"Maybe he will feel it too. Maybe it will even change him now from what maybe he couldn’t help but be."
To me, this moment is important because it showcases the internal conflict that the son goes through. He has this thought upon seeing how nice the new house it is compared to the other dozen before and hopes his father will realize how fortunate they are to be working there. This coming of age type moment shows that he doesn't believe what his father has done is right and even wishes better for him. But, as we learn by the end of the story, the true coming of age for the son is the realization that not all people can or will change and that family or not, what's right is right and what's wrong is wrong.
If the son would not of ran up to the house to tell them about the barn, how much longer do you think the father could of kept his barn burning ways up?
Monday, April 9, 2012
Thursday, April 5, 2012
"She came to touch her hand on his face. 'Son,' she said, 'We love you. Remember that. We all love you. No matter how different you are, no matter if you leave us one day.' She kissed his cheek. 'And if and when you die, your bones will lie undisturbed, we'll see to that. You'll lie at ease forever, and I'll come visit every Allhallows Eve and tuck you in the more secure.'" (66)
Timothy is struggling with many of his flaws as seen by the others and himself. The most frightening one that he is forced to deal with may be the possibility that he is destined to die due to these differences or lack of being a vampire at all arguably. He ponders the possibility that he may not be alive at their next time of gathering. His realization that he is the one who is normal in a family of vampires which makes him the outcast or imperfect one. His family shows love for him despite his differences but his feelings overshadow this as he feels he cannot be loved by them because he is not like them. Even his fear of the dark was one of many differences from a family that he tried so hard to be a part of but realizes he will never truly be able to be a part of.
Will Timothy ever be able to live his life with satisfaction as he grows into adulthood or will he be doomed to live the remainder of his short life under a dark cloud of disappointment due to his imperfection and certain death?
Timothy is struggling with many of his flaws as seen by the others and himself. The most frightening one that he is forced to deal with may be the possibility that he is destined to die due to these differences or lack of being a vampire at all arguably. He ponders the possibility that he may not be alive at their next time of gathering. His realization that he is the one who is normal in a family of vampires which makes him the outcast or imperfect one. His family shows love for him despite his differences but his feelings overshadow this as he feels he cannot be loved by them because he is not like them. Even his fear of the dark was one of many differences from a family that he tried so hard to be a part of but realizes he will never truly be able to be a part of.
Will Timothy ever be able to live his life with satisfaction as he grows into adulthood or will he be doomed to live the remainder of his short life under a dark cloud of disappointment due to his imperfection and certain death?
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
"Don't feel badly, Nephew Timothy. Each to his own, each in his own way." (65)
I think this moment is particularly important giving the broad theme of coming of age. Timothy, who is fourteen is endlessly seeking belonging from his family. But, they just brush him off to the side because he is quite different from them. This undoubtedly intensifies his need to belong as it climaxes with him asking his sister Cecy to help him do something that will get everyone's attention. Specifically related to the theme of coming of age is Timothy's realization that he isn't like his family and he never will be.
Do you think the older Timothy gets the more accepted he will be by his family, or is he doomed to a life of alienation from the ones he cares about the most?
Little Vampire
"Oh, to have strong teeth, with incisors like steel spikes. Or strong hands, even, or a strong mind. Even to have the power to send one's mind out, free, as Cecy did. But, no, he was the imperfect one, the sick one. He was even--he shivered and drew the candle flame closer--afraid of the dark"(57)
In Ray Bradbury's short story "Homecoming"- 14 year old Timothy, sees what makes others so special but cannot see what makes him special. In this scene he compares himself to others and realizes differences between family. A theme of coming of age is tied as one can assume Timothy sees himself as imperfect and sick struggling to accept who he is. The moment distinguishes differences and presents itself as a challenge to Timothy's adulthood.
If Timothy wasn't afraid of dark would that have made any difference to how he sees himself? (imperfect)
In Ray Bradbury's short story "Homecoming"- 14 year old Timothy, sees what makes others so special but cannot see what makes him special. In this scene he compares himself to others and realizes differences between family. A theme of coming of age is tied as one can assume Timothy sees himself as imperfect and sick struggling to accept who he is. The moment distinguishes differences and presents itself as a challenge to Timothy's adulthood.
