"The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas"

Ursula K. Le Guin's "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" takes place in a Utopian society. This setting, according to Wikipedia, is defined as follows:

"Utopia is a name for an ideal community or society, taken from the title of a book written in 1516 by Sir Thomas More describing a fictional island in the Atlantic Ocean, possessing a seemingly perfect socio-politico-legal system. The term has been used to describe both intentional communities that attempted to create an ideal society, and fictional societies portrayed in literature. "Utopia" is sometimes used pejoratively, in reference to an unrealistic ideal that is impossible to achieve, and has spawned other concepts, most prominently dystopia.

The word comes from Greek: οὐ, "not", and τόπος, "place", indicating that More was utilizing the concept as allegory and did not consider such an ideal place to be realistically possible. It is worth noting that the homophone Eutopia, derived from the Greek εὖ, "good" or "well", and τόπος, "place", signifies a double meaning that was almost certainly intended. Despite this, most modern usage of the term "Utopia" assumes the latter meaning, that of a place of perfection rather than nonexistence." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopia).

Questions to Consider after Reading:

• Reviewing the definition of Utopia, how does Le Guin's story dramatize the "double meaning" or "two sides of the utopia," a place of perfection and a place that does not exit?
• While this is a fantastic story, how can this story be read as an allegory to our world? (Allegory defined: http://www.answers.com/topic/allegory)
• What or who is the central symbol in the story? How does the symbol relate to the story's title?
• How is the idea of the "scapegoat" relevant to this story? (Scapegoat defined: http://www.answers.com/topic/scapegoat)
• Is this a "just" society? Explain why or why not?
  

Setting, Characters, and Symbols: "The Things They Carried"

"They carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die. Grief, terror, love, longing--these were intangibles, but the intangibles had their own mass and specific gravity, they had tangible weight. They carried shameful memories. They carried the common secret of cowardice.... Men killed, and died, because they were embarrassed not to."

Tim O'Brien's short story, "The Things They Carried" is also part of a novel by the same title. (See reviews below.)

In the Amazon.com Review of the novel, the section "On the Rainy River," is the focus of the review; however, these ideas can applied to "The Things They Carried":

"A finalist for both the 1990 Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award, [in] The Things They Carried [. . . ] Vietnam is still O'Brien's theme, but in this book he seems less interested in the war itself than in the myriad different perspectives from which he depicts it. Whereas Going After Cacciato [O'Brien's earlier collection] played with reality, The Things They Carried plays with truth.

The narrator of most of these stories is "Tim"; yet O'Brien freely admits that many of the events he chronicles in this collection never really happened. He never killed a man as "Tim" does in "The Man I Killed," and unlike Tim in "Ambush," he has no daughter named Kathleen. But just because a thing never happened doesn't make it any less true.

In "On the Rainy River," the character Tim O'Brien responds to his draft notice by driving north, to the Canadian border where he spends six days in a deserted lodge in the company of an old man named Elroy while he wrestles with the choice between dodging the draft or going to war. The real Tim O'Brien never drove north, never found himself in a fishing boat 20 yards off the Canadian shore with a decision to make.

The real Tim O'Brien quietly boarded the bus to Sioux Falls and was inducted into the United States Army. But the truth of "On the Rainy River" lies not in facts but in the genuineness of the experience it depicts: both Tims went to a war they didn't believe in; both considered themselves cowards for doing so.

Every story in The Things They Carried speaks another truth that Tim O'Brien learned in Vietnam; it is this blurred line between truth and reality, fact and fiction, that makes his book unforgettable." --Alix Wilber

From Publishers Weekly
"Weapons and good-luck charms carried by U.S. soldiers in Vietnam here represent survival, lost innocence and the war's interminable legacy. 'O'Brien's meditations--on war and memory, on darkness and light--suffuse the entire work with a kind of poetic form, making for a highly original, fully realized novel,' said PW. 60,000 first printing."
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Questions to consider after reading:

• What is the setting--place, time period, and event--of the story?
• How can we find a contemporary parallel to this story's setting?
• Even if not at war, can the characters' struggles also parallel everyday struggles people face? How?
  
• Create a character sketch of Lieutenant Cross--what type of person is he? How does he react to situations?
• O'Brien writes, "The things they carried were largely determined by necessity." As the story develops what are the different ways necessity could be defined or determined by each character?
• What happened to Lavender? How is this a turning point or maybe the climax of the story?
• Who is Martha? How can she be both a character and a symbol?
• What is significant about Jimmy Cross's name? What might it represent (symbolize) within the context of the story?
  
• How do the "things they carry" become abstract (or metaphorical) for the characters?
• What symbolic action does Lieutenant Cross do with one group of objects he carries? What do the objects represent? How does Cross's action change what these objects represent for Cross and the reader?
• What are possible themes we can draw from this story?
• How is the question of what is truth explored in this story?
  

