The strike and what it means

The strike will begin in a few hours. I hope it will not be long, and that I will be meeting with you in class again in a short while.
No matter how short (or long) the strike, we will have to make significant changes in the schedule when classes resume. I am now planning to set up the first weeks back (whenever they happen) as a kind of workshop to help you produce the Comparison/Contrast essay. I know that this is a challenging essay form and that the topics are demanding, so I want to work together leading you through the production steps together as a class. Of course this will mean that the readings from the schedule will be put on hold or dropped, depending on the time we will have left in the term.
Take care.

"The Things They Carried" & Vietnam & John Kerry

It is interesting that the whole issue of Vietnam has resurfaced again in America, as they prepare for their next election. In the story from the Guardian Unlimited US elections 2004 | Sidney Blumenthal: Kerry will win the patriot game there are some words that can help us think about "The Things They Carried" and O'Brien's views of the war. John Kerry's said in 1971

"How do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam?" Kerry asked. "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake? This administration has done us the ultimate dishonour. They have attempted to disown us and the sacrifices we made for this country."

Surely a perception like this is behind O'Neil's depiction of the aimless actions of young soldiers like Jimmy Cross.

Vaughan Memorial Library : Plagiarism at Acadia

Note that Acadia's Library now has a new "Interactive Tutorial" called "You Quote It, You Note It!" which you can find at Vaughan Memorial Library : Plagiarism at Acadia. There are some good points in the tutorial, and it is kind of fun.

The Theme by William James

Below the title "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" the subtitle states "(Variations on a Theme by William James)"
Here is what James writes in his essay "The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life":

Or if the hypothesis were offered us of a world in which Messrs. Fourier's and Bellamy's and Morris's utopias should all be outdone, and millions kept permanently happy on the one simple condition that a certain lost soul on the far‑off edge of things should lead a life of lonely torture, what except a specifical and independent sort of emotion can it be which would make us immediately feel, even though an impulse arose within us to clutch at the happiness so offered, how hideous a thing would be its enjoyment when deliberately accepted as the fruit of such a bargain?

William James. The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life

Class on Essay writing Next Tuesday

I have changed the schedule again so that on Tuesday we will be able to spend the whole class talking about essay writing.
You can prepare for the class by looking at the essay topics and deciding which story you are interested in writing about.
On Tuesday we will talk about formulating your ideas, gathering evidence, developing a thesis statement, and organizing the structure of your essay. I also want to talk about how to evaluate and use evidence effectively.

Text Books Are Here

The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction has finally arrived. You will need to have these for the "Death by Landscape" by Margaret Atwood, which we will discuss on Thursday (22 Jan)

No Class Today & Thoughts on Readings

I am sorry, but I have to cancel today's class. This will mean an adjustment in our schedule, pushing everything back by a class, including readings and essay due dates.

I was wanting to talk more today about the themes found in stories patterned on the descent type of story we have been discussing. One of the characteristics I want to talk more about is the loss of rationality or the dissolving border between normal rationality and madness. Zaroff in "The Most Dangerous Game" says he has found the most dangerous game in an animal capable of reason, and yet, when Rainsford confronts him at the end of the story it is not as a rational animal, but as "a beast at bay"--he has lost (for the moment anyway) his reason.
For Jane, if that is the name of the narrator in "The Yellow Wallpaper," her actions appear to her to be perfectly reasonable, although to us they do not. However, we need to spend some time at the beginning of next class considering the other patterns of irrationality in the story.
Similarly in "The Secret Sharer" the moment when Leggatt is almost discovered pushes the narrator on the very brink of madness:

Can it be, I asked myself, that he is not visible to other eyes than mine? It was like being haunted. Motionless, with a grave face, he raised his hands slightly at me in a gesture which meant clearly, "Heavens! what a narrow escape!" Narrow indeed. I think I had come creeping quietly as near insanity as any man who has not actually gone over the border.

Are there other patterns of madness or irrationality in "The Secret Sharer"?