June 15, The Man Who was Almsot a Man

1. What does manhood seem to mean to Dave? How does he define being a man? it means that he could feel strong and have self-esteem. He defines it as being or feeling powerful.
2. What are the effect of dialogue, limited point of view, dialect, and setting? What about the switches between dialect throughout (especially in the contrast between an external narrator and Dave's perspective)? It's difficult to read, but it feels authentic. it puts you in the right time and place. The narrator switch, added a feeling of depth into the mind of the charachter, and insight into the scene. It also gave some relief in the difficult reading of the southern dialect.
3. Re-read the final section of the story, starting at the break on page 1617. What do you notice in Wright's diction and syntax here? Based on the final few paragraphs, what do you expect in his future? i don't notice anything about his diction and syntax that stands out. I expect that the boy is going to get himself into a lot of trouble.
4. What conflicts does Dave face in the story? How does he handle the conflicts? Inner conflict, conflict with both his parents, and with Mr. Hawkins.
5. How does the tradition of gun ownership factor into the story? What about Dave's situation seems to support his desire for a gun? Why do you think Dave wants a gun so much? Well, it wasn't out of the question for a man to eventually buy a gun. he wanted the gun because it woudl make him feel powerful. In his situation, as young black southern male, he was naturally in a powerless situation.

Authors Note

This may seem strange, but I really didn't have more than one draft. I dreamed up the idea the night before the first blog was due. Saturday night, after work, I sat down and typed it up. I fell asleep and finished typing it on Sunday. The story came out straight, as it is. Sunday, I had questions about how much I needed to blatenatly say, "this part right here... this is irony, and this part here..." I decided to insert some of that, but left some of it to be understood, especially in parts that were just obviously the stylistic devices that they were.

I didn't have much to offer as far as drafts go. I only wrote one draft. I went in this morning and added the meanings of the Nigerian names of each charachter, and touched up some grammatical errors. That's it..

I'm worried that I may not have made enough reference to the original story. I feel that I used and discussed the elements that are important to my film, but I wonder if April wanted to see more of the original in the new.

June 12, Paul's Case

1. After you have finished reading, consider the opening two paragraphs of the story (on p. 235) in the same close reading manner we have used in class this week. What words does Cather use to describe Paul, the setting, the situation, etc? What is significant about that word choice? Paul was suave and smiling, his clothes, slightly outgrown, tan velvet overcoat collar, frayed and warn. He was somewhat of a dandy. This description pretty much characterizes Paul. A boy of meager means who still makes a show of it. The red carnations in his buttonhole, foreshadow the final scene of the story. The second paragraph describes his physical characteristics. Her description of him as abnormally tall and thin with high cramped shoulders, and a narrow chest. This alludes to his trait of insecurity. His abnormally large pupils and hysterically brilliant, glassy eyes give the image of a boy somewhat intoxicated with life. You definitely want to know more about who this boy is.
   

1. After his hearing at the school, Paul's feelings greatly differ from those of his teachers. Contrast Paul's attitude with that of his teachers after the interview is over. How do they feel? How does he feel? They felt haunted by their extreme distaste for the boy, they really felt that there was something just not right about him. They were genuinely concerned for him, I thought. Paul seemed almost indifferent to the whole matter. He was ready to get on with his night. He really only had the theater in mind.
   

1. What do you think it is about Paul's job at Carnegie Hall that completely changes his attitude about life? That he sees a world that seems to float above worldly concern. Without a mother, he has never felt that he belonged to his normal life, as it was. I think that in the soloist he sees the ideal of his mother.
   

1. Consider the description of Paul's bedroom (on p. 239) through a close reading. What here is significant about the room? about Paul? That it was such a normal room, and a part of that normal room was an embroidering done by his mother. I think the absence of his mother in his life made him feel disconnected from all things normal.

1. Why do you think Paul decides to steal the money and flee town? What is the final cause in this situation? He had a since of desperation. They had taken away the one thing he loved, and he was basically dead to himself without it. The intoxication of that world had replaced his mother, and his life, as he felt it, was there. A world without that was not worth living.
   

