Assignment 2 Kafka, Mafouz, Gilman Perkins
Due date:
Sunday at the end of Week 4.
Calendar dates are in the List of Due Dates in the Course Documents folder in Blackboard.
In some literary criticism there is a concept sometimes called “double-ness” used to describe the way
language functions as a way of communication about things not identical with itself. That is a fancy way
of saying that language has a concrete, immediate reality—the words you see or hear—and a
connection to its referents, the things it is “talking about.” The $5 word for this is “signification” and
comes from Ferdinand Sassure’s theories about language.
In Jorge Luis Borges’s A Universal History of Infamy, there is a story at the end (referred to as a
fragment) that describes a lost civilization known for making the most accurate maps in history. These
maps were exact in every detail, completely to scale. Entire cities were mapped in this way with
enormous, sprawling replicas of stunning exactness. But, the story tells us, the civilization fell and now
its great maps are sparse ruins you can find in the desert, overrun by the sands of time.
The joke is that maps are never the same as the thing they map; a map that was such an exact copy
would be uselessly absurd. Language is the same way; it has a relationship to other things, but it is not
those things. This is one of the things that makes the idea of some stories being obscene, pornographic,
violent, etc., a curious thing. There is a difference between writing about something and actually doing
the thing described in the writing. We can discuss that relationship, but some folks cannot see this
fundamental difference. I am not even kidding.
At base, this reflects a kind of confusion that we call “taking things literally.” In the time of Queen
Elizabeth I, there was a playwright named Marlowe who wrote The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus, in
which the main character, professing his love of words, books, and symbols, conjures a demon named
Mephistopheles to be his servant. Puritans, a religious group with views that emphasized literal
scriptural truth, protested the production. What if the actor, even though pretending, really conjured a
demon! That could totally happen.
Another, more recent example is from the early days of rap music, when Wu-Tang Clan had a song that
was two people (I think) just telling each other the horrible things they were going to do to each other. I
cannot remember the title right now, but it was just a threat responded to with another threat, and so
on, becoming more extravagant. There is some pretty lame criticism about the “boasting tradition” and
so forth, that tried to argue the song was not inciting violence, but of course there were other people
who just could not help asking WHAT ABOUT THE CHILDREN? and reacted with fear, anger, and hostility.
That the song was just Wu-Tang being ridiculous escaped both groups of people entirely. Wait. Let me
see if I can find it.
Nope. Could not find it. Just spent ten minutes listening to “Protect Ya Neck” twice. That song works
just as well, though. Taking Wu-Tang Clan “literally” would be silly. Sure, some of that stuff is recounting
factual events, but then—boom—they are working the concrete reality of language in the sound of the
words and their relationship to the beats and music (which is on a level of creative mastery that boggles)
and also playing with the way words point to reality. It is a serious song, but not in the way a strict literal
reading of the lyrics would suggest.
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We will discuss irony later, one of the great effects that rests on the double-ness of language. Sarcasm,
metaphor, allegory, symbolism, all of these do likewise. Instead of parsing out terms with this
assignment and having you identify specific things, I think it would be useful to read three stories, each
of which plays with language to produce different effects. They are short, distinct from one another, and
well known for powerfully affecting readers.
The first is Naguib Mafouz’s Half a Day. (It starts on page 90.) Mafouz was an Egyptian writing in the
mid-twentieth century. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1988. His Cairo Trilogy is his most
famous stuff, but he wrote in diverse forms to create an enormous body of work. He was a nationalist
and an advocate for the seriousness of Arab literature.
The second is Franz Kafka’s A Hunger Artist. (It starts on page 295.) Kafka was an intense man whose
body of work is not nearly large as Mafouz’s, but his distinctive story lines, involving what could be
called surreal events, has lent his name to the adjectival neologism “kafka-esque.” The Trial and The
Transformation (often translated as The Metamorphosis) are often anthologized, presenting worlds
filled with plotting, paranoia, and persecution.
Before his death, Kafka ordered his executor to destroy all his writing, which fortunately did not happen.
The last is Charlotte Gilman Perkins’s The Yellow Wallpaper. (It starts on page 442.) Perkins suffered
from what we would call depression or mental illness, and she was deeply conscious of restrictive social
norms around gender, which you will see the story pick up. This story seems to have inspired a number
of other works, including Ingmar Bergman’s film Through a Glass Darkly (1962), which I highly
recommend and you can watch using our library’s Kanopy film service. Note: It’s an intense film with
several disturbing scenes, but remarkably effective. Perkins is not without controversy; her view on race
were mired in irrational pseudo-science. These do not, however, intrude here, and if they did I wouldn’t
have you read it.
First, read each story. Then describe how you think the authors are playing with the double-ness of
language. This is not about getting it “right” so much as observing carefully how the author pushes the
reader to confront the relationship between the words in the story and the world that we live in. It can
be jarring. Look for the moments when it is jarring. Rather than take in the entire story, find a moment
in each that you can use to explain the entire effect as best you are able.
For example, you might ask what expectations the stories play with. In Aristotle’s Aesthetics he discusses
the three unities of time, place, and action present in Greek plays. According to those rules, a Greek play
typically occurred without compressing time, in one place, and with action that could actually be
accomplished. These stories seem to bend and break those and other “rules.”
We have another assignment later that works through literary terms and their associated concepts, but
here is a chance to read, think, and write on your own and explain how the stories affect you. An
exercise like this creates hunger for information; once you have worked to describe the effect, the tools
provided by literary terms and concepts appear quite useful. It is like when you try something
challenging—fishing, let us say—and it does not work out. Then, a friend shows you how to cast or use
bait and it is welcome.
Usual requirements per last paper.
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Fall 2022 Week by Week
Date indicated is the Sunday at the end of that week.
Week
1
Sunday
9/4 (no classes on Monday, 9/5)
2
9/11
Assignment 1
3
9/18
4
9/25
5
10/2
6
10/9
7
10/16
8
10/23 Assignment 4
9
10/30
10
11/6
11
11/13
12
11/20 Assignment 6
13
11/27 (this is the Sunday after Thanksgiving))
14
12/4
15
12/11
16
12/15 Assignment 8
Assignment 2
Assignment 3
Assignment 5
Assignment 7
(The last day is the Thursday of Exam Week, the last day to get stuff in)
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