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Texas EOC English 1: 2.7 Understanding and Analysis of Literary Texts 12 Views
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Transcript
- 00:04
Here’s your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by The Avengers.
- 00:08
Think they have room on the team for a giant cockroach? [The avengers and a giant cockroach]
- 00:35
All right. A theme of this excerpt is...what??
- 00:38
And here are the potential answers...[mumbling]
- 00:44
When we’re trying to indentify themes we have to focus on the larger picture. [baby looks closely at a jar of cookies]
Full Transcript
- 00:49
We have to infer things from the words on the page, not just repeat what’s been said.
- 00:57
We ask ourselves: what is the piece trying to say? [A baby girl sat with the cookie monster]
- 01:00
Option (B) is way off.
- 01:01
Gregor is an adult who helps to financially support his parents.
- 01:04
But it definitely doesn’t appear like the piece is saying his situation is the way things
- 01:09
ought to be.
- 01:10
Throughout the whole passage it’s shown that Gregor is totally miserable. [Gregor sitting miserably on his own]
- 01:14
He’s even more concerned with his depressing life situation than he is with the fact that
- 01:18
he’s transformed into a bug. [Gregor transforms into a cockroach]
- 01:20
Questionable priorities, but okay...
- 01:22
(C) isn’t going to make the cut either.
- 01:25
Yeah, Gregor is a hard working guy, but he hates everything about his job. [Gregor with a body of a cockroach typing on a computer]
- 01:29
There’s nothing in the passage that paints a life of hard work as a good thing.
- 01:34
Does Gregor talk about how fulfilled he is by his job? [Gregor waiting for a train]
- 01:39
Does he hum a happy tune as he walks to the train each day?
- 01:43
Not a chance.
- 01:44
The absurdity of the fact that Gregor focuses on his crappy job instead of the fact that
- 01:48
he’s now a roach shows just how awful a life of meaningless work can be.[Gregor holding a briefcase sat with Obama]
- 01:55
Choice (D) is a little more interesting than the first two options.
- 01:57
There is a chance that Gregor, in fact, has not turned into a cockroach. [Gregor looking at himself as a cockroach in the mirror]
- 02:02
It could be that his terrible life has finally caused him to snap.
- 02:05
All this mental distress might have caused some psychic break in which he now thinks
- 02:10
he’s transformed into a bug.
- 02:11
And, whatever’s going on, he is hiding it from his family by refusing to unlock the [Knock at the door and Gregor as a cockroach hides]
- 02:16
door.
- 02:17
However, the passage never comments on whether any of this is good.
- 02:21
When we woke up and thought we were koala bears, we told everybody.
- 02:24
And it was the best thing we ever did.
- 02:26
(A) is the only answer that gets it right. [Gregor sat by a desk]
- 02:29
The main theme is that Gregor feels like a disgusting, useless bug because he is always
- 02:34
serving others.
- 02:36
He hates his situation but does nothing to change it, which makes him feel more like [Gregor with a cockroach body feeling miserable]
- 02:40
a cockroach than a man.
- 02:42
So what did it mean when we felt like koalas? [A koala hanging onto a branch and a girl appears]
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