A Sovenir of Japan, 320 to the end (par. 15-23)

1. Is it possible to be addicted to boredom?

2. Now that you've read to the end: does this couple seem in love?

3. Assuming the couple is in love, do they seem to be in love in a good way? Generally, how do you feel about this relationship?

4. Does this story seem anti-Japanese? To put it another way, does the narrator seem resentful toward or angry toward the Japanese and Japanese culture?

5. In par. 22, the narrator says, "If he valued me as an object of passion, he had reduced the word to its root, which derives from the Latin, patior; I suffer. He valued me as an instrument which would cause him pain." Do you think the narrator values Taro, and the relationship in general, as an instrument that causes her pain?

6. How are mirrors, and the idea of mirrors, important to this story?

7. Choose a sentence from the reading to comment on, and comment on it.

A Souvenir of Japan 217-220 par. 1-14

1. "Above our heads, the fireworks hung dissolving earrings on the night." (par. 4) Can you find other instances of precise or surprising language, or of adventurous imagery?
2. Par. 5 is a description of the complex emotional dynamics of romantic relationship. How would you describe the dynamics in your words?

3. Can you cite evidence that the two lovers--the narrator and Taro--are fairly deeply in love? Cite it, and discuss if necessary.

4. Can anyone explain the comparison the narrator makes between Taro and Momotaro, the boy in the folktale who is born from a peach?

5. Is this story about boredom? See especially paragraphs 5 and 6. Explain your answer.

The Yellow Wallpaper 321-to the end

1. Can you see in "The Yellow Wallpaper" any similarities or parallels to the part of A Doll House that we've read?

2. It becomes more and more clear to the narrator that there is a person behind the "bars" of the wall paper. Comment.

3. Could this story be (among other things) about boredom?

4. The woman behind the wallpaper creeps, bother behind the wallpaper and outside the house (par. 198-199). Can you make anything of the fact that she "creeps"?

5. The narrator starts to remove the wallpaper (par. 210). She also reported, near the beginning of the story, that some of the wallpaper had been removed (par. 33). Comment.

6. Any theories as to what's going on with the rope (par. 239, 248)?

7. Any theories as to what happens at the end? (par. 264-267)?

8. Find a sentence you want to comment on and comment on it.

The Yellow Wallpaper pp. 316-321, par. 1-104

1. To what extent is the narrator psychologically unwell? Or can we not tell? What evidence can you cite?

2. Does the narrator's husband, John, seem like a good man or not? Or can we not tell? Wave evidence can you cite?

3. How is this story (so far) different from the other stories we've read so far? What evidence can you cite?

4. What, if anything, is wrong with the narrator's treatment from your own point of view? Explain.

5. Is there anything the narrator should be doing, realistically speaking, that she is not doing now? Why?

6. What do you notice about the room in which the narrator stays and writes? What do you think about whatever it is you notice?

7. Find a sentence worthy of comment, and comment on it.

7.

The Lady with the Dog pp. 185 to the end

1. In paragraph 47, starting "At Orenada they sat on a seat not far from the church," assume it is Dmitri Dmitritch (Gurov) who is thinking thoughts about the sea's sound and eternal salvation and progress. How does this paragraph contribute to how our sense of who he is?

2. How do paragraphs 59-61 ("The train moved off rapidly. . . . 'High time!'") contribute to our sense of who he is, or reinforce our sense of who he is?

3. Why do you suppose that to his own surprise Dmitri continues to remember his time with Anna Sergeyevna vividly (par. 64)?

4. In paragraphs 66-71, Dmitri has a conversation with a companion, involving sturgeon (a kind of fish, evidently what they had for dinner that night). Comment.

5. Dmitri learns that Anna Sergeyevna's husband is rich (par. 75). How does this news contribute to our sense of who Anna is?

6. Anna continues to think passionately of Dmitri, as she says in par. 97 ("I am so unhappy . . . .have you come?") Why do you suppose she cares for him as much as she does?

7. "Why did she love him so much? He always seemed to women different from what he was, and they loved in him not himself, but the man created by their imagination, whom they had always been eagerly seeking all their lives. . ." (par. 117). Do you think this is true of the way most of us see others--not as they are but as they seem to be to our imaginations? Assuming yes--how does that make you fell about human beings? Assuming no--how does it make you feel about Dmitri that he has this thought?

8. Note the ending of the story. It would be easy to say that it is unsatisfying, because of the way it fails to resolve things. Can you see a way that the ending is nevertheless effective and artistically appropriate? If so, explain.

The Lady with the Dog 181-185 par 1-40

Yalta


1. Is the story told in the third person point of view, period, or is it told from Dmitri Dmitritch's point of view while at the same time in the third person? What makes you say so?

2. See number (1) above: what difference to the meaning of the story might it make what point of view the story is told from?

3. In the story so far, does one character seem more moral or more sympathetic or more positive than the other (referring to Dmitri and Anna Sergeyevna)? Explain.

