The Fall of the House of Usher or I Stand Here Ironing

Both of these stories continue to look at families, and as usual there is some clear dysfunction.

Fall of the House of Usher online text

"I Stand Here Ironing" is in your textbook, pages 415-420.
Perhaps the first thing that struck me about this story is the fact parents so often learn about parenting through trial and error. I found myself sympathizing with the mother even though it was clear I might have done some things differently. Having said that, do you blame Emily's mother or is she a victim? If she is to be blamed, blamed for what? If she is a victim, what is she a victim of?

This story is so much about the mother/daughter relationship. Certainly some mothers are close with their daughters, some are not, some are in competition (thwarting the "natural" process of nurturing), some are trying to be friends (a particular problem these days--I think of the film Mean Girls), some are just trying to understand a daughter who is very different. Clearly this mother does not understand what makes her daughter tick and gives us a background of her difficult upbringing, which she clearly seems to feel guilty about. Is this story about guilt? I remember someone once saying that guilt was a purely selfish emotion, meaning that the mother might be more focused on her own pain rather than Emily's. I'm not sure. What do you think?

There is also a number of times that "beauty" is mentioned. How are our ideas about beauty passed down from our mothers? Why is this often dangerous? Poverty is also an important issue in this story? Clearly the mother had difficulty supporting her family. Would you have made similar choices? Were there other alternatives given the circumstances?

How has Emily evolved despite her difficult upbringing? Is this realistic? How has Emily been shaped by her moving around, the institution, her alienation from the rest of the family?

Also, do you agree with the mother's decision not to visit the school for a conference? What are her reasons? Are they sound? What do you think the teacher wants to discuss? How involved in a child's life should a teacher be?

Sonny's Blues

There are many relationships to explore in this beautiful and tragic story. Obviously the relationship between the narrator and Sonny is a complex one that seems to change over time. How and why does this (and other relationships) change? There is also the relationship between the narrator and his mother who tells the chilling story about his uncle and also asks him to take care of Sonny. Is this fair of mom? Are there certain expectations aligned with certain family roles, like the eldest brother or the eldest sister? So what is the responsibility of older siblings towards their younger siblings? Is too much expected of Sonny?

Sonny tells his brother he wanted to escape Harlem when he was still young. What did he want to escape (aside from drugs)? How is escape from family and family circumstances a natural part of "individuation"?

What is the role of suffering in this family? How does suffering define a family and their legacy? How does Sonny cope with suffering? How does the narrator cope with suffering? Is one way more effective than the other?

This story offers one of the most effective descriptions of music that I've ever read. What does music provide Sonny with that his family did not? Was Sonny right to follow his dream? What about the narrator's dreams?

Rappaccini's Daughter

This is one of my very favorite short stories. I love Hawthorne's language which always makes me second guess what I'm reading and what it might mean. I've asked you to read this story in two sections since I think this story really demands quality time to savor the language and the possible meanings. There are so many questions to ask about this story, and while our focus is on family relationships, we can certainly look beyond this idea. We really have five characters that are worth exploring: Giovanni, Rappaccini, Beatrice, Baglioni, and even Lisabetta. If we are to merely focus on the familal relationship, we need to understand the relationship between father and daughter. Are there certain archetypal concepts that relate to fathers and daughters? What do fathers want for their daughters? What do daughters need from their fathers? How do Giovanni and Baglioni "upset" the basic relationship? What are their respective roles in this story anyway?

Obviously Hawthorne wants us to consider how this story might be an allegory to the Garden of Eden. What were your thoughts about this? If the garden does represent this, then who might the different characters represent?

Consider what we know happens versus what we think we know happens? How does Hawthorne's language make us rethink the actual events in the story? How does the imagination function in this story? What is the role of science? What is being said about the nature of woman? About nature itself?

Initial ideas for Essay #2:

What is Rappaccini's secret desire for his daughter? How do the secrets or obsessions of parents have consequences for their children? How do the secrets shape the children's destinies?

Haunted Houses/Bone Black

I found this such an interesting thematic grouping for these stories, which involve families. Are all our houses haunted in some way? I adore the quote from The Ice Storm which provides the paradox of family life:

Your family is the void you emerge from and the place you return to when you die. And that is the paradox; the closer you're drawn back in, the deeper into the void you go."

I haven't read the book by Rick Moody, but the film The Ice Storm, directed by Ang Lee, was indeed haunting as I remember it. It's about families falling apart in the 1970s. Certainly all families find themselves is various states of conflict. We'll explore this the different kinds of conflicts that may arise. We'll also explore the different roles that family members take on and what the roles tell us about the family unit itself. Many of us have certain expectations about how a mother or a father should act. We also have ideas about how siblings act with each other and their parents. Our expectations are often thwarted in the face of reality which causes disappointment and disillusionment. Will there be any "happy" stories about families? Just remember, that a story without conflict is no story that we probably want to read.

