Jane Eyre Chapters 28 to Conclusion

Great discussions in both classes (A and F) on both days (Monday and Wednesday).

I've been grading since three a.m. so I don't have much mental energy left for typing up the notes from the two discussions. If you need ideas from the discussions to spark your thoughts see me in class and I'll give you a photocopy of my notes.

Comment at least once on the Moor House through Ferndean section of Jane Eyre by pumpkin time (midnight) on Friday, October 1. I'll check out your comments Saturday morning before heading off to Mag Woods to coach my daughter's soccer team.

Thanks again for the excellent discussions in class. I look forward to hearing more from all of you in the comment box.

Extending the Discussion: Jane Eyre (chapter 1-16)

Today we had our first student-led discussions in A-block and F-block. Louisa B and Caroline B each performed the discussion leader role adroitly.

In the comment box I expect you to participate in extending the discussion beyond today's class.

Here are some of the things we've discussed already.
Both classes discussed Helen Burns in depth. In A-block there was discussion about Helen as a Christ-figure or, at least, a symbol of Christ-like virtue (humble, selfless beyond what is usual; ultimately "sacrificed" but accepting of this fate). It might be worth articulating exactly how Helen contribute to the novel, particularly to Jane's development. It was suggested in F-block that Jane "cools some of [Jane's] fire."

That fire (or passion) seen early in the novel was the subject of some discussion though a lot more could be said about Jane's response to the injustices of the Reeds, about the Red Room scene (and, as was mentioned in A-block, its Gothic elements), about Jane's indignation at the unjust treatment of Helen, etc. Both classes discussed the relationship between passion and restraint at some length; since it's one of the novel's key issues it's worth considering more, especially with regard to particular scenes and passages.

F-block talked about Brocklehurst and his hypocrisy. (This was mentioned in a different manner in A-block too.) We also talked about the competing versions of Christianity dramatized in the book. What does Bronte seem to suggest about these different versions of Christianity?

A-block discussed garden imagery. This imagery was related to issues of security and containment and to issues of life and death.

Both classes discussed the pacing of scenes (speeding up and slowing down the novel's events) & mentioned but just scratched the surface of the meaning behind the arrangement of the scenes (this could be expressed as "the significance of the plot logic"). Both classes also scratched the surface of the ways Bronte hints at what is to come through mood, tone, and the selection of detail.

Both classes talked about the significance of the narrative point of view: the Jane who is narrating has already experienced and observed everything that happens in the book. Jane is looking back and narrating. How is this significant?

Both classes discussed Jane Eyre in relation to elements of Wide Sargasso Sea: nature, rejection vs. acceptance, security and imprisonment, control (of others/of self), restraint (of others, of self), passion, etc.

The entire "Thornfield" section was not discussed much, though A-block discussed Thornfield briefly in relation to the significance of Grace Poole, laughter, and fire. Fairfax, Adele, and Blance were mentioned. How are they significant? How do they contribute to the bildungsroman? F-block mentioned Jane's relationship with Rochester and how its significant. I encourage to spend some time with the Thornfield chapters in your responses.

In your comments on the blog please refer to specific passages. When you do so please write down the chapter as well as the page number you are referring. Knowing the chapter will help because we don't all have the same version of the book. Use your first name, last initial, and class block to help me identify you.

I expect your responses to show an understanding of the relationship between text and meaning through the first sixteen chapters of the novel; to engage the ideas and questions brought up by other students and/or your teacher in class and/or on the blog; to extend what has been discussed in class and on the blog beyond the passages already discussed and the assertions already made.

Expanded Notes on Context for Understanding Jane Eyre

Biographical and Literary Context for Reading, Understanding, Discussing, and Writing about

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

Here are some questions you should consider as you read Jane Eyre and some information to help you consider the questions. Be prepared to discuss some of this on Monday in relation to chapters one through sixteen.

I. The Author’s Biography & the Fiction of the Novel

Question: How are (the biography of) Charlotte Bronte and (the fictional autobiography of) Jane Eyre related?