If Timothy wasn't afraid of dark would that have made any difference to how he sees himself? (imperfect)
Monday, April 2, 2012
Inevitable Punishment
"In much of my reading at this time in my early adolescence there was a terrible logic: something virulent and vengeful prepared to rise up in the night, beneath us as we slept, like an animated earthquake, to punish us. Why we were to be punished was not explained. Punishment was something that happened, and could not be averted. Punishment suggests a crime: but what is the crime? Born bad, it was said even of some individuals in Sparta" (119).
This quote is representative of the reasoning behind why Madelyn knows Mr. Carmichael will kill himself (page 135). Mr. Carmichael would inevitably be punished for his actions--the logic from Madelyn's reading gave her confidence that, no matter what, Carmichael would pay.
Do you think this is why Madelyn did not immediately tell anyone about what happened with Mr. Carmichael?
This quote is representative of the reasoning behind why Madelyn knows Mr. Carmichael will kill himself (page 135). Mr. Carmichael would inevitably be punished for his actions--the logic from Madelyn's reading gave her confidence that, no matter what, Carmichael would pay.
Do you think this is why Madelyn did not immediately tell anyone about what happened with Mr. Carmichael?
the journey
"So long I've been away. So long I've traveled, and so far." (107)
In Joyce Carol Oates' story "The Beating," Madelyn Fleet recounts her traumatic experience with her father's beating and her own sexual assault. At first when reading this quote, I didn't think much of it, but then going back, I realized she could have said this as a result of her return from her assault at Mr. Carmichael's house. She introduces her journey before it even happens, leading the reader to foreshadow the events to come. However, she does not give a clear indication of what happens at what time. Her errant thoughts link back her trauma, because after a person experiences something traumatic, everything sort of jumbles together in their memory. So, coming back to the hospital room after being sexually assaulted and then being asked to leave the hospital room could have happened within the same sphere of time. However, the quote does serve as an understatement to what happened to her. Since she did get sexually assaulted, it does not translate to going far away on a journey. It is more like setting out for an escape to then be kidnapped and brutally assaulted, but maybe to a fourteen year old, that is the only way to deal with things.
If this story is written in the future, giving the author time to recover, why are the events still mixed up? And why does she summarize the events so nonchalantly?
In Joyce Carol Oates' story "The Beating," Madelyn Fleet recounts her traumatic experience with her father's beating and her own sexual assault. At first when reading this quote, I didn't think much of it, but then going back, I realized she could have said this as a result of her return from her assault at Mr. Carmichael's house. She introduces her journey before it even happens, leading the reader to foreshadow the events to come. However, she does not give a clear indication of what happens at what time. Her errant thoughts link back her trauma, because after a person experiences something traumatic, everything sort of jumbles together in their memory. So, coming back to the hospital room after being sexually assaulted and then being asked to leave the hospital room could have happened within the same sphere of time. However, the quote does serve as an understatement to what happened to her. Since she did get sexually assaulted, it does not translate to going far away on a journey. It is more like setting out for an escape to then be kidnapped and brutally assaulted, but maybe to a fourteen year old, that is the only way to deal with things.
If this story is written in the future, giving the author time to recover, why are the events still mixed up? And why does she summarize the events so nonchalantly?
Blood Thick and Sticking
In William Faulkner's 1939 short story, "Barn Burning," what stood out to me was the way Faulkner used blood as both a theme for the story and a motif. Blood equals family loyalty (theme) and the word "blood" is used repeatedly throughout the story to represent the hopelessness, fear and grief felt by the main character, ten year old, Colonel Sartoris Snopes at the hands of the patriarch (motif).
The pyromaniac father, Abner Snopes, takes Sartoris out onto a road in the middle of the night and strikes him in the head while accusing him of thinking of betraying his family by telling the judge about his father's arson. "You were fixing to tell them. You would have told him...You're getting to be a man. You got to learn. You got to learn to stick to your own blood or you ain't going to have any blood to stick to you" (8). This part of the story was particularly poignant to me. This could have been the "coming of age" father and son talk that usually begins with, "Son, you're getting to be a man...," a time in a boy's life when he should be provided with the tools he needs to have a successful future as a man. Instead, he is terrorized by his own father and what he learns is that he must stay within the bounds of his family or face the consequences of betrayal. Sartoris knows from experience the violence that emanates from his father.
