“I believe when he says ‘hello,’ he is clearly expressing disgust for his father’s actions when he was a child” is an example of what I often hear in my English class. There are so many amazing books and stories in the world. Right now I am reading the Game of Thrones series for fun, and even if it exceeds one-thousand pages I still read it happily. Yet, for some reason, the three-hundred page book I’m reading in AP Literature feels like torture. I believe that school effectively ruins required books.
I read “The Great Gatsby” last year for pleasure and it was enjoyable. I cared about each character, except Daisy because she is such a wishy-washy nuisance, but as soon as we began reading it for class this year, I lost all interest. Perhaps the reading questions or the class-long discussions made me lose interest.
These books can be great pieces of literature, but the work that goes along with them make them a chore. I read to explore new worlds and see through another character’s eyes, but the moment I am dragged out to write about why one character walked to get some milk instead of water I think of the book as another school project.
It’s pretty ridiculous, because if we simply focused on reading the book and talking about how we felt about the story and characters I would enjoy it more. I can go into class and rant the entire period about why I hate Daisy and why Jimmy Blevins from “All the Pretty Horses” is an idiot, but when you add in all the deep meanings and rhetorical language it loses its interest.
