- End of the novel:
- - Now Grete can have her own life à after Gregor’s death, the parents start focusing much more on Grete, they see her as useful, taking care of the family
- - Parent’s now realize importance of Grete
- - Family renewal mirrored by setting à spring has arrived, family (Greta + parents) go on a picnic, images of spring & renewal/rebirth
- - Scenario was always indoors until Gregor’s death à first time they really go out
- - Selling the apt. Gregor bought them, moving on and trying to start a new part of the cycle of their life
- - Family coming together in absence of Gregor à readers wonder what happens to him
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- How to interpret the story, how it treats Gregor:
- Readers feel sympathetic for Gregor.
- Why we care about Gregor : Treated badly, discarded in the end, his dying made his family happy (= his happiness if he could see it; Redemption?) but also because we can still see his human side, we know what he is thinking therefore his death to the readers is not simply the death of a cockroach but of a human being. Virtue of being readers give us insight to Gregor’s mind
- Absurd distances us: because we are reading it, not seeing it, we interpret our own visualization of it, therefore it does not feel as absurd as it may really be. It’s from Gregor’s point of view and he doesn’t ever really describe his physical self. If readers could see Gregor, maybe we would feel more like the family and more distance from the book. His human physique that we imagine added to his human thoughts makes it hard to see this as absurd.
- The family is the only one who really sees him as grotesque therefore we feel more sympathy for him.
- Gregor’s flaws: frustration when he dies, takes his duty as his parent’s son too far. Basically kills himself because he no longer lives up to his parents, basically “rewarding” them for treating him the way they did. Lived to please them, died trying to please them.
- However Gregor was also miserable and him dying did put him out of his misery à not living the life he should not only because of his family but also his transformation.
- Gregor’s flaw is that he never defined himself outside of his family à even after his transformation, he still longed to be a part of his family. Does not really have an identity outside of his role of being the “money-maker”
- Transformation was external indicator of what Gregor was already (doesn’t think independently, limited view of the world…) -> nothing he can do about his physical exterior but and even his thoughts cannot be expressedà Kafka telling the readers not to take Gregor’s example, telling them it’s better to live independently, not o be a slave to one’s job or even parents .
- Gregor believes he has a predetermined place in the world but he did have other options (despite his physique)
- Parents never atone for their crueltyà Gregor sacrifice’s himself for his family, doesn’t feel his parents need to atone because he doesn’t mind dying for his family, nothing else to live for
- Locked-in syndrome: he still has ability to think for himself but he is trapped in a certain role
Many different ways to read Kafk’s Metamorphosis (Biographical, Feminist, existentialist..)
- Shakespeare’s Sonnet 73
That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou seest the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire
Consumed with that which it was nourish'd by.
This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.
- Tends to write his sonnets about a certain dark lady à here he seems to be writing to a friend he loves
- “yellow leaves, or none or few”, “cold” à seems to be referring to end of fall/beginning of winter
- Branches shaking because of the cold and wind
- “choirs” à reference to the remains of a church or, more specifically, a chancel, stripped of its roof and exposed to the elements. The choirs formerly rang with the sounds of 'sweet birds'. Some argue that lines 3 and 4 should be read without pause -- the 'yellow leaves' shake against the 'cold/Bare ruin'd choirs' . If we assume the adjective 'cold' modifies 'Bare ruin'd choirs', then the image becomes more concrete -- those boughs are sweeping against the ruins of the church. Some editors, however, choose to insert 'like' into the opening of line 4, thus changing the passage to mean 'the boughs of the yellow leaves shake against the cold like the jagged arches of the choir stand exposed to the cold'. + “Birds” may be referring to those in the church singing
- “yellow leaves” can be compared to a speech in Macbeth (5.3.23) à rather negative connotation
- “Twilight” time of day: night à seasonal time and period of time during the day
- Elizabethan sonnet
- Iambic pentameter à iamb: type of foot w/ two syllables penta: five à total syllables per line: 10 (iamb 2 x penta 5)
- “deaths second self” à sleep
- glowing à embers?
- Fire: desire? à Aging and within himself his youth’s desires are fading
- Couplet sometimes sums up the rest of the sonnet à time running out, therefore you need to appreciate it more now. Make the most of the time left
- Asking the younger man to love him.
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Federica's recap, 4/25-4/29
- As I Lay Dying
- à Monday recap:à Chapter 3:à about the Author:à Pages 14-15:à Class’ response:
Justine's recap, 1/31-2/4
English notes:
Sonnet packet:Questions on clearances # 5:1- “All the others”(v.1) is a reference to siblings, family and people they know.2- “Peeled potatoes” (v.2) a ban manual domestic job. For the speaker being with his mother is comforting and pleasant.3- “Peeled potatoes” (v.2): replaces mass, it takes an important function. It’s more important than religion (above religion).4- “Soldering” (v.4) description of how the peels fall off. Peeling is parallel to a form of work (Labor)5- “Cold comforts” (v.5) is an oxymoron. Not straight forward. à Contrast6- 6- “bring us to our senses” (v.8)à awakening, coming back to reality.
