For Wednesday: Lahiri, "The Last and Final Continent" (NOTE)

Yikes--I just noticed that the questions I posted yesterday didn't post at all! And now it's too late to re-post them, since no one will see them in time for class. So don't worry about questions. We'll just talk about the story in class tomorrow. My fault for not checking twice! :) 

For Monday: Lahiri, "This Blessed House," and "The Treatment of Bibi Haldar"

Answer TWO of the following for Monday's class:  

Q1: The wife in "This Blessed House," Twinkle, becomes obsessed with the Catholic left-overs in their new house--plates, statues, and even a bust of Jesus. Why does she take such interest in these relics, and why does her husband disapprove, finding it an example of "bad taste"?

Q2: When Bibi is banished to the storage room for fear of infecting the child, she tells her friends, “Don’t worry, it’s not as if they’ve locked me in here...The world begins at the bottom of the stairs. Now I am free to discover life as I please” (170). What does she mean by this, and why might this be the beginning of her “treatment”?

Q3: How is Bibi a lot like Boori Ma from “A Real Durwan”? Though both are outcasts, why are they also necessary to their little neighborhoods? Similarly, why are they both undervalued by those closest to them?

Q4: "This Blessed House" seems to show the story “Sexy” from the other side—this time, from the wife’s perspective. While in “Sexy” our narrator is jealous of the movie-star beauty of Dev’s wife, why might this story suggest that their experiences are remarkably similar, and that both are “exiles” from the man they love?

Final Project: The Pan-Global Syllabus

English 3923

Final Project: The Pan-Global Syllabus

INTRO: Too often, we only experience literature is ghettoized fields: English lit, American lit, and then, as if every other country doesn’t have their own lit, “World” lit. But are all American works truly alike? And if not, what does that say about the umbrella term, World Literature? Do we risk losing identity and universality when we insist on only looking at countries (which are largely 19^th and 20^th century inventions) rather than cultures, ideas, and authors? Why not simply teach classes that look for cultural and thematic connections rather than national or linguistic ones? In an age of travel and translation, does it matter what language a work was written in or where it originally came from?

PROMPT: I want you design a syllabus for a new course at ECU: I call it “Pan-Global Literature,” but you can call it whatever you like. The syllabus should combine at least THREE of the works from this class (your choice) with THREE-FOUR works from other literatures/traditions that you feel complement these works (think of other classes you’ve taken and books you’ve read in college and high school). How can you make us see how some of the works in this class pair beautifully with other American, British, or other works that we wouldn’t otherwise read together?

The SYLLABUS should be like a real syllabus: it should have you as professor, and it should have the list of readings, a list of assignments (you don’t actually have to make those!), and a calendar of readings (it can be very rough—not even day by day). But most importantly, the syllabus should include a “Course Description” which explains how the works pair together and what themes/ideas unite them. This Description should be no longer than 1-2 pages, and should be at the front of the syllabus. Try to have fun with it and make it as much like a syllabus as you can, but think about what you want your students to understand, learn, and appreciate about literature as a global phenomenon (rather than a localized, national one).

DUE ANY TIME FINAL EXAM WEEK, but no later than Friday, May 6^th by 5pm!

For Friday: Lahiri, The Interpreter of Maladies, "Sexy" and "Mrs. Sen's"

NOTE: Remember that there is NO CLASS ON WEDNESDAY. I'm giving you a day off because I have to put together some research of my own, and I figure if I need some extra time, then you probably do, too! :) So answer these questions for Friday's class.

Answer TWO of the following:

Q1: Why does Rohin tell Miranda that the word sexy means “loving someone you don’t know” (107)? Though a child would misunderstand this definition, why is it—at least for Miranda—somewhat close to the mark?

Q2: How does Miranda try to translate herself into an Indian and a mistress? Do these things seem to make a difference to Dev? Does she understand his attraction and interest in her?

Q3: After one of her driving lessons, Mrs. Sen exclaims, "Everyone, this people, too much in their world" (121). What terrifies or disturbs her most about life in America? What doesn't make sense to her here, and makes it difficult to her adapt to this new way of life?

Q4: How does Mrs. Sen expand Eliot's 'circle' and change the way he perceives his own day-to-day world? What ideas does she translate for him that he never even considered or understood before? Do these ideas come from Mrs. Sen's Indian identity, or is she simply showing him a woman's point of view?

For Monday: Lahiri, "The Interpreter of Maladies" & "A Real Durwan"

 

Answer TWO of the following: 

Q1: Mr. Kapasi observes early on that Mr. Das “looked exactly like a magnified version of Ronny. He had a sapphire blue visor, and was dressed in shorts, sneakers, and a T-shirt. The camera slung around his neck...was the only complicated thing he wore” (44). Why does Mr. Kapasi disapprove of the family, and the parents in particular? What makes them strange and “alien” to him?

Q2: How do modern conveniences change the residents and break up the community? Why does Boori Ma no longer fit into this world?

Q3: When Mr. Kapasi dismisses his day job as "a job like any other," Mrs. Das exclaims, "But so romantic" (50). Why does she find it romantic, and why does she suddenly decide to make him her confidant? How does she also change for him in this instant? 

Q4: How is “The Interpreter of Maladies” a story about the clash between East and West, and why ‘translation’ is so difficult? Why is culture more than language and custom? What is Mr. Kapasi unable to translate for Mrs. Das and for himself?

