Becca on Hemingway

“The funicular car bucked once more and then stopped. It could go no further, the snow drifted solidly across the track. The gale scouring the exposed surface of the mountain swept the snow surface into a wind-board crust. Nick, waxing his skis in the baggage car, pushed his boots into the toe irons and shut the clamp tight. He jumped from the car sideways onto the hard wind-board, made a jump turn and crouching and trailing his sticks slipped in a rush down the slope.”

“On the white below George dipped and rose and dipped out of sight. The rush and sudden swoop as he dropped down a steep undulation in the mountain side plucked Nick’s mind out and left him only the wonderful flying, dropping sensation in his body. He rose to a slight up-run and then the snow seemed to drop out from under him as he went down, down, faster and faster in a rush down the last, long steep slope. Crouching so he was almost sitting back on his skis, trying to keep the center of gravity low, the snow driving like a sand-storm, he knew the pace was too much. But he held it. He would not let go and spill. Then a patch of soft snow, left in a hollow by the wind, spilled him and he went over and over in a clashing of skis, feeling like a shot rabbit, then stuck, his legs crossed, his skis sticking straight up and his nose and ears jammed full of snow.” (Hemingway. 139) 

In this passage characters Nick and George spend the day skiing in Switzerland, enjoying each other’s company and the euphoric sensation that comes with alpine skiing. The two bond over the adrenalin rush they experience on the slopes in the mountain’s chalet over a bottle of wine. However, although the comrades agree that skiing serves as an intoxicating rush, they fail to push past this shared belief in terms of the depth of conversation. George even goes as far to say, “It’s too swell to talk about.” (143), suggesting that although the two are sharing a bonding experience, they mutually agree to remain closed off to each other, avoiding any betrayal of emotion. Even the diction of Hemingway in the passage seems to suggest a sense of isolation and being closed off with words such as “surface, hard, out of sight, stuck”.

In addition, this passage showcases a rash sense of self-safety in the character Nick. He throws himself down the mountain to attain a feeling of exhilaration with little regard for his own physical safety. This action can serve as a parallel to his mental, post-war state. It can be suggested that Nick remains so completely disconnected with his own self and personal feelings that the only way to achieve a true sense of living is through the pump of adrenalin. His inevitable wipe out at the end of the run can be used to symbolize a mental blow out as well. As his feelings remain closed off from himself and his friends, tension and internal strain will build and potentially cause Nick to experience a psychological blow out. It seems Nick’s distorted self-image can only be escaped through the numbing pursuit of thrill and adventure.

    

Questions:

1. What does this interaction between Nick and George say about their relationship? Similarly, what does it say about them as individuals?

2. For fellow adrenalin junkies, what is it that pulls us towards potentially dangerous activities such as alpine skiing? What draws Nick to the slopes?

"And I want to eat at a table with my own silver and I want candles. And I want it to be spring and I want to brush my hair out in front of a mirror and I want a kitty and I want some new clothes." "Oh shut up and get something to read," George said. He was reading again. His wife was looking out of the window. It was quite dark now and still raining in the palm trees. "Anyways, I want a cat," she said, "I want a cat. I want a cat now. If I can't have long hair or any fun, I can have a cat." George was not listening. He was reading his book. His wife looked out of the window where the light had come on in the square. Someone knocked at the door. "Avanti," George said. He looked up from his book. In the doorway stood the maid. She held a big tortoise-shell cat pressed tighit against her and swung down against her body. "Excuse me," she said, "the padrone asked me to bring this for the Signora." (Hemingway 94)

In the beginning of this passage, the American girl had a very big interest in the cat, which was alone in the rain. As her husband was in bed reading, he did not seem to have much interest, but the girl went outside to search for the cat anyways. As she walked out of the hotel, she noticed the padrone had made a point of making her feel like he thought highly of her and was interested in her. When the girl came back empty handed and all she wanted was some kind words from her husband, he snapped at her. The American girl really only wanted the cat and to receive some love from her husband, who didn't seem to care of her at all. The padrone from downstairs was the one who showed his caring heart by going out in the rain and retrieved the cat for the girl.

As we see in this passage, there are two sets of dynamics between the men that are connected with the American girl. Her husband, who shows some interest towards the beginning of the chapter, but then ends up snapping at his wife at the end and did not act like a husband is supposed to act towards his wife and then there was the padrone, who consistently had an attentive eye for the girl and ended up being the hero at the end of the chapter. Even thought we do not see too much emotion from the padrone, we see somewhat of instant compassion from him towards a stranger and makes the girl satisfied at the end, when she could not get that same satisfaction from her own husband.

Why do you think the padrone ended up retrieving the cat for the girl?

Why do you think the husband treated his wife the way he did at the end of the passage?

Hemingway Interview from The Paris Review

INTERVIEWER
Finally, a fundamental question: as a creative writer what do you think is the function of your art? Why a representation of fact, rather than fact itself?

HEMINGWAY
Why be puzzled by that? From things that have happened and from things as they exist and from all things that you know and all those you cannot know, you make something through your invention that is not a representation but a whole new thing truer than anything true and alive, and you make it alive, and if you make it well enough, you give it immortality. That is why you write and for no other reason that you know of. But what about all the reasons that no one knows?

For more see:
www.theparisreview.org/interviews/4825/the-art-of-fiction-no-21-ernest-hemingway

Library Location Change

There's been a last minute change in our library-day location. I apologize for the suddenness of this, but please meet at: 

COLLEGE LIBRARY 

Classroom 1193D 

Today 

At the normally scheduled classtime (3:30 or 4:35pm)

To reach 1193D: enter the front doors of the college library, turn left, go through the Ethnic Studies collection, and you'll see the door. If you can't find it, ask a friendly librarian!

Because of the immediacy of this change, if you see your classmates today, please remind them of the change so that everyone gets to College Library on time. We'll do our historical society visit next Thursday.

