Is Winesburg, Ohio a novel?

This questoin came up in class and i really liked it. Obviously, its placed in the novel section at barnes and noble's but does it actually have the qualitites of a novel? Some people were saying that its not because none of the stories within it had anything to do with eachother. Sure, they involved the same characters and elements, but they didnt really relate. Personally, I would have to disagree. Winesburg, Ohio is a series of moments happening in life. Each one reflects a different time in life. Novels usually have a distinct begining, middle, and end, but even though this particular novel doesnt does not mean that everything that happens within the book doesnt have to do with one another. Moments in one persons life may not relate to one another but each moment brought that person where he/she is today. The stories that happen throughout this book may have came out much differently if the even that happened in the one before it came out differently. Also, the ending of Winesburg, Ohio might not have been the same if it wasnt for all the other moments that happened before it. Therefore, Winesburg, Ohio is infact a novel. Maybe not a conventional one, but it still is.

Just a little diddy...

Our recorded group discussion on Winesburg was actually...good. My group focused mainly on the story "Hands" just because there was so much to talk about. We were actually excited about our discussion, but unfortunatley some awesome parts were not recorded, like when we began discussing the meaning of Wing's hands and why they were so significant to the story. I found a quote that went something along the lines of "Wing you need to cut your hair, its covering up your eyes" and remembered that there are only two things on a humans body that NEVER change- the size of your eyes, and your hand print. This had me thinking that, if Wing had one of these things missing then the other must hold even more about him. Your handprint not only tells who you are but is said to indicate where you've been in life, what your past is (according to palm readers and such...) I thought that was interesting. Its amazing how in literature you can point out little things and make them reveal a hidden meaing, like its a game almost. And whats crazy is that something can mean something to you and than something completley different to somebody else. You never know what hidden messages you might find.

writers workshop

Hannah gave me a four. I would have to agree with her on this score though. Reading back over my essay after talking about certain things such as thesis, summarizing, and giving textual support, I am almost emberassed to say that i wrote this essay. I did have a clear thesis; however, the rest of my essay did not exactly hit on with the stated thesis. I could have used much more textual support (and a better understanding of the excerpt given). A major problem I tend to have in any given essay topic about a certain peice of literature is summarizing. I am the queen of summarization. For some reason I always think that the reader needs to know every little detail that happened in the excerpt stapled to the front of my essay. Also, reading others papers has made me realize that my vocabulary sucks. (see what i mean...i just used the word "sucks"). I dont really know what I could do to help that problem though. One last main thing that i think i could improve in my writing is gathering just a few ideas to write about in my paper. Usually when given an essay topic, thousands of ideas rush into my head, so i then try to put them all in my writing which makes my essay look unorganized. If i could learn to pick 2 to 3 ideas to focus on in my paper i feel like that would improve my writing immensley.

is there a such thing as over analyzing?

While doing our close reading on the end of chapter one in All the King's Men, me and Alexandra came across a passage talking about a cow's eyes staring waiting for someone to make a wrong move or fall into corruption. At first we didnt know what a cow could be symbolic for, then me, knowing all my bible stories remembered the parable of the golden calf. In the story, Moses is leading his people to the promise land but they start getting very cranky and impatient so they melt all their gold in a fire and when it is done melting it appears to be a golden cow. The people needed something to worship so they all begin praising this golden calf. Moses and God grow angry because these people should not be idolizing anything other than God himself. I thought that maybe the cow in All the Kings Men could have something to do with this parable, maybe the cow was meant to represent an idol. All the characters in the novel idolize power, which is what hurts them in the end. If they wouldve just focused on something else their endings may not have turned out the same. At first i felt super smart for thinking of such a relation, but then i realized...what if Warren didnt mean that at all? Could the meaning of a novel change because of  wrong analyzing? These are the things i ponder....