HUM LIT Blog Central

The best short answer questions or mini-essays convey the student’s familiarity with reading, comprehension of key concepts, and ability to select and discuss relevant details in response to the theme or issue raised. (See first exam questions)
Criteria

A: Reponses how master of concepts, reading, and ability to shape a developed response to the question.

B: Familiar with concepts, themes, and text, but the response is less-developed but coherent. Should deal with the question.

C: Somewhat limited response, perhaps lacking evidence of full familiarity with concepts or literary reading; perhaps lacking concentrated organization, direct address to question, or clear conclusion

D: Lacking evidence of reading, significant comprehension, or engagement with significant issues relevant to the text.

F: Unacceptable work.

COMMENT BELOW: with ideas for format changes in the “final,” and rationale for in-class, open-book, or take-home format. Scope of the final will be readings from the second half of the semester only.

Pro/Con

Find a relevant passage and make prepare to make the case (5 min):

1. McMurphy’s ward-mates are justified in losing faith in him, seeing him as the self-serving instigator and con-man described by the nurse.

2. The decision to adminster shock therapy, unless he “admits he was wrong” is reasonable therapy (for the time).

3. McMurphy’s stubborn readiness to endure shock treatments shows he is trapped in his role as ward hero.

4. McMurphy’s final attack is justified and noble, despite being effectively a suicide act.

5. Chief’s smothering of McMurphy is a sacrifice benefiting the men, not an act of mercy.

HW:

Read first 15 pages of Sherman Alexie for a content quiz Friday.

Please write thoughtful post discussing a single issue of importance in your reading of this novel. Try to avoid simple summary or making a laundry list. Take up a key issue from our classroom discussions, or:

Discuss how the conflict between McMurphy and the Big Nurse, or between human agency and the crushing power of the combine suggest a view of the world outside that of the mental hospital. Can you extend elements of Kesey’s vision to say what broader political, psychological, or philosophical issues the book takes on? 

…McMurphy led the twelve of us toward the ocean.

And were beyond measure astonished, saying, He hath done all things well: he maketh both the deaf to hear, and the dumb to speak. Mark 7:37

… his relaxed, good-natured voice doled out his life for us to live … for all of us to dream ourselves into.

• Reflect upon the change in Chief Bromden, who not only acknowledges he can hear but begins to speak to McMurphy. Is he tricked into speech? healed? What significance is there in the memory he shares of his encounter with the government agents? How do we and McMurphy respond to the Chief’s insistence he is too small to rebel? Does McMurphy listen with special care to Chief’s account of his father’s death?
• Consider how the latter half of part III shows McMurphy more intersested in building up the men (from Chief, whom he promises to restore to full height, to Billy and the inmates with whom he fishes.  Recall their challenges at the filling station and fishing pier, compared to their success in fishing and their triumphant return. What do we make of the contrasting descriptions of the empowered men (”we weren’t the same old bunch of weakness” ) and McMurphy’s exhaustion?

Harding’s Psychosexual View

If you’re up against a guy who wants to win by makign you weaker instead of making himself stronger, then watch for his knee, he’s gonna go for your vitals. And that’s what that old buzzard is doing, going for your vitals (McMurphy; p. 58)

“This world … belongs to the strong, my friend! …. Mr. McMurphy… my friend … I’m not a chicken, Im a rabbit… All of us in here are rabbits of varying ages and degrees, hippity-hopping through our Walt Disney world. Oh, don’t misunderstand me, we’re not in here because we’re rabbits–we’d be rabbits wherever we were–we’re all in here because we can’t adjust to our rabbithood. We need a good strong wolf like the nurse to teach us our place” (Harding; p. 62) … you too, Mr McMurphy, for all your cowboy bluster and your sideshow swagger, you too, under that crusty surface, are probably just as soft and fuzzy and rabbit-souled as we are.” . . . . Rabbits are noted for that certain trait, aren’t they? Notorious, in fact, for their whambam. Yes. Um. But in any case, the point you bring up simply indicates that you are a healthy, functioning and adequate rabbit, whereas most of us in here even lack the sexaul ability to make the grade as adequate rabbits. Failures, we are–feeble, stunted, weak little creatures in a weak little race ….” (64-65)

“Ah, I believe my friend is catching on, fellow rabbits. Tell me, Mr. McMurphy, how does one go about showing a woman who’s boss, I mean other than lauging at her? How does he show her who’s king of the mountain? A man like you should be able to tell us that….” (68)

———–

Chief Broom’s Mechanistic View
The Big Nurse is able to set the wall clock at whatever speed she wants by just turning one of those dials in the steel door; when she takes a notion to hurry things up, she turns the speed up, and those hands whip around that disk like spokes on a wheel. The scene in the picture-screen windows goes through rapid changes of light to show morning, noon, and night…going through the full schedule of a day maybe twenty times an hour, till the Big Nurse sees everybody is right up to the breaking point, and she slacks off on the throttle, eases off the pace on that clock dial, like some kid been fooling with the moving picture projection machine …. But generally it’s the other way, the slow way. She’ll turn that dial to a dead stop and freeze the sun there on the screen so it don’t moave a scant hair for weeks….(73-4)
—–

Radio as metaphor?

Oh , yes, the so-called music. Yes, I suppose we do hear it if we concentrate, but then one can hear one’s own heartbeat too … You’ see, that’s a recording playing up there, my friend. We seldom hear the radio. The world news might not be therapeutic. And we’ve all heard that recording so many times now it simply slides out of our hearing, the way the sound of a waterfall soon becomes an unheard sound to those who live near it. Do you think if you lived near a waterfall you could hear it very long?” (76)

—–

The toothpaste stand (90-97)

—–

The television revolt (134-38)

I have selected a few examples of digital literature from an new “online anthology” sponsored by the Electronic Literature Organization. Their plan is to select and introduce work they think promises to become classic — which will prompt us to ask questions about how to read these works of a future ENGL 121.

1.) What are we invited to do in reading it? 2) What idea of an “author” lies behind it? 3) What implied function does it fulfill (entertain, please, teach, inform, raise questions, move emotionally…)?

Faith

Project for Tachistcope

Fall of the Site of Marsha

Storyland

Be sure to read part I of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest for Wednesday.

Today let’s discuss some of the surreal moments in the close of the play, as the “hour of blood” slowly drips away.

Here are a few hits from your blogs: Ana, David, Kevin, Maureen, and Casey.