Q5: Why is Boori Ma accepted as a “durwan” even though “under normal circumstances this was no job for a woman” (73)? What makes her able to break the social norms?

For Friday: Lahiri, The Interpreter of Maladies: First Two Stories (see below)

Be sure to read the first two stories in this collection, "A Temporary Matter" and  "When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine." I'll give you a little context for the stories in class, but you won't need much, since they're the most modern stories in the book, and they're originally written in English (the first in our class)! 

Answer TWO of the following: 

Q1: In “When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine,” the narrator writes, “Most of all I remember the three of them operating during that time as if they were a single person, sharing a single meal, a single body, a single silence, a single fear” (41). What does this memory of his parents and Mr. Pirzada as a child say about the immigrant experience? Why did the three of them become “one”?

Q2: The narrators of both stories are the second generation, “Indians” but also “Americans.” What does being “Indian” mean to them, and do you feel it’s even how they seem themselves? What makes it difficult to maintain their identity in the new world?

Q3: Why do you think the power outage allows Shukumar and Shoba to finally stop avoiding each other and tell teach other the truth? Ironically, what about darkness helps them to ‘see’ each other after all this time?

Q4: Why do you think the narrator remembers Mr. Pirzada after all this time, especially since he was only part of their lives for a short time? What does he come to represent about her heritage, but also her childhood?

For Monday: Duras, The Lover (finish the book)

Photo by Steve McCurry

NOTE: Try to finish the second half of The Lover for Monday's class. If you need more time, no worries, since we'll still have a Comprehension Exam on Wednesday. 

Answer TWO of the following: 

Q1: The narrator is obviously infatuated with her roommate, Helene Lagonelle. She writes of her that she "worn out with desire" for her, and that she "wants her to give herself where I give myself" (74). Since she has clearly flouted so many of the taboos and social conventions of her society, why doesn't she have a relationship with Helene? What seems to stop her? 

Q2: Why does colonial society seem to destroy young men as readily as it discards young women? Why might men, in particularly, have a difficult time finding a role in this society? Why might the older brother's life be the rule, rather than the exception, in Indochine society? 

Q3: The Narrator does something strange in the book, conflating her stillborn child with her dead younger brother. Why does she do this? Does the brother's death allow her to mourn her child properly (openly)? How might this also relate to the Lover's desire of her being similar to his desire for a child? (she says a few times that she became his child). 

Q4: Finally, most importantly, does she love "the Lover"? Is the book really about him, as its title claims, or is he merely the means of kindling her memory to who she was at this time? Or does "the Lover" refer to someone/something else? 

For Wednesday: Duras, The Lover, pp.1-56

From the 1992 film of The Lover 

Q1: The book takes place in French Indochine (Indo-China), a French colony since 1887 (which is today Vietnam). People of many races and cultural identities live here, including the narrator, who is the child of a French schoolmistress. How does race play a factor in this society? How is she seen by others, including her lover, the mysterious Chinese businessman? Also, how does she see herself in relation to others?

Q2: How is the narration (and the Narrator) of this book very similar to Kokoro? What similarities do they have in their relationship to the area and to the way they tell their story? Why do you think many postcolonial works might adopt this narrative style? 

Q3: On page 34, the Narrator writes that "And I'll always have regrets for everything I do, everything I've gained, everything I've lost, good and bad..." Why do you think her affair with 'the Lover' begins this endless stream of regrets? What does she feel she has gained and lost? And why might it still affect her so many decades later (since she's writing the book in old age: Duras wrote it in her 70's about her childhood)? 

Q4: On page 54, she describes the stiflingly cruel atmosphere of her family, writing that "It's a family of stone...Every day we try to kill one another, to kill. Not only do we not talk to one another, we don't even look at one another." What clues do we get for the family's disfunction? Is it their mother? The status? The country itself? Or is this being colored by her regrets in the future? 

Schedule Changes for Next Week!

 A few schedule changes as discussed on Friday:

1. I'm moving the Paper #2 assignment back to Friday, since I want to have class on Wednesday instead. Friday's class will be cancelled so you can work on the paper, and...

2. On Friday, go to the Scissortail Creative Writing Festival! This is the largest writing festival in Oklahoma, and it occurs right here at ECU this Thursday-Saturday. Some of the region and the country's greatest authors will appear, reading their works, signing their books, etc. It's a rare opportunity to hear and meet living authors for FREE. You can find the entire schedule here: scissortail creative writing festival: 2022: Schedule of Readings (ecuscissortail.blogspot.com)

3. On Monday, I'll introduce some key concepts for our next two novels, and we'll start reading Duras', The Lover for Wednesday's class. We'll then pick it up again the following Monday. 

Also, here's the Paper #2 assignment if you forgot what it entails: ENG 3923: World Literature from 1700: Paper #2: The Birth of the Modern (ecuworldlit.blogspot.com)

See you next week! 

For Wednesday: Soseki, Kokoro, Part 3 (Chapters 70-94)

NOTE: Since Part 3 is pretty long, you don't have to completely finish it for Wednesday...but try to read the next 30 or so chapters, which for you should start around the time that K comes to live with them, and ends around he passage where he goes to the university library. Or stop wherever you please...just read enough to answer the questions below.

