Author Archives: Jody R. Rosen

Questions about Beloved

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When Sethe is choked, is it Beloved, or is it the spirit of Baby Suggs? indeterminate

What is the circle of iron? is it a representation of her past? a necklace? noose? chains–shackles?

Why does Sethe go to the Clearing? To connect with Baby Suggs

Why does she feel she needs to connect with Baby Suggs? Because she’s been remembering when she first got to 124 and what Baby Suggs did for her; also for help making sense of what Paul D told her about how Halle saw what happened to her with the schoolteacher and his two boys.

What’s the iron bit situation with Paul D? a punishment that locked his mouth.

What’s the deal with Beloved? who is she? where did she come from? is she the baby ghost?

What’s the purpose of not cleaning the baby’s eyes and waiting for Sethe’s urine? Baby Suggs’s home remedy

How can something horrific keep you from your loved ones?

Who is the narrator? not part of the story–not homodiegetic. third person. jumps to first person who is limited? characters as focalizers, free indirect discourse.

CUNYFirst and you

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Did you know that there’s a new system that replaces eSIMS that you’ll use for registration, accessing your grades, and more? It’s called CUNYFirst, and you’ll need to learn how to use it before registration starts in May. There will be workshops, so keep your eyes open for information around campus letting you know when you can attend a CUNYFirst workshop.

Blogging for Wednesday, 4/10, and more!

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Everyone knows that we will not be visiting the Brooklyn Historical Society on 4/10 as was initially planned–instead, we’ll be going on 4/15 and 4/22.

For Wednesday’s class, please read the next four sections. In my copy, that ends on page 124. It ends with “She is smiling again.” The next section that we’ll begin with for the next set of readings begins “The last of the Sweet Home men”–we’ll read from there through the end of Part One for Monday’s class, plus some additional reading I’ll provide.

For those of you blogging by Tuesday at 5:00 so the rest of us can comment by 10:00am Wednesday, you have a few choices. You can blog about a topic of your own choosing, or you can blog about memory–but only if the passage you’re writing about is from our most recent section of reading–or you can use this new topic. We spent so much time thinking about narrators in the first half of our course, but we haven’t spent much time thinking about our narrator in Beloved. Write about the narrator in your blog post by considering a moment in the text when it isn’t clear who the narrator is, or who the focalizer is–remember we discussed what a focalizer is in the beginning of the semester–or when that narrator or focalizer shifts unexpectedly or in an unclear way. Incorporate a passage that exemplifies the issue you’re writing about.

As usual, make sure your post is 300 words and proofread. Comments should be 150 words and also proofread. Also, please post the comment you worked on in class today–that’s in addition to the comment you need to post in response to this next round of blogging!

First blog posts on Beloved

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Thank you to the six volunteers to get us started. For these posts, find a passage from Beloved that addresses memory. Use the text here to include the passage for your classmates. Then, in 300 words or so, write about what the passage says about memory, what it tells you about the character, and what you understand about Beloved from that passage. Make note of particular words or phrases that stand out to you or help you understand what the passage is saying about memory.

Commenters should write 100-150 words in response to one of the posts, offering additional observations about the passage, the words or phrases your classmate identified as particularly important, or the connection of that passage to the novel overall.

Be sure to keep up with the reading. We agreed that you should read through page 100 if you’re reading the red-covered edition and page 85 if you’re reading the copy that I had. If you’re reading the online text (remember, you need to have a copy with you in class!), the section ends with “Real pretty.” — the next section after that begins with “It was time to lay it all down.”

Happy reading and blogging!

Reading schedule for Beloved

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With the midterm behind us, we can begin looking forward to Spring Break. With Spring Break, we can begin to think about Beloved! Remember to get your copy: ISBN 978-1400033416. We have several weeks devoted to our discussion of Toni Morrison’s acclaimed novel, and we’ll use the time to consider how our study of fiction can apply to a longer text, how we can bring research into our examination of the novel, and how we can consider film within our study of narratives–all really exciting opportunities!

We meet again on Wednesday, April 3rd. By then, please read pages 2-64. For the following Monday, April 8th, please read through page 98. We’ll check in then to see how the reading is going. We want to be sure to get through this section of the novel before we go to the Brooklyn Historical Society on April 10th and 15th, where we’ll have the chance to look at slave indentures and runaway slave advertisements, to put some of what we read in Beloved into context.