Surfacing, Danny D

I saw a beetle on it, blue-black and oval; when the camera whirred it burrowed in under the feathers. Carrion beetle, death beetle. Why had they strung it up like a lynch victim, why didn’t they just throw it away like trash? To prove they had the power to kill. Otherwise it was valueless; beautiful from a distance but it couldn’t be tamed or cooked or trained to talk, the only relation they could have to a thing like that was to destroy it. Food, slave or corpse, limited choices; horned and fanged heads sawed off and mounted on the billiard room wall, stuffed fish, trophies. It must have been the Americans; they were in there now, we would meet them. (Atwood 117)

In this passage the narrator really exposes the interaction of humans and animals. She describes us, the citizens, as people who like to show case power in some manner. The narrator suggests that the only relation to an animal is by killing it, almost a reflection on the civilization. That we are destroying ourselves, relating more back to when blacks were being lynched. She almost saying that civilization has a tendency to destroy something to assert some form of power, and killing animals is probably the easiest way of doing that. Because we do have this tendency for destruction its the reason why civilization limits an animal’s option, as she describes them as food, slave or corpse. She is referring to the fact that we use animals as a source of food, as a house pet, or in this case, just to kill them.

However, I also get a sense of contradiction from this paragraph, by the use of diction. She acts like she cares for these animals but here choice of words will say different. For example, when the narrator says, “why didn’t they just throw it away like trash?” She is comparing a living thing to a piece of garbage that needs to be thrown out. Another example is when she says, “…the only relation they could have to a thing like that…” She describes the animal as a thing and not by its proper name, like a piece of trash. She also goes on and uses the word “valueless” when also describing an animal. I feel that if someone who truly cares about animals would of have a better choices of words.

Is the narrator’s use of words a reflection of her own independently thinks or of the civilization?

Surfacing-Transformations

"From the lake a fish jumps. An idea of a fish jumps. A fish jumps, carved wooden fish with dots painted on the sides, no, antlered fish thing drawn in red on cliffstone, protecting spirit. It hangs in the air suspended, flesh turned to icon, he has changed again, returned to the water. How many shapes can he take. I watch it for an hour or so; then it drops and softens, the circles widen, it becomes an ordinary fish again" (Atwood, 193).

"Further in, the trees they didn't cut before the flood are marooned, broken and gray-white, tipped on their sides, their giant contorted roots bleached and skinless; on the sodden trunks are colonies of plants, feeding on disintegration, laurel, sundew the insect-eater, its toenail-sized leaves sticky with red hairs. Out of the leaf nests the flowers rise, pure white, flesh of gnats and midges, petals now, metamorphosis" (Atwood, 171).

These two passages are linked to one another due to the fact that they both discuss nature in a relatable way to the narrator's transformation over the course of the book. It is also advantageous to note how by including these passages, Atwood has demonstrated to the reader how everything is intertwined and death is not the end, which is what the narrator may have been struggling with.

The first passage addresses the transformation of a fish, which mirrors the narrator's personal transformation. The fish takes the form of numerous fish from a "carved" to an "antlered" to an "icon" and finally returning back to "an ordinary fish again". This is representative of the narrator as we see her explore different aspects of humans, especially those that are a part of "civilization". Specifically, she is transformed to an animal prior to this passage and still becomes a human once again. This passage is also concerned with other themes of the novel such as religion and art. Key artistic words that, perhaps, form a bridge to American Indian Mythology are "carved", "painted", and "drawn", while "icon" and "protecting spirit" point towards religion. This word choice draws attention to rock paintings associated with the magical and supernatural powers which is reflective of the narrator finding personal power in religion. It is also interesting to note how when the fish returns to it's original state, Atwood uses words that evoke a sense of peace and calmness as the fish "drops and softens, the circles widen". This could symbolize a new found sense of content for the narrator as she once again is a human as the fish is once again a fish. As a whole, this passage is depicting transformations as a sense of power and that at times going through times of uncertainty can have a positive impact.

Another relatable passage is one that discusses dead trees in a swamp that provide life for other species. The author, again, uses human characteristics to describe the beneficial affects of a devastating situation. The roots are described as "bleached and skinless" which symbolize death, while the "flesh of gnats" and the"colonies" of plants with "toenail-sized leaves" and "red hairs" are overtaking and feeding on the disintegration. This passage could also be hinting at the effects of civilization that the narrator despises so much. However, the last sentence of this passage is crucial to the author's intent since although there was this destruction, a beautiful metamorphosis has occurred as flowers rise. I think that Atwood is trying to ultimately point out the narrator's recognition of the psychological damage she has encountered and is a dramatization of the transformation she is experiencing through this parallel.

Questions:

1) Do you think there are other signs of the narrator's negative attitude toward civilization in these passages? Or are there other examples of the this dislike in similar situations?

2) What links to do you see between these themes and the narrator's father and unborn child?

Monday Notes

First

On the assignment sheet I handed out on thursday it said we were meeting monday/today for our library tour. I very much hope you recognized that as a bit of idiocy on my part (it happens oh-so-often). TOMORROW we will meet in the historical society (in the atrium on the ground floor) at the normal class time. 

Second

We are going to talk about Hemingway on Thursday, but we're also going to wrap up Atwood. In particular I want to reflect with you about the title of the book (Surfacing), so if you have thoughts about that, bring them in to share. 

Third

Keep the blog posts and comments coming. Keep them as involved/thoughtful as you can. We are already making great strides in our discussions, analyses, and reading so far and I am excited to see what we can do with these next couple of terrific texts. 

Finally

Let me know if you have any questions. I'll be around email all day today. 