- The senses are primal.7- Volta, (v.9) à Further in time.8- “Hammer and tongs” (v.10), suggests blacksmith’s work, which is hard.
Work à intensity
mechanical laborious vs. peeling (which is more spiritual).
Fences, Act II, scène 1:
Rose doesn’t want the type of family she has. Where she only has a half family. But as we know a daughter marries a man that reminds her of her father. In this case she married a man who has an affair after 18 years. She was in someway expecting it, but she thought it would’ve happened 10 years before.
Troy implies that you only have one chance to be happy in life “you born with two strikes on you before you come to the plate.Stealing second à affair with Augusta. It’s sneaky!!“I bunted” à unexpected
Federica's Recap, 1/10-1/14- Condemning their choice to build the coffin in front of her, not taking her death very well – using sarcasm
- Jewel doesn’t seem to like that everyone is hovering around her, and not leaving her alone
- Thinking of his mother in the past – he is not ready for her to die
- He is angry with God for putting her in this situation, he is angry at time as well. His mother’s time is limited and she has to hear, with every "chuck," her time passing – "one lick less"
- He wants people to stop making such a circus/spectacle of her death
- Jewel here is also channeling Cash, describing and criticizing him. He believes Cash is building the coffin to get attention, to make himself look like a good son
- His mother’s death is putting him on edge, everything comes down to her
- Everyone is going to come say their goodbyes and the thought they’re going to leave with is "what a fine carpenter [Cash] is"
- "One lick less" – has to do with the fact that there is a finite amount of time, and there time of her death is getting nearer and nearer
- We can also see that Jewel is a bit jealous of Cash – possessive of his mother but jealous of his brother.
- Jewel here is very frustrated at his brothers who are openly preparing his mother’s death. He does not find it right for them to be making her coffin right in front of her, and we can tell he resents God for putting his mother in that situation. The sound of the adze is clearly driving him crazy, because he can only imagine how much it must be killing his mother.
- William Faulkner: 1897-1962
- Came from an old southern family. Grew up in Oxford Mississippi
- All his families are based in Yoknapatawpha, a made up county in Mississippi probably based on Lafayette, where he lived.
- Nobel prize winner
- Yoknapatawpha county: Used in Sound and the Fury and Absolom, Absolom!
- "glittering maze of hooves" à association of language; effect of seeing the horses hooves move quickly. Faulker uses language in unique ways.
- Here, Darl is talking about Jewel. Its his thoughts but they are not describing himself but Jewel. There seems to be a shift to Jewels perspective, or a vivid descripition on what Jewel is doing
- Jewel’s thoughts mediated by Darl
- One could argue that everything said in the book is mediated by Darl, since he can shift into the point of view
- Maybe there is an imaginative world where Darl can assume other peoples thoughts, or maybe he knows so well his brothers thought
- Enormous delay between the question Pa asks and Darl’s response which represent the stream of consciousness, but woulsn’t be there if we hadn’t been reading it. Time is shifted. How long does a thought take
- There are many long digressions that represent people’s many thoughts
- Darl remembers things through the meaning he attaches to certain images
- Top of page 11: still water evoked in a powerful way: the beauty of the reflection of the night sky in still water, like he’s drinking stars.
- Darl is remembering the stage when, as a boy, he started masturbating
- Sensuality of drinking water which makes a link with the masturbation memory – both intimate memories
- The logic between thought is never really apparent, we jump from thought to thought randomly
- Jewel has a gift with horses: is able to swing himself around the rearing horse and calm him down
– William Faulkner
- Faulkner uses the « stream of consciousness » to write : experimental form of writing (James Joyce and Virginia Wolf were other writers who used the stream of consciousness ) à represent the way people think, not grammatical etc…
- Modernist writers in early 20th century experimented with this form
- Two main families: the Tull and the Bundren family
- Darl "narrates" a lot throughout the book – we get his point of view a lot (more than any other)
- Cash is the older brother and is a carpenter (making the coffin), Jewel and Dewey Dell are the younger brothers, Anse is the father and Addie is the mother
- Here, Jewel and Darl are walking together talking about their sick mother’s coffin which is being made by Cash
- At the end of the chaper there is the "chuck, chuck, chuck" that could represent the passing of time and the time where the coffin will be completed
- Cora Tull and her daughters Eula and Kate have been taking care of Addie
