HW for October 17 (Joyce)

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Dear class,

Thanks for your work today.  Next week we have no class (hurrah!), so we’ll reconvene on October 17th. For that date, you should prepare the following:

-Finish reading and annotating “The Dead” (45 mins-1 hr)

-Pick one snapshot from Joyce’s story and one from Mukherjee’s story that you think deserve close comparison.  Perhaps they feature a common setting, or a similar relationship dynamic between characters, or a similar symbolic act/object.  Come prepared to discuss why those snapshots might merit comparison. (15 mins)

-Blog (if you’re in Group 3) or comment (if you’re not). (20-30 mins)

-Review class notes (remainder of prep time)

-Bring your in-class writing exercise AND the Mukherjee story to class, as we will do some work with both

Blog group 3 is slated to post by 5 pm on Sunday, 10/16.  Group 3: as usual, you have a choice of Clue, Connect, or Create posts, with the expectation that you should do a different category than you did in the first round of blogging.  Using notes from class + our own guiding questions, write a post that does any of the following:

-focuses on one “snapshot” from pp.70-85 of “The Dead,” explaining how it offers a clue to addressing any of our guiding questions (remember, these aren’t just questions about information but questions seeking interpretation!)

–Compares/connects any “snapshot” from pp. 70-85 of “The Dead” to any snapshot from our American Literature selections (NOT Mukherjee).  Try to make one claim about why these snapshots deserve close comparison.

–Create a paragraph-long monologue from the perspective of one minor character from “The Dead.”  In a second paragraph, briefly explain how your monologue offers insight into that character, based on your reading of pp.70-85 of “The Dead.”

As usual, commenters should take care to post by the beginning of class Monday.

Have a great holiday!

best,

Professor Kwong

Connect “Management of Grief”

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In this story “ Management of Grief” by Bharati Mukherjee the main character (Mrs. Bhave) has an unusual reaction to the crash of Air India flight 182 on which her husband and 2 sons were on board .She doesn’t react to the situation like a normal person would . She is pretty calm through out not in shock which the author of the story showed that she didn’t wanted to accept the fact that they have died she was still hoping that she would find them. Once she did found their bodies in Ireland she was later on able to accept the fact that she has to move on because she heard a voice of her husband saying, “You must finish alone what we started together.” And “Your time has come, . . . Go, be brave.” There fore she accepted the death of her husband and kids and is able to move on. The author basically shows how she went through her grief by first rejecting the fact that they have died, then she kind of went in to depression because she was remembering everything about her kids and husband having flashbacks, then by accepting the fact that her kids and husband have died in the plane crash and last but not the least her reconstruction which was her moving on after the acceptance of the tragedy.We can connect this story to the “Story of an hour” by Kate Chopin because in this story the author uses the same kind of style, tone and symbolism to show Louisie unusual reaction to the news of her husband death she didn’t get shocked at all . She just cried a little bit and then went to the room by herself in to her fantasies imagining her life without her husband and all the time she will have for herself now. When she told herself “Free.. Free.. Free” she got over her husband death and accepted the fact that she has to live by herself and for herself now. So here the author also used those concepts of rejection, depression, acceptance and reconstruction but at the end of the story Mrs Mallard dies of shock of seen her husband back because in her mind she had reconstructed her life ahead of her without her husband and got over his death .

The management of grief

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As I was reading “The Management of Grief” by Bharati Mukherjee, it focuses more on its effects on women. This story give credit to all the people who forget enough of their roots to start over, to have a new life, but it also represents the ones who do not forget their own roots and how to survive their fates. Judith Templeton represents how she has taken a degree in managing grief, and her job. The way that some survivals had front can also be interpreted as a grief. Templeton had made some assumptions about the management of grief but their assumptions are not accurate and cannot be applied to the survivors. Finally, she also states that even though the people that she is helping most of them are lovely but they also drive her crazy.

HW for October 6 (Joyce annotation)

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Dear class,

Thank you for your hard work today.  I’m confident that, over the next few classes, your hard work will train you to ask good guiding questions, which in turn will enable you to take better snapshots for richer analysis.  This will make the experience of reading our 3 novels (Wells, Lovecraft, Achebe) a little less intimidating!

For homework, please focus on pp.55-59 of “The Dead.”  As usual, take notes in the margins, either on questions you have, or clarifying definitions of words/phrases.  Take a picture of one annotated page and upload it (either as .jpeg or PDF) to the appropriate dropbox (under Assignments + Essays Dropbox) by 11 am tomorrow.  We will spend tomorrow’s class wading further into “The Dead” together.

Note that there is no blog or comment due tomorrow.  However, I am expecting you to keep track of how many comments you have completed!  Remember that you should have 12 comments – approximately one per week – by the end of the semester, and you can’t make up comments if more than a week has passed.

Happy annotating!

sincerely,

Professor Kwong

Connect- The management of grief

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In this tragic story, ” the management of grief “, the use of theme and character plot helped connect with the style of how the author wanted to present the story. The concept of loss and death is a very heavily ordeal, even harder is the factor of going on after a loss or death, is very burdensome cross to bear. There have been stories discussed in class that has similar ways of interpretation, such as The Story of an Hour, where they faced grief only to face death by acceptance. The theme of death and grief helped motivate different aspects of each character, especially the protagonist. To face losing her husband and sons, with the clouded hope of them still being alive, drove the emotional plot point, For Shaila, grief is not an option. She is frustrated in being calm when she didn’t have to be.  This makes her callous. The thought of hope of her family miraculous alive drives the definition of stages of grief to work through the story: denial, anger fear, bargaining, and acceptance. (though the order of the stages varies to each individual character).