-matt

Surfacing

In the city I never hid in bathrooms; I didn't like them, they were too hard and white. The only city place I can remember hiding is behind opened doors at birthday parties. I despised them, the pew-purple velvet dresses with antimascara lace collars and the presents, voices going Oooo with envy when they were opened, and the pointless games, finding a thimble or memorizing clutter on a tray. There were only two things you could be, a winner or a loser; the mothers tried to rig it so everyone got a prize, but they couldn't figure out what to do about me because I wouldn't play. At first I ran away, but after that my mother said I had to go, I had to learn to be polite, "civilized" as she called it. So I watched from behind the door. When I finally joined in a game of musical chairs I was welcomed with triumph, like a religious convert or political defector. (Atwood 81)

Here we have another diversion into the narrator's childhood, and yet again it's pretty weird. Granted, one's childhood behavior isn't always a reliable indicator of one's adult life, but in this case it's the combination of the story and the way it's expressed that give some insight into the narrator's mental state. To start, there's that opening phrase and it's immediate transition. The narrator has been hiding in an outhouse to avoid "Evans and the explanation and negotiations." (Atwood 81) The logical way for this train of thought to progress would probably be straight to the information about birthday parties, but the narrator adds her personal opinion on bathrooms: the almost nonsensical "I didn't like them, they were too hard and white."

Next, the narrator betrays the fact that she not only hated the games played at birthday parties at the time, but she continues to view them as "pointless," despite being many years removed from the possibility of playing. She's non-judgmental about the behavior of the mothers of the birthday children, perhaps indicating that she has no real insight into their motives or emotions. Finally, the passage ends with a strange comparison, as the narrator claims she was "welcomed with triumph, like a religious convert or political defector." This imagery indicates that the narrator feels (or possibly thinks that everyone else at the party feels) as if her deigning to join their birthday game takes some sort of fundamental change of beliefs. It's like she'd be going against some core part of her personality (as would a political defector or religious convert) just by joining in the fun.

Questions:
1. There's an emphasis on texture and color in this paragraph: "hard and white," "pew-purple velvet," "antimascara lace." Significant or just run of the mill description?
2. On birthday games: "There were only two things you could be: a winner or a loser." Agree or disagree? What's the point of birthday games?

Surfacing

“I didn’t feel awful; I realized I didn’t feel much of anything, I hadn’t for a long time. Perhaps I’d been like that all my life, just as some babies are born deaf or without a sense of touch; but if that was true I wouldn’t have noticed the absence. At some point my neck must have closed over, pond freezing or a wound, shutting me into my head; since then everything had been glancing off me, it was like being in a vase, or the village where I could see them but not hear them because I couldn’t understand what was being said.” (Atwood, p 106)

“I watched my self grow larger... I was in most of the pictures, shut in behind the paper; or not me but the missing part of me...

I could find myself always, I was the one smudged with movement or turning the other way...

The last pages of the album were blank, with some loose prints stuck in between the black leaves as though my mother hadn’t wanted to finish. After the formal dresses I disappeared; no wedding pictures, but of course we hadn’t taken any. I closed the cover, straightening the edges.

No hints or facts, I didn’t know when it had happened. I must have been all right then; but after that I’d allowed myself to be cut in two. Woman sawn apart in a wooden crate, wearing a bathing suit, smiling, a trick done with mirrors, I read it in a comic book; only with me there had been an accident and I came apart. The other half, the one locked away, was the only one that could live; I was the wrong half, detached, terminal. I was nothing but a head, or, no something minor like a severed thumb, numb.” (Atwood, pp 108-109)

What strikes me immediately about these passages is that for the first time, the narrator speaks directly about her isolation and disconnection from reality, she has been “shut[...] into [her] head”. Her choice of wording is interesting, however, comparing herself as closed off inside of her head to a child without the senses of sight or hearing, both of which manifest entirely within the head. Also, these senses serve to transmit external stimuli to the brain, whereas the narrator has shut off communication signals within the brain. She is very much alert to the outside world, the people and places around her, but she has no clear idea of what goes on inside of her (“I didn’t feel much of anything”).

Upon realizing that something within her is not as it should be, the narrator peruses her mother’s photo album in search of evidence of the separation point. She is unable see herself clearly, she is “smudged with movement or turning the other way.” One has to wonder whether the photos actually fail to capture her as the subject, or if she is purposefully filtering out the images, obscuring her vision “like having vaseline on [her] eyes” (79). These blurred impressions of herself as child are not recognizable to the narrator as herself, they are “the missing part”, a person separate from her present self. Yet she seems to be ignoring the obvious point at which she ceased to be the stranger from her childhood: her marriage. There is a distinct absence of photos from her wedding, and she overlooks this poignant detail as a redundant fact. The photo album itself seems to illustrate this as the point at which she loses herself as its pages become blank. She mentions earlier that she “didn’t know what [she] had to let go of” when she got married (44), and that after she gave birth to their child, she felt as if “[a] section of my own life [had been] sliced off from me like a Siamese twin, my own flesh canceled” (45). Clearly the experiences of her married years had a profound and negative effect, but they have been so effectively and forcefully repressed that even in the face of the obvious, the narrator cannot recognize the truth.

Near the beginning of this passage, the narrator states that her “neck must have closed over”. Earlier references to her throat closing up pertain to the language barrier she experiences as a non-French speaker in Quebec. How has this physical reaction manifested metaphorically in the narrator’s inability to cope with her emotions? Could the feeling of cultural alienation have affected her later feelings of emotional isolation?

The narrator believes that because she “noticed the absence” of emotional reactions, she must have felt emotion at some point in her life. Is this necessarily true? Could she be measuring herself against others in noting her difference of reaction? How does her line of reasoning change throughout this paragraph?

How does this passage, in which the narrator seeks to trace her separation from herself, further illuminate this rift?

What does the woman in the bathing suit reveal about the narrator’s relationship to the narrative’s other characters?

Surfacing

"...I could hear them, Anna breathing, a fast panic sound as though she was running; then her voice began, not like her real voice but twisted as her face must have been, a desperate beggar's whine, please please. I put the pillow over my head, I didn't want to listen, I wanted it to be through but it kept on, Shut up I whispered but she wouldn't. She was praying to herself, it was as if David wasn't there at all. Jesus Jesus oh yes please Jesus. Then something different, not a word but pure pain, clear as water, an animal's at the moment the trap closes. It's like death, I thought, the bad part isn't the thing itself but being a witness." (Atwood 81)

I thought this passage was interesting for a number of reasons. In a lot of ways it seems to exemplify everything we've come to suspect about the main character, but through her attitude towards Anne's intercourse. Probably the first, most noticeably off-kilter thing about it is the terminology she uses to categorize it. To her sex seems to be some kind of hellish act - she correlates it with images like "desperate beggar," "praying to herself" and "pure pain," none of which are very sexy. Nowhere does the narrator use positive terms like "pleasure," "intimacy" or "boobs."

