NOTES: April 10, 2010-FIRST, ESSAY QUESTIONS:
Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?
1. There are repeated references to rock music in the story. What is rock music’s
role in the story: specifically, how does it affect Connie, what does it take the
place of in her youthful world, and how might it contribute to her fate?
2. Discuss the character of Arnold Friend. What inspired Joyce Carol Oates to create
this character? Think about what his name might suggest. Comment on his car,
clothes and language. What does he represent in the story?
3. What does Oates’ story tell us about how physical beauty is perceived by the
society?
Harrison Bergeron:
1) What is the meaning of Harrison and the ballerina being shot down by Diana
Moon Glampers, the Handicapper General? What are the suggestions of her
name? What ethos is conjured by the mythological associations of the Greek
goddess Diana and the moon?
2) To what extent do television, radio, and the mass media generally function like
George's mental handicap radio? In the story? In our society?
3) How is Harrison Bergeron an allegory? (Again, an allegory is a figurative mode
of representation conveying a meaning other than the literal. Allegory teaches a
lesson through symbolism. Allegory communicates its message by means of
symbolic figures, actions or symbolic representation.)
Young Goodman Brown:
1) Why did the devil have such a “considerable resemblance” to Goodman Brown? What
is significant about it?
2) What is the significance of the color pink and red? Hawthorne notes the color of
Faith’s ribbons for a reason (in fact, more than one reason). Where does red later appear
and what is the significance of this emphasis first on pink and then on red?
(What two colors is pink comprised of? How does this somehow symbolize the nature of
the world?)
****
1
Allegory is a form of extended metaphor, in which objects, persons, and
actions in a narrative, are equated with the meanings that lie outside the
narrative itself. The underlying meaning has moral, social, religious, or
political significance, and characters are often personifications of abstract
ideas as charity, greed, or envy.
Thus an allegory is a story with two meanings, a literal meaning and a
symbolic meaning.
(Allegory = from the Greek, "to speak so as to imply something other")
****
Young Goodman Brown
“Young Goodman Brown” by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Setting—YGB heads for the woods
a. (p. 549) “he had taken a dreary road,…closed immediately behind. It was
all as lonely as could be, and there is this peculiarity in such solitude that
the traveler knows not who many be concealed by the innumerable trunks
and the thick boughs overhead….”
Characters
b. Young Goodman Brown (Goodman=male head of household, ordinary
citizen)
c. Faith
i. Pink ribbons
1. “letting the wind play with the pink ribbons…”
2. “…said Faith with the pink ribbons….”
3. “…peeping after him, with a melancholy air, in spite of her
pink ribbons…”
ii. What does Goodman Brown’s decision to go into the forest suggest
about his relationship with his wife?
d. Male Figure
i. “YGB beheld the figure of a man, in grave and decent attire, seated
at the foot of an old tree.”
(Think about this in relation to: “The banality of evil” a phrase coined by political
theorist and philosopher Hannah Arendt in her 1963 work Eichmann in Jerusalem: A
Report on the Banality of Evil. It describes the thesis that the great evils in history were
not necessarily executed by fanatics or sociopaths but rather by ordinary people who
accepted the premises of their state and therefore participated with the view that their
actions were normal. Arendt's work deals with the nature of power, politics, authority,
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and totalitarianism. So, why then would the traveler assume this familiar, decentlooking banal form? What relationship might this idea of seeming banality have to
YGB’s father and grandfather and Salem’s history?)
ii. Carries a large staff that bears a striking resemblance to a snake.
iii. (pg. 550) “they might have been mistaken for father and son.”
iv. Figure says: “’You’re late.’” YGB replies: “Faith kept me back
awhile.”
v. “The clock of the Old South Church was striking as I came through
Boston, and that is full 15 minutes gone.”(Salem & Boston was 60
miles apart, so what does that tell us about this figure?)
o Based on the conversation below, can you begin to see the symbolism of this
story?
YGB: "Too far! too far!" exclaimed the goodman, unconsciously resuming his walk.
"My father never went into the woods on such an errand, nor his father before him.
