All Quiet on the Western Front

This will be the last posting of the semester, and as we have only one class day remaining, you need only respond once this week.  You can respond to this now, or you can wait until we have finished the movie.

You need to do a little mind reading here.  Why do you think I wanted you to see this movie?  What about the story--the emphasis on the human reaction to war--makes it appropriate for inclusion in this class?  I know the obvious answer is that it is about WWI and we studied poetry and a novel, but my rule for the texts we read (and the briefs you did) was that they must be British writers.  So why this?

What is this Novel About, Anyway?

The Remains of the Day tells the story of a butler who is trying to make sense out of a present that is  very different from his past.  But what is the theme of the novel?  What is is about?  What do you think might be Ishiguro's purpose in writing this novel?

By the way.  I was very impressed with the intellectual level of the discussion about the symbolism in the novel.  I myself was hard pressed to find any symbols except perhaps the house itself.

Symbolism and The Remains of the Day

Mrs Dalloway  and Brideshead Revisited  were both full of symbols.  Do you see any in The Remains of the Day?  Remember that symbols can be physical objects (like the pocketknife and clock, or fountain and chapel) or suggested (the thread or web), but characters can also be symbolic.  It is also possible to have no symbols in a work of literature.  So, can you identify any in Remains?  Make sure you explain what those symbols represent.  If you don't see any, do you think that matters to the development of the themes in the novel?

No Blog This Week

We will resume the blog next Friday, April 15,

The Storm at Sea

Aside from the obvious, that the storm at sea allows Charles and Julia to get together, what other purposes--literal and symbolic--does the storm serve?  That it happens on a journey (from America back to England, but it could be thought of as any journey) might also have some significance.

Sebastian and Charles

By the end of the reading you had to do for this week (Book I, Chapter 6), the heady, idyllic life in Oxford and the summer in Brideshead had completely changed.  What is the principle cause of the change in the relationship between Charles and Sebastian?  Sebastian's drinking is obvious, but look at the cause of that.

One More Look at Mrs. Dalloway

I like the discussion about Clarissa this week.  It really gives me something to think about.

Remember that you will need to finish this discussion March 24.  I will NOT be posting a prompt next week during Spring Break.

So, for this week:
At the very beginning of the novel, Clarissa sees these lines from  Shakespeare:  "Fear no more the heat o' the sun / Nor the furious winter's rages."  Then, at the end, when she has left the party after hearing of Septimus's death, and she sees the old lady turn out the light, "the words came back to her, Fear no more the heat of the sun" (186).

What does that mean?  Why does Woolf use this reference at the beginning (about 6 pages in) and at the end (about six pages from the end)?

The Death of the Soul

When Peter Walsh awakes in the park, he says "The death of the soul."  What does that mean?  What prompts him to think about it?

The Poetry and the Novel

What connections can you see between the poetry of World War I--written during or shortly after the war--and the novel, published in 1993.  How does the description of the battles, or wounded, or trench life, or nature, in the poetry compare to the descriptions of those things in the novel?  Does one seem more authentic than the other? Does the style of poetry itself change how you respond to the images and themes?

Letters Home

On pages 212-213 of Birdsong are letters that some of the men wrote in the hours before the impending battle.  What does each letter reveal about the writer and the war?  You should consider also what the narrator tells us about Stephen and Byrne on these pages.  Look at the kinds of details the writers include in the letters.  It seems to me that what they choose to write about shows, in this time of great stress and uncertainty and fear, what they really value.

Birdsong First Impressions

What do you think of the novel so far?  When you started the book and saw the date, 1910, what did that make you think about?  What are your expectations for the characters and the narrative?

Remember we are only talking about the first part of the book--the prewar part.  The first reading assignment just barely gets into the war.  Please don't spoil it if you have read ahead.

Noble Death?

Compare the death and burial of Hardy's  "Drummer Hodge" ("They throw in Drummer Hodge, to rest / Uncoffined--just as found" (1-2)) to the death and burial of Brooke's "The Soldier."  How are they different?  Choose one other poem from the World War I collection (Sassoon, Gurney, or Rosenberg) that also provides a contrast to Brooke's view of death in war and explain the contrast.

Romantic Poetry and the Power of Language

I have been thinking about our brief discussion of the power that language has to shape how we perceive things. I found the passage in "Fears in Solitude" strikingly contemporary.  What happens to public perception when "all the dainty phrases for fratricide" are " Like mere abstractions, empty sounds to which / We join no meaning and attach no form!" (116, 118-119)?  How did euphemisms control understanding after the French Revolution, according to the speaker in Coleridge's poem?  How do they control how we think now?

N.B.  The numbers in parenthesis are line numbers for the poem.  That is how you cite poetry although it is a bit tough when you have to number the lines yourself!