Q1: Sensei offers us contradictory views of his attitude toward K. On the one hand, he insists his goal was to “make him more human,” and to “infuse in him my own living heat.” But on the other, he is deeply jealous of him and becomes bitter when his ‘cure’ starts taking effect. What part of the story do you think he isn’t telling us (or the Narrator)? What might account for these contradictory reactions?

Q2: Why does Sensei never confess his love to Ojosan (or at least ask her mother to marry her)? He claims at one point that “I was very conscious of that Japanese convention forbade such things.” Do you think this is a cultural issue? Would this story be different in France or Russia at the same time? Or is his reluctance a more universal issue that transcends the taboos of Japanese courtship?

Q3: Why might it be significant that Sensei’s friend is not given a name, but an initial “K,” and bears a striking similarity of Sensei himself? And why do you think Sense is (apparently) unable to see this likeness himself? Or is his goal to make the Narrator see it?

Q4: How do Okusan and Ojosan begin acting differently around K? In other words, how does K’s arrival seem to help explain their relationship with Sensei? Are they as devious as he begins to suspect? Or is he the one manipulating them?

For Monday: Soseki, Kokoro, Part 3 (Chs.52-70)

NOTE: For your edition of the book, start around the passage where the narrator’s father is dying and he starts talking to his brother about the property; finish roughly around the part where Sensei moves into the house with the widow and starts falling in love with her daughter. In other words, read about half of Part 3. 

Answer TWO of the following:

Q1: Sensei writes that “although I despised women, I could not find it in me to despise Ojōsan...I felt for her a love that was close to pious faith.” Why doe she seem to fall in love with her—and is it truly love? Can a man who claims to despise women suddenly make an exception? And how did she convince him to reform his views?

Q2: Besides the fact that Sensei intends to die, why does he finally decide to tell the narrator his secrets? What does he have to gain from recounting the story of his secret shame? Do you think the narrator understand it himself?

Q3: How are the narrator’s and Sensei’s stories of coming to adulthood similar? Are both of them “egotists,” as the narrator’s brother calls Sensei (and people like him)? Do we begin to understand the hidden attraction of the narrator for his ‘teacher’ as we read his letter?

Q4: At the end of Chapter 62 (in my edition), Sensei writes, “But I believe a commonplace idea stated with passionate conviction carries more living truth than some novel observation expressed with cool indifference.” Why might this be an idea we’ve previously encountered in other works in the class? What idea is Sensei actually trying to get across here?

Paper #2: The Birth of the Modern

If you missed class on Friday, here's the paper assignment I handed out in class. Note the due date--March 30th! 

English 3923

Paper #2: The Birth of the Modern

INTRO: Both Kafka’s stories and Soseki’s Kokoro were written as the nineteenth century faded into the twentieth, and both captured something uniquely ‘modern’ that we don’t see in Voltaire and Lermontov. Simply put, when we read these works, we could almost believe they were written today—or just yesterday, not a hundred years ago. Some combination of their characters, themes, stories, and philosophies would translate well into a modern book or film…and probably has, in one way or another!

PROMPT: For this paper, I want you to find a modern work of art (book, film, show, panting, even an album) that you feel is the spiritual descendant of Kafka or Soseki’s work. Why can we trace many of the ideas and characters of this work back to, say, “The Metamorphosis” or Kokoro? Choose ONE of the two books to focus on, though in Kafka’s case, you can do more than one story. Explain how the more recent work seems to borrow, adapt, expand, or echo the themes in the earlier work, and use the newer work to explain what makes Kafka or Soseki so ‘modern.’ Don’t just do a compare and contrast, though: use the modern work as a lens to examine Kafka or Soseki’s book.

REMEMBER: your audience might not know the more recent work, so be sure to introduce it in enough detail so we can follow along and appreciate the connection. Quote/examine the newer work alongside passages and ideas from Kafka or Soseki. The more we have to guess, the less effective your paper will be. Help us appreciate both works, and understand how one was indebted to the other for its very existence.

REQUIREMENTS:

• No page limit, but use both works in your discussion
• You must QUOTE from the works and discuss specific passages to make your points; don’t just summarize or generalize
• CONTEXT: make sure we understand what story/novel you’re discussing from class, and make sure we understand the general story or background of your modern work
• DUE Wednesday, March 30^th by 5pm!

For Wednesday: Soseki, Kokoro, Part II

Be sure to read through Part II for Wednesday, or get pretty close. We'll take a reading break on Friday so you can get caught up if you need to, and of course you'll have all of Spring Break to read as well (beach reading)! 

Answer TWO of the following:

Q1: Sensei tells the Narrator, “We who are born into this age of freedom and independence and the self must undergo this loneliness. It’s the price we pay for these times of ours.” What do you think he means by this? Why does freedom and independence lead to loneliness, especially among the young? Is he criticizing the Narrator for being too Westernized?

Q2: Related to the above, Kokoro is in many ways a novel of fathers vs. sons—or how the different generations view one another. Why does the Narrator dislike or misunderstand about his father? Similarly, why does his father dislike about him? Consider the lines, “In the old days children fed their parents, but these days they devour them.”

Q3: How does the Narrator begin to see cracks in his ideal vision of Sensei toward the end of Part I and in Part II? What does he reveal to the Narrator, and is he right to say that “the man seated before me was not the Sensei I loved and respected but a criminal”?