In some ways the narrator, like Marlowe, seems to be projecting her own fear of intimacy towards Anne's experience. While it's possible that the narrator is making an educated guess about Anne (who has her own horrible marital issues) she seems to be inferring an unusually personal level of detail. In earlier passages, the narrator has elaborated on memories and experiences she wasn't present to experience - is this part of her goal to create a past, and a world, that fits in more comfortably with her perception of it? In class we talked about the narrator having vivid recollections of her childhood, except through non-memories. The narrator seems to spend a lot of her time drawing experience from non-experience. In a way, her current job does the same - as an artist, she is drawing fantasy pictures of a children's novel. In every way, the narrator seems to be trying to separate herself from reality. The reason seems to be that for her, reality is too painful to embrace.

The image of one "praying to herself" seems to reinforce the narrator's tendency towards isolation. She views sex as sort of an entirely impersonal act. This could possibly fit in with her talking about how Anne, in the throes of a climax, is like an animal in a trap. It's as if the narrator views deeper intimacy as a trap. This fits in with her fairly detached view of what love is. There's also an explicit religious connotation to it - the narrator often brings up her dad's adamant atheism and her own memories of learning about God in the playground. For many people, religion is viewed as a way to cope with the painful realities of life. Does the narrator's struggle with religion parallel her own self-delusion? In addition, the last sentence is an especially morbid view of sex - references to death seem to constantly crop up as if she has residual guilt or fear from her brother's near drowning and her mother's funeral.

ESSENTIAL DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

1. In passages such as these, is the narrator projecting her personal attitudes towards the actions of others? Or has her actual past experience caused her to have an extremely jaded view of intimacy?

2. What are some albums I should listen to?

3. THROWBACK: Did anybody else think that Joseph Conrad's literary technique of making the latter half of Heart of Darkness really confusing was sort of cheap? I know it was supposed to make us feel what Marlow was feeling, but the confusion one experiences from not being able to understand a passage seems to be a fundamentally different shade of confusion. Isn't it almost sort of gimmicky?

Margaret Atwood Interview

Interviews can be a great way to get (maybe just a little ways) into the head of a writer. A way of seeing there words in new ways.

And the Paris Review does the best interviews.

Here's one of M.A.

https://mywebspace.wisc.edu/hooley/10311454.pdf

Surfacing (Ashley F.)

“Love without fear, sex without risk, that’s what they wanted to be true; and they almost did it, I thought, they almost pulled it off, but as in magicians’ tricks or burglaries half-success is failure and we’re back to the other things. Love is taking precautions. Did you take any precautions, they say, not before but after. Sex used to smell like rubber gloves and now it does again, no more handy green plastic packages, moon-shaped so that the woman can pretend she’s still natural, cyclical, instead of a chemical slot machine. But soon they’ll have the artificial womb, I wonder how I feel about that. After the first I didn’t ever want to have another child, it was too much to go through for nothing, they shut you into a hospital, they shave the hair off you and tie your hands down and they don’t let you see, they don’t want you to understand, they want you to believe it’s their power, not yours. They stick needles into you so you won’t hear anything, you might as well be a dead pig, your legs are up in a metal frame, they bend over you, technicians, mechanics, students clumsy or snickering practicing on your body, they take the baby out with a fork like a pickle out of a pickle jar. After that they fill your veins up with red plastic, I saw it running down through the tube. I won’t let them do that to me ever again.” (Atwood 79)


This passage really caught my eye because it depicts the topics of love, birth control, and childbirth from a very brutal and emotionless perspective. The unnamed narrator describes the idea of love as taking precautions and being based mostly on sex. She explains how we want to be able to love and have sexual relationships without having to face difficult consequences. Love isn’t viewed as a risk worth taking. The narrator talks about birth control as something that takes away the naturalness of a woman and basically turns them into a machine. It’s almost like they aren’t people anymore, but something that pretends to be. She views childbirth as a very dehumanizing experience as well. I feel like she blames society and technological advances for the fact that she feels like birth control and childbirth are in a sense demeaning to women and horrendous things that women have to deal with. She states how “but soon they’ll have the artificial womb”. It seems as though she’s almost poking fun at the idea of removing all of womanhood’s naturalness yet she’s disgusted at the same time.

It’s very interesting to note that when she describes the process of childbirth she uses the pronoun “you” instead of “I”. It’s like she’s trying to separate herself from the experience and from being connected to another human being by procreation. She portrays childbirth as a very lifeless and meaningless time in a woman’s life in which she experiences excruciating pain for nothing. She looks upon it as a very dehumanizing occurrence during which the woman is treated almost like a dissected subject in a laboratory. There is no depiction of the emotion, and she refers to the baby as “a pickle out of a pickle jar”. It’s a very shocking description of what others express as an emotional time during which an inseparable bond between mother and child is formed and as a beautiful moment when life enters the world. I believe that she tries to distance herself from the wonderful aspects of childbirth because she feels like she was forced to have a child she didn’t want to have with her ex-husband. That experience was extremely awful for her, and I think it greatly negatively impacted her views on giving birth. She felt used and deceived, and so she tries to put that occurrence and the painful memories behind her by cutting herself off from all emotional and motherly ties.


Do you feel like birth control and technological advances have taken away the naturalness of womanhood and childbirth?

Is the idea of love becoming more of a precaution and sexual attachment instead of a risk worth taking and a deep emotional connection with another person?

Surfacing Part One (Kyle S.)

