’s confidence is crushed when his image of his father is tarnished after his cheating incident

DEATH OF A SALESMAN• Thus, Biff struggles to become an individual, free from

his father’s burdens, who knows what he wants in life

SKIT INTERPRETATION

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H67fOdqxhXA&feature=youtu.be

UNIVERSAL QUESTIONS (WE HAVE CANDY!)

• How might our desires to become mature impact our search for identity? (Gorilla, my love)

• How might our influences/incidents as a child carry over into our growth as adults? (Araby) Do we really become hateful because of one incident?

• How much do our parents actually influence our indentity/growth into adulthood? (Death of a salesman)