Contextual Information:

Click here (http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/bronte/cbronte/brontbio.html) and here (http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/bronte/cbronte/brontetl.html) for skeletal biographies of Charlotte Bronte.

Click here (http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/bronte/cbronte/61brnt6.html) for a consideration of biographical elements in Jane Eyre. Other relevant biographical elements are alluded to in the aforementioned brief biographies and (if you have some familiarity with Bronte’s life) can be inferred as you read Jane Eyre.

II. Other literature and ideas of the time period in relation to the novel

Question: How is Jane Eyre related to other works literature written in English during the nineteenth century? In what ways does Bronte’s Jane Eyre share characteristics with Romantic, Gothic, and Victorian literature and in what ways does the novel deviate from other literature of the time?How is Jane Eyre related to social and political concerns in England during the mid-nineteenth century?

Contextual Information:

Here is some background on nineteenth century English-language literature that we can apply to Jane Eyre.

Romantic Era in English-Language Literature

(around 1770 to around 1870)

Historical Context

“…the Romantic period, beginning in 1798, the year of the first edition of Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge and of the composition of Hymns to the Night by Novalis, and ending in 1832, the year which marked the deaths of both Sir Walter Scott and Goethe. However, as an international movement affecting all the arts, Romanticism begins at least in the 1770's and continues into the second half of the nineteenth century, later for American literature than for European, and later in some of the arts, like music and painting, than in literature. This extended chronological spectrum (1770-1870) also permits recognition as Romantic the poetry of Robert Burns and William Blake in England, the early writings of Goethe and Schiller in Germany, and the great period of influence for Rousseau's writings throughout Europe.

The early Romantic period thus coincides with what is often called the "age of revolutions"--including, of course, the American (1776) and the French (1789) revolutions--an age of upheavals in political, economic, and social traditions, the age which witnessed the initial transformations of the Industrial Revolution. A revolutionary energy was also at the core of Romanticism, which quite consciously set out to transform not only the theory and practice of poetry (and all art), but the very way we perceive the world. Some of its major precepts have survived into the twentieth century and still affect our contemporary period.”

Imagination

“The imagination was elevated to a position as the supreme faculty of the mind. This contrasted distinctly with the traditional arguments for the supremacy of reason. The Romantics tended to define and to present the imagination as our ultimate "shaping" or creative power, the approximate human equivalent of the creative powers of nature or even deity….Imagination is the primary faculty for creating all art. On a broader scale, it is also the faculty that helps humans to constitute reality, for (as Wordsworth suggested), we not only perceive the world around us, but also in part create it. Uniting both reason and feeling (Coleridge described it with the paradoxical phrase, "intellectual intuition"), imagination is extolled as the ultimate synthesizing faculty…Finally, imagination is inextricably bound up with the other two major concepts, for it is presumed to be the faculty which enables us to "read" nature as a system of symbols.”

Nature

“While particular perspectives with regard to nature varied considerably--nature as a healing power, nature as a source of subject and image, nature as a refuge from the artificial constructs of civilization, including artificial language--the prevailing views accorded nature the status of an organically unified whole. It was viewed as "organic," rather than, as in the scientific or rationalist view, as a system of "mechanical" laws, for Romanticism displaced the rationalist view of the universe as a machine (e.g., the deistic image of a clock) with the analogue of an "organic" image, a living tree or mankind itself…Romantic nature poetry is essentially a poetry of meditation.”