“Nothing is the same, I don’t know the way any more. I slide my tongue around the ice cream, trying to concentrate on it, they put seaweed in it now, but I’m starting to shake, why is the road different, he shouldn’t have allowed them to do it. I want to turn around and go back to the city and never find out what happened to him. I’ll start crying, that would be horrible, none of them would know what to do and neither would I. I bite down into the cone and I can’t feel anything for a minute but the knife-hard pain up the side of my face. Anaesthesia, that’s one technique: if it hurts invent a different pain. I’m all right,” (Atwood, 8)

In this passage, the narrator struggles to keep up with the world around her as her memories flood her mind and she is overwrought with the feelings she has for her father who is missing. Throughout this description, the author takes us into the flow of thought that the narrator experiences as she is confronted with a flood of sensory images, such as the different taste in the ice cream, the different way the road looks, the pain of the cold ice cream on her mouth. As this flood of information overwhelms her, she is confronted with the sadness she feels due to the things that she cannot control: her missing father, the changes in a place she spent a lot of time in as a child. Finally, at the end of the passage, she abruptly comes full circle emotionally stating matter-of-factly “I’m all right,” (Atwood).

What is clearly apparent is the author’s attempt at bringing the reader inside the frame of mind with the use of choppy, short images of thought brought together with continuous use of sentences beginning with “I.” Atwood writes “I slide my tongue around the ice cream…I’m starting to shake…I want to turn around and go back…I’ll start crying, that would be horrible…I bite down into the cone…I can’t feel anything…I’m all right,” (Atwood). This style of prose, I think, is used in order to convey to the reader the repetitive flashes of information that the narrator is overwhelmed with and the emotion that the information brings out of her. Furthermore, I feel that this passage is a sort of snapshot of the way in which the narrator is feeling about what has been happening in her life. Things are changing, and they’re not changing for the better in her view. These thoughts start to pervade her mind and they build up until she feels she’s going to cry, but then “anaesthesia” of the cold ice cream brings her back to equilibrium.

1. How do you think the narrator’s suppression of her emotions will affect Joe, David, and Anna as their journey together is progressing?
2. Will the narrator’s relationship with Joe be strengthened or weakened by this journey?

Rachel L's Post on Surfacing

“But I couldn’t have brought the child here, I never identified it as mine; I didn’t name it before it was born even, the way you’re supposed to. It was my husband’s, he imposed it on me, all the time it was growing in me I felt like an incubator. He measured everything he would let me eat, he was feeding it on me, he wanted a replica of himself; after it was born I had no more use. I couldn’t prove it though; he was clever: he kept saying he loved me.”

In this passage the narrator is describing her time during pregnancy and the resulting feeling of the child not truly being hers. She felt like the child was a burden that her husband “imposed” on her body. She makes her husband sound cruel, that she is merely a disposable tool to create “a replica of himself”.  He was also controlling, making sure she ate exactly what he told her to since she would be feeding the baby through her body.  It seems strange to me that she can feel so disconnected from the baby that is growing inside of her. She demonstrates this by constantly referring to the baby as an “it”, which is extremely impersonal.  

The cause, it seems, for her feelings towards her child are the result of her issues with her husband. He seems to be so in control of the pregnancy that the she has no part in the decisions having to do with the child, and therefore she is not connected to it. However, there is a passage on page 28 that involves the drowning of her older brother when he was a child. The memory seems to haunt her even though she didn’t witness it and she even says “I believe that an unborn baby has its eyes open and can look through the walls of the mother’s stomach, like a frog in a jar.” This is an unsettling image, and it might be the reason she doesn’t want a part in her baby’s life. 

1. Do you think that her brother’s drowning did affect the way that she felt about her baby, or is it just because of her issues with her husband?

2. Do you think it is would be possible for you to feel no attachment to a baby that you are pregnant with? Does it mean anything about her as a person that she didn’t?

Joe's Post (Heart of Darkness)

“I remember his abject pleading, his abject threats, the colossal scale of his vile desires, the meanness, the torment, tempestuous anguish of his soul. And later on I seemed to see his collected languid manner, when he said one day, ‘This lot of ivory now is really mine. The Company did not pay for it. I collected it myself at a very great personal risk. I am afraid that they will try to claim it as theirs though. H’m. It is a difficult case. What do you think I ought to do – resist? Eh? I want no more than justice.’ … He wanted no more than justice—no more than justice.“ (Conrad, 91-92)
This selection begins by displaying Marlow’s disgust with Kurtz – his recognition of wrongdoing and disregard for the lives of the natives (enemies). It is this dissociation from justice which the book embodies. The reuse of the word abject shows his deep disgust with Kurtz’s mindset, and furthers that with the rest of his description.
Kurtz quote is a strong use of Conrad’s sarcasm, which as was spoke of in lecture is a very prominent element in the text. His calmness of the situation is glorified, as he develops little anger for the fortune which may be taken away from him upon his (possible) return. This gentleman-like quality shows that he is an icon of the Imperialist movement, as can be seen in Marlow’s statement “Your success in Europe is assured in any case.” (Conrad, 83) The heartless blindness to the true injustice which has been done is Conrad’s depiction of the “White Man’s Burden,” and the atrocities which it caused.
Questions to ponder upon –
1. What does Marlow’s loyalty to Kurtz represent, given the contrasting loathing he holds toward him?
2. What does Kurtz’s concern with his ivory stock parallel in real-world events? Furthermore, does his death represent the end of Imperialism or the bloodshed caused during the Imperialist movement? Why?

Heart of Darkness, Pt 2, Page Analysis

"They were intruders whose knowledge of life was to me an irritating pretence, because I felt so sure they could not possibly know the things I knew. Their bearing, which was simply the bearing of commonplace individuals going about their business in the assurance of perfect safety, was offensive to me like the outrageous flauntings of folly in the face of a danger it is unable to comprehend. I had no particular desire to enlighten them, but I had some difficulty in restraining myself from laughing in their faces, so full of stupid importance" (Conrad 88-89).