4. Why might this story be called "The Lady with the Dog"? How does the dog effect the meaning? Note: we don't hear anything more about the dog than we've already heard.

5. Find a sentence you find important or interesting and say why.

Why I Live at the P.O. par. 90 to the end

1. “Not one bad one in the string.” (95) How is this remark typical of the narrator or her way of expressing herself?

2. How does Uncle Rondo’s throwing firecrackers into the narrator’s room (95) advance our understanding of his character? How does it square with his throwing a nickel to the girl who helps cart the narrator’s belongings to the post office (139)?

3. The narrator takes with here to the post office an extensive number of objects that don’t pertain to her particularly, the way her clothes, for example, might pertain just to her. What do you make of the list of things she takes?

4. The narrator knows about radio offers of free seeds to those who send in a box top; the mother hasn’t heard about such an offer, and is curious. What does this exchange say about the economic or social class of the family? How does your answer square with the fact that her family “are naturally the main people in China Grove” (142)?

5. When all is said and done who do you think is the most mature, psychologically whole person in the family? Why?

6. When all is said and done who do you think is the least mature, least psychologically whole person in the family? Why?

Why I Live at the P.O. 125-129 (par. 30-90)

A small-town post office in Kansas. This story is set in Mississippi, however.


1. Sometimes the narrator says apparently random things, things that don’t directly connect with what she was just saying. For example:

“He’s Mama’s only brother and is a good case of a one-track mind. Ask anybody. A certified pharmacist.” (33)

“You ought to see Mama, she weighs two hundred pounds and has real tiny feet.” (63)

Comment.

2. The narrator seems to feel the need to point out what she sees as the truth—about Stella-Rondo’s child not being really adopted, about the same child not being able to talk (65)(it turns out she can--at least she can sing the words to "Popeye the Salilor Man"). Is this a good quality? If it gets the narrator in trouble, what makes her keep trying to point to reality (as she sees it)?

3. Consider the dialogue at 68-77. Comment.

4. “So that made Mama, Papa-Daddy, and the baby all on Stella-Rondo’s side.” (80) Can you relate this sentence to the title of the story?

5. Why would Uncle Rondo put on Stella-Rondo’s “flesh-colored kimono”?

6. Same question as I’ve been asking about the poems we’ve been looking at: what does this story sound like? That is, what does the sound of this story sound like?

7. Find a sentence you like or find interesting and comment.

Why I Live at the P.O. paragraphs 1-32, pp. 123-125

1. Find something humorous about paragraph 1.

2. Stella-Rondo's child, Shirley-T., is adopted, according to Stella-Rondo, not adopted and biological, according to the narrator. Comment.

3. "Papa-Daddy's Mama's papa and sulks." Comment on this sentence, found in paragraph 8.

4. What do we learn about the post office in this reading?

5. What adjectives might you apply to Papa-Daddy?

6. What adjectives might you apply to Stella-Rondo?

7. Find a sentence that you like or find interesting or find important and explain why.

Sonny's Blues claim

In one or two sentences, make an interpretive claim about "Sonny's Blues." (If you'd like to look over the previous blog comments first, go ahead.) Then list three pieces of evidence for your claim. These pieces of evidence could be quotations, or they could by phrases of your own about the text. The pieces of evidence don't have to be complete sentences. If you quote, write the quotation out in full. If the quotation seems too long, it probably is; just use part of it.

If someone else has taken your claim, you must come up with your own new examples.

Sonny's Blues to the end of the story

1. The narrator comes up with a number of metaphors for the process of making music the way Sonny does (a kind involving improvisation) on pages 103-104. What metaphors can you spot?

2. In general, how would you describe the way this last part of the story is narrated compared to the earlier parts? Or does the last part seem like the earlier parts?

3. How would you interpret the narrator's buying Sonny a drink, and Sonny's response, at the end of the story? You don't need to pay too much attention to the footnote cited at the end, unless you want to.

4. Does the story end happily or unhappily or other? Explain.

5. Having gotten to the end of the story, what you now say that the author is suggesting about the relationship between being addicted to heroin and playing music?

6. Find a sentence you like, quote it, and explain why.

"Sonny's Blues," paragraphs 46-226

To recap: The narrator returns on leave from the Navy to attend his mother's funeral. While there, he talks his brother Sonny into staying in high school, reminding him that there is a piano in the apartment he will be living in, that of the narrator's fiancee's family. Sonny leaves that apartment when the mother complains about the sacrifices the family is making for him. When the narrator returns from the military, he and Sonny fight, and stop seeing each other. Then Sonny gets busted for using heroin (this is at the beginning of the story; there's been a long flashback in between). The narrator writes to him in prison on the day his daughter Grace dies. The narrator and sonny start to correspond, and when Sonny gets out of prison he comes to stay with the narrator and his family. That's where we are now.

1. We learn about Grace's illness and death at paragraphs 177-178; Sonny wrote about it in his letter to the narrator back at paragraphs 50-52. How does Grace's death matter in the story so far?

