Castle Diary
Tobias is the ____________ of the story.
Protagonist.
Name two of the tales we read.
1. The Knight's Tale
2. The Miller's Tale
3. The Scholar's Tale
4. The Wife of Bath's Tale
Why was the protagonist sleeping in a dung heap in the first chapter?
She was trying to stay warm.
Define "narrative".
Official Dictionary Definition: A spoken or written account of connected events; a story.
Define "clergy".
People who worked for and in churches.
Tobias gets to watch his older brother become a _______.
Knight!
Name the four main characters from "The Knight's Tale".
Arcite, Palomon, Emily, and Theseus
Jane the Midwife in The Midwife's Apprentice has a lot of power and clout in her village. Was that common for midwives in The Middle Ages? Yes or no?
Yes! The "What Is A Midwife?" article talked about how midwives were able to be self-sufficient and self-sustaining because their work was very important and highly valued.
What do you call the most exciting/interesting part of the story? It's also known as the turning point.
Climax
Peasants were willing to work for little to no money for lords because the lords would protect them during wars. They had a reciprocal relationship.
Can you define "reciprocal" in your own words?
Definition has to include people/groups doing work for each other or two people/groups helping each other.
How long was Tobias at Strandborough Castle? Was it less or more time than he wanted?
He was there for a year.
He originally wanted to stay longer.
On the surface, they seem like very different stories but how are "The Knight's Tale" and "The Miller's Tale" similar?
They both are about men fighting for the love of women. The men in each story just have different ways of trying to win their love.
People in the town treat the protagonist well: true or false?
FALSE. Unless you count the cat....
The series of events leading to the end of the story are the:
a. Rising Action
b. Falling Action
c. Resolution
B. Falling Action
The largest group in society was the peasants so they were the most powerful. True or false?
FALSE! They had no money, no armies, and could barely take care of themselves.
Castle Diary is a series of diary entries about Tobias's time as a page. Why do you think the author wrote the story that way instead as a regular narrative?
The author wants people to learn what a noble child's day to day life was like in The Middle Ages.
The author wants people to know an "average day in a life" of a noble child.
He sent her away to another country.
What point of view is The Midwife's Apprentice written in: first, second, or third person?
Third person. The narrator never uses "I", "me", "my", or "we" so we know it's third person.
The exposition of a story is at the beginning. Name two of the three things introduced in the exposition of a story.
1. Character
2. Setting
3. Conflict/Inciting Incident
Based on this passage, do you think a "midwife" counts as a "tradesman"?
"A trade or occupation generally refers to a job that requires some specific kind of skill. It often refers to people who produced goods or services that required specific skills. Generally people who were tradesmen lived in cities. They formed guilds, which were associations of craft people with a specific trade. Tradesmen generally had a higher level of education and had more privileges than people who worked in the fields.
Tradesmen often worked an apprenticeship, a system of training in which a master craftsman assists beginners in the learning of a trade. Most of the training is done on the job while working for an employer. Often some informal, theoretical education is also involved."
Yes. Midwives had a very specific skill set and often were apprentices before they worked on their own.
Read this passage from Castle Diary.
"My mother bids me write this journal so that I will remember all that passes, and can tell her of it when I see her next. For though Strandborough Castle is not twenty miles distant, ‘tis most difficult country to cross and, as few people journey that way, news from there is scarce.
Now all that stops me is the weather, for the snow lies so thickly on the ground that the roads can barely be seen, let alone traveled upon! The delay tries both my patience and that of Hugh, my father’s servant, whose task it is to deliver me to Strandborough. Though I shall be sad to leave my family (except for my sister Sian who vexes me daily), I scarcely can wait to begin my new life."
What is the TONE of this passage?
The narrator is excited and nervous to start their journey.
What is the Wife of Bath trying to teach the other pilgrims by telling her story? Why does she think this lesson is important?
She wants to teach them to respect women and ask them what they want. She thinks this lesson is important because in The Middle Ages, women were treated more like property than like people.
In Chapter 5 of The Midwife's Apprentice, the protagonist has some encounters at a market and she starts calling herself Alyce instead of Brat or Beetle. She says that Alyce is the name of someone who could be smart and pretty.
Q1) What does this say about her character growth/change?
Q2) What do you think the theme of the story is?
A1) Her character is growing more confident and sure of herself.
A2) If you work hard, you can overcome many obstacles OR believe in yourself, no matter what people say.
Name the five steps of a plot in order.
1. Exposition
2. Rising Action
3. Climax
4. Falling Action
5. Resolution
The books we were given about The Middle Ages have solely revolved around Europe. But clearly, things were happening all around the world at the same time. Why do you think our school systems put so much emphasis on European history?
Although things are getting better (even in the last 10 years since I was in school) school systems are still racist and Eurocentric. European history is considered the only history worth studying because of colonialism and how whiteness is overvalued.