Although Faulkner may be telling readers that not having "any blood to stick to you" is a reference to Sartoris losing his family, it also sounds like a veiled threat that Snopes will kill his son if he exposes his father's criminal activities. No wonder the motif of hopelessness, fear, and grief are so clear in the story. He has no role model, nothing to look forward to and no one to turn to in his darkest hours.
We know from reading the story that twenty years later Sartoris thinks about the things that transpired in his family. What we don't know is how his life really turned out. What do you think Sartoris' future held for him?
The pyromaniac father, Abner Snopes, takes Sartoris out onto a road in the middle of the night and strikes him in the head while accusing him of thinking of betraying his family by telling the judge about his father's arson. "You were fixing to tell them. You would have told him...You're getting to be a man. You got to learn. You got to learn to stick to your own blood or you ain't going to have any blood to stick to you" (8). This part of the story was particularly poignant to me. This could have been the "coming of age" father and son talk that usually begins with, "Son, you're getting to be a man...," a time in a boy's life when he should be provided with the tools he needs to have a successful future as a man. Instead, he is terrorized by his own father and what he learns is that he must stay within the bounds of his family or face the consequences of betrayal. Sartoris knows from experience the violence that emanates from his father.
Although Faulkner may be telling readers that not having "any blood to stick to you" is a reference to Sartoris losing his family, it also sounds like a veiled threat that Snopes will kill his son if he exposes his father's criminal activities. No wonder the motif of hopelessness, fear, and grief are so clear in the story. He has no role model, nothing to look forward to and no one to turn to in his darkest hours.
We know from reading the story that twenty years later Sartoris thinks about the things that transpired in his family. What we don't know is how his life really turned out. What do you think Sartoris' future held for him?
Beauty and "The Beating"
"The house that looked ugly but dignified from the road looked, up close, only just ugly...the kind of house...in which, in a fairy tale, a troll would live" (128).
This is the description that Madelyn Fleet gives of her former math teacher's house to which he brings her for a clandestine and creepy rendezvous in Joyce Carol Oates's "The Beating." Immediately, this quote made me think of the story The Beauty and the Beast, in which a young woman is brought against her will to a monster's house where he is trying to recuperate from a terrible situation (i.e. being turned into a beast). Mr. Carmichael is dealing with the loss of his wife and young children--to what we do not know--and attempts to seduce Madelyn by taking her away from her depression. The twist is that Mr. Carmichael is not a kindly yet narcissistic prince on the inside, but a creepy, pathological child-molester who is rotting away with his house, and Madelyn doesn't fall in love but out of love with him.
This change from facade to interior is echoed throughout the story, from Madelyn's description of her father as the "everyman" who yet shares very little of his life; to the Brewer Building, which literally has a facade that hides its shady underneath; to Mr. Carmichael himself, math teacher on the outside, criminal on the inside.
Question: What does the idea of facade have to do with the fact that Madelyn waited fifty years to tell this story? And, what actually happened to her father?
This is the description that Madelyn Fleet gives of her former math teacher's house to which he brings her for a clandestine and creepy rendezvous in Joyce Carol Oates's "The Beating." Immediately, this quote made me think of the story The Beauty and the Beast, in which a young woman is brought against her will to a monster's house where he is trying to recuperate from a terrible situation (i.e. being turned into a beast). Mr. Carmichael is dealing with the loss of his wife and young children--to what we do not know--and attempts to seduce Madelyn by taking her away from her depression. The twist is that Mr. Carmichael is not a kindly yet narcissistic prince on the inside, but a creepy, pathological child-molester who is rotting away with his house, and Madelyn doesn't fall in love but out of love with him.
This change from facade to interior is echoed throughout the story, from Madelyn's description of her father as the "everyman" who yet shares very little of his life; to the Brewer Building, which literally has a facade that hides its shady underneath; to Mr. Carmichael himself, math teacher on the outside, criminal on the inside.
Question: What does the idea of facade have to do with the fact that Madelyn waited fifty years to tell this story? And, what actually happened to her father?