Q4: At one point, the Narrator notes that “Since Sensei and my father seemed exactly opposite types, they easily came to my mind as a pair, through both association and comparison.” How might this explain Sensei’s attraction for the Narrator? Is he merely the ‘ideal’ father he always wanted? Or does the pairing suggest they’re more alike than the Narrator cares to admit?

For Monday: Soseki, Kokoro, Chapters 1-25

NOTE: If you have a different version of the novel, Chapter 25 is just a few chapters before the end of Part I: Sensei and I (which ends at our Chapter 36). So read all or most of Part I, in that case. 

Q1: In some ways, Kokoro is a novel about the traditional Japanese way of life giving way to the modern, Western world. How does the narrator and some of the other characters represent this change? Where else does the novelist show us these changes?

Q2: Several times, the narrator proclaims Sensei as a remarkable man and a philosopher. On one occasion he even exclaims, “I genuinely regretted the way the world ignored this admirable man” (Ch.11). How does the narrator communicate his greatness or uniqueness to the reader? Why is he a “sensei,” which is a term of respect which literally means “one who comes before,” but often connotes a teacher or wise man?

Q3: Sensei tells the narrator in Chapter 7 that “No time is as lonely as youth.” Why might youth (the age many of you are now) be lonelier than adulthood or old age? What do we lack in youth that we gain (or see) when we get older?

Q4: At one point, Sensei tells the narrator that “You had the impulse to find someone of the same sex as the first step toward embracing someone of the opposite sex...But I’m a man, so I can’t really fill your need” (Ch.13). Does the narrator want him to fulfill this need? Is he in love with the older man? Or is it, as Sensei suggests, a way to ‘test’ his attachment to another human being? 

Revised Schedule Until Spring Break!

NOTE: I changed the schedule slightly after posting this originally...I just made it a little easier on you this week! :) 

Unfortunately, the snow days have cut into our class time once again, so here's a revised schedule for the next few weeks. Let me know if you have any  questions!  

21                    Kafka, “A Report to an Academy” & “A Hunger Artist”

23                    Snow Day

25                    Snow Day 

 

28                    Film: Kwaidan (instead of Writing Exam #3) 

 

MARCH

2                      Film: Kwaidan

4                      Writing Exam #3

 

7                      Soseki, Kokoro 

9                      Soseki, Kokoro 

11                    Soseki, Kokoro  

 

14-18               Spring Break

For Monday: Kafka, "A Report to An Academy" (pp.250-259) & "The Hunger Artist" (pp.268-277)

NOTE: be sure to check your e-mail for your graded Paper #1s this weekend. It might take me until Sunday to get them all back, but I'm working on it! All papers can be revised for a higher grade any time this semester, so look over my comments and let me know if you have any questions. 

Answer TWO of the following:

Q1: What does the Hunger Artist mean, at the end of the story, when he claims, "I couldn't find the food I wanted" (277)? This is his secret, the reason why fasting was so easy for him. What do you think this "food" could have been? What was he really wanting to "eat" that made him take a perverse pleasure in depriving himself?

Q2: Note that all of Kafka's stories are about people who are trapped and forced to perform for an audience (even Gregor is in a cage, and though no one watches him directly, they're constantly watching his movements and what he leaves behind). Why might trapped people be a form of entertainment, or better yet, an art? What might be the attraction in watching people in a cage? Are there ways we do this in real life, too?

Q3: The Ape makes it clear that "there was no attraction for me in imitating human beings; I imitated them because I needed a way out, and for no other reason" (257). If we see the Ape is a metaphor for humans in general, what might this say about the nature of education? How are we all a little bit like the Ape?

Q4: Though the Hunger Artist practices an extreme and dangerous form of art, he is still an artist: his goal is to perfect his art for an adoring public. How might this story be a metaphor for the problems that all artists face, in whatever discipline? How are all of them (or all of us, for those of us who create) "hunger artists" of one form or another? 

For Friday: Kafka, "In the Penal Colony" (pp.140-167)

Read the very stranger story, "In the Penal Colony" for Friday's class, and consider that Kafka is not only writing in German, but he is writing in 1914, only two decades before Hitler assumes power and gives rise to the Nazi party. Something to think about...

Answer TWO of the following for Friday's class:

Q1: What does the officer think the explorer will see--and be convinced of--once he sees the Apparatus in action? Besides the obvious (that it's cruel and inhuman) why doesn't the explorer agree with him, even though he is moved by his passion?

Q2: Rather than tell the condemned man of his crime, or that he's even convicted of a crime, the officer says "There would be no point in telling him. He'll learn it on his body" (145). Why does he want it written on the flesh, even though the convict inevitably dies of his wounds? And how might this relate to Kafka's interest in bodies, as in the previous story?

Q3: When the officer dies at the hand of his beloved apparatus, the explorer notes, "no sign was visible of the promised redemption; what the others had found in the machine the officer had not found" (166). What do you think he was looking for in his death, and why did he tamper with the machine to make his end even more brutal? 

Q4: The nature of the characters in this story--officer, soldier, explorer, condemned man, apparatus--suggest the nature of an allegory, where everything represents larger ideas at play. What might this story be an allegory of, precisely? How might we read these events in a less literal light, much as we might read The Metamorphosis as a story of illness, rather than of a giant bug? 

