Annotated Bibliography for *The Stranger*

English Sources

Source: Cosper, Dale. "Albert Camus." Twentieth-Century French Dramatists. Ed. Mary Anne O'Neil. Detroit: Gale, 2006. Dictionary of Literary Biography Vol. 321. Literature Resource Center. Web. 9 Dec. 2010.

http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?&id=GALE%7CH1200012751&v=2.1&u=mlin_b_maldenhs&it=r&p=LitRC&sw=w

Summary : This source talks about Albert Camus childhood and about his family.

Important Quote: “He becomes aware that human desires for meaning, clarity, and immortality are absurd in a world where human life is apparently meaningless, indifferent, incoherent, and doomed to death and oblivion.” ( P. 16)

Insight: This relates to the stranger by showing how Meursault and Albert Camus faced the same problems growing up. Albert Camus grew up without a father and faced the death of his brother. Also Albert Camus and his brothers and sisters where put into a Orphanage. On the other hand, Meursault grew up without a father and a mother who didn’t care, but he had lived in a home with his mother.

Source: Lawrence Ferlinghetti, "Constantly Risking Absurdity (#15)" from A Coney Island of the Mind: Poems. Copyright 1958 by Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corporation.

http://poetryoutloud.org/poems/poem.html?id=184167

Summary:

Important Quote: “Constantly risking absurdity

and death

whenever he performs

above the heads

of his audience

the poet like an acrobat

climbs on rime

to a high wire of his own making

and balancing on eyebeams

above a sea of faces

paces his way

to the other side of day

performing entrechats

and sleight-of-foot tricks

and other high theatrics

and all without mistaking

any thing

for what it may not be

For he's the super realist

who must perforce perceive

taut truth

before the taking of each stance or step

in his supposed advance

toward that still higher perch

where Beauty stands and waits

with gravity

to start her death-defying leap

And he

a little charleychaplin man

who may or may not catch

her fair eternal form

spreadeagled in the empty air

of existence “

Insight:

Source: Holocaust Victim's Lost Novels Help Daughter Heal." Weekend Edition Saturday 22 Sept. 2007. Literature Resource Center. Web. 10 Dec. 2010. http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?&id=GALE%7CA168962812&v=2.1&u=mlin_b_maldenhs&it=r&p=LitRC&sw=w

Summary: This broadcast is about a holocaust victim’s daughter who has found 2 biographies that her mother had written before her death. Also it talks about how bad France was in the 1940’s.

Important Quote: ‘It was physically difficult, and it was emotionally difficult. I had to stop every so often because I would recognize people or places. And at times, this became unbearable. And that's why it took me so long. And when the original manuscripts went to the state archives, I really broke down. I felt as if something had been ripped from inside me’ (P. 23)

Insight to stranger: This relates to the book because Albert Camus and Meursault they where both dealing with what was going on in France and world war II during this time period. Also both of these people lived through this treacherous time. This also relates to Meursault because he had emotional difficulties that made him not show any.

Source: Lapaire, Pierre J. "The Plague: Overview." Reference Guide to World Literature. Ed. Lesley Henderson. 2nd ed. New York: St. James Press, 1995. Literature Resource Center. Web. 16 Dec. 2010.

Document URL
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?&id=GALE%7CH1420001374&v=2.1&u=mlin_b_maldenhs&it=r&p=LitRC&sw=w

Summary: This source talks about Algeria and the Plague that took over the city.

Important Quote: “During the summer, the epidemic is at its worst. Burials are expedited as mere administrative formalities; disposing of the corpses is a major problem; isolation camps are created for relatives of the dead; riots at the city gates are commonplace. All must now come to terms with the plague.” (P. 3)

Insight: Meursault was faced with his own problems during the summer just like Algeria did in the late 1940’s. He faced death and loneliness over the summer because of the attack on the Arab man on the beach who tried to jump him. Also both Meursault and Algeria had to deal with the same kind of consequences. Algeria was a target in WWII so people tried to kill him. And Meursault got jumped but shot the Arab man who tried and now it leaves them all suffering.

