NOTES: 4-9-11
TODAY:
“A Wall of Fire Rising” Danticat (339-349)
“The Lady with the Dog”, (begins 231-242) Chekov
“The Lady with the Pet Dog” Oates (begins 770-782)
“Sample Essay: Tragic Plot of ‘A Rose for Emily’” (711-715)
Review for Quiz (No anxiety! This is no big deal….skip to the bottom for study
guide)
Quiz #1 – Fiction /Elements of Fiction
More Essay Questions (Choose 1):
1) In “Wall of Fire Rising,” in what way is Lili’s son symbolically similar to the hot air
balloon? What does each represent for Lili, for Guy?
2) What value does setting have for the central conflicts in “Wall of Fire Rising”?
3) Compare Joyce Carol Oates’ version “The Lady with the Pet Dog” and Anton Chekov’s
“Lady with a Dog”. How does Oates’ version build on Chekov’s
4) Why might Joyce Carol Oates’ make direct reference to Swann’s Way by Marcel Proust
in her story? What deeper meaning does the passage she use have to her story’s theme,
to Chekov’s theme?
5) What value does the changing setting have to illustrating Gurov’s state of mind in “Lady
with the Dog”? Consider the seasons and the various regions he finds himself in
throughout the story.
Danticat, “A Wall of Fire Rising”, 1991
Dutty Boukman (died c. 1791) was a Jamaican-born Haitian priest who conducted a religious ceremony
in Haiti in which a freedom covenant was affirmed. This ceremony is considered a catalyst to the slave
uprising that marked the beginning of the Haitian Revolution.
The Haitian Revolution lasted from 1791 to 1804 and was a period of conflict in the French colony of
Saint-Domingue. It culminated in the elimination of slavery there and the founding of the Haitian
republic.
Although an independent government was created in Haiti, the patterns of French colonial rule
persisted. The French established a system of minority rule over the illiterate poor by using violence and
threats.
Because many planters had provided for their mixed-race children by African women by giving them
education and (for men) training and entrée into the French military, the mulatto descendants became
the elite in Haiti after the revolution. By the time of war, many had used their social capital to acquire
wealth and some already owned land. Some had identified more with the French colonists than the
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slaves, and associated within their own circles. Their domination of politics and economics after the
revolution created another two-caste society.
Haitian History Contemporary to Story:
Jean-Claude Duvalier, nicknamed "Bébé Doc" or "Baby Doc" (born July 3, 1951) was the President of
Haiti from 1971 until his overthrow by a popular uprising in 1986. He succeeded his father, François
"Papa Doc" Duvalier, as the ruler of Haiti upon his father's death in 1971.
After assuming power, he introduced cosmetic changes to his father's regime. Still, thousands of
Haitians were killed or tortured, and hundreds of thousands fled the country. He maintained a
notoriously lavish lifestyle (including a state-sponsored US$3 million wedding in 1980), and made
millions from involvement in the drug trade and from selling body parts from dead Haitians while
poverty among his people remained the most widespread for any country in the Americas.
Decades of brutal dictatorship seemed to be passing, with the election of President Jean Bertrand
Aristide to lead the Caribbean nation of six million. However, less than a year after the election, on
September 30, 1991, Haiti's army launched a ruthless coup d'etat that forced Aristide into exile. The
coup ushered in yet another period of military repression in Haiti's tortured history - a history marked by
twenty years of U.S. military occupation, beginning with the 1915 crushing of a popular revolt by U.S.
Marines. Human rights groups report that Haitians killed in the repression following the coup may be
more than 3,000. More than 2,000 others were seriously injured, including victims of gunshots and
torture.
Setting is extremely important:
o
o
o
o
Describe their home. What amenities are there, if any?
What do they use to catch water? Eat out of?
Where does their water come from?
Why do they go to the sugar mill for diversion?
Plot
o
o
What are the major conflicts?
How is the story told? Is it chronologically organized?
Characterize Lili:
o
o
o
o
o
What does her world revolve around?
How does she help to keep the family in food?
How does she feel about her husband?
How does she console her husband when he explains that he must clean the latrines?
o What does this phrase reveal about her character?
When she says (p. 347): “I just want to know when you dream, me and the boy, we’re
always in your dreams” What significance does this have?
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o
The fact that he falls asleep instead of answering her…what significance does this have?
Characterize the Guy:
o
o
o
o
o
o
What point is he in life?
What is his mind-set? What does he want (hint: see p. 347)
He has secured a day’s work at the Sugar Mill, but what work is it?
 How is this symbolic?
 How does Danticat let the reader know how he feels about it
What does his world revolve around?
How does he feel about his wife?
 Physically, emotionally?
What observation does he make about his own father? (p. 347)
“…I remember my father, who was very poor struggling man all his life. I remember him
as a man I would never want to be.”
What significance does this have in light of the ending?
Characterize the son:
o
o
o
Describe the book he holds. Why is it so significant?
Why does his father twist his ear to bring him to his knees?
Does he represent a threat to his father? If so, in what way?
More Food for Thought:
o
o
o
o
o
Why does Danticat put so much emphasis on the idea that the son has been given the role of
Boukman?
On (p. 347), when the boy says he has forgotten his new lines, the father says, “When people
give you big responsibilities, you have to live up to them.”
o What does this mean?
o Is there foreshadowing when the father says this?
So, in light of what we know about the Haitian Republic’s history, why mention that the factory
foreman is mulatto? (p. 348) What significance does that have?
What do you think the hot-air balloon symbolizes to Guy, to its owner, to the people on the
ground who cheer Guy on?
Did Guy commit suicide? Or was it an accident?
o Think about this in relation to his question of Lili on p. 347: “How do you think a man is
judged after he is gone?”
Anton Chekov, “Lady with the Dog”, 1899