For Wednesday: Kafka, The Metamorphosis

Edward Munch's The Scream (1893)

Don't forget that Paper #1 is due by 5pm on Monday! You can turn it in late, but you lose a letter grade each day, with Wednesday at 5pm being the last day you can turn it in for credit. So be careful! 

Otherwise, read "The Metamorphosis" and answer TWO of the questions below:

Q1: Kafka is almost obsessed with describing Gregor's body, not only what it looks like (the apple rotting in his back!) but also how it moves, and the sensations and pleasures of moving with such a large body. Why do you think this is such an important part of the story? What might this suggest about his choice of a cockroach rather than, say, a wolf or a bat (which, only a decade or so earlier, was the subject of Stoker's Dracula)? 

Q2: Why is Grete, Gregor's sister, so protective of her job in taking care of him, when she is visibly terrified of him (and in some sense, loathes him)? How are we supposed to understand her fit of rage when her mother decides to clean the room without her help? 

Q3: Why might it be significant that the longer Gregor is an insect, the less and less he wants to eat, until by the end is he "completely flat and dry"? Does his transformation slowly remove his humanity, or is something else lost in the process? How can we tell? 

Q4: Do you consider this story more of a work of horror or satire? Are we supposed to be terrified at the random possibility of becoming a bug? Or is Gregor never really a bug at all...is it all a metaphor for feelings and roles that we are forced into through class, money, and society? In other words, is this more a Stephen King story or one by Voltaire? 

For Wednesday: Read "The Fatalist" & Paper #1 assignment below (with new due date)

 No questions for Wednesday. Instead, catch up on "Princess Mary" if you haven't finished it, and read the very short story, "The Fatalist" for Wednesday. In class, I'll give you an in-class writing prompt (Writing Exam #2) based on "The Fatalist," though it will ask you to apply this to the rest of the book as well. Bring your book so you can quote from it and show your profound knowledge of the events of the story! 

Make sure, too, that you  have our next book, Kafka's Complete Stories, since we'll be starting that before long. Check out the Revised Schedule (below) to see how I changed a few dates based on our Snow Day. 

ALSO: The Paper #1 is pasted below with the revised due date:

Paper #1: Portraits of Caustic Truth

In the Narrator’s Preface to A Hero of Our Time, he writes that the novel “is indeed a portrait, but not of a single individual; it is a portrait composed of all the vices of our generation in the fullness of their development…[people] need some bitter medicine, some caustic truths…Suffice it that the disease has been pointed out; goodness knows how to cure it.”

While the Preface could itself be a bit satirical, Lermontov seems to have the same general aim as Voltaire, who in Candide  is depicting the “vices of [his] generation” through “some caustic truths.” Surprisingly, both novels are almost unanimous in how these “truths” are depicted, as the same types of characters appear quite frequently, even though one work was published in 1759, and the other in 1840. Had society changed so little in 81 years? Has it ever changed?

For your first paper, I want you to put both works in conversation with each other to answer the question, what does each author believe is the general vice or symptom of their respective societies? What are the “caustic truths” that society ignores or hides from which only literature can reveal? And what is the “bitter medicine” each work prescribes to society? Do you feel that they generally agree on the symptoms and the mode of treatment? Or might they each object to the others’ cure? Look for similarities and shared approaches between both works, but don’t ignore shades of difference. Is there something a Russian soldier would notice that would escape a French philosopher?

REQUIREMENTS

• Be FOCUSED and try to narrow your ideas down to a specific topic or idea: don’t talk about every problem each work explores, and don’t just compare and contrast the books. Take a focused and critical approach to each book.
• QUOTE significant passages from both books and discuss them. Make sure we understand why you quoted the passage and what it says about the novel.
• Use CONTEXT for each passage and cite according to MLA guidelines (typically, the page number of the passage). Make sure we know where the quote comes from, who’s speaking, etc. Don’t use ‘floating quotes.’
• No set number of pages, but the less you explain/explore, the less effective your paper will be. I would say generally that 1-2 pages isn’t going to cut it, but beyond that, it’s up to you. Just try to have fun exploring the ideas and tell me what you see and what you thought as you read both novels.
• DUE Monday, February 14^th by 5pm

 

 

Revised Schedule from Week 5 on

 REVISED SCHEDULE FOR WEEKS 5-16

 

FEBRUARY

7                      Lermontov, “Princess Mary,” Part 2

9                      Lermontov, “The Fatalist” & Writing Exam #2

11                    Context: The Uncanny

 

14                    Paper #1 due by 5pm [no class]

16                    Kafka, “The Metamorphosis”

18                    Kafka, “In the Penal Colony”

 

21                    Kafka, “A Report to an Academy” & “A Hunger Artist”

23                    Kafka, The Shorter Stories (pp.379-407)

25                    Writing Exam #3

 

28                    Film: Kwaidan  

 

MARCH

2                      Film: Kwaidan

4                      Film: Kwaidan

 

7                      Writing Exam #4

9                      Context: Eastern and Western Art  

11                    Soseki, Kokoro  

 

14-18               Spring Break

 

21                    Soseki, Kokoro

23                    Soseki, Kokoro

25                    Soseki, Kokoro

 

28                    Writing Exam #5

30                    Context: Postcolonialism/Paper #2 due by 5pm

 

APRIL

1                      Scissortail CW Festival: attend instead of class!

 

4                      Duras, The Lover

6                      Duras, The Lover

8                      Duras, The Lover  

 

11                    Writing Exam #6

13                    Lahiri, The Interpreter of Maladies: “A Temporary Matter” & “The

       Interpreter of Maladies”

15                    Lahiri, “When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine," "Mrs. Sen's”

 

18                    Lahiri, The Interpreter of Maladies: “Sexy” & “This Blessed                                  House”

20                    Lahiri, The Interpreter of Maladies: “The Third and Final                                    Continent”

25                    Writing Exam #7

 

27                    Discuss Final Project/Wrap-Up                     

 

 

For Monday: Lermontov, "Princess Mary" (finish!)