We'll also read about actual or perceived hauntings. How does our imagination shape our understanding of relationships. When we have certain ideals about family can we conjure up fantasies that are ultimately self-destructive?

We began this section with African American feminist writer bell hooks (notice lack of capitalization) and her story "Bone Black." I had never read this before, but saw her speak at VCU and was intrigued. Some of you mentioned the interesting use of pronouns which seemed to create distance between "she," her family, and the audience. The ending was most interesting and seems to reinforce the idea that no one really knows what happens in a family. We often think we grasp a family dynamic, but often the dynamic is so complex, we must be a part of it to fully understand the motivations of different individuals.

An idea for Essay #2:
In the excerpt from Bone Black, hooks observes that "the silent agreement that the man is right" is operative in the marriage of her parents. How are the dynamics of marital relationships governed by social conditioning? How have gender (and thus marital roles) changed over time? What are the social consequences of these changes?

Research

Make sure your read my posts on research and documentation. Here's info on InfoTrac for your outside research. Also check out the web links on the side and JSTOR available through your JSR account.

InfoTrac College Edition
username: openhigh
password: writingrocks

Writing Workshops

As one of you already pointed out, writing workshops were not very successful last semester. A handful of students gave excellent feedback, but most students put minimal effort into this important task. You will once again be expected to provide substantive feedback to your peers. And once again, I will read one draft for each essay.

Please read pages 30-31. Please provide the three levels of peer critique as outlined on page 30. Use the questions on page 31 to address specific issues regarding content, organization, development, and grammar/style/sentence sense.

Workshop Groups for Essay 1

1. Shakerrie, Caitlin, Caleigh
2. Dana, Shannon, Franshaun
3. Alice, Jordan, Jovan
4. Brittany, John

I would very much like to experiment with online collaboration software (docs.google.com), so we'll talk about this tomorrow. If the learning curve is too steep, we'll just do it the conventional way, so have your copies ready.

Essay 1 Addendum

A few more essay ideas to consider:

1. Discuss "coming of age," "loss of innocence," or "rites of passage" in one or two stories we've read. What is involved in this process? What are the results?

2. Using one or more stories, discuss the quote by Gail Sheehy, "Growth demands a temporary surrender of security." Or discuss the quote by Henry David Thoreau, "For a man needs only to be turned around once with his eyes shut in this world to be lost...Not til we are lost...do we begin to find ourselves."

3. Discuss "Our Hurried Children" as it relates to "A&P" or "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been."

4. Discuss different concepts of religion in one or more stories.

5. Consider the theme of the individual vs. society. When do protagonists feel the pressure of the outside world? How do they respond? How does this mirror what Hollis describes as the pattern of "departure, initiation, and return"?

Feel free to use "popular culture" sources (television shows, music, films, video games, board games, toys, etc.) to help you make your argument.


DOCUMENTATION

You must document both your primary source(s) and your secondary sources using MLA Style. See Appendix A (pp. 1468-1509) with specific examples beginning on page 1474. ESSAYS WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED WITHOUT PROPER INTERNAL CITATIONS AND A SEPARATE WORKS CITED PAGE.

If you cite a story from Legacies, your works cited entry should look like this:

Hollis, James. "The Heroic Journey." Legacies.
3rd ed. Eds. Jan Zlotnik Schmidt and Carley Rees Bogarad. Boston: Thomson
Wadsworth, 2006. 349-354.

You may use various methods to cite evidence internally. See page 1474 for details. A basic internal citation should look like this:

(Hollis 349)
_________________________________

Don't Forget the Writer's Memo, required with each draft.



Memos must be written in paragraph form and be a minimum of one full page, typed, double spaced. The memo should discuss a wide range of topics related to your writing process. Below are some questions to consider. Be as specific as possible.

1. What do you believe are the strengths of this piece of writing?
2. What aspects could be improved or what ideas could be developed further?
3. What new insight or valuable idea does this essay offer? Isolate the thesis in a single sentence.
4. What did you learn through reading and/or writing?
5. Which parts of the piece did you find the easiest or most difficult to put into words?
6. What did you want to accomplish with this piece?
7. What did you want the audience to understand about you and/or your experience?
8. Which specific writing techniques did you find helpful? (brainstorming, revision, specific diction, sentence variety, parallelism, description, dialogue, elaboration, showing vs. telling, frame device, character development, figurative language, etc.)
9. Were the comments of peer editors helpful? If yes, how? If no, why not?
10. What kind of risks did you take with your writing? That is, what did you try that you hadn’t tried before?
11. What did you think about as you wrote?
12. Did you have any difficulties with the reading? If yes, what methods did you take to help with reading comprehension?
14. If you used research in your writing, what particular problems, if any, did you run into?
15. What have you learned about yourself either as a writer or a person through writing this essay?