Emotion & the Self

“Other aspects of Romanticism were intertwined with the above three concepts. Emphasis on the activity of the imagination was accompanied by greater emphasis on the importance of intuition, instincts, and feelings, and Romantics generally called for greater attention to the emotions as a necessary supplement to purely logical reason. When this emphasis was applied to the creation of poetry, a very important shift of focus occurred. Wordsworth's definition of all good poetry as "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings" marks a turning point in literary history. By locating the ultimate source of poetry in the individual artist, the tradition, stretching back to the ancients, of valuing art primarily for its ability to imitate human life (that is, for its mimetic qualities) was reversed. In Romantic theory, art was valuable not so much as a mirror of the external world, but as a source of illumination of the world within. Among other things, this led to a prominence for first-person lyric poetry never accorded it in any previous period. The "poetic speaker" became less a persona and more the direct person of the poet. Wordsworth's Prelude and Whitman's "Song of Myself" are both paradigms of successful experiments to take the growth of the poet's mind (the development of self) as subject for an "epic" enterprise made up of lyric components. Confessional prose narratives such as Goethe's Sorrows of Young Werther (1774) and Chateaubriand's Rene (1801), as well as disguised autobiographical verse narratives such as Byron's Childe Harold (1818), are related phenomena. The interior journey and the development of the self recurred everywhere as subject material for the Romantic artist. The artist-as-hero is a specifically Romantic type.”

The Romantic Hero {"Byronic Hero"}

The Romantics asserted the importance of the individual, the unique, even the eccentric….The hero-artist has already been mentioned; there were also heaven-storming types from Prometheus to Captain Ahab, outcasts from Cain to the Ancient Mariner and even Hester Prynne, and there was Faust, who wins salvation in Goethe's great drama for the very reasons--his characteristic striving for the unattainable beyond the morally permitted and his insatiable thirst for activity--that earlier had been viewed as the components of his tragic sin. (It was in fact Shelley's opinion that Satan, in his noble defiance, was the real hero of Milton's Paradise Lost.)

In style, the Romantics preferred boldness over the preceding age's desire for restraint, maximum suggestiveness over the neoclassical ideal of clarity, free experimentation over the "rules" of composition, genre, and decorum, and they promoted the conception of the artist as "inspired" creator over that of the artist as "maker" or technical master….Although interest in religion and in the powers of faith were prominent during the Romantic period, the Romantics generally rejected absolute systems, whether of philosophy or religion, in favor of the idea that each person (and humankind collectively) must create the system by which to live.

The Commonplace & the Alien

The attitude of many of the Romantics to the everyday, social world around them was complex. It is true that they advanced certain realistic techniques, such as the use of "local color" (through down-to-earth characters, like Wordsworth's rustics, or through everyday language, as in Emily Bronte's northern dialects or Whitman's colloquialisms, or through popular literary forms, such as folk narratives). Yet social realism was usually subordinate to imaginative suggestion, and what was most important were the ideals suggested by the above examples, simplicity perhaps, or innocence. Earlier, the 18th-century cult of the noble savage had promoted similar ideals, but now artists often turned for their symbols to domestic rather than exotic sources--to folk legends and older, "unsophisticated" art forms, such as the ballad, to contemporary country folk who used "the language of commen men," not an artificial "poetic diction," and to children (for the first time presented as individuals, and often idealized as sources of greater wisdom than adults).

Simultaneously, as opposed to everyday subjects, various forms of the exotic in time and/or place also gained favor, for the Romantics were also fascinated with realms of existence that were, by definition, prior to or opposed to the ordered conceptions of "objective" reason….

In the Lyrical Ballads… Wordsworth and Coleridge agreed to divide their labors according to two subject areas, the natural and the supernatural: Wordsworth would try to exhibit the novelty in what was all too familiar, while Coleridge would try to show in the supernatural what was psychologically real, both aiming to dislodge vision from the "lethargy of custom."

The Romantic (Hero) & Society

In another way too, the Romantics were ambivalent toward the "real" social world around them. They were often politically and socially involved, but at the same time they began to distance themselves from the public. As noted earlier, high Romantic artists interpreted things through their own emotions, and these emotions included social and political consciousness--as one would expect in a period of revolution, one that reacted so strongly to oppression and injustice in the world. So artists sometimes took public stands, or wrote works with socially or politically oriented subject matter. Yet at the same time, another trend began to emerge, as they withdrew more and more from what they saw as the confining boundaries of bourgeois life. In their private lives, they often asserted their individuality and differences in ways that were to the middle class a subject of intense interest, but also sometimes of horror….Unfortunately, in many ways, this distance between artist and public remains with us today.

http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/cs6/rom.html

Adapted from an adaptation of A Guide to the Study of Literature: A Companion Text for Core Studies 6, Landmarks of Literature, ©English Department, Brooklyn College.