Since the snow cancelled our class on Friday, finish "Princess Mary" for Monday's class. You can read "The Fatalist" too, if you like, but we'll wrap that one up on Wednesday (we'll need the entire class to finish "Princess Mary"!). Answer TWO of the following as usual for class...

Q1: Though Pechorin satirizes the Romantic affectations of the people around, notably Grushnitsky and Mary, how might Lermontov (or the Narrator?) also satirize him throughout the story? Why might Pechorin's various actions and statements be a parody of the cynical, Romantic soldier he so wants to be seen as? And how might we see that this role is only skin deep?

Q2: There are numerous inconsistencies in Pechorin's story, and just before the duel, he admits that he stopped keeping the diary and instead writes the ending months later, by which time he's already met Maksim Maksimich (thus placing this story well before "Bela"). Why do you think Lermontov continues to make the narrative so inconsistent for the reader?  Whom do you think is more at fault: Pechorin or the Narrator? Or Lermontov himself? 

Q3: When Pechorin prepares to face Grushnitsky's shot, he tells Werner, "Perhaps, I wish to be killed." Do you think Pechorin has a death wish? Is death the only thing that truly interests him in life? Or is this, too, an act for the benefit of those around him? 

Q4: Do you think Pechorin was in love with Vera or Princess Mary? Were they merely ways to occupy his time and amuse him, the way Bela was? Or are we meant to see a deeper connection to one or both women? Wouldn't this be a "dull" story if he was simply a womanizer who set out to ruin the lives of every pretty young woman he meets? Is that really all there is to the story? 

For Wednesday: Lermontov, "Princess Mary," Part I (read to June 5th entry)

Since "Princess Mary" is a long story, really a novella, we'll break it into two parts for Wednesday's class (though feel free to read the entire thing in one go if you wish--it's a fascinating story). Read to the June 5th entry, which is about 50 pages. If we have class on Friday, we'll finish the rest for then; if not, we'll finish it and read the final story for next Monday.

Answer TWO of the following: 

Q1: Why does Pechorin resent his old acquaintance Grushnitsky so much? What might truly be at the heart of their rivalry? And do you think Grushnitsky resents him equally--or does he have a bit of hero worship for him as do the Narrator and Maksim Maksimich? 

Q2: Early on in the story, Pechorin admits "Contradiction is, with me, an innate passion; my entire life has been nothing but a chain of sad and frustrating contradictions to heart or reason." Based on this, how can we know who the real Pechorin really is? Can we tell when he's merely being contrary or obstinate? Does he, like Pococurante, always say or do the opposite thing? Or is he less clever than he gives himself credit for?

Q3: Where in this story does Pechorin occasionally sound self-consciously literary? Are their times that his journal (it's dated like a personal diary) sounds too polished or contrived to be real? Does it ever sound more like the Narrator or other stories we've read before? 

Q4: Why does Pechorin take pride in being told "that when riding in Circassian garb, I look more like a Kabardan than many a Kabardan...I have studied, for a long time, the mountain people"? Why would a Russian who looks down on these people want to be thought one of them? What might this say about his character and values? 

For Monday: Lermontov, "Maksim Maksimich" and "Taman" from A Hero Of Our Time

Portrait of Mikhail Lermontov (or Pechorin?) 

As always, answer TWO of the following for Monday's class:

Q1: Though these stories are told by two different narrators, our main Narrator and Pechorin (via his Journal), what makes them strangely similar? What echoes or connections do both seem to share? Similarly, is there a reason that "Taman" follows the brief "Maksim Maksimich"? 

Q2: In "Taman," Pechorin writes, "She was far from beautiful, but I have my preconceptions in regard to beauty, too. She revealed a good deal of breeding." In what way is this girl like Bela from our first story? And in general, what seems to attract our 'bored' hero to specific women? What might this say about his character and outlook? 

Q3: The only time our Narrator ever sees Pechorin is in the tiny story, "Maksim Maksimich," and then only very briefly. What does he observe about our literary hero, and how does this confirm, or contrast with Maksim Maksimich's account in "Bela"? Why might it also be significant that Pechorin seems to be less friendly with M.M. than first reported?

Q4: When the Narrator takes Pechorin's Journal from M.M., he quicky sees that it's published under his name, which he later admits is an "innocent forgery." Why does he do this? Do you believe his claim that "solely the desire to be useful compelled me to print excerpts from a journal that came accidentally into my possession"? 

Wednesday's Lecture/Discussion: The Rise of Romanticism

NOTE: Friday's questions are BELOW this post... 

As a prelude to reading A Hero of Our Time, I introduced three paintings that help us understand Romanticism, which was the artistic movement that followed hot on the heels of the Enlightenment, and which all writers and artists in the 19th century got swept up in. 