FYI

A Vietnam Vet "blogs" about reading this collection and his experiences:
http://www.lorenwebster.net/In_a_Dark_Time/category/longer-works/obriens-the-things-they-carried/

Back ground on the Vietnam War--
http://www.pbs.org/battlefieldvietnam/history/index.html

The setting for the story:
http://www.traveljournals.net/explore/vietnam/map/m4958358/than_khe.html

In-class Essay for 1.26.09: Metamorphosis of a Character and Theme

Metamorphosis begins with a fantastic premise set forth in the story's opening line: "When Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a monstrous insect" (Kafka 317). Artist Natalia Moroz (who created the above print based on the novella) writes that in Franz Kafka's "most widely known story, one can hear Kafka's deeply hidden despair and fear of [. . . .] blind fate"
(http://www.nataliamoroz.com/kafka.html).

A "theme of a story is whatever general idea or insight the entire story reveals" to the reader (Gioia and Kennedy 189). Accepting the unrealistic premise of Metamorphosis as the reality of Kafka's story, how is this premise symbolic of a larger theme in the story? If fate can sometimes be random and unexpected, besides being turned into an insect, what else causes Gregor to suffer? In conclusion, what can we learn from this story?

In-class Essay Preparation Notes

Develop the above questions and ideas into a thesis. Develop support for your thesis by preparing notes on the items below:

• What is the setting of the story's action? Consider setting as the city, time period, the family dynamic, and the specific location where the main action takes place.
  
• Create a character sketch on Gregor--his appearance, role in the family, work, his attitude toward himself, work, each family member?
• Look up the word "metamorphosis."
• How is Gregor's change symbolic of who he was before his change? What about after his change?
  
• How does Gregor react to his situation?
  
• How does each member of his family react?
• How do the characters (situation, characteristics, motivations) contribute to Gregor's ultimate fate and the story's conclusion?
• Identify symbols in the story. Besides the literal meaning, what does each symbol represent?
  

You will have only 45 minutes to write this time, so come prepared. Y0u may use your book and one hand-written page of notes (front & back if you need it). You may not have an essay draft already written. The essay must be composed in-class.

In-Class Essay for 1.22.09: Analyzing Characters in Conflict

“Where Are You Going, Where have you been?” by Joyce Carol Oates, and “Chrysanthemums,” by John Steinbeck, contain realistic details, yet the conclusions may be a surprise . . . or not.

Read both stories and then take notes on the questions and ideas below. Don't forget to review the previous class notes and blog post on identifying characteristics and motivations of characters.

In-class Essay Preparation Notes:

In each story, identify the characteristics of opposing characters--Arnold Friend and Connie in “Where Are You Going . . .?” and Elisa Allen, Henry Allen, and the repair man in “Chrysanthemums.” How do their characteristics and motivations create conflict and lead to each story’s conclusion?

In each story, who are the protagonists and antagonists, or can the characters be classified that way?

According to our textbook, a symbol is "a thing that suggests more than its literal meaning" (Kennedy & Gioia 229). Identify any important objects that may represent something about the characters, situations, or ideas in the story.

What is the theme (main idea) of each story? Consider what each story dramatizes for the reader about power, manipulation, and sexuality?

For the Essay

This will be a 45-minute essay with a topic based on the readings and above preparation notes. You may use your book and one hand-written page of notes (front & back if you need it). You may not have an essay draft already written. The essay must be composed in-class.

Creating Character Sketches: "The Rich Brother" & "Cathedral"

In today's class we briefly reviewed the plot pyramid (adding inciting incident to the model) and then focused on listing details about the characters. The purpose of this writing exercise was to show how understanding characters, their motivations, conflicts can help a reader discover the main ideas or themes in a story. Only then can the reader begin to create an effective thesis or interpretation to argue in writing.

Characteristics can be classified as concrete facts (e.g. name, gender, age, physical appearance, a character's family or lack thereof, objects that he owns or doesn't), traits (e.g. greedy, generous, selfish, selfless, careless, attentive, sexy, sexless, materialistic, spiritual, etc.).

Often a reader's understanding of some character traits may be based in the opinion of the reader, filtered by the reader's own experiences, values, and world views. This value judgment of a character is more subjective than the two previous types of characteristics. In other words two readers of the same story can reach two different value judgments about a character; he is, for example, either selfish or spiritual as in the case of Donald, the younger brother in "The Rich Brother" by Tobias' Wolff. The success of a reader's value judgment and character analysis depends upon the compelling evidence the reader finds in the story to support her interpretation.

Today's activity of creating character analysis as a class is, therefore, useful in understanding a story, examining conflict, (why conflict occurs, how it operates, and what are the results/effects), identifying significant details, and discovering questions about the story that are not easily answered based on concrete facts. From these questions an effective essay thesis can be found.

Several Possible Questions from Today's Class:

• Who is the "rich" brother?
• Who is the protagonist or antagonist, or can either be clearly classified?
• What are Wolff's ideas about religion?
• Did Peter try to kill Donald?
• What were Peter's motivations for helping his brother?
• Was Donald a "good" man? Was Pete?
• How were certain objects important in the story (e.g. the t-shirt, soda, money, farm, etc.)?
• What were the characteristics of the narrator in "Cathedral"?
• What is the significance of the shared activity at the end of the story?
• How are relationships described in Raymond Carver's story?