Gothicism

1764 to 1820+

The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole was published in 1764; the publication of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus was first published in 1818 (though a revised edition was published years later) and Charles Maturin's Melmoth the Wanderer was published in 1820.

But its influence can be seen throughout “Romanticism” in England and the United Stated and into the literature of the present day.

History and Defining Characteristics

The Gothic begins with later-eighteenth-century writers' turn to the past; in the context of the Romantic period, the Gothic is, then, a type of imitation medievalism. When it was launched in the later eighteenth century, The Gothic featured accounts of terrifying experiences in ancient castles — experiences connected with subterranean dungeons, secret passageways, flickering lamps, screams, moans, bloody hands, ghosts, graveyards, and the rest….By extension, it came to designate the macabre, mysterious, fantastic, supernatural, and, again, the terrifying, especially the pleasurably terrifying, in literature more generally.

Closer to the present, one sees the Gothic pervading Victorian literature (for example, in the novels of Dickens and the Brontës), American fiction (from Poe and Hawthorne through Faulkner), and of course the films, television, and videos of our own (in this respect, not-so-modern) culture.

…

Influence on later literature

More pervasive signs of Gothic influence show up in some of the most frequently read Romantic poems — for example, the account of the skeleton ship and the crew's reaction ("A flash of joy . . . And horror follows") in Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (NAEL 8, 2.430)

The Norton Anthology of English Literature: Norton Topics Online

http://www.wwnorton.com/college/english/nael/romantic/topic_2/welcome.htm

More

More information about relevant gender issues, literary connections, political context, social context, religious context, scientific context, biographical context can be found here (http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/bronte/cbronte/eyreov.html).

Victorianism

“For much of the last century the term Victorian, which literally describes things and events in the reign of Queen Victoria (1837-1901), conveyed connotations of "prudish," "repressed," and "old fashioned." Although such associations have some basis in fact, they do not adequately indicate the nature of this complex, paradoxical age that was a second English Renaissance. Like Elizabethan England, Victorian England saw great expansion of wealth, power, and culture. (What Victorian literary form do you think parallels Elizabethan drama in terms of both popularity and literary achievement?)”

…

“More than anything else what makes Victorians Victorian is their sense of social responsibility, a basic attitude that obviously differentiates them from their immediate predecessors, the Romantics. Tennyson might go to Spain to help the insurgents, as Byron had gone to Greece and Wordsworth to France; but Tennyson also urged the necessity of educating "the poor man before making him our master." Matthew Arnold might say at mid-century that

the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain.

but he refused to reprint his poem "Empedocles on Etna," in which the Greek philosopher throws himself into the volcano, because it set a bad example; and he criticized an Anglican bishop who pointed out mathematical inconsistencies in the Bible not on the grounds that he was wrong, but that for a bishop to point these things out to the general public was irresponsible.”

George P. Landow, Professor of English and the History of Art, Brown University

http://www.victorianweb.org/vn/victor4.html

Session #4: Wide Sargasso Sea

1. I began session #4 by asking if any of you had questions about the Invisible Man web assignment. Then I framed our discussion of Wide Sargasso Sea with the following questions: how does the way the book is written -- with two different very subjective, sometimes contradictory, often ambiguous narrators -- affect the reader's experience of the book and the meaning the reader makes while reading? & speaking of meaning, what does the book suggest about the relationship between identity formation and one's family and cultural experiences? We spent most of the rest of the session exploring these questions through the lens of quotations you pulled out of the book. Along the way we also explored possible comparisons with identity formation and environment in Invisible Man and other books and films. In the end we developed an assignment to show our understanding of the meaningful similarities and differences between Invisible Man and Wide Sargasso Sea.