The painting on the left, Kramskoy's An Unknown Woman (1883) depicts one of the biggest differences between 18th century paintings and those in the early to mid 19th century: sensibility. This painting captures a psychological portrait of the woman in the coach, who you note is perched well above us. She looks down on us, seemingly with power and command, even though she also seems rather defenceless: she is alone, and no woman could travel alone this time (esp. in Russia) without some kind of chaperone. The black suggests that she could be a widow, though the empty seat beside her suggests that she's used to having company, and is inviting the viewer to join her. She might be "unknown" because society doesn't want to know her; she's probably a woman who flaunts her independence and refuses to marry (or marry again) and could even be a kept mistress of a rich bachelor (or worse, married man!). Yet she's proud of her status, and even the painter shares his admiration with the viewer. We get a sense of who she is: not a satire, but a flesh and blood woman full of passion, strength, and ideas. This captures the idea of sensibility, which is that art should move the reader deeply, or at least help us feel what is inside the painting or novel we're reading.

The next painting (right) is Caspar David Freidrich's Wanderer Above a Sea of Fog (1818), which showcases the very Romantic notion of the sublime. The sublime is defined by the philosopher Immanuel Kant as "the tall cliffs, towering thunder clouds, volcanoes, hurricanes, the boundless ocean set in a rage, lofty waterfalls, and the like as overwhelming to our puny powers." When we face the sublime, we feel small, insignificant, and often in the presence of death. Yet this makes us feel vibrantly alive, since it knocks us out of our day-to-day ego to feel part of something vast and 'human.' The Romantics loved to have adventures in Nature to feel part of a greater world, one that was both beautiful and terrible at the same time, and Lermontov is very much like this Wanderer, contemplating the beauty of the Caucasus Mountains in "Bela" (which you'll read for next class). 

Our third painting (left) is by Jean August Dominique Ingres, and is entitled La Grande Odalisque (an "odalisque" is a harem slave, or concubine in the Middle East). The Romantics loved the East and legends and stories of the Orient, since it represented to them an exotic world beyond the morals and taboos of Western society. They created a romanticized vision of the East through stories and paintings of harems, deserts, mosques, and picturesque villages perched in the mountains. Many of these works can be seen as somewhat racist today, as they treat the East--and especially Eastern people, and women--as objects, seeing them less for who they are as what they represent for the West. This is called "Orientalism," and Lermontov's novel certainly engages in this a bit, though Lermontov did have first-hand experience as a soldier in the Caucasus region (see below) which was kind of like the "Wild West" of Russia. So while the East represented a way to experience the sublime without the constraints of polite society, they also brought their 'civilized' biases along with them, framing the East in light of Western notions of beauty and morality. 

In many ways, Russia is the greatest place to tell the story of Romanticism, since it is perched precariously between the Eastern and Western worlds, and is full of sublime landscapes and dangerous culture clashes. The novel A Hero of Our Time is a novel that transports the sensibility of Europe to the sublime landscapes of the near-Middle East, there to dabble in conventional portraits of Orientalism while also offering an eyewitness depiction of the people and places the author himself visited. So in this book, does art imitiate life...or life imitate art? 

For Friday: Lermontov, "Bela" from A Hero of Our Time

"An Uzbek Woman in Tashkent" by Vasily Vereshchagin

NOTE: I stupidly told you to read the first two stories for Friday, though we'll only have time for "Bela," since it's pretty long. You can read "Maksim Maksimich" for Friday, too, though we won't discuss it until Monday's class when we also discuss "Taman." So the questions below are only for "Bela."

Answer TWO of the following:

Q1: How do both the Narrator and Maksim Maksimich reveal their own casual racism and "Orientalist" views on the people of the Caucasus in this story? Do you think Lermontov is trying to satirize Russian biases towards the East, or does he take these views for granted? 

Q2: What kind of character is Pechorin, and who might he remind us of from Candide? If he is the "Hero of Our Time," are we supposed to be impressed with him, or is he, too, a kind of satirical portrait? Similarly, how do the Narrator and Maksim Maksimich seem to respond to him?  

Q3: How does the story channel the Romantic sublime? What did Lermontov want to impress upon the reader (who at this time, would be readers who lived in the major cities of Russia) about the exotic world of the Caucasus? How does he help us see the beauty and terror of this strange land?

Q4: As the Narrator tells his story, he admits, "it is not a novella I am writing, but traveling notes...Therefore, wait a while, or, if you wish, turn several pages..." Why does the Narrator address the reader this way? And why might Lermontov had created the ruse of writing a novel about a man who is not writing a novel? 

For Monday: Writing Exam #1

 Remember that for Monday, we're going to have our first "Writing Exam," which is just a short in-class essay based on Candide. Be sure to bring your book since I'll expect you to quote from the text to support your answer. While I won't tell you exactly what the question will be, you might consider how Candide could be considered a subversive text, and how it relates to certain books that are commonly banned or challenged in today's society...

If you have to miss class on Monday for any reason, please let me know so we can reschedule your Writing Exam. I can't let you do this via e-mail, but you don't want to miss it, since each one is 5 pts (out of 100). 

See you then! 

For Friday: Finish Candide, Chapters 23-30/Conclusion (or get as close as possible!)

Read the last chapters of the book and answer the following...remember, we'll have our first Writing Exam on Monday over Candide (more about that in class on Friday!). So be sure to finish...(hint, hint!) 