Be watching for the in-class essay topic to be posted by noon on Wednesday!

Optional Journal: "Teenage Wasteland," The Who 1.15.09

Optional Journal as Paper Generation Idea:
Below is a live performance by the band The Who of their song, "Teenage Wasteland." Included are the lyrics to the song. Watch the performance and read the lyrics. Why would Anne Tyler select this song as the title of her story? How does the song relate to the characters and their situations?



Baba O'Rily written by Pete Townshend
From the album ‘THE LIFEHOUSE CHRONICLES’

Out here in the fields
I fight for my meals
I get my back into my living
I don't need to fight
To prove I'm right
I don't need to be forgiven

My kids ain't gonna break my heart
My greed ain't gonna spoil their part
This life just has to be a new one
I'm gonna tan underneath a new sun

Don't cry
Don't raise your eye
It's only teenage wasteland

Don't have the latest suit, the long grass is my fruit
I am really ordinary man
The family is free to do just as they please
And we all sleep together in the caravan

Hey you, don't walk on the turnips
My lord, when will they ever learn it, ooh
Look there, nations of travelling children
Nowhere to go to escape the chill wind

Don't cry
Don't raise your eye
It's only teenage wasteland

My kids ain't gonna break my heart
And my greed ain't gonna spoil their part
This life just has to be a new one
I'm gonna tan underneath a new sun

Sally, take my hand
We'll travel south crossland
Put out the fire
And don't look past my shoulder
The exodus is here
The happy ones are near
Let's get together
Before we get much older

Teenage wasteland
Teenage wasteland
Teenage wasteland
It's only teenage wasteland
Teenage wasteland
It's only teenage wasteland
Teenage wasteland
It's only teenage wasteland

They're all wasted!

Class Review: 1.15.09

In today's class we discussed each of our stories in terms of the old-fashioned plot pyramid (See illustration above: exposition, development of plot, leading to the turning point, climax, and resolution of the story). Once we understand the different elements of a short story (the "who," "what" and "where") , we can begin to shape an interpretation of the story.


One of the first steps in moving beyond a plot summary to an analysis is to search for details in the story that give us clues to why certain events occur, why a character acts a certain way or makes certain choices.

One of the keys to finding out why events happen or why characters make certain choices is discovering a character's motivations (what she wants and believes about herself and others).

Once these motivations are understood, we move from the surface plot into the depth of the story.

We then begin to see what lies beneath the surface of plot; we move to interpretation of the larger ideas expressed by the story. These ideas may be what the author is trying to dramatize about human nature or the world, and what you the reader take away from the story. In other words, underneath the plot pyramid lies the theme.

Essay Development Writing Exercises:

1. Reviewing the stories you have read so far, select one story and fit the different parts into a plot pyramid model.
2. Select the protagonist from one of the stories and write a one-to-two-paragraph character analysis using clues in the story, such as how the character is described, his actions, and how another character reacts to him or how the protagonist acts toward that character.
   
3. Repeat #2 by examining the antagonist.
4. Select a passage detailing the setting. How does the setting shape the character? What in the setting may represent (symbolize) aspects of the characters?
   

Short Stories: Journal #2, 1.15.09

“Teenage Wasteland”

• How does the title relate to the story?
• What type of narrative point-of-view does Anne Tyler use in this story?
• How does the narrator describe the son at the opening? How does this description relate to Daisy’s (the mother’s) opinion of her son, Donny? What does she learn about her son?
• How do the actions of the characters—e.g. Daisy, Matt, Amanda, Donny, Mr. Lanham, Cal, Miss Evans--give us insight on motivations and what kind of people they are?
• Who are the opposing characters in the story?
• Who is to blame for the outcome of the story?
• What is the meaning of Daisy’s vision at the end of the story?

“Greasy Lake”

Journal #2 Writing Prompt:

Explain how T.C. Boyle in "Greasy Lake" uses setting to do more than create a realistic place for his characters to occupy. Analyze the setting and explain how it represents aspects of the characters' lives.

Follow-up Questions

• How does the narrator’s point-of-view shape how he sees himself and his friends? On what details does he focus? How does he use exaggeration? What is the effect?
• What is the turning point for the characters?
• How and why do the characters change and the end of the story. What details support the idea they may have changed?

Short Stories: Journal #1, 1.13.09

In-class Journal Writing:

What are your expectations for a short story? What elements do think a story should have? Did the stories, "Happy Endings," by Margaret Atwood, and "Nobody's a Mystery," by Elizabeth Tallent, fulfill your expectations for a short story? Why or why not? Provide specific details from each story as support for your opinion.

Follow-up class discussion ideas for possible essay topics:

• How does each title reflect something the story?
• What are the characters' motivations in each story?
• How do characters' motivations cause them to have conflict with other characters?
• How are conflicts resolved or not?
• How do the characters and conflicts connect to larger assumptions about human behavior and values?
• What larger ideas about people do these two stories share?