We have been a race of honest men and good Christians since the days of the martyrs;
and shall I be the first of the name of Brown that ever took this path and kept"
T: "Such company, thou wouldst say," observed the elder person, interpreting his
pause. "Well said, Goodman Brown! I have been as well acquainted with your family
as with ever a one among the Puritans; and that's no trifle to say. I helped your
grandfather, the constable, when he lashed the Quaker woman so smartly through the
streets of Salem; and it was I that brought your father a pitch-pine knot, kindled at my
own hearth, to set fire to an Indian village, in King Philip's war. They were my good
friends, both; and many a pleasant walk have we had along this path, and returned
merrily after midnight. I would fain be friends with you for their sake."
e. Goody Cloyse
i. Identifies the male figure with certainty for the first time.
f. Deacon Gookin & Minister
YGB’s Last Stand: “With Heaven above and Faith below, I will stand firm.”
Setting Changes: Mass of black clouds overhead, blots out stars
CRISIS POINT: He hears Faith wailing (p. 554) His last stand against the devil
is swept away when she is taken.
Confirmation that it’s Faith: her pink ribbon flutters down in front of him
Dynamic Character: YGB’s gestures change; he blasphemes and laughs
maniacally
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Setting: The clearing, with felled trunks and branches of trees set on fire
(p. 555) “four blazing pines, their tops aflame, their stems untouched…”
This makes the area red (vs. the pink of Faith’s ribbons)
Red= the color of carnality, rage, hellfire
Dynamic Character: (p. 557) “A Stern, a sad, a darkly meditative, a distrustful,
if not desperate man, did he become, from the night of that fearful dream.”
Significant Quotes:
“Well, she's a blessed angel on earth; and after this one night I'll cling to her skirts and
follow her to heaven."
“His head being turned back, he passed a crook of the road, and, looking forward again,
beheld the figure of a man, in grave and decent attire, seated at the foot of an old tree. He
arose at Goodman Brown's approach and walked onward side by side with him.”
“Goodman Brown, and bearing a considerable resemblance to him, though perhaps more
in expression than features. Still they might have been taken for father and son.”
YOUNG GOODMAN BROWN
1) Why did the devil have such a “considerable resemblance” to Goodman Brown?
What is significant about it?
2) What is the significance of the color pink and red? Hawthorne notes the color of
Faith’s ribbons for a reason (in fact, more than one reason). Where does red later
appear and what is the significance of this emphasis first on pink and then on red?
Compare symbols: what does red traditionally mean in Western culture? (let’s look at the next
page for an example…)
4
“The Dance of Life” (oil/canvas, 1900), Edvard Munch (Norwegian)
The woman in white symbolizes virginity, the woman in red stands for carnal knowledge,
and the figure in black, gazing with anguish at the dancers, represents old age.
****
“Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been” (published 1966)
Joyce Carol Oates (b. June 16, 1938…now 72 years old)
This is Oates in the late 1960s, around the time this story was written….
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PUBLICATION CONTEXT: The story, said Oates, came to her "more or less in a
piece" after reading the article and hearing Bob Dylan's song, "It's All Over Now, Baby
Blue." First appeared in Fall 1966 edition of Epoch Magazine, later anthologized in
collection The Wheel of Love.
Oates described the “Where are You Going, Where have You Been?” as:
"Hawthornean, romantic, shading into parable." (Romantic in the sense that it places
emphasis on such emotions as trepidation, horror and awe; not romantic in the flowers
and candy sense.)
SETTING:
Principal action takes place at 3 year old house, extremely rural
Long gravel drive
Woman on the farm down the road is dead.
Sunday
NARRATOR: third-person limited (sees things as Connie does, but not other people’s
thoughts)….certainly don’t see Arnold Friend’s, so we know the view is limited.
WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT THESE CHARACTERS?
• Connie—flat or round?
o Identify how Connie is represented as the story opens, as it progresses and
as it ends and discuss to what extent the protagonist is a round character.
• Connie’s Mother—flat or round?
•
Connie’s Father—flat or round?
•
Arnold Friend—flat or round?
•
June—flat or round?
•
Ellie—flat or round?
•
Music—what purpose does it serve? What role does music play in Connie’s life?
In her seduction?
PLOT:
What are the conflicts in the story?
Where is the Crisis Point?
(p. 623) “She cried out, she cried for her mother…”
What do you make of these details?
When she finally comes out of the house:
“’My sweet little blue-eyed girl,’ he said in a half-sung sigh that had nothing to do with
her brown eyes.”