Dramatic Irony
"It came to me then: a memory of how Mr. Carmichael had puzzled our class one day 'demonstrating infinity' on the blackboard. With surprising precision he'd drawn a circle, and halved it; this half circle, he'd half; this quarter circle, he'd halved..." (129).
One of the reoccurring images in Joyce Carol Oates' "The Beating" is that of infinity, particularly being trapped in a moment, a memory forever. Literally speaking the story itself is trapped in a repeating loop just because of the way Oates chose to write it: by beginning the story and ending the story in the same moment "Still alive!" (107 and 135). In retrospect, the reader can see how Madelyn is trapped in this moment in her life were everything that could go wrong has. The first quotation appeared to me quite out of place in the story until I saw the way Oates points to Madelyn's memories and the loop that they play. While the reader is pointed to a past and a future, none of that can be brought to the present because of the way the hospital pools her memories.
Did Oates use the metaphor of the hospital pooling her memories forever as a dramatically ironic tool because Madelyn's memory of that day is literally trapped forever in the writing of the story?
One of the reoccurring images in Joyce Carol Oates' "The Beating" is that of infinity, particularly being trapped in a moment, a memory forever. Literally speaking the story itself is trapped in a repeating loop just because of the way Oates chose to write it: by beginning the story and ending the story in the same moment "Still alive!" (107 and 135). In retrospect, the reader can see how Madelyn is trapped in this moment in her life were everything that could go wrong has. The first quotation appeared to me quite out of place in the story until I saw the way Oates points to Madelyn's memories and the loop that they play. While the reader is pointed to a past and a future, none of that can be brought to the present because of the way the hospital pools her memories.
Did Oates use the metaphor of the hospital pooling her memories forever as a dramatically ironic tool because Madelyn's memory of that day is literally trapped forever in the writing of the story?
Saturday, March 31, 2012
The living dead
"Still alive! From the doorway of the intensive care unit I can see my father in his bed swaddled in white like a comatose infant, and he is still alive (135)."
Memory plays a important role in "The Beating" as Maddie, continues to lives by her traumatic experience. Maddie, perhaps unwillingly, keeps her memory of Mr. Carmichael and lives with it due to its ties to her father. Maddie keeps the memory of her father being in the hospital and ties it to her attack. It can be said, Maddie could not forget the experience of that day in July even if she wanted to. Not only did her father get a beating of sorts but so did she. The beatings are defining moments in which fourteen year old Maddie must live off. It is often the case in which we, the readers experience a loss of innocence and can better connect with the story and what it means to say about memory.
Why didn't Maddie notify someone she would be leaving home with Mr. Carmichael?
Memory plays a important role in "The Beating" as Maddie, continues to lives by her traumatic experience. Maddie, perhaps unwillingly, keeps her memory of Mr. Carmichael and lives with it due to its ties to her father. Maddie keeps the memory of her father being in the hospital and ties it to her attack. It can be said, Maddie could not forget the experience of that day in July even if she wanted to. Not only did her father get a beating of sorts but so did she. The beatings are defining moments in which fourteen year old Maddie must live off. It is often the case in which we, the readers experience a loss of innocence and can better connect with the story and what it means to say about memory.
Why didn't Maddie notify someone she would be leaving home with Mr. Carmichael?
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
A ship named Hal 9000
I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon is best described as Inception meets Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind in SPACE (echo). Although originally I wanted to write about Martine, I could not overlook Siri on steroids.
Everyone else aboard the ship lay in an unknowing state -- he was the exception, as if bad karma had attacked him for obscure reasons. Worst of all, he had to depend totally on the goodwill of the ship. Suppose it elected to feed him monsters?(360)
Reality versus perception is a major theme in the story and the ship seems to help define them both. Victor's dependence of the ship to keep him alive is much like that of God. Arguably the ship symbolizes perception and God symbolizes reality... at least to Victor. The ship's only desire is to preserve Victor's life and make him happy while Victor's reality, being memories of guilt and worthlessness only condemn him. His condemnation is due to his perception of God and sin which is a result of trauma as a four year old.
Why would the ship decided to keep him alive if it would result in Victor losing his sanity?
