HUM LIT Blog Central

Groups A + B: A Drug Called Tradition
Groups C + D: Because My Father Always Said…
Groupd E + F: Crazy Horse Dreams
Groups G + H: The Only Traffic Signal
Each group, please quickly review your short story (5min); then collectively write 3-4 discussion questions that get to the heart of what’s amusing, powerful, puzzling, or significant about the story (10min); exchange with your mirror group. Now discuss the questions you’ve received and develop some consensus responses (10 min.)

Share your groups responses with the class (3 min each group).  Best group’s responses earns an extra quiz grade of %100.

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.

…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)

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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)
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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)

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The toothpaste stand (90-97)

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The television revolt (134-38)

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.

We’ll conclude our discussion of Allende today by considering the historical reference to Chile 1973 that brings the book to a close.

How does the novel lead up to this political moment? How does it shape our response, knowing the occasion for Alba’s flight and her need to remember a family past? Does the playfullness, magic, and absentmindedness of some characters take on a new light? What do you make of the explicit celebration of female power in the closing pages?

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For Friday, I’ll ask you to post thoughts to the blog about power, culture, and the author in Allende. In class we’ll do some collective brainstorming and in-class writing for next week’s “take-home” mid-term.  The test will entail four medium-length essay questions (1 to 1-1/2 pages each) focusing on Allende and Silko. If you bring good ideas Friday, you may shape the exam (which will I’ll post over the weekend, and which will be due a week from today).

We’ve discussed how power plays out within the hacienda system and some of Esteban’s particular habits — as the super-masculine patron.  Let’s think about changes in chapter six, in particular:

• the symbolic magic of Esteban’s shrinking (181 et al)
• the importance  of Count Satignay’s class and name (182)
• how can a culture or worldview change (or can’t it?) (191, 192)
• what do we make of Pedro Segundo’s decision to leave (202)

If time permits we can look at a few clips from the Hollywood film.

Homework: We should be able to talk about the final chapters by next class. If there were to be a quiz, it would span chapters 11-end

Last week, we discussed the relationship between the author and authority over a text’s meaning. Today we’ll look at Chapters 2 and 3, asking similar questions. But first we need to form a picture of the different circles of authority and the various narrators/readers we encounter:

Human “nature” / power / gender / civilization vs. barbarism
Class: How does House of the Spirits convey its complicated ideas about these inter-related themes? Let’s look at Esteban’s treatment of Pancha and his tenents (54-60). Whose views are we encountering? Do we submit to the authority of the speaker here?

Groups: Desire, sexuality, free expression and repression become issues at key points in chapters 3 and 4. One picture offered is that there’s a conflict between nature and civilization, that forces pull one towards “barbarism” and civility or even human values are maintained only by discipline (whether self-directed or inflicted by others).

Look at the following passages and discuss in your groups:

A, B: Ferula’s service in the tenements (87)

C, D: Esteban’s growing “barbarism” (55)

E, F: Equal rights and “nature” (67)

G, H: Marital relations and “posession” (96)

With questions like “What is an author?” in mind, we’ll look at two  examples of  digital  or net art, considering them as literature. In each case you’ll see that their design gives the  user/reader more authority than we ordinarily expect in literature.

• Jim Andrews Asteroids reworks the format of the early video game to include words. As one “plays” this poem, language orbits and explodes. It is also designed to allow the user to upload their own source text, keeping the structure but altering the content.
• Emily Herment’s Lies Project can be read as a kinetic poem, with the language mutating as one reads, clicks and interacts. But is also collaborative, in that the lies which make up its content are contributed by 30 or more anonymous authors.

1. How do the form and structure of the novel seem to fit the plot?
2. What are some of the sources of Tayo’s alientation? How does he see himself, particularly in terms of ethnicity?
3. The novel emphasizes sickness and cures. What can you say about the type of sickness? What is complicated about the possible cures?
4. Violence and “witchery” are at play all around Tayo. How is this part of his sickness? And what does the novel suggest about responses to this?
5. If you feel that the novel achieves some form of solution, resolution or peace, explain. How does Tayo achieve a sense of cultural belonging? What changes? How?

Click here for further notes.