Q1: One of the themes of the book, as expressed by more than one character, is that all of our pleasures are built on the pain of others...and that trying to save people often brings its own suffering (to yourself and others). Where do we see this theme repeated in the final chapters--and with whom? 

Q2: Count Pococurante is one of the strangest, and in some ways, most modern characters in the book (his name means "little caring"). Why is Candide so taken with him, and why might he be a true symbol of the worst excesses of the Enlightenment and the upper classes themselves? 

Q3: One of the most humorous elements of the book is that (almost) no one truly dies: Pangloss, Paquette, the Baron, and many others return by the end of the novel, resurrected, to enjoy a 'happy ending.' Why do you think Voltaire does this? How might it affect his overall message or the theme of the book itself?

Q4: The most controversial line of the book is Candide's newfound philosophy, which tries to make the best of his situtation with the others: "we must go and work in the garden." How do you interpret this philosophy? Is he saying that it's better to work rather than to question fate? (in which case, it sounds an awful like like Pangloss' original philosophy). Or is he saying that all people should be equal, working in the garden rather than simply employing others to do so? Is this an anti-authoritarian message? Or is there another way to interpret the phrase? 

For Wednesday's Class: Voltaire, Candide, Chapters 13-22

Goya, The Shooting of the Rebels on May 3rd, 1803

As before, answer TWO of the following questions for Wednesday's class. 

Q1: In many ways, Candide is a book about education: how do young people learn to be adults in the modern world (of the 18^th century, that is)? What lessons do Candide and Cunegonde receive in right and wrong, and are either of them forced to corrupt their “good” nature simply to prosper in the world? Does success require a moral sacrifice for Voltaire?

Q2: El Dorado is a fabled paradise in the New World, which many explorers, including Sir Walter Raleigh, spent their lives trying to find. Lucky for him, Candide stumbles right onto it. What does Candide see in El Dorado that goes against the very nature of European civilization? Why might this entire passage be an elaborate satire of the idea that “whatever is, is right”?

Q3: How do the two new characters, Cacambo and Martin, add to the satire of the novel? What new perspective does one, or both, offer, and how do they help us see aspects of the world that Candide is too young and ignorant to notice? 

Q4: In a letter to his friend, Frederick the Great, Voltaire once wrote, “It is said there are savages who eat men and think they do right.  I reply that these savages have the same idea of justice and injustice as we have.  They make war as we do from madness and passion; we see the same crimes committed everywhere, and eating one’s enemies is but an additional ceremony.  The wrong is not putting them on the spit but killing them.” How might Voltaire illustrate these sentiments through some of the action and events of Candide? In other words, why is evil not a how but a what/why question?

Wednesday's Class Overview: Intro to the Enlightenment

NOTE: The questions for Candide are in the post BELOW this one. 

In class today, I showed you three paintings that I felt gave a brief overview of some of the ideas of the Enlightenment, particularly regarding the role artists played in challenging the status quo (especially when the status quo was wealthy, entitled, and held the power of life and death over the populace). The three paintings we looked at are below (click on a picture to see a bigger version):

Sir Thomas Gainsborough's Portrait of Mr. and Mrs. Andrews (1750). Note how he shoved the couple to one side and focused more on the landscape, as if to say they were less important than nature. While this might have been asked of him, to showcase their impressive holdings, it does diminish the couple and their importance in the painting. And note how much 'truth' he offers us about the couple: he doesn't smooth them over or make them pretty. They seem somewhat frumpy, awkward, irritable, and totally removed from one another. The only thing happy in the painting seems to be the dog! Gainsborough seems to be satirizing the couple and diminishing their importance to posterity, letting the artist have the last word. 

In the next painting, Francisco Goya's Charles IV of Spain and his Family (1801), we get much the same thing, but much more audaciously. Goya has thrust the king and his family in a dark room, and shown them in the moment between the 'real' picture, when they would be posing in style and grandeur. Note that most people are looking away, looking bored, looking confused. The king looks a bit drunk; his wife looks proud and dignified, but also looks old--he didn't try to lie about her age or looks. The kids seem scared and lost. And Goya even inserted himself into the picture--you can see him in the shadows before his easel, painting the royal couple (and having a good laugh at their expense). His point? That even the royal family are just people, and can also look old and foolish. 

Finally, we get William Hogarth's Portrait of Miss Mary Edwards (1742). This was a portrait of a woman who was ostracized from society. Though she was once a rich heiress, she made an unfortunate match and her husband began burning through their money to fuel his gambling addiction. Soon they would be destitute, and her young son would have no future. So she took an unprecedented step: she had the priest burn her marriage records, making their union null and void. This, however, made her a whore (she had sex out of wedlock) and her son a bastard, which effectively removed her from society. But so what? She had her money back, and she defied anyone to make her feel shame about protecting her son. Hogarth depicts her as exactly that--proud, defiant, and more than a little beautiful. Does he flatter her? Maybe a little, but he truly seems to respect her, and includes a letter on her desk which is a copy of Elizabeth I's famous speech to her soldiers as the Spanish Armada approached. His point seems to be--this is our modern Elizabeth, a woman who can stand up to tyranny and inspire us! 

Look for these ideas when we read Candide, since it, too, is a portrait of the aristocracy and the elites of Europe in all their glory (and degradation). When you read the book, picture these images in your mind, since they come from the exact same period (Candide was published in 1759).