Source: "Edwidge Danticat." Contemporary Authors Online. Detroit: Gale, 2011. Literature Resource Center. Web. 16 Dec. 2010.

Document URL
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?&id=GALE%7CH1090120012&v=2.1&u=mlin_b_maldenhs&it=r&p=LitRC&sw=w

Summary: Edwidge Danticat talks about his mother’s immigrant experience and what she faced.

Important Quote:

Insight:

Source: Wong, Sau-Ling Cynthia. "Immigrant Autobiography: Some Questions of Definition and Approach." American Autobiography: Retrospect and Prospect. Ed. Paul John Eakin. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1991. 142-170. Rpt. in Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism. Ed. Thomas J. Schoenberg and Lawrence J. Trudeau. Vol. 214. Detroit: Gale, 2009. Literature Resource Center. Web. 16 Dec. 2010.

http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?&id=GALE%7CH1420088651&v=2.1&u=mlin_b_maldenhs&it=r&p=LitRC&sw=w

The Stranger Final Essay

Chasing Ghosts Essay.

In Paul Rieckhoff’s memoir Chasing Ghosts, the violent scene of war and fighting develops the work’s theme of enjoying the freedom’s and the safe conditions we have instead of being stuck in a  country without any of these.

Rieckhoff’s position of be Lieutenant in the National Guard fighting over sea’s in Afghanistan e was faced with problems such as the lack of control the local hospital. Before he arrived in Afghanistan only wealthy people could use the hospital, but, now everyone can use it. Also there are no sanitation rules and regulations over in Iraq like there is back in America. Doctors would either leave them on tables or in corners, but they also put a lot of body’s into a small trailer along side the loading dock. After he experiences for the first time in his life. He begins to enjoy what he had back at home.

Paul Rieckhoff also faced the fact of being hit with “god bullets” while he slept or walked around patrolling. God bullets are celebratory bullets from the Iraqi people, they would shoot there ak-47’s into the sky but they all faced the chance of being struck in the head with one. If you were hit in the head it would explode and this feared him because he has a girlfriend and family at home hoping and praying for him to return in one piece, instead of being given a folded American flag because he died by stray bullets from Iraqi civilians.

Even when something isn’t going right you should always enjoy the little things in life. Lt. Rieckhoff was faced with the first death of one of his soldiers. Robert Wise was the young man that died by a roadside bomb, and all of this happened on veteran’s day. Then a few days before Christmas Rieckhoff lead almost 40 men to there death but his reaction made him stop. When he implies the little things he means it. Even if it’s a huge or small gift you should enjoy it because you could die any second, but he gives all the men a DVD, and other goodies they got sent by there wife’s back at home

"Plum Plum Pickers" Essay

Michael Solimini

Mr. Gallagher

Senior Cp

Period 1

10.19.2010

Plum Plum Pickers

In “Plum Plum Pickers”, Raymond Barrio suggests that sometimes life may be difficult but humans can survive even if it means working in undesirable conditions. He reveals this by showing how brutal life can be. Barrio shows this through Manuel, the plantation worker. He has to fight to stay alive because if he doesn’t he will die.  Raymond Barrio establishes the setting on a plantation with intense heat and terrible conditions.

When Raymond Barrio compares the plantation to a jail he describes the trees as being “lonely isles …. Looking like bars, just like the blackest bars of hell” (91). Manuel has to deal with this every day, no matter how many times he picks it’s still all the same and faces the same feeling of loneliness. When Barrio makes an allusion about the blackest bars of hell he relates this to what Manuel has to go through because picking is just like being tortured in hell, this also goes even further and relates to how he lives on the plantation.

Also Raymond Barrio places individual words between the sentences such as “trapped”, “locked”, “brute” and “beast” (92). Barrio does this to symbolize the many emotions Manuel deals with everyday. Also it shows the reader that Manuel has to persevere or be held back by his emotions. Raymond Barrio uses Manuel to represent the Mexican pickers, how if they couldn’t work they would die because you have to work to stay alive it doesn’t come free.