2. Post-session assignment: Write a sentence or two expressing five meaningful, insightful, supportable ways that IM and WSS are similar and/or different.

Examples that do not meet expectations for the college level:
In both books the narrators move from one place to another.

In both books the narrators are secluded.

In both books the authors refer to dreams.

Examples that do meet expectations for the college-level:

Although the narrators in both novels move from home (the American South for the Invisible Man and the Caribbean for Antoinette) to a strange new place (New York for the Invisible Man and England for Antoinette), the Invisible Man is ultimately able to understand himself in relationship to his environment whereas Antoinette is never able to construct a new identity that can function successfully in her new environment.

Or,
The Invisible Man chooses seclusion in his apartment whereas Antoinette is forced into seclusion. The Invisible Man is therefore free to use his chosen seclusion to better understand himself in relation to society, and then free to choose when to re-enter society, whereas Antoinette is imprisoned in a dream-like, distorted reality from which she can only break free with self-destructive violence.

Or,
Jean Rhys and Ralph Ellison both construct real scenes that are experienced by the protagonist as dreams in order to expose the absurdity of the world's in which the protagonist's must live. In both novels the absurdity raises the question: is it the protagonists who are insane or is it the environments that are insane?

Your five statements will be due by Thursday, September 2. That next week we will, in class, begin constructing giant Venn diagrams out of your statements.

3. Reminders: as part of the school-wide summer reading program, you need to complete a quotation response journal on something else -- anything else -- that you have read this summer. Have fun with this. I am not grading this assignment; I will simply make sure you have met the basic requirements. If you turn write down ten quotations with ten responses of several sentences each you will get full credit.

Check the side bar of this blog for all the assignments.
You will receive a zero for any summer work that is not turned in by the end of the school day on Thursday, September 2. (For very practical purposes I need to have it all before the Labor Day weekend so I have a chance to look at it all and organize it all before the real onslaught of the school year begins after Labor Day.)

Session #3: Invisible Man (chapter 12 through Epilogue)

1. In Monday's session (August 2) we used the time to explore how scenes, events, motifs, characters, etc. from the first half of the novel related to those in the second half of the novel.

We began this process by discussing what we considered to be thematically important episodes from the prologue through chapter 11. I wrote these episodes on the board, including the events, characters, setting, images, and sometimes allusions associated with the episode; though we discussed a lot more than I was able to write down.

We then discussed what we considered to be thematically important episode from chapter 12 through the prologue. As with the first part of the session, I wrote these episodes on the board, including the events, characters, setting, images, and sometimes allusions associated with the episode; once again we discussed a lot more than I was able to write down.

Along the way I began drawing lines connecting the various episodes. We connected similar characters. We connected episodes that repeated certain images -- eyes, for example -- and other motifs -- boxing, for example.

Finally and most importantly we kept asking, what does it all mean? How does Ellison use the individual episodes and the connections between them to suggest something about the relationship between identity and environment?

2. A Part-to-Whole Web (a.k.a. mind map) (instead of an essay) THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT!

The Process and the Question
In the last part of class we devised an assignment that addressed my question: what could each of you do to show that you understand how the parts contribute to a whole? How can you show that Ellison's choices as a writer (the parts) -- his choice of individual events, of the order of events, of the (sometimes strange) descriptions and details, of the repeated images, of the characters and characterization, etc. -- fit together to suggest something about how a person might grow and change in response to experiences within social environments (the whole)?

The Web, part one: the center
We decided that each student would make a web. At the center of the web will be a robust paragraph (100 words to 300 words or so), explaining in your own words, you understanding of what Ellison's novel is all about. What exactly do you think he is suggesting in the novel?