Who is the narrator?
o From whose point of view is this told?
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



o How might this answer Chekov’s story, even though Oates’ Anna is a modern woman?
o How is Oates’ Anna similar to Chekov’s Anna?
If plot is defined by both structure and conflict,
o How is the plot structured? Is it chronological?
o What are the central conflicts?
Can we see into all the characters’ heads, their thoughts?
o What impact does this have?
Characterize the Dmitri Gurov:
o How old is he?
o Is this his first affair?
 Characterize the women he’s been involved with before.
 How does Anna differ?
 How does he react to Anna’s contrition at first?
o What is his attitude towards women in general?
o What are her feelings towards his wife?
 How does he describe his wife?
 How does she appear to us when he is secretly full of love for Anna?
Characterize Anna:
o What does it mean when Chekov writes: “diffidence, the angularity of inexperienced
youth, an awkward feeling…”
 What does this tell you about Anna herself? Is this her first affair?
o How does she behave when they are together?
o What does she look like when they are in Yalta?
o What does she look like when he sees her in the theater in the unnamed provincial
town?
This is a lorgnette, like Anna used for seeing distant objects.

Characterize Anna’s husband:
o How does Anna describe him in Yalta?
o When we see him, what does he look like?
o What kind of conclusions does Gurov draw about him?
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
Importance of Setting
Why is setting so important here?
o Physical Environment?
o Anna’s house?
o Season?
o Region?
How does Dimiri consider his life:
o
o
o
o
What is the very last word of the story? How is this indicative of Dimitri’s outlook?
Throughout the story? Does he ever feel like there is a distinct ending, or just a series of
chapters?
What, by comparison, is Anna’s preoccupation?
Are they polar opposites in life outlook?
Other Details:
o
o
o
What does love do to Gurov’s compassion?
What impact does his own appearance at the end have on his emotion for her?
How does the story end?
o What sense do you get about the transformation in Gurov?
Joyce Carol Oates, “Lady with the Pet Dog”, 1968