Everyone else aboard the ship lay in an unknowing state -- he was the exception, as if bad karma had attacked him for obscure reasons. Worst of all, he had to depend totally on the goodwill of the ship. Suppose it elected to feed him monsters?(360)
Reality versus perception is a major theme in the story and the ship seems to help define them both. Victor's dependence of the ship to keep him alive is much like that of God. Arguably the ship symbolizes perception and God symbolizes reality... at least to Victor. The ship's only desire is to preserve Victor's life and make him happy while Victor's reality, being memories of guilt and worthlessness only condemn him. His condemnation is due to his perception of God and sin which is a result of trauma as a four year old.
Why would the ship decided to keep him alive if it would result in Victor losing his sanity?
Inescapable
" There is too much fear in him and too much guilt. He has buried it all, and yet it is still there, worrying him like a dog worrying a rag." (304)
Phillip K. Dick's "I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon" is built upon the dichotomy of memory and reality. In a world in which aging is something that can be halted and thus it is common for people to live far beyond 200 years, Victor Keannings remains haunted by two memories: the memory of his first wife who later leave him and the memory of a day when he was a boy and helped his cat eat a bird. The quote above indicates that Dick's argument is that we as humans are defined by things in our memory that have struck us and that have hurt us, and that these effects are permanent. In the quote, it is also important to note that even though Keannings has "buried" these two memories, they still exist within him. Thus, Dick's argument also incorporates the idea that we cannot consciously choose which parts of our past affect us.
Discussion Question: How do these two specific memories affect each other within the realm of Keannings psyche?
Are we there yet?
In the short story "I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon" Philip K. Dick illustrates a futuristic story about, Mr. Kemmings, a man caught in space and forced to live within the confines of his own mind for ten years. At first, he is given memories to relive but once those memories become tainted by his guilty conscience, he is only allowed to look toward his seemingly unattainable future. After living out this future memory of arriving to the planet so many times he cannot believe it when he is actually there.
"'I'm going to try reliving the part with the cat,' he said, 'and this time not pick up the cat and not let it get the bird. If I do that, maybe my life will change so that it turns into something happy. Something that is real. My real mistake was separating from you. Here; I'll put my hand through you.' He placed his hand against her arm. The pressure of his muscles was vigorous; she felt the weight, the physical presence of him, against her. 'See?' he said. 'It goes right through you'" (373).
This moment represents Mr. Kemmings disillusionment and confusion towards the present. He has relived this future moment so many times that he cannot even tell when the real moment comes. Mr. Kemmings places his hand on Martine and thinks it goes completely through her. In this moment Mr. Kemmings cannot discern between reality and memory. He is left completely confused and unable to live out his current life because of his obsession with the past. The inability to distinguish between memory and reality imprisons him within himself and ultimately within his own altered reality.
Can Mr. Kemmings ever overcome the obstacle of living within his own memory? Are we all somewhat trapped within our own disillusioned realities?
"'I'm going to try reliving the part with the cat,' he said, 'and this time not pick up the cat and not let it get the bird. If I do that, maybe my life will change so that it turns into something happy. Something that is real. My real mistake was separating from you. Here; I'll put my hand through you.' He placed his hand against her arm. The pressure of his muscles was vigorous; she felt the weight, the physical presence of him, against her. 'See?' he said. 'It goes right through you'" (373).
This moment represents Mr. Kemmings disillusionment and confusion towards the present. He has relived this future moment so many times that he cannot even tell when the real moment comes. Mr. Kemmings places his hand on Martine and thinks it goes completely through her. In this moment Mr. Kemmings cannot discern between reality and memory. He is left completely confused and unable to live out his current life because of his obsession with the past. The inability to distinguish between memory and reality imprisons him within himself and ultimately within his own altered reality.
Can Mr. Kemmings ever overcome the obstacle of living within his own memory? Are we all somewhat trapped within our own disillusioned realities?
too much repetition
"I've lived this often enough now," he said. "I've lived this over and over again. I come out of suspension; I walk down the ramp; I get my luggage; sometimes I have a drink at the bar and sometimes I come directly to my room. Usually I turn on the TV and then --" He came over and held his hand toward her. "See where the bee stung me?"