(Hint: think about the dynamic (i.e. changing, developing) relationship between identity and environment in the novel. Think about influence. Think about choice. Think about innocence (naivete, ignorance, blindness) and experience (knowledge, understanding, insight). Think about responsibility and irresponsibility.)

This "introductory" paragraph will explain your "big idea," your "bold, insightful assertion" about the novel's meaning. Spend some time with this. The GHS schoolwide rubric says that in order for such paragraphs to be considered proficient they must be clear, supportable, debatable, and insightful; the ones that are advanced will also be sophisticated and/or original . (Warning: Do not turn to the internet looking for an answer. Those of you who have attend sessions know that I read these and even know a few that most of you do not know. Rely on your own interpretive skills, your own heart and mind. However for those of you who missed the class sessions. You might go to this well-made video introduction to help you start thinking about some of the big questions raised by the book.)

The Web, part two: the threads
Then you will connect the central paragraph to interpretations of how at least four passages in the novel support your "big idea," your "bold assertion," your "central insight". The passages you choose must adequately represent the whole of the protagonist's journey from the pre-college fight & speech to college to his early days in New York to the Brotherhood to his underground existence in an apartment on the outskirts of Harlem. (Let me make it clear that four is a minimum and to create a thoroughly convincing web you might need to refer to more passages.)

These "interpretations" need to show two things: an understanding of the passage itself and an understanding of the connection between the passage and the "big idea". How you show your understanding of the passage and your understanding of its connection with the "big idea" is up to you.

To show your understanding of a passage what will you do? Will you write a paragraph (in the manner of a standard essay) explaining how the passage supports the central paragraph? Will you quote the passage in one font and offer an explication (an unfolding of meaning) in relation to your big idea by using another font? Will you create a picture that shows an understanding of the passage (and its relationship with the central paragraph)? Will this picture show symbolic understanding as well as literal understanding of the passage?

To show the connections what will you do? Will you draw lines? Will each connecting line include a sentence linking the passage with the big idea? Will you use a "footnote" or "endnote" system in which you put numbers in your central paragraph that will lead to numbers which offer explanations of how passages support the central paragraph? Will you create Powerpoint slides to show connections?

And, finally, will you go beyond? Will you show not only how the big idea is connected with passages but also how the passages are connected with each other? What else might you do to show the relationship between the parts of the novel and your understanding of the whole?

Note:

I know some of you are thinking, just tell me what to do! This is too vague.

My response is this: part of AP English Lit & Comp is learning how to be a critical and creative independent reader and writer. I want you to show me that you don't need to be led by the hand but can come up with appropriate, innovative solutions to challenges. In this case I've given you a few parameters (write a central assertion of a, connect that central assertion to an understanding of at least four passages). I've given you some examples of how you might complete the assignment. I've left the rest up to you.

The Web, part three: teaching your peers
You will be creating a physical object -- a web -- and you will be called upon to explain the web at some point during the first several days of the school year.

Due Dates
The physical "web" in whatever form you create is due the first day of class (8/30).
The "teaching your peers" part of the assignment will take place during the first several days of class in the fall.

Grading
Advanced webs will offer an insightful, sophisticated, perhaps original understanding of the novel as a whole. This overall understanding will be linked to persuasive, nuanced understanding and interpretation of how at least four passages drawn from key moments throughout the novel support the understanding of the whole. These webs may go "beyond" the parameters of the assignment in some significant, meaningful way.

Proficient webs will offer a clear, thoughtful, plausible, understanding of the novel as a whole. This overall understanding will be linked to an adequate understanding and interpretation of how at least four passages from the beginning, middle, and end of the novel contribute to the whole. The webs are generally considered to have succeeded in fulfilling the assignment but not to have exceeded expectations for a student entering an introductory college-level course at a competitive college or university.

Webs that need improvement may not offer a clear or plausible understanding of the novel as a whole. The central paragraph may point out themes but may not offer interpretation or insight as to the meaning of the themes in the novel. These webs refer to at least four passages but may not adequately show an understanding of the passage or of how the passage contributes to the work as a whole. The understanding and connection of some passages may be effective The passages may not be drawn from the beginning, middle, and end of the novel. In general these webs do not meet the expectations for a student entering an introductory college-level course at a competitive college or university.