1. What is different for Paul in New York City? Why do you think he likes it so much there? He didn't have to pretend and lie to anyone about who he was. He didn't have to try and stand out to be different, to not be normal. He could put on his dandy garb and fall in with his people. It was, to him, the ultimate place for human fulfillment.
   

1. After what he learned from the newspaper, Paul made a decision about what to do. Why do you think he chose this? Instead of being arrested, what was going to happen to Paul if he were taken back to Pittsburgh? Why did he consider this "worse than jail"? He was going to become a special case for all of the do-gooders who wanted to help him to acclimate to beinga normal boy. They were basically going to take his "self" away.
   

• Vassar College professor and author Paul Russell has written:
  

  "Paul's Case" [is] a story often taught in American...schools as the tale of a sensitive, artistic young man who flees the constrictions of provincial life in order to experience in New York city all his pent-up aesthetic longings for art, beauty, and the artificial world of the theatre. But closer inspection reveals Paul to be steeped in the coded signs of the homosexual, from his red carnation to his apparent fling with a wild boy from San Francisco. … Cather herself would define as one of the principal qualities of her fiction "the inexplicable presence of the thing not named."

  1. Where are some of the other signs in the story, besides the ones Russell has written above, that Paul's "case" is that of having a minority sexual orientation, or at least exhibiting gender non-conformity? Think about the words Cather uses to describe Paul's actions, thoughts and personality. I had that exact thought! That helps explain why the traditional ideal of manly success did not appeal to him at all. It could explain his unusal artisic aethetic. His love of flowers. I'm sure there's more..

June 11, Intervention

1. So far in our discussion of families, we've focused on the conflict between different generations, between parents and children. These two stories focus on the relationships within the generations (siblings, married parents, etc.). How does this additional focus complicate the stories? How does it impact the plot and the conflict? It makes the plot more complicated, multi-dimensional.
   

1. Why did you choose the story you chose? What about it appealed to you as a reader? I like McCorkle's down to earth voice. I can relate to her easy approach to life. I also can relate to the story in many ways.

1. In "Intervention," the word enabler is used several times and is a word we hear used in different but powerful ways in our culture. What are the meanings of enabler in the story? Or who/what are enablers? Is it a negative or positive thing in the story? It's considered a negative thing in this story. An enabler, in this story, is someone who makes it easier, either wittingly or unwittingly, for an alcoholic to drink, hide, and justify their addiction. Marylin was Sid's enabler.
   

June 10, Movie Plans

I plan to use the story, Everyday Use. I'm thinking of keeping the name, but that might change as the story develops in my mind.

The setting will be a mid to early 20th century Nigerian village. We will get to know the way of life of the village, and many of its characters. I will also develop the setting of "Dee's" school, which will be a British run boarding school for bright negro children in the area. The school will serve as a prep. school for possible further education in Britain. At this school she will meet her boyfriend, who is from a wealthy Nigerian family from the city. His father works in government. I will use the city, government buildings, and his home as well.

The plot has various types of conflict. The Dee grows to find her mother, sister and father to be backward after living at the boarding school and learning the modern ways of the British. Her Boyfriend is a bright and promising student who wants to study theology and philosophy at Oxford. He's a devout Christian, and Dee becomes a convert. There's conflict between Dee and her family about her judgment of their religious views. Dee's father is part of a village revolt against the British oil companies that are taking property, violently handling the locals, and not paying the people for the oil they take from their lands. The government is helping the oil companies, and the boyfrined's father is a culprit. A relationship develops between Dee's father and the boyfriend. There is conflict over the traditional way to handle conflict, and the boyfriend's ideas of peaceful resistance, but ultimately they're on the same side of this conflict creating conflict between the bf and his rich father.

The society is dealing with the idea of educating their children in the only schools available, knowing that the British run schools are brainwashing their children and turning them away from their traditional ways, even spiritual. The villagers are dealing with oppression from the gov. and the oil industry in the region. They are left with no choice but to fight back.