Essay 1

Essays this semester will reveal your understanding of texts we've read and how they intersect with cultural and social ideas.

For each essay you will present a researched, argumentative essay based on one or more reading from Unit 1. You will use these as primary sources, but you are also required to use at least two credible secondary sources. I suggest using InfoTrac which you have full access to at school and at home.

You must offer a claim, a line of argument with evidence, counterargument(s), concession(s), and refutation(s).

To begin: read or reread "The Heroic Journey" (pp 349-355) which we did not get a chance to discuss in class. Make sure you revise your initial Writing Journal 1 to reflect this reading. (You can do this by going into customize, posting, and edit posts.) How does this essay relate to the stories we've read? What is significant here? How does the essay relate to the modern world?

Read back through all of your journal entries for the first unit "The Heroic Journey." What issues/stories grabbed your attention? What would you like to write more about? Next, review all my blog entries which offer suggestions about possible essay topics. For class on Wednesday, write a journal (about 500 words) on your ideas for Essay 1. Bring a copy to class and post this on your blog. Essay draft 1.1 will not be due until Monday, 3/10. We will be working in class on our writing both Wednesday and Friday.

Our Hurried Children

This was a very interesting article, but I’m not sure I agree with all the conclusions. It was written in 1981, so it’s a bit dated in terms of psychological research. Still, many of the arguments will, I’m sure, be familiar to you.

What do you think? We'll blog about this on Monday, 3/3. Here are some of my musings to consider:

I had never heard the expression “early ripe, early rot!”, but now it does seem antiquated. Child psychology tells us that children are ripe for learning early in life. Language acquisition, for example, becomes more difficult the older one becomes. Most people understand the value of early childhood education, since we see the results of an early lack of stimulation into adulthood.

Is there a difference between children “growing up too fast,” and children who are pressured to excel at an early age? More and research suggests that children need unstructured play in order to harness their imaginative and creative potential. Obviously our test-driven, achievement oriented culture is in conflict with such findings. See the recent New York Times article.

According to everything I’ve seen, teen pregnancy rates are actually in decline in most states. Anecdotal evidence I’ve come across does suggest that children and adolescence do suffer from more “stress diseases” than in the past, but this is also true of adults. Crime may indeed be linked to children wanting to be adults, but it seems that crime is a result of many factors which may be hard to isolate. I also wonder if cult membership is on the rise. I would venture to guess that adults are just as susceptible to cults as young people, and that part of this is a natural tendency to want to belong. I also might question the discussion on suicide. I believe suicide is a leading cause of death among teens, but adults, especially the elderly, seem to be keeping up.

Here's a recent article from
Psychology Today
which shares a different perspective on "our hurried children." It suggests that there is an "artificial extension of childhood."

Some essay suggestions:

1. Do you agree with Elkind’s view of childhood? Are children’s lives too hurried? What solutions would you propose?

2. Connect Elkind’s view of childhood with Connie’s situation in “Where Are you Going, Where Have You Been?” and Sammy's in “A&P."

Cathedral

“Cathedral” is one of my very favorite stories. In never ceases to move me. Perhaps this is because the characters are so very human, so very flawed. I think there are many directions we can take this story. We can say that this is a story about that “blind leading the blind, ”the double-meaning of “drawing” together, and what it what it really means to “see.” And what about the cathedral? As we discussed in class, the narrator is spiritless; he doesn’t “believe in anything.” He’s unhappy with his job, his relationship with his wife seems stagnant, and his discomfort with the blind Robert reveals his narrow range of experience and vision.

Why do they draw a cathedral? Is this a symbol of moving beyond oneself or reaching beyond limitations? The narrator’s epiphany seems clear when he says, “It was like nothing else in my life up to now” and “I didn’t feel like I was inside anything.” Has this narrator become the hero in a journey towards spiritual enlightenment? Is this an epiphany that will ultimately challenge his simplistic stereotypes that prevent him from reaching higher heights? In this way his experience reminds me of Sammy’s in “A&P.”

It’s interesting to note that this story, like “Where are you going, where have you been?”, is based on a true story. A blind man came to visit Raymond Carver and his wife, the poet Tess Gallagher. Gallagher had worked for the man whose wife had died and who had come east to visit friends. Gallagher also wrote a story about the event entitled “Rain Flooding Your Campfire.”