I’m looking for 10 bloggers to write posts during Spring Break–by end of the day on April 1st, and for everyone else to comment on those posts. Please reach out to me if you want to volunteer–otherwise, I might reach out to you to ask you to volunteer.

Enjoy reading Beloved, and have a rewarding break.

Additional midterm-exam information

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Some of you have asked about the short-answer portion of the midterm exam. Here’s a description: there will be a list of terms from “Elements of Fiction” (don’t forget to look at all the sections of the site, not just the home page!) and from the list I posted on the blog (there is a lot of overlap, but some terms are only in one place or the other). There will also be a list of passages from our readings this semester. You will have to identify which term is an appropriate label for that passage AND explain why in a sentence or two. There might be more than one right answer, for example, if a passage is an example of first-person narration and setting–either would be correct in that case. You will not get credit, though, if you do not provide an explanation of why it is the appropriate label, since I won’t know if you know the terms or are just guessing.

Bonus points for correctly identifying the source of the passage!

Also, I added a new poll to the sidebar–I’m curious to know your interests for the essay topics. You can choose up to three in the poll.

Midterm exam questions

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In a well-developed essay, consider how two of the short stories we have read this semester compare in their approach to one of the following issues, topics, or themes. Compare two examples from each story, using quotations from your quotation sheet as evidence to support for your thesis-driven essay.

  1. the treatment of characters exhibiting signs of mental illness or instability
  2. the significance of setting details, including their symbolic significance
  3. the inclusion of the supernatural or inexplicable in what is otherwise natural, of-this-world, or rational
  4. the intricate relationship between freedom and death
  5. marriage as restrictive and empowering

(on the exam, this will be a list of three, so be sure to prepare three of the five to guarantee one of your preferred options will be available to you on Wednesday!)

Your essay should be 500-600 words—if you’re writing 5 words per line, that’s 5-6 pages in the blue book, fewer pages if you get more words per line. There’s no need to count all of the words: check to see roughly how many words you write per line on a few lines, then multiply that by 20 (lines per page) and the number of pages you have. When you include a quotation, even though it is already on your quotation sheet, I ask that you copy it into your essay. Rather than using whiteout or making a mess, when you need to make a correction, just cross out what you want to delete.

To get started, you should use the time before the exam to plan your three possible essays. On Wednesday, take time at the start of the exam to think about what you want to write, and use the blue book to write down notes before you start writing the essay. There’s no need to skip every other line, but you might want to skip a line or two between paragraphs to give yourself space to add in any additional words or sentences when you re-read your essay.

Don’t forget–there will be short-answer questions to start the exam.

If you have questions, feel free to ask them here. Here’s one to start us off: what’s a draft of a thesis statement for one of these essays?

notes for midterm exam preparation

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1.mental health: Consider the way mental disposition is portrayed in the short stories “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner  and “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. How do the mental breaks or perks of the protagonists contribute to the development of the story. In what way are both women similar in their realities. Consider this in relation to the sort of dementia that plagues the narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper” as well as Emily’s mental state due to her fathers interference.

also consider: Mrs. Wright in “A Jury of Her Peers”; Mrs. Samsa in “The Metamorphosis”; Goodman Brown in “Young Goodman Brown”

also: consider how one character influences another’s mental instability

also: consider how one character influences another’s health, both mental and physical

2. In short stories setting is important because it is hard to portray certain feelings in such little space of time. Consider the story “Young Goodman Brown” by Nathaniel Hawthorne and “A Jury of Her Peers” by Susan Glaspell. How does language help to portray the setting and help to show the mood and tone of the story. For example cold in “A jury of her peers” and dark in “Young Goodman Brown” as they pertain to each story. Show examples where words help to set the feeling or tone in that portion of the story.

compare with “The Yellow Wall-Paper”

“The Story of an Hour”–daytime, spring

something about symbolism in our understanding of setting: forest, springtime, etc

setting and its significance, symbolic significance

3. Consider the portrayal of the strength of women and the influences they have on each other in the following stories “The Cottagette”  By Charlotte Perkins Gilman and “A Jury of Her Peers” by Susan Glaspell. Consider the lies told by the woman to either get something in “The Cottagette” when Malda changes to get Fords attention lying to him in showing that she is a domestic woman when she is definitely not. As well as the woman lie about the bird in the box. How do these actions help to influence the outcome of the story.

truth/lies

4-time

irony: short story, short life in “The Story of an Hour”

5-SUPERNATURAL/inexplicable: “Young Goodman Brown,” “The Metamorphosis,” “The Yellow Wall-Paper”

6-inside/outside and transformations, border-crossings

7-freedom vs. death: “the story of an hour”; “a rose for emily”; “a jury of her peers”; “The Metamorphosis”

8-marriage (vs. death? vs. freedom?) restrictive vs. enabling

9-reliable narrators?

