Force, Enforce
"The Use of Force": Consider that the doctor’s anger is a result of the situation---the urgent need to get a diagnosis, the fear of the spreading disease (that impending “darkness” threatening the social order), his inability to control the situation. In part, this story dramatizes conventional assumptions about the patient-doctor relationship, and the breakdown of that relationship—more broadly, what happens when our expectations and understanding of the social order, and how certain kinds of social “transactions” operate, don’t function as expected? It may also be seen more broadly to be about power—what/who is given power/authority in society, and the other/underside of power (powerlessness), and how those relationships can reverse (note the doctor’ s feelings about the girl are ambivalent—she doesn’t play her “role” in the order of things as she should, but the doctor also admires her force of will). The doctor is ambivalent about his own position vis a vis above (as suggested), and the” use of force” in the story can be looked at from several angles—the girl as a vexing force (as noted above); we can say the doctor’s use of force is “reasonable,” given the circumstances and need to get a diagnosis (and note that he says he “could have” torn the girl apart—i.e., this is a figure of speech, not literal); yet, in the external conflict between doctor and patient, the narrator learns something disturbing about himself-- and here lies an internal conflict-- and, more broadly, about the underside of social order, the veneer of professionalism, etc; something perhaps darker about human nature….it is also about “science” combating “ignorance.” Some of these same themes and tensions can be traced in Williams’ poetry.
Review the sample essay, and my comments on that essay, from which many of the above comments were sourced.
A Worn Path
View the story as a kind of fictional "quest"--look up the "quest theme in literature" on Google, or just type "quest" in Wikipedia to get an overview of the quest theme, which should help frame the story, as Phoenix imagines herself, not consciously, to be on a "quest." If the protagonist does imagine herself to be on a quest, how might this help with her internal conflict--a disavowal of, or refusal to accept the fact that her grandson in no longer alive, and in any case a means of helping her deal with her loss, if not avoid completely confronting it. Lots of interesting image/symbol patterns in this story... see below
Again, when analyzing short stories, look for evidence of the main character's conflict, the terms of the conflict (often a combination of internal and external), and how the character changes as a result (change can be more or less subtle, and sometimes very subtle); theme is revealed though character interaction, dialogue and description; through elements of set, symbol (elements of set often take on symbolic value within a story), and a character's observations of these things. Third person narrators in short stories are often focused through a particular character. So, as in first person narration, it is up to readers not to mistake what narrators tell us for "objective" fact, but to take it as evidence revealing a particular character's conflicts, state of mind, etc. Some short stories do, however, have "omniscient" narrators, which readers can trust are giving us the "whole" story, i.e., letting us see what goes on the the minds of various characters, and not limiting perspective to only that character--"Story of an Hour" is an example....
In A Worn Path, though we see primarily through the eyes of the Phoenix, other elements of the story, such as passages of dialogue with other characters, allow us to see through/around her sense of things...
Here are SEVERAL SPECIFIC ASPECTS OF THE STORY TO CONSIDER (taken from my comment on a class blog post):
The opening description of the set and the the old woman herself are chock full of symbols--the color of the rag and the fact that it is a rag, the time of year--look for patterns and repetitions throughout the story, and contrasts--the descriptions of her cheeks in par. 2, her name, the time of year and description of the day in the first sentence....consider details of the path, the journey, the paper windmill...consider her own comments as she progresses on her journey and its symbolic value--the passage of thorns,then sun so high, then the "trial," and so on; consider the people she meets and their interactions, dialogue, etc. It's not just a "walk" for her, right, but a kind of quest? You see her weaving a fictional journey out of the realities of the path? Chart patterns throughout the story and examine some of these details as they attempt to communicate a larger theme... rereading the beginning of a story after coming to its end can also often yield valuable insights--embedded meanings that simply looked like innocent description at first... consider the discussion of the "boy," the final image of the story, and this: is the boy really still alive, or alive only in Phoenix's mind? if the latter, how does this effect your interpretation of details of the story and understanding of the protagonist? How does this connect with the final image and the name, "Phoenix" (look up the myth of the Phoenix in Wikipedia, or even Dictionary.com)?
Hungry For…?