Who is the narrator?
o From whose point of view is this told?
o How might this answer Chekov’s story, even though Oates’ Anna is a modern woman?
o How is Oates’ Anna similar to Chekov’s Anna?
If plot is defined by both structure and conflict,
o How is the plot structured? Is it chronological?
 What impact does this have on the reader?
 How does this mirror the main character’s mental state?
 Why start us in the auditorium (Part I), why not in Nantucket (Part III)?
 Part II = trip in car from Nantucket to Albany
o What are the central conflicts?
o Where are there direct ‘touch points’ between the two story plots?
Can we see into all the characters’ heads, their thoughts?
o What impact does this have?
Characterize the woman:
o What are her preoccupations?
o How old is she?
o What, exactly, does she want? Can we tell?
o Is she strong, upright, sane?
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o


What is her attitude towards men, generally speaking?
 “he was a man who drew everything up into himself, like all men, walking away,
free to walk away, free to have his own thoughts…” (p. 778)
o Does she trust her lover?
o What are her feelings towards her husband?
 What word crops up again and again?
Characterize the lover:
o What kinds of things does he talk to her about?
o Why is he consistently called the stranger, even though they are intimate?
o What does he look like; who does he compare to the husband?
Characterize the husband:
o Is he in love with his wife?
o What kinds of things does he talk to her about?
Usually, when something is repeated, it has significance. Here are some repeated words and images:
o
o
o
o
o
Panic = 5 times on the first page
Shame= 10 times, that I actually caught (once as a single-word paragraph, p. 771)
Razor blade suicide fantasy=at least 3 times
Age and aging
Death and Finality
“I will follow you back and kill you. You and her and the little boy…” (p. 775)
“This is the end of part of my life,” she thought (p. 778)
“Now something will happen. It will come to an end.” (p. 778)
“How will I live out the rest of my life?” (p. 779)
“She needed this man to live…” (p. 780)
“draw the razor more deeply across her arm…” (p. 780)
“razor across the inside of her arm and free that pressure” (p. 781)
What value does the passage that she reads and re-reads on the beach have? Here it is, for reference:
“We try to discover things, endeared to us on that account, the spiritual glamour that we ourselves have
cast upon them; we are disillusioned , and learn that they are themselves barren and devoid of the charm
that they owed, in our minds, to the association of certain ideas…” (p. 777)


This comes from Marcel Proust’s novel, Swann’s Way part of Remembrance of Things Past (Vol.
1)
o You can read the full text of Swann’s Way at digital books site, Project Gutenberg:
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/7178/7178-h/7178-h.htm
In this Swann’s Way, Proust deals with the transformation of personality over time. This means:
we can’t imagine who we will become in the future and what our desires will ultimately be.
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Here’s another telling quote from Swann’s Way: “To think that I have wasted years of my life that I
have longed for death, that the greatest love that I have ever known has been for a woman who did
not please me, who was not in my style!”




How does Oates’ ending relate to this? Could she be making reference to it? (p. 781)
Who does she love now? Her lover, her husband, herself? Is it clear?
Why is she so happy at the end? Can we say for certain?
Are you convinced that the character is truly and really happy? Is there another explanation?
****
ESSAY EXAMPLES:

“Sample Essay: Tragic Plot of ‘A Rose for Emily’” (711-715)
 Savannah’s essay example, “Funerary Symbols in a Good Man is Hard to Find”:
http://www.suite101.com/content/funerary-symbols-in-a-good-man-is-hard-to-find-a99178
REVIEW:
1) What are the five different kinds of conflict?
2) Why is setting so important to a story?
a. What stories have we read where setting is crucial to the plot?
3) What different facets of setting must be considered?
4) How is character revealed?
5) Is theme ever debatable?
6) What points of view exist in story telling?
7) What impact can point of view have on our understanding of a story? (Provide an example to
illustrate)
8) What is a dynamic character? If a character is not dynamic, what is he/she/it? What does this
mean for the character?
9) What is style? Why is it more complex than just a writer’s individual expression?
10) What is tone in a story, and how is it defined? Can you give an example?
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