Fiction: terms for study

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These are the terms we reviewed in class at the beginning of the semester, plus the few more that we added to our list of terms. Many of them come from Ann Charters’s “Elements of Fiction.” You should review them and be sure you know what they mean, (especially the terms for different types of narrators for Essay 1)!

plot: the series of events that give a story its meaning and effect: what happens

rising action: the events in which the drama intensifies, rising toward the climax

climax: the most dramatic and revealing moment, usually the turning point

falling action: when the drama subsides and the conflict is resolved

protagonist: the central agent in generating its plot, and this individual can embody the story’s theme

antagonist: the character or force in conflict with the protagonist

round character: a complex, fully developed character, often prone to change

flat character: A one-dimensional character, typically not central to the story

characterization: The process by which an author presents and develops a fictional character

setting: the story’s time and place, as well as its historical moment or its social context

first-person point of view: narration identifiable by the use of the pronoun “I”

second-person point of view: narrator uses “you” to addresses reader

Third-person point of view: narration doesn’t use “I”; occurs when the narrator does not take part in the story

omniscient narration: when the narrator includes information from anywhere, including characters’ thoughts and feelings. (omniscient=all-knowing)

limited narration: when the narrator can relate what is in the minds of only a select few characters

objective/dramatic narration: when the narrator doesn’t have access to characters’ internal thoughts or background information about the setting or situation.

homodiegetic narration: when the narrator is part of the story-world–a character within the story. This would be a first-person narrator, and can also be called a character narrator.

autodiegetic narration: when the narrator is the protagonist. This is a sub-set of homodiegetic narration

prolepsis: a change in the order of the story representing a flash-forward

analepsis: a change in the order of the story representing a flashback

focalizer: a character whose point of view or thoughts the narrator represents–most closely represented in “Elements of fiction” as a point-of-view character. There can be multiple focalizers in a narrative. The narrator is the focalizer in a homodiegetic, or first-person, narration.

diction: the word choices the author makes to tell the story

tone: the story’s attitude toward its subject matter–it can be earnest, sarcastic, humorous, etc

theme: the meaning or concept central to the story

image: descriptive language that engages on of the senses, such as a visual image that makes the reader imagine what something looks like, or a tactile images that depicts what something feels like, etc

symbol: a repeated image that comes to take on a larger meaning in a given story

allegory: a story in which the symbols, characters, and events represent a different metaphysical, political, or social situation that elevates the meaning of the story

 

Tagging stories

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In class on Wednesday, 3/13, we tagged the stories we read with words and terms that might help us think more about overlaps we could find among the stories. Here’s what we had to say:

Charlotte Perkins Gilman, “The Cottagette”

equality, domestication, gender roles, romance, happy endings? domesticity, gender roles, feminism, role of gender, roles, Chinese take-out, doesn’t have to stay in the kitchen, conformity, utopia, happy ending (?), domesticity

Franz Kafka, “The Metamorphosis”

grotesque, nightmare-fuel, entombed, unconditional  vs conditional love, physical/ emotional change, gross, unordinary, euthanasia, transform, change, acceptance, metamorphosis, plot, bug, insect, ill, family, finance, metaphor, discrimination, transforming, family, creation, absurd, deformity, family, vermin, family values, family reliability, different living world, responsibility, disability, repugnant, unexplained,”The Fly”

Charlotte Perkins Gilman, “The Yellow Wall-Paper”

sickness, mental, psychological, hallucination, creepy, craziness, mental illness, loss of freedom, mental breakdown, illness, ignorance, brainwashing, confining marriage, gender role in society, you’d think yellow was a happy color, feminism, psychoanalysis, physicians, marriage, freedom, “rest cure” doesn’t work, caring vs hurting, consequences of bad marriage, gothic, dystopia