Webs that receive warning status may include the weaknesses cited above but also fail to adhere to the basic parameters of the assignment. They may show little to no understanding of the novel or of the passages.

Any web that includes language or material taken directly from another source will receive a zero.


3. Complete a quotation response journal (10+ quotations and responses) for Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys before the next session (August 16). (Note: I decided not to assign supplementary readings until after the final session.)

Here's a list of the work already due:

1. Invisible Cities quotation response journal (due July 6)
2. Invisible Cities "quotation" essay (due July 19)
3. Response to choice of AP Summer Anthology readings for Invisible Cities (due in the 7/6 comment box by July 12)

4. Invisible Man (Prologue through chapter 11) quotation response journal (due July 19)
5. Invisible Man (Prologue through chapter 11) part to the whole essay (due in the 7/19 comment box by August 2 if you did not attend session 2 or 3)
6. Invisible Man (chapter 12 through Epilogue) quotation response journal (due August 2)

Here's a list of currently assigned work:
7. Invisible Man Parts to Whole Web (due first day of class August 31)
8. Wide Sargasso Sea quotation response journal (due at or by session #4 August 16)

Summer work to come:
9. Wide Sargasso Sea: post-session work
10. Response to AP Summer Anthology Readings for Invisible Man/Wide Sargasso Sea (bildungsromans)

Session #2: Invisible Man (Prologue through chapter 11)

1. During today's session we started by discussing lingering questions from Invisible Cities and the other readings, which led into a discussion of how American history is used in Invisible Man. The main focus of the session was a careful, thoughtful, detailed, and wide-ranging exploration of the influence of environmental conditions on the formation of individual consciousness (the self). We talked specifically about how the plot structure of Invisible Man shapes the readers perception of events as they unfold -- encouraging the reader to ask, how do these events and circumstances contribute to changes in the protagonist? And what are the larger implications (for the reader, for Americans, for all people) of the Invisible Man's experiences and developing consciousness? We were especially interested in seeing the book as a commentary on different kinds of power, different kinds of understanding.

We deeply considered the symbolic nature of the book. We found it productive to treat the descriptions and events as the book as both real, actual events and as suggestive of "deeper" meanings. To this end we talked about W.E.B. DuBois (double consciousness), Booker T. Washington ("separate as the five fingers") Freud (id, ego, superego), Jung (hero's quest archetype), Hegel (thesis, anti-thesis, synthesis, and the telos of history), Marx (shedding particulars of race and nation to join proletariat, dictatorship of the proletariat), and David Chappelle in relation to Ellison's choices about characters, descriptions, scenes. We talked about the significance of names. We talked about the literal and figurative meanings of power, of light, of invisibility, of sight, of blueprints, of jazz, of dreams, of food, etc. We tried to connect each element we analyzed to our developing, evolving sense of the meaning of the work as a whole.

If you were not at today's session I would like you to participate in the discussion begun in class by fully exploring how one element in the text -- a motif such as violence, sexuality, dreams, food, oration, music, etc.; a minor character such as the Norton, the vet, Reverend Barbee, Mr. Emerson's son, Brockway, etc.; a scene such as Trueblood's story, the Golden Day episode, the paint factory explosion -- contributes to what Ralph Ellison seems to suggest about the relationship between Invisible Man's environment and his consciousness (his sense of self and sense of his place in the world).

Paste your response -- a one-draft essay -- in the comment box. (If it's long you might need to cut it into two posts.) Before writing your response read what is already in the comment box (if anything) to avoid merely repeating what someone else has already written, though you can expand upon or respond to what someone else has already written so long as you contribute something new. The responses should probably be at least 500 words long. Complete this part-to-whole essay before the next session (August 2).