Dee and her boyfriend, both have to deal with issues of self identity. They both struggle with the uncertainty of where they belong in the world, and what exactly that world is.

The irony in the story is that even though the bf's message is accepted and the villagers attempt a peaceful revolt, the government, with orders from the oil company respond with brute force. many are killed, including Dee's father. The bf is wouded severely. Dee's mother uses her knowledge of traditional shamanic healing practices to nurse him to a complete recovery. During this healing process, he gets to know and understand that this quiet and "backward" mother, in all her simplicity, was actually a very spiritually evolved human being. He ends up marrying Dee, and they take in the mother and sister. They move to his large estate where the mother grows crops in a field and raises a herd of goats with the sister. The bf, challenges his father for his seat in gov. and wins. Though he espouses non-violence, it is his involvement and injury during the earlier revolts that makes him a warrior-like hero in the eyes of the people.

There will also be irony in that they will be forced to use the products of modernisation, while simultaneously recognising their exploitation. The bf, drives a car to go and protest the oil company. etc..

For symbolism, Dee and the boyfriend will pray every day before a large poster of a blonde, blue-eyed Jesus. Jesus will be holding a white lamb. I'll have to to think more about this area. I don't want to be too overt.

I'm also still shopping for actors. I would like to do an all african cast, but that would not sell well globally the way an Americn cast would. I think i might mix it up, introduce some new blood while paying the bills with the familiar faces.

June 9, GML, EU, Girl

1. As examples of generational conflict, how do these three stories present the different generations? the struggles within a family? In Gorilla, My Love, I saw the conflict as a matter of maturity. "Scout" was just a feisty little girl who didn't really understand the ways of adults the way she thought she did. In Everyday Use the conflict was between Wangero (Dee), who was more educated and exposed to the new social ideas of her time, and her mother and sister, Maggie, who still lived a simple country life. Girl expressed the struggle of a girl to assimilate the wisdom and the expectations of her mother. Do the points and messages of each story seem like ones that could apply to many families? Or do they seem too specific to apply to other experiences? I really feel that these stories all have a universal theme, even though they are based on a specific cultural experience. Every family could potentially deal with a precocious daughter, or an educated, liberated, pseudo-enlightned daughter. The theme in Girl feels especially universal. It's very common for a mother to attempt to pass down her wisdom to her daughter.
   

1. In each story, who do you side with? the older generation? the younger generation? a specific character? Why do you take the side of that person or group? In Gorilla, My Love I side with noone. I don't see that there's any side to take here. All of the charachters are just there to be understood. If I have to choose, I'll say Hunca Bubba. In Everyday use, I side with the mama. I lived in that world that Ms. Walker writes about, and I have, in my own way, been Wangero. As I matured, I grew to understand the selfish, self-righteous, insensitive arrogance that disguised itself as social evolution for what it really was. In Girl, I side with the mama, again. It's her duty to pass on the best of her wisdom to her daughter. Although, I get the feeling that the daughter feels over-whelmed by the onslaught of information, life itself has way more power to overwhelm you if you are not prepared by the wisdom of those who love you and have lived before you.
   

June 8, Minority Report

Blog Prompt

1. Share your choice of short story for the Film Adaptation Proposal essay from weeks 1, 2, and 3. Briefly explain your rationale for selecting that story. A Rose for Emily. I chose this one because the story is so tied to the cultural environment that any change in environment changes the story. I plan to experiment with time and location to see what twists i can throw into the story while still leaving the main theme intact.
   

Discussion Questions

1. What similarities and differences do you notice between the story and the film versions of "The Minority Report"?What is the effect of those differences for readers/viewers? Anderton was a young man, not old. this created room to make this a believable action movie. There was more background on the pre-cogs, and they were given more of a role in the story. This rounded out their characters more and gave the story more demension for the reader. Witwer's charachter had more initial authority. He also seemed more sinister, to me. I found it more believable that he would have set Anderton up. The old man was not General Kaplan, but the founder of Pre-crime.There was no civil war, and the world did not seem to be a wasteland. They were able to use more technological effects that would only belong in a well developed future.