Kate Chopin, “The Story of an Hour”

what is true love?, elixir, freedom, blind persistence, freedom–not!, shame she didn’t live, freedom, marriage, illness, love, free, freedom, dark, 3rd person limited, love–who needs it? heart trouble, physical exhaustion, “freedom,” life, heart attack, lack of freedom, desire of freedom, unhappy marriage

Susan Glaspell, “A Jury of Her Peers”

woman-centric, women’s intuition, poor Mr. Wright, two wives, crazies, detective story, mystery, crime, judgmental, neighbors, women know women, confining marriage, importance of details

Nathaniel Hawthorne, “Young Goodman Brown”

Faith, damnation, symbols, allegory, distrust, forest, pink ribbons, forest, journey, evil, corruption, hallucinations vs. supernatural, hidden identities, reasons the Puritans aren’t really around anymore, demonic, godless, confusing, dream or not, young love, mystery, moral, ancient, faith, dreams, metaphors, Old English [**just have to say–this is NOT Old English. If you want to see what Old English looks like, or Middle English, or Early Modern English, in contrast to Modern English, you might check out this website, among many, many others. Thanks for listening!**]

William Faulkner, “A Rose for Emily”

crazy, haunting, death, forever and ever, pity, caring vs. hurting, loneliness, dilapidated, lonely life, Southern Gothic, loving dead, possessive, loneliness, china painting, iron-grey hair, mystery, crime, horror, past/future, 3rd person dramatic [***just to be clear, though, this story is told from a first-person plural point of view. The narrator is the people of the town. We could call this homodiegetic narration***], taxes, grotesque

Thomas Wolfe, “Only the Dead Know Brooklyn”

humor, Brooklyn, history, New York City, the map, Bensonhoist, big guy knows how to swim, transportation, directions, past, getting to know places, locations, settings, train, Brooklyn, vast, big, tour, Brooklyn, accent, NY, 1st person unreliable, enormous, unknowable, knowledge of Brooklyn, historical, accents/diction, maps, Brooklyn, Bensonhoist, Brooklyn history, culture, setting, ingenuity, visual descriptions, Bensonhurst, Red Hook, Coney Island

Brainstorming for the midterm exam

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As you well know, our midterm exam will be on March 20th, the last time we meet before Spring Break. In preparation for that, and to make sense of what we’ve worked on for the first half of the semester, we’re going to devote class time today and Monday, March 18th, to an examination of the stories we’ve read and to the overlaps we find among them.

The midterm exam itself will include ten short-answer questions asking you to define or identify terms, and one essay question that will ask you to compare two stories in a specific way. We will develop possible essay questions together in class today–they will each be based on a comparison of some element of two stories. For homework, write a blog post in which you advocate for two or more of these questions to be included among the choices you will have. In your post, consider any of the following questions:

  • What does answering the question allow you to understand about each story?
  • How does the question allow you to further explore the stories?
  • What does the comparison bring out?
  • What examples and quotations would you use in your response?
  • What thesis statement would you include?

In class on Monday, we will narrow the options down to 5 possible essay questions. On the exam, I will include only three of those questions, and you will have to answer one. You will be allowed to bring one sheet of quotations into the exam, which you will use to include evidence in your essay. After the exam, I will collect the quotation sheet along with your exam booklet.

For the essay, you will not be able to use the story you wrote about for Essay #1.

I’m happy to answer any questions in class, or you can reply here with more questions.

Dropbox instructions

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For Essay #1, you will submit both Part 1 and Part 2 via Dropbox. You should have received an invitation to join our shared folder already–please let me know if you have not, since you will not be able to submit your essay without accepting that invitation.

