Hate to Nag, But . . .

I only got 3 responses to the Cat on a Hot Tin Roof question.  I'll expect to see the rest of them on Thursday. 

We're reading Tender is the Night--try to get through the first book for Thursday.  AT LEAST get a good start on the book.  We'll begin discussing on Thursday.  You might want to check back tomorrow (Wednesday) night.  I'm planning on throwing up some discussion questions to get you started thinking about the novel a little. 

I want to remind you all that there will be extra credit question(s) on the final about the Baldwin and Updike stories that we struck from the schedule.  Also, in case you are beginning to worry about it, I will be handing out a study guide for the final next week.  I will also take your pulse, as a class, about whether you feel that you want/need a review session scheduled before the final.

Finally, I will have handouts on Thursday for two other texts--a chapter from Hemingway's A Moveable Feast, which is a very, very quick read and goes nicely with the Fitzgerald, and a copy of T.S. Eliot's "The Wasteland" which is anything but a quick read, but something I'd really like for us to get a chance to talk about on the last day of class.  PLEASE DO NOT LET ME LET YOU LEAVE WITHOUT THESE TEXTS ON THURSDAY.

See you all Thursday!

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

Please remember that your "discussion questions" for this week are being replaced by a discussion answer.

The question is:  What does it mean to be a cat on a hot tin roof?  Give evidence from the play.

*It might be useful to think about why Brick and Big Daddy (and even Maggie herself) refer to Maggie as "Maggie the Cat."

I will take these tomorrow OR Thursday.  Just be sure that I get them by the end of the week.

Please do not "research" this question.  Answer it based on your own experience of seeing the film.

Frost and Wallace Stevens

The Flannery O'Connor story from last week can be found here.  It is fairly short.  Please remember that your quiz on Tuesday will be over O'Connor, Frost and Stevens.

Robert Frost poems: 

"Design"
"Mending Wall"
"Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening"

Wallace Stevens poems:

"Disillusionment of Ten O'Clock"
"The Emperor of Ice Cream"
"The High-Toned Old Christian Women"

Please also read their bios on poetry.org

This is a fairly short reading assignment--please read CAREFULLY.

Instead of Discussion Questions . . .

As promised, here is a post to remind you that we are doing something IN PLACE of discussion questions this coming week. 

On Tuesday, I will be expecting each of you (A-L AND M-Z) to come prepared with a TYPED sheet of paper that includes the following:

1.  One of your favorite (or most interesting) questions from your backlog of submitted discussion questions and

2.  A thoughtful answer to the question, which should be one-two thoughtful paragraphs.  Please back up your answers with evidence from the text.

You will not want to forget to do this.  If you do, you will receive a zero for this week's discussion questions and a zero for the next quiz grade.  (More on that in class on Tuesday).  If you have questions, feel free to email.

Also, if you have turned in an author profile paper and have not conferenced with me, let's set up a time to do that.  This applies to:  Matthew, Halsey, Keona, Emily, and Davis.

Links for Winesburg, Ohio Stories

Along with the story found in OBASS, please also read "Hands". 

If you find that you love Sherwood Anderson, and YOU SHOULD, you can also read my favorite story from Winesburg, "Paper Pills".

Sherwood Anderson was born in a small town in Ohio in 1876.  He moved close to Cleveland and lived there until in his late thirties.  According to sources, he had a "nervous breakdown" in 1912, which resulted in a move to Chicago and a career change from merchant to writer (well, he also had a day job in advertising).

He published Winesburg, Ohio in 1919 to great critical success, but it was the only one of his books (he wrote a few other novels and books of short stories) that enjoyed that kind of success, even though he kept writing almost until his death in 1941.  He was married four times.

Winesburg, Ohio is a book of short stories, connected to one another through the character George Williard.  Willard is a young reporter in whom the various members of the community confide their secrets and life stories.  Anderson calls these stories "grotesques."  Each of the characters has become somehow psychologically misshapen and disproportional.  Anderson explains in his introduction (entitled "The Book of the Grotesque") to the book this way:

That in the beginning when the world was young there were a great many thoughts but no such thing as truth.  Man made the truths himself and each truth was a composite of a great many vague thoughts.  All about in the world were the truths and they were all beautiful.

The old man had listed hundreds of the truths in his book.  I will not try to tell you all of them.  There was the truth of virginity and the truth of passion, the truth of wealth and of poverty, of thrift and of profligacy, of carelessness and abandon.  Hundreds and hundreds were the truths and they were all beautiful.

And then the people came along.  Each as he appeared snatched up one of the truths and some who were quite strong snatched up a dozen of them. 

It was the truths that made the people grotesques.  The old man had quite an elaborate theory concerning the matter.  It was his notion that the moment one of these people took one of the truths to himself, called it his truth, and tried to live his life by it, he became a grotesque and the truth he embraced became a falsehood. 

There is some question about whether the adherence to singular truths is what distorts each of the characters in Winesburg, or if there is some other reason that they have become lonely and odd.  Consider Anderson's explanation--and consider whether you may have an explanation yourself.  We'll discuss on Thursday.