“Air sucking every drop of living moisture from his brute body” (92), it shows that’s he is loosing what he needs to survive but even then he still preservers. Also when he says “sucking” he means that his life is being sucked away because all he can do is work. Then when the author says “living moisture” he is relating it to Manuel’s soul and body. Barrio describes Manuel as being “brute” which makes the reader believe that he plays a big role in the story.

The author establishes the point of having to do whatever it takes to stay alive by giving us the courage to stand up and demand what they want. We see this when the Mexican admin wanted to take two cents from each pickers basket. But Manuel stood up to Morales and knocked over two baskets to prove he wasn’t going down without a fight. But after they were about to fight he let them keep there two cents. Like the author suggests do what it takes to stay alive, so he stood up and got the money that he worked hard for.

In conclusion Raymond Barrio’s importance fits perfectly with the text and what is going on within the story. Also you can take the situation they where in and relates it to what they had to go through. Also this makes you respect others because everyone is just trying to survive.

College Essay

Michael Solimini

Mr. Gallagher

Period 1 CP

19 October 2010

College Essay

There is one person in my life who has made a positive impact on me and that is my auto shop teacher Mr. Bazzinotti. Ever since the first day of class freshman year he has shown me the ways of how to use the many tools in class and also how to properly put them away.. But he has shown me …

Freshmen year we learned how to fix small engines such as lawn mowers. And we learned how to do simple things like how to change the oil and how to check and change the spark plugs. This came in handy that summer when my lawn mower broke. After I fixed it, job fixing other people’s lawn mowers. Also, we got a basic introduction to safety.

Sophomore year we left the small engines behind and started working on more real life tasks such as changing brakes and rotating tires to insure that the tires wear evenly. Changing breaks is a easy task but it’s a lot of responsibility because if perhaps it’s not right and something happens to the person driving the car it’s all your fault because you were the last one working on this. So this taught me how to be more responsible and pay attention to my surroundings in my work area.

Here we are now, starting my junior year in level 3 auto tech. This year is going to be a lot more interesting then the others because we are getting into cars and how the engines work and we also get to take a engine apart to see all the parts and how they all play a role with each other. The major responsibly I had to face was staying organized with all the parts and the screws that went with them. Towards the end of the year I decided to take on my own project with my fellow group member Nick. We decided we were going to try and make a go-kart and have it fully functional. But it didn’t work but the good thing we learned was don’t give up and try to preserve through the good and bad times. This was the year the most influenced my decision to become a auto technician when I graduate.

"Red Shift Essay"

In the poem Red Shift, the author Ted Berrigan Suggests that emotions often change like the title red shift. The title could mean love to anger or any kind of emotional change.



The narrator gives us a brief setting of the poem. He tells us its "8:08 pm" and he also tells us that its in the winter because of the biting air. He says this in a disappointing tone of voice, then starts to talk about " poison liquid air" and smoking to have some character. He is referring to Pepsi when he says "poison liquid air". This is where we see the first change of emotion.


In the second stanza we start to see more emotions. We get another look at emotions here and now we can see him in love, sadness, and memory. "Twenty years almost ago" this is when he tells us the past. Also you get to know what Allen Ginsberg and Frank O'Hara were big role models for the speaker. Also we start to see some love when he starts talking about this women.



The third stanza you get to see all of his emotions come out. When he talks he sounds like hes dying. He makes a good point when he says that he isn't going to leave even for "stupid estrangment". This is more on the loving side then anger or his previous emotions. He also doesn't want to die he wants to be 110 years of age.

In the fourth and final stanza his emotions drastically change from love to sadness once again. He uses powerful language here like "im only pronouns" to show us he didn't want all this to happen. Also we start to see the speaker "leaving his body" when he says "furious song flows through my costume".


The idea of emotional change is important because everyone has to deal with these emotions. Its all just a way of life. So this story is something everyone will face.