The quotation above is Marlow's speech about his experience assimilating back into English society. Marlow's tone is very bitter in the passage, as he explains coldly how he detested the thought that these fools back in England were ignorant of the atrocities that were underlying the "nobel" cause of their imperial expansion in the Congo. He is very bitter towards these individuals, almost laughing at their ignorance in these matters. Through this passage, one can see that Marlow considers himself truly enlightened after his experience in darkness, as he smugly observes the ignorance of the people of England. He considers himself so enlightened that in fact he chooses not to burst the ignorant bliss of the common folk who consider their daily toils to be important in the scheme of the world. Marlow portrays the people around him as so absorbed in their own words, that they cannot possibly understand the evil that is taking place around them.

Conrad's diction in this passage is especially poignant and should be noted for its significance. He employs powerful and direct words such as "intruders", "commonplace", and "stupid" to describe the people of England and their ignorance of the abomination they have created with Imperialism. This direct criticism contrast Conrad's typical use of irony throughout the book to attack the foundations of the movement. Thus because of this contrast, this attack of the ideology of the people of England proves to stick out from much of the subtle criticism he has used in the past. Being this late in the novel, one may infer that this is Conrad's last stand; a final direct dig into the problems of the ideology of the time before he resolves Marlow's narrative.

Here are some questions:

1. What truly is the purpose of women in this story? Many (Kurtz's intended, Marlow's aunt...etc) are mentioned, and their "separate sphere" is established throughout the story, however Conrand leaves it up to the reader to imply what the purpose of the women in this story were for. Do you think they have any significance, or am I just reading too closely into the details?

2. Why is Marlow now able to tell the men on the ship about his experience (an attempt to enlighten them), in contrast to before when he had no desire to enlighten others with his experience?

Heart of Darkness - Art

“Then he asked me to his room, which was in the main building of the station. He struck a match, and I perceived that this young aristocrat had not only a silver-mounted dressing-case but also a whole candle all to himself. Just at that time the manager was the only man supposed to have any right to candles. Native mats covered the clay walls; a collection of spears, assegais, shields, knives was hung up in trophies.... Then I noticed a small sketch in oils, on a panel, representing a woman, draped and blindfolded, carrying a lighted torch. The background was sombre – almost black. The movement of the woman was stately, and the effect of the torch-light on the face was sinister.”

This is one of the most important passages in Heart of Darkness because it alludes to how Africa influenced European art. First, Conrad portrays the manager as being prestigious and powerful. He “was the only man supposed to have any right to candles.” The manager could have any type of decoration in his room, but he chooses spears, shields, and assegais, a slender, iron-tipped, hardwood spear used chiefly by southern African people. Next to these African weapons are Native mats covering the clay walls. Every decoration in this room is of African style. But among everything, the painting of the woman is the most ironic on how Africa influenced European traditions.

At the start of the twentieth century, after colonial conquest into Africa, Europe collected thousands of African sculptures. Famous artists like Picasso and Vincent van Gogh were inspired by this African Art. The human figure has always been the primary subject matter for African Art, and that is exactly what Kurtz painted.

Do you think this painting is an ironic metaphor of some sort?

If the woman in the painting is blindfolded, why does she have a lit torch?

What is your favorite piece of African art?

Heart of Darkness, part 1 passage analysis

“No fear can stand up to hunger, no patience can wear it out, disgust simply does not exist where hunger is; and as to superstition, beliefs and what you may call principles, they are less than chaff in a breeze. Don’t you know the devilry of lingering starvation, its exasperating torment, its black thoughts, its somber and brooding ferocity? Well, I do. It takes a man all his inborn strength to fight hunger properly;. It’s really easier to face bereavement, dishonor, and the perdition of one’s soul-than this kind of prolonged hunger. Sad, but true. And these chaps, too, had no earthly reason for any kind of scruple. Restraint! I would just as soon have expected restraint from a hyena prowling amongst the corpses of a battlefield.”

In the quotation above, Marlow refers to the natives that make up the crew on his ship. He marvels at the fact that although they must be starving, they restrain themselves from killing and eating him and his white companions. Through examination of Marlow’s thoughts about the cannibals his views on the British Empire are revealed. This passage exposes the basic human instincts that the natives from the Congo have, which seem to be lacking in the white men that inhabit Africa. While the men that the colonizers revere (Kurtz) greedily consume all that they can, the natives that supposedly need to be made civilized manage to restrain themselves from their primitive need for sustenance.

This exert also maintains one of the main themes from “Heart of Darkness”; the criticism of colonization. The natives’ conditions expose the absurdity of imperialism. There are slave like conditions for the crew, who perform backbreaking labor and receive hunger in return; their only salary is wire that they cannot trade for anything worthwhile. The entire system leaves the physical strength of the organization with only emptiness. In this passage Conrad displays that while the so called civilized men devour anything they can, the natives have balanced their natural desires with human principles.

When Marlow states that he knows what this “lingering starvation” feels like, does he mean in the sense that the cannibals feel, the physical need for food or as Kurtz feels, for power?

While Marlow makes compelling observations about the natives, he never expresses any emotion toward them, is he simply self-centered or does Conrad do this to show that Africans are only seen as a background for Europeans?

Blogging Calendar

Close Reading Blog (Blog Assignment #1)

Sept 7
Tom Chovens, Melissa Horsfall

Sept 9
Laura Kaiser, Jack Rohkohl, Joe Kowalski

Sept 14
Kyle Swiggum, Rachel LaCroix

Sept 16
Lin Weeks, Ashley Feltes, Vincent Cheng

Sept 21
Daniel Davidson, Stacy Apazeller

Sept 28
Amelia Chinn, Becca Frenz

Oct 5
Katherine Hale, James Rollo, Christine Fukuda

Oct 14
Scarlett Angelo, Michael Hickey




Research Blog Post (Blog Assignment #2)


Oct 19
Stacy A., Joe K., Tom C.

Oct 21
Lin W., Laura K., Ashley F.

Oct 26
Jack R., Becca Frenz., Rachel Lacroix.

Oct 28
Amelia C., Vincent C., Melissa H.

Nov 16
Daniel D., Katherine H., Christine F.

Nov 18
Michael K., James R., Kyle S.

Dec 14
Scarlett A.