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“Your sweet old bald-headed Daddy…”
THEME: Parable: is a type of allegory involving a fictional narrative, through
which spiritual and moral lessons are conveyed. It often involves a
character facing a moral dilemma, or making a questionable decision and then
suffering the consequences.
ARNOLD FRIEND: Dual Symbolism
OATES’ INSPIRATION (hers came from Life Magazine in February 1966):
(Here is another revealing, period article)
TIME Magazine
Friday, Nov. 26, 1965
“Secrets in the Sand”
To the bored, vacant-eyed teen-agers who hang out at the drive-ins and juke joints along
Tucson's East Speedway Boulevard, Charles Howard Schmid Jr., 23, was known as a
swinger. A well-muscled onetime state high-school gymnastics champion, Smitty always
had wheels, money, tall tales and an inexhaustible supply of available girls' phone
numbers.
Schmid went to bizarre lengths to build his image. He added 3 in. to his meager (5 ft. 3
in.) frame by stuffing rags and folded tin cans into his black leather boots. He dyed his
hair raven black, wore pancake makeup, pale cream lipstick
and mascara. As for the cash, which he got in a generous
weekly dole from his mother, Schmid bragged to the boys that
it came from smuggling cars into Mexico, to the girls that it
came from women whom he had taught "100 ways to make
love."
Last week, because of his pathological penchant for bragga
docio, Schmid was in jail, charged with the murders of two
daughters of a Tucson surgeon. Along with two friends — one
a 19-year-old girl — he was also accused of murdering a third
girl. Police, who had found the two sisters' skeletons on the
desert, last week were still searching for the third.
****
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“Harrison Bergeron”, Kurt Vonnegut (1961)
b. November 11, 1922 – d. April 11, 2007
CONTEXT: “Harrison Bergeron” first appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and
Science Fiction in October 1961 and later appeared in Vonnegut’s collection Welcome to
the Monkey House (1968)
Vonnegut Quotes relevant to this text:
“Humor is an almost physiological response to fear.”
“Well, the telling of jokes is an art of its own, and it always rises from some emotional
threat. The best jokes are dangerous, and dangerous because they are in some way
truthful.”
Vocabulary>>
Satire:
In satire, human or individual vices, follies, abuses, or shortcomings
are held up to censure by means of ridicule, derision, burlesque, irony,
or other methods, ideally with the intent to bring about improvement.
Although satire is usually meant to be funny, the purpose of satire is not
primarily humor in itself so much as an attack on something of which
the author strongly disapproves, using the weapon of wit.
Utopia:
name for an ideal community or society, taken from the title of a book
written in 1516 by Sir Thomas More describing a fictional island in the
Atlantic Ocean, possessing a seemingly perfect socio-politico-legal
system. The term has been used to describe both intentional communities
that attempted to create an ideal society, and fictional societies portrayed
in literature.
The word comes from Greek: οὐ, "not", and τόπος, "place", indicating that
More was utilizing the concept as allegory and did not consider such an
ideal place to be realistically possible. The homophone Eutopia, derived
from the Greek εὖ, "good" or "well", and τόπος, "place", signifies a double
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meaning that was almost certainly intended. Despite this, most modern
usage of the term "Utopia" assumes the latter meaning, that of a place of
perfection rather than nonexistence.
More's utopia is largely based on Plato's Republic. It is a perfect version of
Republic wherein the beauties of society reign (eg: equality and a general
pacifist attitude)
Dystopia:
a negative utopia: a totalitarian and repressive world.
Things to Consider:
•
Describe American Society in 2081. What is the Handicapper-General’s job and
why is it needed?
•
Describe George Bergeron’s handicap bag and radio—what do they do? Why
does he have them? Why does his wife Hazel not have any handicap to carry
around?
•
How are the dancers handicapped?
•
How are the announcers handicapped?
•
What are Harrison Bergeron’s handicaps? What do they tell you about his
abilities?
•
Describe Harrison Bergeron’s rebellion. What is he trying to do to society?
•
PoV: From what point of view is the story told?
•
PoV: Why is it more effective than if Harrison Bergeron had told his own story in
first person?
•
Characterization: Is Vonnegut’s characterization of Diana Moon Glampers
realistic?
If not, why doesn’t it need to be?