2. Don't forget to complete the blog comment assignment and the essay assignment from the first session. (These should be done already but you haven't completed these assignments do so now.) Go here for details. (So far you should have completed a quotation response journal for Invisible Cities, a blog post in response to the relationship between Invisible Cities and a supplemental poem or short story, an essay relating a quotation from Invisible Cities to the work as a whole, and a quotation response journal for the first 250 pages of Invisible Man.

3. Complete a quotation response journal (10+ quotations and responses) for chapters 12 through the Epilogue of Invisible Man before the next session (August 2). (Note: I decided not to assign supplementary readings until we finish all of Invisible Man.)

Session #1: Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino (July 6, 2010)

1. During today's session we started off with an activity designed both to get us thinking about our relationship to the invisible cities and thinking about each other. Each student chose a city s/he would most like to visit and one s/he would most like to live in. Esmerelda was by far the most popular city. (I wonder what that suggests about us. Leonia, Sophronia, and Veldrada also showed up more than once. I'm still curious about Veldrada...)

2. Then after a break I introduced the central questions of AP Eng. Lit., which are "How do the parts of a work of literature contribute to the whole?" and "How does the way the work of literature is written contribute to its meaning (i.e. the development of themes)?

So we explored themes and related them to parts (often the quotations you selected in quotation response journals). We talked about the ambiguous nature of language (to what degree do gestures/words/signs/symbols really -- or clearly -- embody/mean the things/ideas/experiences they are supposed to represent); the paradoxical nature of existence (the proximity of death makes one feel most alive, etc.); the relationship between existence and imagination, the relationship between subjective reality (one's mind with its perceptions, imaginings, memories, dreams, desires, beliefs) and objective reality (i.e. the material world); the inevitability of collapse, death, decay, nothingness, non-being and what to do in response to that inevitability: what do the people in the cities do? what does Khan do? Polo? our civilization? you?

The most important thing we started do was relating big ideas to particulars. We honed the ideas as we tested them against the particulars. As we looked at particulars in the light of the ideas the particulars became more filled with meaning.

3. Then together we wrote a prompt which you will respond to by the next meeting (Monday, July 19):

Choose a passage (a quotation) from Invisible Cities. Analyze how the passage (quotation) is significant (or meaningful) in the work as a whole. Use at least two cities to develop your analysis. In other words, draw your supporting evidence from at least two cities. Your response shouldn't be shorter than, say, 500 words. It also shouldn't be longer than, say, a thousand words.

4. Then I introduced the other post-session assignment. Read one of the following works of literature. (Click on the link to read the story or poem.)

Readings to accompany Invisible Cities

“Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius,” Jorge Luis Borges (short story)

“The Library of Babel,” Jorge Luis Borges (translation James E. Irby) (short story)

“The Continuity of Parks,” Julio Cortazar (For the original Spanish version go here.) (short story)

“Ithaka, “The City,” or “Waiting for the Barbarians,” C.P. Cavafy (poems)

In the comment box below write a response (300 words or so) to the piece you read. Make some connection (similarities and/or contrasts in themes, imagery, characters, events, writing style, narration) with Invisible Cities. (There are many possible connections.) I encourage to also respond to what your peers have written whether they've written on the same story/poem or not. (Remember to write your first name and last initial as well as the title of the piece you plan to write about at the beginning of the post.) Make sure you comment by the end of the day next Monday (July 12).

5. Then (as we wilted in the heat) I said a few words about Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison. We're going to read the first eleven chapters of this novel before next session. The central question here is how does a person (with a full, rich, thoughtful, emotional, attentive consciousness) come to understand herself/himself and her/his environment (especially when, inevitably, the self and the environment are at odds). This is perhaps the number one question for any thoughtful young person (like you). And this is what Invisible Man is all about. Keep this in mind when reading and working on your quotation response journal. (Here you'll find a list of motifs to pay attention to as you read. Of course, if you're actively reading, you'll probably start to notice these yourself.)