“For those who believe in God, most of the big questions are answered. But for those of us who can't readily accept the God formula, the big answers don't remain stone-written. We adjust to new conditions and discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not be a command nor faith a dictum. I am my own god. We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state, and our educational system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.”
Today we will finish "The Hunting of the Snark," by Lewis Carroll and associated readings and then on to the short prose stories by Guy de Maupassant and Charles Bukowski, with the focus on childhood, adolescence . . . growing up. "The White Heron," by Sarah Orne Jewett is another that, like the first two, takes as its subject childhood and growing up, its pains, particular burdens and joys, family, social isolation, and the role of authority, often male-identified, in the protagonist's life. All are stories of initiation into experience and knowledge of one sort or another. The Confessions, by St. Augustine, is the oldest complete autobiographical work we have and describes somewhat the author's religious conversion and confessions of sin and guilt. He is at pains to show to God and man how he has learned to see God's just and guiding hand in his life, even in those times his life was given over to what he calls wickedness. We may read excerpts; the full text is available at http://www.online-literature.com/saint-augustine/confessions-of-saint-augustine/.
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In Charles Bukowski's “Son of Satan,” a semi-autobiographical account, the author tells how a group of boys alleviate the boredom of day in the suburbs by torturing an erstwhile playmate, Simpson, a kid rather quiet, different, the narrator says, perhaps simply weaker than they in some way, “a loner. Probably lonely.” Not so different in fact, we can imagine. But the narrator takes his offhand boast of having lain with a girl under the narrator’s house as a challenge, territorial perhaps, though they know in all likelihood it was just a boast, “a lie” Simpson had come up with in hearing them talk of such things. After a brief “trial” they hang him from his porch.
Before Simpson comes to serious bodily harm, the narrator cuts him down, and then the narrator goes for a long walk, feeling lost, “vacant” and somewhat remorseful. His shoes are thin and “hurt [his] feet.” When he says that the “nails started coming through the soles,” we might imagine the story of Christ, whose feet were nailed to a cross. When he gets home his father is waiting for him, and he wants answers. But the boy, perhaps unable to explain, and afraid, chooses instead to fight his angry father, who for all he knows, might kill him. In the end, the boy is hiding under the bed, hoping to elude the big man’s grasp, waiting.
The power and influence of parents and other authority figures is something we contend with throughout our lives as we come into our own. The story, to me, illustrates something of the cruelty, suffering, and longing for relief that mark a human life. The narrator is coming to terms with these experiences in the only way he knows. The fight between him and his father, their coming to blows, appears a crucial departure in his young life.
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Topic suggestions:
the poem as symbol or allegory of imagination and its powers
Homework: Poetry Essay #2, due week 5: Compose a short essay of 250-350 (three paragraphs ought to do it) words on a poem from the handout. Introduce the subject piece by title and author, describe briefly what the poem is about, its form (free verse or rhymed, stanza type and number), and proceed to your thesis idea, which is an arguable claim, an interpretative claim/opinion you have arrived at after consideration of the text’s structure and sense. Support or prove your thesis idea in the body paragraph(s) by reference to specific lines and words in the poem text and explanation of their meaning. Provide a brief conclusion that underscores your central focus and point.
Integrate short quotations (less than four lines) into the text with quotation marks and slashes to indicate line breaks. Quotations of 4 and more lines should be block formatted. Remember, all use of original wording should be enclosed in quotation marks or otherwise indicated as original source material. Title your essay (do not use the poetry title in the essay title unless a subtitle is also present). Double‐space the lines. Bring the printed copy to class week 4, or email it to ndoyle@aii.edu if you cannot be in class to submit it.
Topic suggestions:
the poem as symbol or allegory of imagination and its powers
the poem as meditation on nature's shows
the theme of life's progression– childhood, adolescence, maturity
the theme of life's progression– childhood, adolescence, maturity
the uses of allusion –mythological, biblical, historical– in poetry
A Guide to the Study of Literature: Explore the pages and links at the site below, where you will find helpful introductory material and insightful essays and responses to the themes and topics readers have discovered in literature.
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