Theme: What tendencies in American society is Vonnegut satirizing?
Theme: How would you sum up the theme?
Theme: Does the story argue for anything?
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Can “equality” become a mask for inequality? Can forced equality
become antithetical to liberty?
“Freedom and equality mutually require each other.”
-- Cornelius Castoriadis**
**developed a radical critique of Communism based upon the idea of
workers' management and exerted a great influence upon the student-worker
rebellion in Paris in May 1968. Until his death a decade ago, Castoriadis
continued to write on politics, society, psychoanalysis, philosophy, and the
imagination from his distinctive perspective that was inspired by the "project of
autonomy."
The Moving Picture Institute has now made a dark, non-satirical version of
this movie, titled 2081
http://finallyequal.com/
We can watch the movie trailer on the WVNCCStudents page of my
website….
****
Savannah Guz
English 102
June 2, 2008
Professor Poodle
Analysis of Funerary Symbols in
“A Good Man is Hard to Find”
In Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, a family travels to Florida
through Tennessee and Georgia at the same time an escaped killer, dubbed “The Misfit”,
is on the run. At various points in the narrative, O’Connor places funerary symbols that
serve to generate an ominous mood. For example, there is the old family burial ground
with the “five or six graves”; the gloomy, wooded area behind the ditch the family’s car
lands in following their accident; and the hearse-like automobile that eventually
approaches them. Initially, this imagery—like the grave sites glimpsed while the
family car passes—appears harmless, even bland. Together, however, these images
point beyond their literal meaning and collectively foreshadow the family’s fate.
The first instance of obvious funerary symbolism appears during the road trip.
O’Connor’s third person narrator writes, “They passed a large cotton field with five or fix
graves fenced in the middle of it, like a small island. ‘Look at the graveyard!’ the
grandmother said, pointing it out. ‘That was the old family burying ground.’” (360)
While this seems to be a wholly chance sighting, O’Connor’s inclusion of the number of
grave plots indicates that it is actually no trivial inclusion. If the reader is to count up the
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number of people in the car: grandmother, Bailey, mother, baby, June Star and John
Wesley, it equals the number of plots glimpsed in the graveyard.
The next instance of funerary symbolism is slightly trickier to pin down. O’Connor
again uses her third person narrator to describe the setting, “Behind the ditch they were
sitting in, there were more woods, tall and dark and deep.” (363) This choice of
expression closely resembles the last stanza of Robert Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a
Snowy Evening,” a poem written in 1922. It reads:
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep (1110)
Critics have widely interpreted Frost’s poetic ‘woods’ to symbolize death. Written and
analyzed long before O’Connor produced her work, she may purposefully reference this
in her story. O’Connor’s woods, which are tall, dark, and deep (for they can hardly be
‘lovely’ like Frost’s, under the circumstances) Additionally, the author’s choice of the
descriptive ‘tall’ over other adjectives may also signify that the woods entirely blot out
the sunshine, making dusk descend on the family even at mid-day.
The final instance of funerary symbolism appears just before the appearance of The
Misfit and his two accomplices. O’Connor describes the car they arrive in as “a big black
battered hearse-like automobile” (363).
O’Connor does not refer to the car as ‘a big boat of an automobile’ nor does she describe
it by its brand name, such as Chrysler, Cadillac, or Lincoln. Instead, she focuses the
reader’s attention on mood by using a descriptive one-word image that comes with
immediate associations: “hearse-like” (363). The simile O’Connor chooses instantly
conjures up images of funerals and death. The car, coming over the hill, disappears for a
moment—as if in reprieve—but resurfaces again as something inevitable, like the
family’s ultimate death. Earlier, safely traveling in their car, peering out its windows, the
family passed death by. Here, O’Connor indicates that death has finally arrived for the
family.
O’Connor is renowned for working symbols into her fiction. In “A Good Man is Hard
to Find”, she employs imagery evocative of death and funerary rites for tactical purposes.
These images work to subconsciously tune the reader’s senses to the narrative’s sinister
atmosphere. And with this textually fabricated mood, O’Connor silently prepares the
reader for the story’s graphic ending.
List of Works Cited
Frost, Robert. “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.” Literature: An Introduction to
Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing. Eds. X.J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. New York:
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Pearson Longman, 2007. 1110.