One way to view “The Hunger Artist” is as an examination of the social, cultural, and personal contexts of art and the artist. How does it explore/comment on the relationship between art, artist, and audience; the artist's relationship to his own art, including its formal aspects and the medium itself (what is the Hunger Artist's medium? you may consider this as a kind of performance art); the relationship of the artist to society and to the everyday life?
The story questions the goals, purposes, and motivations of art, as well as socio-economic factors that may influence art and the artist, beyond the desires and visions of the artist him/herself in dialogue with her/his chosen medium. How does the story explore the way audience considerations can effect, even partially shape, the artistic production? How seeing art as popular "entertainment" imposes certain limitations on art and artist? From this point of view, what is it about this artist's art that may require the imposition of certain "formal" limitations, and how does the artist feel about this?
One way to see the conflict of the story, then, is between the Hunger Artist's desires and visions for his art, his responsibility to this own vision, and the socio-economic factors of its promotion and reception.
Remember: the essence of all stories is CONFLICT: i.e., there is a reason we refer to "protagonist" and "antagonist"; "hero/"antihero" ("antihero" not to be confused with "antagonist"--i.e, the "hero" of a story is often actually an "antihero," in the traditional sense-- check the terms on Wikipedia), etc. Try to get a handle on what the focal character's central conflicts are--with whom? internal (psychological, within a character), external (with forces impinging on a character from the outside), or a combination (in most stories we are reading, the latter), and the theme will follow...
YGB (primary colors?)
OK, since “Young Goodman Brown,” due partially to the style but also the ideological contexts and the time period in which the story was written, may prove somewhat troublesome, I've decided to open with a general comment that may be of use (for a bit of background on the author, click the "Nathaniel Hawthorne" link above the story):
To begin, a definition of “allegory” (from Dictionary.com):
A story that has a deeper or more general meaning in addition to its surface meaning. Allegories are composed of several symbols or metaphors. For example, in The Pilgrim's Progress, by John Bunyan, the character named Christian struggles to escape from a bog or swamp. The story of his difficulty is a symbol of the difficulty of leading a good life in the “bog” of this world. The “bog” is a metaphor or symbol of life's hardships and distractions. Similarly, when Christian loses a heavy pack that he has been carrying on his back, this symbolizes his freedom from the weight of sin that he has been carrying.
* * *
I will add that in a typical allegory, there is often a very clear, or one-to-one meaning between the symbol or image and its signification. Though “Young Goodman Brown” is not a strictly typical allegory in this sense, it may be helpful to think of “Young Goodman Brown” as an allegory, but also as a representation of the protagonist’s more or less conscious internal struggle with Puritanism. In allegories, images, character names and descriptions, and actions normally have a strongly symbolic value, and are not meant to be taken (just ) literally: the story can be more or less “realistic,” but reader understands that every aspect of the story is to be “read” not for its literal value, but its symbolic of “moral” value; but realize that while a typical allegory will often have obvious and fairly clear-cut symbolic equations between an image and its moral signification, and often work with a clear opposition of, for eg. good v evil, Hawthorne complicates this dialectic. Writing in the mid-1850s, Hawthorne had an uneasy relationship with his puritan background (the deeds of his ancestors, as presented in the story, are factual), and his story questions and challenges the dualistic “morality” of a puritan worldview.
You can get a pretty clear understanding of how this world view operates by closely studying YGB—what he sees, hears, says; his behavior, and how he changes in the story—Suffice it to say that YGB remains a “puritan” to the end, and is unwilling/ideologically unable to “see” the deeper implications of some of the things he sees and hears, as well as his own actions (the narrator is careful to tell us that some of these are involuntary) in the wilderness; this may touch on the larger moral concern of the story, which questions a strict and exclusive Puritanism.
Since we can interpret the images and symbols of this story as a dramatization of the more or less conscious conflicts in YGB’s mind re Puritanism, many of the narrator’s descriptions and recountings reveal a double message—both representing the puritan, dichotomous worldview and in more subtle ways challenging it. (Btw, the narrative perspective is “focused third person,” or “limited omniscient,” meaning a third person narrator, outside the story per se, but presenting things primarily, though not exclusively, as experienced by the protagonist.)