She saw no mark on his hand (372)
"I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon" is a story about memories. Victor Kemmings has been suspended in a ship reliving his past and reconstructed memories. His guilt of killing the bird taints and eventually ruins him (367). His own guilt eats away at his conscience leaving him psychotic. He has lived the same memory for ten years that he is unable to recognize what is real from what is artificial. His only notion of reality is based on his basic routine in which he has varied his actions, but he has come to realization that he is living a simulation created by the ship. Kemmings is unable to grasp reality when his routine changes. When he actually lands on the new world, Martine comes back into his life, his hand does not go through the wall, and there is no mark on his hand from a bee sting. He disregards this tangible evidence and continues on as if it were recirculated memory. Ten years has taken its toll as Victor is now delusional yet eerily content with his ex-wife living in what he believes is a fabrication. With reality so close, the ending of the story is rather depressing.
Is Victor's state of psychosis better than being in a vegetative state?
She saw no mark on his hand (372)
"I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon" is a story about memories. Victor Kemmings has been suspended in a ship reliving his past and reconstructed memories. His guilt of killing the bird taints and eventually ruins him (367). His own guilt eats away at his conscience leaving him psychotic. He has lived the same memory for ten years that he is unable to recognize what is real from what is artificial. His only notion of reality is based on his basic routine in which he has varied his actions, but he has come to realization that he is living a simulation created by the ship. Kemmings is unable to grasp reality when his routine changes. When he actually lands on the new world, Martine comes back into his life, his hand does not go through the wall, and there is no mark on his hand from a bee sting. He disregards this tangible evidence and continues on as if it were recirculated memory. Ten years has taken its toll as Victor is now delusional yet eerily content with his ex-wife living in what he believes is a fabrication. With reality so close, the ending of the story is rather depressing.
Is Victor's state of psychosis better than being in a vegetative state?
A Nightmare in the Sky
This story is more of a nightmare than the ones we have read previously when characters are killed horrifically. I can't imagine being stuck taunted by old memories, tainting any good memories, and damaging any future ones. This is my idea of hell. There are many symbols and motifs that continually resurface into his thoughts: the bee, the bird, the poster, but I think the most important and the most interesting reoccurring theme is that of guilt. "Turning, he gazed back up at the ship. Maybe I ought to go back, he thought. Have them freeze me forever. I am a man of guilt, a man who destroys. Tears filled his eyes (Dick, 103)." Even though it is a futuristic story, while the ship is helping Victor to reminisce on his life, the memories become cyclical and biblical in a sense. Religion is not really addressed, G-d is once mentioned, but he seems like a Catholic (at least a Christian of sorts) drowning in his own suppressed guilt. Every memory the ship plants in his mind ends in tears and weeping, like he was never forgiven for what his four-year-old self did.
Question: Is religion a major underlying theme or is he simply tainted by a guilty conscience?
Question: Is religion a major underlying theme or is he simply tainted by a guilty conscience?
Monday, March 26, 2012
Growing Up
"She was a steady and self-reliant woman, and when I think of her after all the years she has been dead, I think of her brown hands...back then it never crossed my mind that she would ever be dead" (68).
It is in this moment that I feel we get the greatest sense of a time lapse through this story, Blackberry Winter by Robert Penn Warren. It is in this moment that Seth acknoledges his innocence at nine-years-old in a way that nearly all children who have grown up can--he finally grasped that things end and change. This story is about the loss of innocence and the realization that every person is not as steady as Seth's mom, or stoic like Seth's dad, or wise like Old Jebb, or hardworking like Dellie. These are the examples Warren gives us of a child's view of his adults. Most children grow up trying to emulate the older people in their lives, seeing them as pristine and infallible. But, as Seth sees first-hand, Dellie is not perfect as she slaps Little Jebb across the face. All adults do not fit this ideal, especially when the stranger--who never does receive a name--comes to town. This is Seth's first encounter with a bad man, and it colors all of the other events that occur that one day. It is as if in meeting the stranger, the wool was pulled from Seth's eyes and he saw that people in his town were starving enough to want to eat a drowned cow, that maybe Dellie was not the perfect "white-Negro," and that men who emerge from the woods without a name or manners are not going to be good news.