O’Connor, Flannery. “A Good Man is Hard to Find.” Literature: An Introduction to
Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing. Eds. X.J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. New York:
Pearson Longman, 2007. 358-368.
Successful Student Paper Excerpts: focusing on symbolism
The significance of the staff in “Young Goodman Brown”:
“The next time the staff is mentioned, it is being offered to Goodman Brown to help him
on his journey. Goodman Brown’s traveling partner says, “Take my staff, if you are so
soon weary” (550). It is not physical fatigue that he is offering to make easier, but rather
weariness of Goodman Brown’s conscience. If Goodman Brown were to take the staff, he
would be letting go of his faith entirely and submitting to the will of the devil. The
traveler puts on the mask of being Goodman Brown’s friend and seems wholly concerned
with Brown’s weariness. The staff is offered several times “when you feel like moving
again, there is my staff to help you along” (552).
Once Goodman declares that his “Faith is gone!” (554). He seems a madman and grasps
the staff and seems to “fly along the forest-path, rather than to walk or run” (554). Once
he has lost his faith, the battle with himself is over and his weariness disappears
completely. While he has the staff, “there could be nothing more frightful than the figure
of Goodman Brown” (554) as he is “brandishing his staff with frenzied gestures” (554).
Goodman Brown seems possessed and in a rage.”
Symbols of death in “A Good Man is Hard to Find”:
“The grandmother’s constant worrying about The Misfit is another sign of misfortune.
The grandmother seems enthralled, almost obsessed, with the escaped criminal and tells
everyone she meets about his escape. She is foreshadowing her final meeting with him by
constantly mentioning his name and seems to be constantly thinking about him. This
unnatural fear and obsession is what, in the end, gets her killed during her final meeting
with this brutal monster, who is called “The Misfit.”
When grandmother wakes up outside the city of Toombsboro (another foreshadowing of
death) she has a vision of an old plantation she had been to when she was young. The
description she gives is nostalgic in its nature but also carries an air of foreboding. It is
said that before one dies, moments of their life flash before their eyes; this vision could
be interpreted as such…..” (nice attention to O’Connor’s ‘hidden’ details here, and well
conceived application of broader cultural knowledge outside the story itself—
contributing own associations to interpretation)
The significance of night and day in “The Yellow Wallpaper”:
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“Night is typically viewed as an escape from the conscious order of the daytime. The
moon frequently symbolizes female sensitivity. Sunshine dominates the nursery during
the day, much as John dominates the narrator during the day as he controls her life.
Sunshine is associated with power and masculinity, while night seems to liberate the
narrator in some form. The narrator’s imagination runs freely during the night, which
helps loosen her husband’s grip on her.”
The bed and pattern in “The Yellow Wallpaper”:
First, in regard to the wallpaper, the narrator states: “I lie here on this great, immovable
bed—it is nailed down, I believe—and follow tthat pattern by the hour…I determine for
the thousandth time that I will follow that pointless pattern to come sort of conclusion.”
(428) This statement is a reflection of the narrator’s feelings about her current position in
life. The immovable bed refers to how the narrator has no freedom in her life until she is
well again and following the “pointless pattern” on the wallpaper is the narrator feeling
trapped in the same endless cycle that her life has become.”
Oppression in “The Yellow Wallpaper”:
“Throughout The Yellow Wallpaper, Charlotte Perkins Gilman uses various symbols to
show the oppression of women by men and the continuing struggle to escape that
oppression. The use of “nervous weakness” as described by John, concerning the writer,
is an addition to the previous mention of man’s opinion of women during this time,
seeing women and frail and weak.
Also according to “19th Century Science & The Woman Question,” the reproductive
system was virtually the root of every physical and mental problem a woman might
develop. In 1869, Dr. M. E. Dirix endeavored to describe the pitiful situation of women:
“Thus, women are treated for diseases of the stomach, liver, kidneys, heart, lungs,
etc.; yet in most instances, these diseases will be found on due investigation, to be, in
reality, no diseases at all, but merely the sympathetic reactions or the symptoms of one
disease, namely, a disease of the womb. (Ehrenreich, 122)
…
Charlotte Gilman was actually a patient of Dr. M. E. Dirix, and at the time, she herself
was not at all responding well to the treatment he prescribed.”
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