Specific images, symbols, and scenes to consider:
Characters’ names, and Young Goodman Brown’s initials as an acronym for…? (see below, color symbolism, then make the connection to the “Puritan”problem)
Character descriptions (attend to the “resemblances” the narrator notes)
Consider esp., in addition to Faith, the “figure of a man” (who is this “elder person”?)—an interesting way to introduce a character, as first glimpsed by Brown, who is to be understood as not so much a specific “individual,” in the usual sense (well, this is an “allegory”), but who plays an essential role in the story? What is this role? Notice how he leads YGB through a very carefully structured dialogue, or sequence of reasonings, designed to bring YGB to a certain point along another sort of “path” in the story (toward what sort of realizations? Is it successful?) Also note how this “figure” disappears toward the middle of the story—or does he... simply transform?
Setting and other details:
Patterns of color symbolism—pink (is not a pure color, but a blend of…?); vis a vis sharp/bold color contrasts: red and other “primary” colors v. black;
Salem village v the wilderness (and the description of the “path” through it, and how YGB responds to things along the way—his thoughts are revealing)
Light v dark, night v day, and the time of day that YGB makes his journey
As noted above, the scenes involving YGB's "dialogue" (read internal dialogue?) with the "elder person"; consider this also as the doubling (flip side or counterpart) of another kind of "dialogue"--i.e., if dialogue is understood as a series of questions and answers--mentioned more than once in the story.
Both audio and visual images: the “black cloud” Brown sees in the woods that hides the stars, contrasting with what he sees—and hears-- in the cloud;
Brown’s reactions to the “message”—perhaps only partly understood—of the cloud
The description of the meeting in the woods and how it doubles a particular environment in the day time world; consider how some aspects of what Brown hears and sees may be suggesting a kind of understanding of the world and his relationship to it that he never fully comprehends or accepts, and which accounts for the disturbing ending of the story—Brown’s bitterness and misanthropic attitude. Some things the minister says lead him toward this understanding, but other comments seem to divert him from this realization, which make sense if we read this story more as a dramatization of Brown’s internal, and not always fully conscious struggle with an oppositional, dualistic puritan world view, and the problems and conflicts that can be a consequence of such a world view. Attend carefully to the details of this meeting, both visual and audio images, esp. the complex, intriguing, and suggestive description of the “hymn.”
The concluding scenes of the story—what does YGB understand about his “communion,” and what has he missed? (think of the irony of the word “communion” in this context)
Consider carefully the details of some of these scenes, and how they may both represent and challenge or undermine the premises of the puritan worldview. Is there a way in which puritan “morality” is actually immoral?
One final comment: because it is, at least in part, an “allegory,” Young Goodman Brown” can teach us a lot about how to “read”—i.e., interpret—literature in general, since even more “realistic” stories can be read between the lines in these ways, following image, symbol, and thematic patterns that may be subtly embedded in the details of the text. The allegory self-consciously encourages this kind of reading, forgoing the reality effect of a story grounded more particularly in everyday life.
Poe
Check the following link for psychoanalytic theorist Jacques Lacan's take on "The Purloined Letterhttp://www.lacan.com/purloined.htm
Ok--since this may be one of the more overtly philosophically challenging stories of the semester, I'll put some issues on the virtual table here.
Keeping clear a few facts, of plot and character, may help with analyzing this somewhat perplexing story.
First, who‘s who: The narrator moves things along for us, as he narrates events, but doesn’t have much of an identity in the story beyond that, though we can say he is intellectually curious.
“Monsieur G is the “Prefect of police,” more or less equivalent, in American terms, to a police chief or commander.
Minister D, part of the royal cabinet, is the thief, and also a “poet and mathematician.”
Dupin, a friend of the narrator, a sort of amateur detective (i.e., not a “professional”) solves the crime that the Prefect couldn’t. Dupin also admits to being a poet—though again not by “profession” (he has dabbled in “doggerel,” as he calls it) and also knows quite a bit about mathematics, though again, not by “profession”; his “liminal” position vis a vis these “professions” allows him to slip between the cracks of ideology of each.
As revealed by the ending (the contents of Dupin’s substitute letter), the conflict is between Dupin and the Minister D.
But one of the main themes of the story is how various “ways of seeing,” or ideologies, affect not only how we understand the world, but even what exactly we perceive.