2. The narrator writes that Sonny's piano-playing in the narrator's fiancee's house (the narrator was away in the navy) must have been like "torture" to the fiancee's family. Please note that it's not that Sonny's playing is bad--on the contrary--but as the devoted follower of Charlie Parker, aka "Bird," Sonny is learning how to play a form of jazz known as "Be-Bop," and it's challenging to listen to, even today, for most people. At the time it was even more challenging because it was brand new.

Read over paragraph 170 as a description of a young artist in training, devoted to his art. Comment.

3. The narrator's mother tells him about the death of his father's brother (paragraphs 91-105). What makes the story particularly poignant or painful?

4. The narrator remembers Sunday afternoons and evening when he was a child in paragraph 82 (starting with "This was the last time I ever saw my mother alive." How does this memory connect to the narrator's feelings and thoughts about what is going on now with Sonny living with him, either taking heroin or not?

5. Try to put into your own words a succinct summary of the conversation between the narrator and Sonny at paragraphs 183-226.

6. In the conversation mentioned above, music and the effect of heroin are both discussed. Can you describe their relationship, according to Sonny, even though it's not easy for Sonny himself to express it?

"Sonny's Blues" paragraphs 1-47

1. Can you cite any passages that support the idea that the narrator loved his brother Sonny? Can you find passages that support the idea that he didn't? Cite passage, and explain.

2. In paragraph 18, the narrator asks, "Anyway, what the hell can I do?" What would your answer to this question be?

3. In paragraphs 5, 6, and 7, the narrator talks about the darkness of the lives of his teen-aged students; his students' after-school conversation, including shouting, cursing, and laughing; and a boy whistling a tune. Comment. (Yes, this is a very open-ended question.)

4. Sonny's friend says that he feels as if he is somehow responsible for Sonny's drug addiction, even though all he did was tell Sonny that it felt great to be high. Is there anything in the reading that points tot he idea that the narrator also feels somehow responsible? (paragraphs 26-28)

5. How would you explain Sonny's friend's reaction to being given a five dollar bill by the narrator (paragraphs 43-35)?

"Dream Song 14" by John Berryman

John Berryman

Dream Song 14

Life, friends, is boring. We must not say so.
After all, the sky flashes, the great sea yearns,
we ourselves flash and yearn,
and moreover my mother told me as a boy
(repeatingly) "Ever to confess you're bored
means you have no

Inner Resources." I conclude now I have no
inner resources, because I am heavy bored.
Peoples bore me,
literature bores me, especially great literature,
Henry bores me, with his plights & gripes
as bad as Achilles,

who loves people and valiant art, which bores me.
And the tranquil hills, & gin, look like a drag
and somehow a dog
has taken itself & its tail considerably away
into the mountains or sea or sky, leaving
behind: me, wag.



Note: When the speaker says "Henry bores me," he is referring to himself. In the longer set of poems known as The Dream Songs, the main character is named Henry and often refers to himself as Henry. In fact, he switches from first to second to third person in a non-conventional way. Also note: Achilles, the main character in Homer's Iliad, complained because his commander, Agamemnon, had treated him unjustly concerning the spoils of battle. Achilles refuses to fight on the Greek side and the Trojans start to get the upper hand as a result.

1. What does this poem sound like? Supply a simile (for example, "It sounds like a nursery rhyme" or "it sounds like someone walking on crutches" or "it sounds like a parrot squawking." Try to be accurate to you own experience. Don't worry about being thought outlandish. NOTE the rhyme patterns in the three stanzas above.

2. What are the five single most important words in this poem, in your opinion? After listing them, explain why in the case of ONE of the words.

the poem "Introduction to Poetry"

Introduction to Poetry

Billy Collins

I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.

Everyone answer both prompts. Don't look at anyone else's answer before writing your answer to the first prompt.

1. What does this poem sound like? Supply a simile (for example, "It sounds like a nursery rhyme" or "it sounds like someone walking on crutches" or "it sounds like a parrot squawking." Try to be accurate to you own experience. Don't worry about being thought outlandish.

2. What are the five single most important words in this poem, in your opinion? After listing them, explain why in the case of ONE of the words.

the poem "Kubla Khan"

Kubla Khan, or A Vision in a Dream.

A Fragment.

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree :
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round :
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree ;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
But oh ! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover !
A savage place ! as holy and enchanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover !
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced :
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail :
And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean :
And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war !
The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves ;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice !

A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw :
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight 'twould win me,
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome ! those caves of ice !
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware ! Beware !
His flashing eyes, his floating hair !
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Everyone answer both prompts. Don't look at anyone else's answer before writing your answer to the first prompt.

1. What does this poem sound like? Supply a simile (for example, "It sounds like a nursery rhyme" or "it sounds like someone walking on crutches" or "it sounds like a parrot squawking." Try to be accurate to you own experience. Don't worry about being thought outlandish.

2. What are the five single most important words in this poem, in your opinion? After listing them, explain why in the case of ONE of the words.