Tag Archives: “The Shawl” — Erdrich

Glossary

Commodity

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Commodity

noun com·mod·i·ty \kə-ˈmä-də-tē\

: something that is bought and sold

: something or someone that is useful or valued

2
a :  something useful or valued <that valuable commodity patience>; also :  thing, entity

 
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/commodity
The Shawl by Louise Erdrich Paragraph 12 – “I got my growth earlier than some boys, and, one night when I was thirteen and Doris and Raymond and I were sitting around wishing for something besides the oatmeal and commodity canned milk I’d stashed so he couldn’t sell them, I heard him coming down the road.”I understand that commodity means that the canned milk was something that they bought and is of some value that the father can sell for alcohol perhaps. This is why the boy and his siblings need to stash it away so it won’t be sold.

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Discussion

“The Shawl” and “The Shawl”

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This week, we have two powerful stories to read, “The Shawl” by Cynthia Ozick, and “The Shawl” by Louise Erdrich. They’re very different stories about people from different cultures, facing very different hardships. However, we can think about them together, and in the context of Beloved, when we think of

  • how people react when pushed to their limits
  • what holds families together and what drives them apart
  • how material objects drive stories, holding both real and symbolic meaning

among other issues that these narratives address. These are some ideas for you to address in this discussion. Please don’t attempt to answer them all–instead, choose one from the list above or another idea that you want to address and write about it in the comments.

Feel free to connect either or both of these stories to texts we read earlier in the semester.

Feel free also to ask questions in the comments that any of us can answer. This is particularly important in Erdrich’s narrative because each time I’ve taught it, students have found it difficult to make sense of it at first, but then come to understand it as we discuss it.

 

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