Question: What effect did these revelations have on the course of Seth's life? What did he mean when he said he "did follow him, all the years" (87)?
It is in this moment that I feel we get the greatest sense of a time lapse through this story, Blackberry Winter by Robert Penn Warren. It is in this moment that Seth acknoledges his innocence at nine-years-old in a way that nearly all children who have grown up can--he finally grasped that things end and change. This story is about the loss of innocence and the realization that every person is not as steady as Seth's mom, or stoic like Seth's dad, or wise like Old Jebb, or hardworking like Dellie. These are the examples Warren gives us of a child's view of his adults. Most children grow up trying to emulate the older people in their lives, seeing them as pristine and infallible. But, as Seth sees first-hand, Dellie is not perfect as she slaps Little Jebb across the face. All adults do not fit this ideal, especially when the stranger--who never does receive a name--comes to town. This is Seth's first encounter with a bad man, and it colors all of the other events that occur that one day. It is as if in meeting the stranger, the wool was pulled from Seth's eyes and he saw that people in his town were starving enough to want to eat a drowned cow, that maybe Dellie was not the perfect "white-Negro," and that men who emerge from the woods without a name or manners are not going to be good news.
Question: What effect did these revelations have on the course of Seth's life? What did he mean when he said he "did follow him, all the years" (87)?
The Unexpected
“When
you are a boy and stand in the stillness of woods, which can be so still your
heart almost stops beating and makes you want to stand there in the green
twilight until you feel your very feet sinking into and clutching the earth
like roots and your body breathing slow through its pores like the leaves—when
you stand there and wait for the next drop to drop with its small, flat sound
to a lower leaf, that sound seems to measure out something, to put an end to
something, to begin something, and you cannot wait for it to happen and are
afraid it will not happen, and then when it has happened, you are waiting
again, almost afraid” (65).
Although Seth is a callow, reluctant nine-year-old boy, he
has a premonition (above) that he cannot live in his childish unchanging world
forever. The drops from leaves are representative of events that will interrupt
time and the order of Seth’s life. The strange man, the cold weather, and the
flood are some of “drops” that teach Seth about the unexpected interruptions in life.
The contradictory phrase, "blackberry winter," is used in the South to describe a brief period of cold weather in June that coincides with the blooming of blackberries. What purpose does this contradictory phrase serve in the story (besides just being a title and weather pattern)?
The contradictory phrase, "blackberry winter," is used in the South to describe a brief period of cold weather in June that coincides with the blooming of blackberries. What purpose does this contradictory phrase serve in the story (besides just being a title and weather pattern)?
"The Change of Life and Time"
"What's woman-mizry?
Hit is the change, he said. Hit is the change of life and time...
Will everything die?
Everything and everybody, hit will be so...
What was he doing down there in the storm?
The good ones and the bad ones, they comes and they goes. Storm or sun, light or dark. They is folks and they comes and they goes lak folks." Pg. 82-83
The moment, when young Seth is talking to Old Jebb by the stables and asks him a series of questions regarding all the strange things going on that day, is very important to understanding the story's meaning. There is still many things that a child does not understand at the age of nine. He has limited understanding of menopause, death, and bad people. In one day he has seen animals (the cows and chickens) die from the storm, he has seen Dellie strike Jebb with an awful slap that he does not understand, and he has witnessed the stranger coming on a blackberry winter flashing a switchblade. All these things including cold in June make no sense to nine year old Seth, and perhaps this is why he remembers this blackberry winter day so vividly. It is a change in the way he sees and understands life.
Does Seth remember this blackberry winter because it symbolizes his loss of innocence?
If blackberry winter symbolizes change, does the end of the story mean that since then he has experienced bad things or that since then he has become bad folk like the stranger?
Hit is the change, he said. Hit is the change of life and time...
Will everything die?
Everything and everybody, hit will be so...
What was he doing down there in the storm?