Section Calendar

English 168 (Sections 305 & 306) Discussion Section Calendar

TA: Matt Hooley

Week One
Tuesday (8/31) no section meetings
Thursday (9/2)         Conrad

Week Two
Tuesday (9/7)        Conrad
Thursday (9/9)        Conrad

Week Three
Tuesday (9/14) Atwood
Thursday (9/16) Atwood

Week Four
Tuesday (9/21) Library orientation session
Thursday (9/23) Hemingway

Week Five
Tuesday (9/28) Hemingway
Thursday (9/30) Historical Society orientation session

Week Six
Tuesday (10/5) Robinson
Thursday (10/7) Robinson

Week Seven
Tuesday (10/12) Midterm exam
Thursday (10/14) Morrison

Week Eight
Tuesday (10/19) Morrison (Paper 1 prompt distributed)
Thursday (10/21) Morrison


Week Nine
Tuesday (10/26) Morrison
Thursday (10/28) Silko

Week Ten
Tuesday (11/2) Silko
Thursday (11/4) Paper 1 draft due in section

Week Eleven
Tuesday (11/9) Silko
Thursday (11/11) Silko Paper 1 final due in section

Week Twelve
Tuesday (11/16) DeLillo (Paper 2 prompt distributed)
Thursday (11/18) DeLillo

Week Thirteen
Tuesday (11/23) no section; thanksgiving
Thursday (11/25) no section; thanksgiving

Week Fourteen
Tuesday (11/30) DeLillo
Thursday (12/2) Paper 2 draft due in section

Week Fifteen
Tuesday (12/7) Gibson
Thursday (12/9) Paper 2 final & Portfolio due in section

Week Sixteen
Tuesday (12/14) Gibson
Thursday (12/16)         no class
(Final Exam: 12/22)

Blogging Guidelines

Access
Blog address(es):
Section 305- http://surfacing168.blogspot.com
Section 306- http://housekeeping168.blogspot.com

Each student will be authorized to compose new posts (after the first section of class). To create a new post simply click the words “New Post” in the upper right corner of the blog. It would be a good idea to mess around with the blog (without actually creating a new post!) before the day your blog post is actually due. That way, if you have questions you can contact me or a classmate.

Timeline
Each student will compose 2 blog posts—one of which you’ll write alone and the other of which you’ll write with 1-2 classmates. We will create the blogging schedule on the first section meeting, and after that it will be the responsibility of each student/group to complete their post on-time, thoroughly, and thoughtfully. There will be blogs before almost each class meeting (none when there are papers due or tests) and all students are expected not only to read every blog post, but to write one comment on a post, each week.

What is a blog post in this class?

Blog assignment #1— Close Reading
For this assignment, each student (individually) will identify a passage from the assigned reading, copy that passage over onto the blog, and the compose a 2+ paragraph-long close reading of the passage. This blog post should conclude with 2-3 thoughtful questions that will stimulate conversation in the next discussion section.

Blog assignment #2—Library Research
For this blogging assignment, each student will work with 1-2 classmates to gather research relevant to the assigned reading (from the library, the historical society, or their online resources) and will compose a 4-5 paragraph-long post introducing the research they’ve done and building an analysis of the text in question from that research.

Once the blog post has been written, each group will make a 10 minute oral presentation which should answer the following questions:
what were the challenges & successes of your research?
what kind of research did you choose to pursue? why?
how does this research illuminate the text in question?
(at this point your group should take the class through a close-reading which links your research to the texts’ themes/characters/cultural or historical significance)


IV. Commenting
Each week that you do not compose a blog post (and that someone else does!), you are required to comment on at least one of your classmates’ posts. Each comment should be respectful, thoughtful, and should represent a full thought. For this reason, each comment should be no less than 3 sentences long. Your comments should be made by 7pm on each Friday, although it will benefit everyone if you are able to make comments a full day before a given discussion section.

V. Citation
All blog posts and comments must site their sources. This includes quotations from a given text, outside sources, and images. If the source you’re citing is online then you can simply link your quotation to your source using the “Link” function on Blogger.com. If you are citing the text or another off-line source than please add a parenthetical citation after your quoted or summarized passage using the Chicago guidelines for “First Reference” (see: http://writing.wisc.edu/Handbook/DocChiNotes_1stRef.html). If you have questions about this please feel free to ask me! And, when in doubt cite more/more thoroughly!


VI. Grading
I will not grade your individual or group blog posts, but will simply check to see that you’ve completed the post in a timely fashion and that you’ve made a good-faith effort to engage the text and your audience. The same procedures will be applied to your comments, which are required each week that you’re not posting.


Final Notes & Thoughts
It’s striking to me how many different ways people ‘blog’. Or even that “blog” which is a noun, really, is also a verb—a word that means something a little bit different than “writing.” Some people’s blogs are just images (http://thesartorialist.blogspot.com). Some blogs only have music (http://www.daytrotter.com). Some people blog really personally/informally (http://thisisindexed.com) and some blogs are formal/professional (http://www.3quarksdaily.com). In a way the beauty of blogging is its flexibility, agility, expansiveness.

Now, by including a blog in our coursework it is my intention to open up some of this flexibility to you. I encourage you to add pictures, links, even music to your posts/comments. This is a space for you to be creative in your rumination/reflection about literature.

With that said, I do want you to err on the side of formality and professionalism. Think of your blog entries and mini-essays not as text messages. Write carefully, write correctly, write beautifully. Do not use abbreviations (lol, wtf). Do not post anything that is inappropriate. Do not write anything hateful, prejudiced, or offensive in any way.