  • Go to Dropbox.com
  • Create an account using your City Tech email address (I believe that an .edu email address gets you more storage space in your account!) or the email address you asked me to use
  • Log in
  • Look on the left-hand side for the word Sharing (it has a rainbow next to it) and click it
  • Accept the invitation to our shared folder
  • Now click on the name of our shared folder
  • To submit your essay, click on the upload icon–it looks like a sheet of paper with a blue arrow pointing up
  • Choose your file the same way you would attach a file to an email. You can select multiple files at a time by holding CTRL (or the open apple key on a Mac) and clicking all of the files you want to add
  • When you click Open in the file-selecting dialog box, your files will upload!
  • Double-check that they’re in our shared space by looking to see what folder they’re in now. Your finished essay and retelling should be in the folder called Essay #1. If it’s not there, you can drag it there, or right-click on your file to move it to the appropriate folder
  • Make I can identify your file by its title by including your name, the assignment number, and the part number if they aren’t both in the same file. That means that if I were submitting Part 1 and Part 2 separately, my files would be called “Jody Rosen Essay 1 Part 1.doc” and “Jody Rosen Essay 1 Part 2.doc”
  • I can accept the following file types for this assignment: .doc, .docx, .odt, .rtf
  • If your file isn’t one of those formats, open your file, choose Save As, and change the file type. Even if you’re not using Word or OpenOffice, you should still be able to save your file in Rich Text Format, or .rtf.

Essay #1, blogging about our first BHS visit, and more

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Essay #1:

Essay #1 is due on Monday, but I haven’t heard much about Part 2–how is it going? Please bring a paper copy of both parts of Essay #1 to class on Monday. Once i see that everyone has these materials, I will ask you to do some reflective writing about your writing process and will then provide directions for submitting your work electronically.

If you still have questions about Essay #1, please ask them! I know there must be questions, and better to be brave and ask them now than wonder and guess and have no guidance.

Blogging for homework:

At the Brooklyn Historical Society on Wednesday, I asked you to blog for homework. I’ve added some more suggestions to the instructions, so this might be more helpful:

After class, write a blog post in which you elaborate on the materials you examined in class. You might begin with your one-sentence presentation. If your item can be posted on the blog, please share the photograph; if it can’t, you might describe it for your readers. This blog post is the place to say all the smart things you observed and interpreted but didn’t have a chance to present to the class. You can reflect further on the questions of how the “big guy” in “Only the Dead Know Brooklyn” gets to know Brooklyn, and how you have, or you might think about what was missing from our exploration at BHS, what you would have liked to examine. This blog post could also be the chance for you to include other materials that you know about or seek out. Remember to include a citation for any materials you use, including the items from BHS and “Only the Dead Know Brooklyn.” Choose the category Homework, and tag your post with whatever tags you think represent your work.

For those of you who missed class, please use the BHS visit 1 handout I distributed at BHS and any of the following materials to complete the assignment:

Map of the New York City subway system. 1955. Brooklyn Historical Society Map Collection.

Who Lives Where. Guenter Vollath. 1985. Brooklyn Historical Society Map Collection. (not the first map in the post)

Brooklyn and how to get to the World’s Fair. 1939. Brooklyn Historical Society Map Collection. (first map)

Dry Dock 1, 1928, v1973.5.875; Photography Collection; Brooklyn Historical Society.

Coney Island Beach, ca. 1968, v1988.12.41; Otto Dreschmeyer Brooklyn Slides Collection, V1988.012; Brooklyn Historical Society.

And more:

We will begin blogging in a rotating cycle again, so if you have any other requests or suggestions, please let me know what they are. Our next round of blogging will be geared toward preparing for the midterm exam, which will be on 3/20 in class.

Comparisons in “The Metamorphosis”

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who Gregor was before vs his life after his change

Gregor narrated vs. quoted

tone changes: first discovering himself as vermin to when he later accepts his situation

characters treat Gregor: mother vs father; sister from beginning to end

struggles of family: financial burden vs financial boom

physical vs emotional abnormalities or ugliness

literal vs metaphorical understanding of Gregor’s transformation

family’s reaction to Gregor when he first transforms vs when he dies

status quo vs reaction to sudden change

Although Grete is notably uncomfortable with Gregor’s new state, she takes on the responsibility of caring for her brother, a job his father could not fill.

introduce the quotation: When Gregor’s presence shocks his mother and makes her faint, Gregor’s father blames him for this

provide the quotation

interpret it

analyze it

apply it back to our argument

When Gregor’s presence shocks his mother and makes her faint, Gregor’s father blames him for this: “It was clear to Gregor that Grete had not said enough and that his father took it to mean that something bad had happened, that he was he was responsible for some act of violence” (16). Here, Mr. Samsa, although not in the room, jumps quickly to the conclusion that something awful has happened and that Gregor is at fault. He clearly sees his son as a monster, and someone to be afraid of, who would purposely hurt the family. This shows that unlike Grete, he is not willing to engage in the current family situation.