As you read the story, consider the limitations of various points of view, how the inspector can “read” the world in intense detail from one perspective, but completely misread it when from a non-empirical perspective. On one side we have science, measurement, objectivity, logic and on the other poetic perception or apperception, “reading” of that which is not quantifiable or subject to exactitude—expressions, character. Notice that, ironically, the ability to read what is illegible, from the standpoint of pure “policial” detection methods, as represented by the Prefect, is what enables the “amateur,” Dupin, to solve the crime. Note that Dupin distinguishes between “mathematical reason”—logic applied only to quantity--and a higher form of “reason” that can blend science and imagination. Note that both Dupin and the Minister D challenge this dualistic division of the world into poet-“fools” on the one hand and scientific, “rational” authority on the other, as both blend these points of view, without being completely invested in either world view.
Other things to consider—doublings of plot and setting—: how many times is the letter “stolen”? The letter must run a circuit (through the narrative of the story, in a sense) to arrive—where?
What is the relationship between the Minister D’s and Dupin’s letters? Where are they similar and where different, and how does this connect with other issues noted above?
In what setting does Dupin solve the crime? How is this different from the setting in which the Prefect attempts to solve it, and what does this suggest?
We distinguish the Prefect, above, and the world view he represents, from Dupin, but how does the fact that he sought to “consult” Dupin somewhat complicate his “role” a s the figurehead of a certain world view?
How does the story play with “foreshadowing”: certain comments and actions by Dupin at the beginning of the story in relation to events and themes as they develop during the course of the story?
What is the relevance of the conflict between Dupin and D? Note the similarity of (in) their names.
How is power figured in the story—what is it, specifically, that gives one power over others, and how might this connect with the main theme outlined above?
Don’t worry about the French and Latin; but, following is a translation of Dupin’s letter (end of story), and a brief summary of the two allusions to classical mythology:
“Such a baleful scheme, while not worthy of Atreus, is worthy of Thyestes”
Gloss:
ATREUS: The son of Pelops and brother of Thyestes. The two brothers quarrelled about the succession and Atreus served up most of Thyestes' children to him at a feast. Atreus was father of Menelaus and Agamemnon.
THYESTES: The son of Pelops and brother of Atreus. He seduced his brother's wife, Aerope, and she gave him the golden lamb which was the symbol of Atreus' power. Atreus took revenge by killing most of Thyestes' children and serving them up to him. The story forms the background to the Oresteia and is told by the Roman author, Seneca, in his tragedy, Thyestes.
Make of it what you will...
The Yellow Wallpaper
Here are some cautions, and some things to consider (gleaned from responses to previous bolgs...):
You might try a character analysis of the protagonist--what are the conflicts she may be experiencing (this could take some psychological digging, looking for needs, fears, lacks, etc, emotional, imaginative, and otherwise...don't overlook the sensual connotations!), based on the story's details, and how is her interaction with the wallpaper a way of working these out?
Since her husband forbid her to write down her feelings, consider her imaginative involvement with the wallpaper as her "creative" outlet/therapy. Rather than thinking the wallpaper "caused" her illness, try studying if for what it reveals about the character's conflicts.
Examine specific scenes and details, things the character says and observes (first person narrator, in this case, so you have to read through her point of view).
Rather than imposing a class bias or judging the character (which often involves imposing a frame of reference, value system, etc., that may not be relevant to the story's specific setting or characters' situations, etc.), interpret/analyze the character's conflicts (as if indeed you were a detective, or in this case perhaps a psychoanalyst).
In a nutshell, consider the protagonist's (main character's) imaginative interaction/involvement with the wallpaper as symbolic of her internal conflicts (and external ones, as well, in the sense that she is being physically confined, as well as mentally/emotionally).
The story has a lot to say about the socio-cultural condition of women at the time, and the psychological consequences of a repressive ideology, including a purely positivist scientific--i.e., pre-Freudian--worldview (the science of psychology was just being developed in the 1890's; Freud's first major theoretical work, Project for a Scientific Psychology, was published in 1895).
Though not noramlly recommended, and though not tobe used/completely trusted as a secondary source, WikiPedia entries on "The Yellow Wallpaper" and "psycnoanalysis" (see esp "History"--"1890s") provide good overviews (caution: such open-source material must always be evaluated against more rigorous research in "certified" sources, such as peer-reviewed academic journals--the type listed in the "literature resource center," including the "MLA" databases).