Here are some neat/really smart blogs to inspire your posting:
http://www.3quarksdaily.com 
http://www.thesmartset.com
http://maudnewton.com/blog
http://www.radiolab.org/blogs/radiolab-blog
http://www.stevenberlinjohnson.com
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/frontal-cortex
http://blogs.plos.org/badphysics

Section Syllabus (the online version)

English 168, Sections 305 & 306

Introduction to Modern Literature Since 1900

“Lost Selves and Forgotten Homes: Readings for a Post-9/11 World”

Discussion Section Syllabus

I. Times & Places & email
Lecture: TR 1:20-2:10PM, 2650 Humanities

Discussion Sections:
TR 3:30-4:20PM, 2125 Humanities
TR 4:35-5:25PM, 2631 Humanities

TA Office: Helen C White 7118
Office Hours: TR 12:00-1:00PM & by appt.
TA Email: hooley@wisc.edu
Classlists: (305) english168-305-f10@lists.wisc.edu
    (306) english168-306-f10@lists.wisc.edu


What is discussion section?
• Each week students will meet in small groups (19) with a teaching assistant to discuss the week’s readings. It is a time/space that is available to students to raise questions, advance readings of the texts, engage their classmates in conversation and debate.

• In the course of our section meetings we will spend substantial time talking and writing. Often these activities will be intimately linked (for instance on days when students orally present research they’ve done outside of class and which they’ve written about on the class blog). The basic pedagogical principle guiding our day-to-day work in section is that writing about literature is something that helps us work through, consider, and process our ideas—it is not merely an outcome or the final product of literary study. To this end, please think of the writing we do on a daily basis as related not only to the course readings, the conversations we have in section, the formal papers and exams, but to your growth as a critical thinker more broadly.

• Discussion sections are classes that depend on students to be active, enthusiastic, supportive, and courageous. Each student should participate during each section meeting, and should come fully prepared (having read the material and taken notes, with ideas and questions prepared, and willing to build on the ideas of his/her classmates).


 How to read for this class
• Please use the course calendar and text list to stay current with the assigned readings.

• Read texts thoroughly and as far in advance of their due date as possible. Then, as we work through the texts together in lecture and discussion you should return to passages as they are brought up and re-read them. By the end of the week(s) devoted to a given text you should feel as though you’ve read each text through at least two times.

• Taking notes is both a crucial and highly individual enterprise. Each student will have a unique way of noting, organizing, and expanding on the notable/interesting/confusing/provocative moments each text will present. I recommend that you gather your notes in one spot (a notebook, a computer file etc.) that you can return to, add to, and of course, cherish forever! You should also take thorough notes during lecture and discussion section. Without an effective system for taking and storing these notes, it is unlikely you will succeed in the course.

• Be curious, be confused. Let your uncertainty/questioning of the text guide you. Get help from your peers, your TA, and Professor Steele. Questions are the building blocks of the best literary analysis.

Assignments
• Essays
There are two essays for this course. For each essay you will complete a rough draft due in section one week prior to the final due date. On the day your rough draft is due you will workshop your essay with classmates. You will use their comments to revise your essay over the next week and will turn your final draft essay into your TA along with your rough draft and copies of the comments you’ve received from classmates.

These essays are designed to build your skills of literary analysis. They are primarily exercises in making and defending an argument/thesis about one or more course texts. To this end, your essays will be graded on how convincing, original, and illuminating your argument is, as well as how well you’ve supported your thesis with material from the text.

• Exams
There will be a midterm and final exam. These assessments will measure the thoroughness of your reading of the course texts, your ability to retain material from Professor Steele’s lectures, and your participation in discussion sections. The midterm will cover the first four course texts. The final will cover the last four.

• Writing Portfolio
Your writing portfolio will consist (simply) of all the writing you’ve done for this course. That includes rough and final drafts of your essays as well as the blog posts (not comments) you submit. This collection of your writing will help establish your growth as a writer and thinker and will be submitted along with your final paper in discussion section.

Blogging
Our “daily writing assignments” will be structured around a blog (one for each discussion section). You will be required to write 2 blog posts throughout the course the term and comment on others’ post weekly. Guidelines for blogging can be found attached to this syllabus.

Oral Presentations
During the second half of the course (roughly) you will present research that you’ll complete with 1-2 peers that bears on and illuminates one of course texts. Details about these presentations will be distributed later.

Grading
Please consult the grade breakdown provide on the main course syllabus as well as the grading standards listed below.

D (inadequate)— Work that is seriously flawed, incomplete, or otherwise marred by technical/conceptual errors. This is work which does not display a coherent argument or analysis.
C (adequate)— Work is acceptable, but there are noticeable conceptual/technical flaws or omissions. An outline of an argument is discernible but imperfectly developed. Other serious flaws hamper the presentation.
BC (above average)— Work is mostly correct, but there are significant omissions or misstatements. Work is marred by minor technical/conceptual errors.
B (good)—This is the base level grade signifying good, but not distinguished work. Work is complete, free of conceptual errors, and may have only very minor technical problems. B work fulfills the bare requirements of an answer or essay but does not advance what has been presented in lecture or discussion section. B work has a discernible argument but is not original, exciting, or surprising.
AB (very good)—Work is very good but not stunning. Writing has no technical or conceptual flaws. There are areas of brilliance, but the argument/answer as a whole is predictable.
A (distinguished)— Work is perfect in all regards. Major and minor points are presented and developed in not only a flawless way, but in a uniquely original or insightful manner. Work demonstrates a lively intelligence and advances the thinking that has been done during class sessions. A work is truly outstanding.


Resources

• McBurney Disability Resource Center
1305 Linden Dr. (Middleton Bldg.)
608-263-2741 (phone), 263-6393 (TTY), FrontDesk@mcb.wisc.edu
http://jumpgate.acadsvcs.wisc.edu/%7Emcburney/
Students with learning and other disabilities (or questions about them) should contact the McBurney Center  in order to receive information about available assistance and accommodations. Furthermore, please see me about anyway I can facilitate your learning and/or participation.

• The Writing Center
Webpage: http://www.wisc.edu/writing
Main Location: 6171 Helen C White Hall
Phone: 608-263-1992
The Writing Center offers individual help and tremendously helpful workshops throughout the semester. Please use the Writing Center.  The three most effective ways to become a better writer are reading, practice, and one-on-one help from a more experienced writer.

Welcome

Welcome to the class blog for section 305 for English 168 (with Professor Steele). After this first post, I'll post some introductory course materials for your perusal.

-mh