The good ones and the bad ones, they comes and they goes. Storm or sun, light or dark. They is folks and they comes and they goes lak folks." Pg. 82-83
The moment, when young Seth is talking to Old Jebb by the stables and asks him a series of questions regarding all the strange things going on that day, is very important to understanding the story's meaning. There is still many things that a child does not understand at the age of nine. He has limited understanding of menopause, death, and bad people. In one day he has seen animals (the cows and chickens) die from the storm, he has seen Dellie strike Jebb with an awful slap that he does not understand, and he has witnessed the stranger coming on a blackberry winter flashing a switchblade. All these things including cold in June make no sense to nine year old Seth, and perhaps this is why he remembers this blackberry winter day so vividly. It is a change in the way he sees and understands life.
Does Seth remember this blackberry winter because it symbolizes his loss of innocence?
If blackberry winter symbolizes change, does the end of the story mean that since then he has experienced bad things or that since then he has become bad folk like the stranger?
"But for those obstinate questionings of sense and outward things, fallings from us, vanishings;"
The moment I chose is sort of a large one, occuring on pages 82-83, and is the entire interaction of Seth and Old Jebb in the crib. A highlight of the moment:
"what you shiver fer?" he asked me.
"I'm cold. I'm cold because it's blackberry winter," I said.
"Maybe 'tis and maybe 'tain't," he said.
"My mother says it is."
"Ain't sayen Miss Sallie doan know and ain't sayen she do. But folks don't know everything."
Old Jebb seems to be not only a source of knowledge to Seth, but also a symbol of wisdom. The emphasis on Jebb's physical strength, despite his advanced age, effectively adds mass to the character of Old Jebb; he seems to have a larger hand in Seth's emotional growth than do the characters of his mother and father, and his words have a kind of density about them. What Old Jebb presented to Seth was the inability of a person to truly know something. Old Jebb even questions the month of June itself, ""June," he replied with great contempt. "That what folks say. What June mean?"". Musing on mankind's illusion of control over the natural world, Old Jebb explains to Seth the ease at which the earth my decide to "take a rest", causing "everybody and everything" to die. This idea of impermanence, human fragility, and the "unknowable" clashes with Seth's previous resolution: "When you know something you know it. You know how a thing has been and you know you can go barefoot in June."
The reader sees the breakdown of Seth's "knowledge"; going barefoot in June freezes Seth's feet! Seth's conception of reality, the blackberry winter itself and whether it is occuring at all, is questioned, quite rightly actually (a true blackberry winters occurs in May). The fact that the short story itself is titled "Blackberry Winter" suggests a similar breakdown in "knowing", in the narrator's case, the ability for a person to accurately capture the significance of a memory. Many years separates the adult narrator and the nine year old Seth. Old Jebb's prediction of a tired earth that would stop offering nourishment can be read as the human mind's inability to produce and "grow" in the manner in which it did in younger years. Inevitably, a cold spell comes, and it stays. We end up losing our ability to remember how our youth shaped us. The narrator's statement that he has been following the tramp all these years is just as false to me as Seth's earlier statement about being able to go barefoot in June. Instead, the narrator has been following Old Jebb, who is still alive and present in his life, and who "lived forever" in the story, and in the mind of the narrator.
Question: To what extent is the narrator lamenting his youthful ignorance? Or is the narrator thankful for the "eternal" feelings of childhood, when "what you remember seems forever"?
note: the title is from Wordsworth's Intimations ode
Good Beginnings
My favorite part, and also the part that spoke to me the most, happened on the first page of the story: "Nobody had ever tried to stop me in June as long as I could remember, and when you are nine years old, what you remember seems forever; for you remember everything and everything is important and stands bigs and full and fills up Time and is so solid that you can walk around and around it like a tree and look at it. You are aware that times passes, that there is a movement in time, but that is not what Time is. Time is not a movement, a flowing, a wind then, but is, rather, a kind of climate in which things are, and when a thing happens it begins to live and keeps on living and stands solid in Time like the tree that you can walk around (Warren, 63)." I related to young Seth, especially in terms of his confidence in his knowledge and how he saw manners as the law. And so the story began with a strong start. I loved the narration of the older Seth, clearly recanting his past in this novelette/short story. The narrative was colloquial and rich in description while relating to the reader. The story contained such great dialect which accurately depicts a small southern town... which made it that more surprising when the story reached its conclusion... Maybe I missed the point, but what was the point of ending the story so abruptly?
A better question for the class: How does the conclusion actually conclude the story? Does it?
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