POSTSCRIPT: 1 October 2002 (Tuesday)
- In A Thousand Acres, Ginny is an example of an unreliable narrator:
A narrator who cannot be taken at “face value.”  What an unreliable narrator says   happened is interpreted differently by the implied reader as a result of the character's actions or of the reactions of other characters.  The implied author provides the implied reader with clues as to discovering the discrepancies, though these may not become apparent until the narrative is well underway.  Reliability and unreliability have nothing to do with whether or not a narrator is “likable”—it is an undermining that goes on at the level of the implied reader and implied author.  An unreliable narrator is not necessarily lying: he or she may inadvertently mislead the reader; likewise, a narrator who “lies” to the reader or withholds information isn’t necessarily unreliable.
(Our follow-up question might then be, how reliable is any narrator?) 
- On John Steinbeck:   Steinbeck so greatly influenced the Salinas Valley [setting of "The Chrysanthemums"] that in 1957 the area wanted to name a new school after him.    Steinbeck wrote a now-famous letter to a Californian staff member arguing against the idea, saying he did not want school children to curse his name: "If the city of my birth should wish to perpetuate my name clearly but harmlessly, let it name a bowling alley after me or a dog track or even a medium price, low-church brothel - but not a school!" (National Steinbeck Center, 2001)
- Purely Optional: John Steinbeck on the experience of writing a story ("The discipline of the written word . . ."), on accepting the Nobel Prize for Literature, and on writing one page at a time: "When I face the desolate impossibility of writing 500 pages, a sick sense of failure falls on me, and I know I can never do it. Then gradually, I write one page and then another.  One day's work is all I can permit myself to contemplate."

PREVIEW: 1 October 2002 (Tuesday)
- One of today's stories, "What's This?  My Balls for Your Dinner," is from the collection American Indian Myths and Legends, edited by Richard Erdoes and Alfonso Ortiz (1984).   In the Introduction, the editors comment on some of the distinctive characteristics of Native American tales:
To those used to the patterns of European fairy tales and folktales, Native legends often seem chaotic, inconsistent, or incomplete. Plots seem to travel at their own speed, defying convention and at times doing away completely with recognizable beginnings and endings. Coyote is a powerful creator one moment, a sniveling coward the next. Infants display alarming talents or powers; births and deaths alternate as fast as night and day. To try to aplly conventional (Western) logic is not only impossible but unnecessary; spinning out a single image or episode may be salient feature of-- indeed, the whole reason for--telling a tale, and stories are often told in chains, one word, character, or idea bringing to mind a related one, prompting another storyteller to offer a contribution. The howling wind, the bubbling brook, the shrieking magpie all suggest, in their vital immediacy, stories, out of which legends are created. Stories are told for adults and children alike, as elements in solemn ceremonies and as spontaneous creations. Rather than being self-contained units, they are often incomplete episodes in a progression that goes back deep into a tribe's traditions.  (xii-xiii)
-- If you have an interest in John Steinbeck (author of "The Chrysanthemums"), you'll find some worthwhile links at this page ( http://www.nt.armstrong.edu/ALITresourcesJS.htm ) prepared for--and by--one of our graduate students this past summer.

POSTSCRIPT: 26 September 2002 (Thursday)
- See some of Jane Smiley's observations on A Thousand Acres -- and Emily's notes, below.

PREVIEW: 24 and 26 September (Tuesday and Thursday)
- On Tuesday, following a quick quiz on A Thousand Acres, we'll discuss how Kurasawa's film and Smiley's novel both depend on and depart from Shakespeare's King Lear.
- On Thursday, we'll examine what we consider to be the key themes in Smiley's novel, and view an excerpt or two from the film version.

POSTSCRIPT: 24 September 2002 (Tuesday)
-- "We're Not in This for the Grades Department" FYI: Breakdown of grades on A Thousand Acres quiz: 12 A's or B's (3 scores of 11, 6 of 10, 3 of 9), no C's, 1 D, 6 F's.  Best quiz averages to date (based on four quizzes--without dropping lowest grade):  10.37, 10.25, and 10.25. 
Tip: Start reading Webster's Duchess of Malfi now.  Carefully, thoughtfully, with pen in hand.  If you have trouble concentrating, chase everybody out of the house and start reading aloud.  Then review the play next Wednesday evening (the night before the quiz). 
Why bother?  Not because the test score itself "counts" so much (though over the past century of teaching I've found a significant, but not surprising, correlation between quiz averages and final exam grades).   Simply enough, superficial reading is the opposite of what this class is all about.   And as some have already discovered and demonstrated, it's not too late to turn it around.
-- METAPHORS (verbal and visual) in Kurosawa's Ran.  Early in the film, Kyoami's song about the rabbit is understood as referring to the two neighboring mountain lords looking for something to "eat" on the plain below.   Hidetora compares himself to a recently slain old boar, "hardly edible"; then, foreshadowing the action to come, he asks, "Could you eat me?"   Later, Hidetora loses his sword just as he loses his self (i.e., goes mad).   Images of the sky serve as pervasive metaphors.  A shot of the sun is followed by a view of Hidetora out under it, bleached to whiteness (like a character wearing a Noh mask).  Bright sunlight is followed by dark fog, Hidetora lost in the midst of it.   And the repeated images of clouds floating high above suggest the persistent indifference of nature to the evil, suffering, and tears below.   As critic Jan Knott has observed, in Ran the images don't illustrate the story; they are the story.  Kurosawa himself characterized the film as a series of human events viewed from heaven.  And so we're left at the end looking down on human folly:
Kyoami:  Oh, there is no Buddha in the world?   Buddha, hear me.  Are you so bored up in heaven that you enjoy watching men die down here?  Is it amusing to hear them cry?
Tango: Enough.  Do not slander the Buddha.  It is he who is crying.  Men--they are so stupid that they believe survival depends upon killing.  This is as it is.  Men seek sorrow, not happiness.  They prefer suffering to peace.
Soon the lights go out--and all that's left is, perhaps, nirvana.

Notes from Rena:

__________________
NOTES ARCHIVES
archive 2 (Sep. 5 - 19)
archive 1 (Aug. 20 - Sep. 3)

English 2100H is taught by Dr. Richard Nordquist.
Armstrong Atlantic State University
University Hall 297D
11935 Abercorn Street
Savannah, Georgia 31419
912-921-5991
e-mail: nordquist@mail.com           

 
07 October 2002

| AASU Home | Visitor  Information AASU | Site Map | Applying to AASU |
| Faculty and Staff | Administration | Student Resources | Distance Learning |
| Colleges and Schools | Athletics | Alumni |  Web Coursework | Financial Aid | 
|  Continuing Education | News and Information | Library |

All portions of these materials are copyright © 2002 Armstrong Atlantic State University.
Questions? Comments? Suggestions? Please contact us at Armstrong Atlantic  State University Web Team