Six Pieces of Severance

Reflect on Jacob Russel’s blog commenting on reading Severance by Robert Olen Butler.

“I was a young man, hardly more than an adolescent, when I first reflected on a curious inconsistency in the ways I thought about death. On the one hand, stated as a fact, an item of knowledge, that we are all going to die, myself included; how was it possible that I could state this fact--given the existential enormity of the subject----alone or in company...with complete indifference? Why should this idea have so little affective resonance? We have no knowledge of death, no experiential knowledge, I told myself. In that light, there was no reason that an idea, absent of content--a mere word, in effect, should make one anxious. What then, I had to ask, was I to make of those brief moments of absolute terror: waking at night to an absence, a black hole that seemed to have replaced the world, and was, perhaps, it's true reality?”

Can you explain Russel’s “indifference” to the idea of death? How does Butler help us gain knowledge of something which “we have no knowledge of”? What are your thoughts, reflections, curiosities on the idea of death?

Practicing Voice Lessons

Read Karen Bernardo's commentary on Updike's "A & P" at her blog site, here.

Notice how she interweaves the voice lessons of detail, diction, tone, and imagery into a single essay. Her examples connect Updike's stylistic choices to what she sees as his theme, "a contrast of worldviews: the conservative...against the free-spirited."


Post some examples of where you see Bernardo using the "voice lessons." What does she do successfully? Where do you disagree with her assumptions or evidence? What can you learn from her style writing to use in your own?

Joycean Symbolism

Harry Stone writes in his criticism “‘Araby’ and the Writings of James Joyce,” from the Antioch Review, that Joyce litters his writing "with a dense symbolism undergirding the story." His analysis of the short story "Araby" through what he calls the Symbolic Thread traces the symbols of blindness, the etymological history of the word "Araby," and the flourin. Another critic, Robert Robert's In "'Araby' and the Palpimset of Criticism" deconstructs the bicycle pump as "a symbol of the British commericial materialism which has corrupted Irish Catholicism."

If Stone and Roberts see symbols throughout the story, they must be there. What symbols do you see and what do they stand for?

Celebritization (No, really. It's a Word)

Even though I agree with everyone that this piece has strong themes about society/class/family, I believe a deeper interpretation can be found elaborating on the concept of "celebrity." Sankaran's story disturbs me because she makes me think about celebrity, America, and my students in a new way.


Examples of celebrity litter the text. Beyond the obvious red carpet reference which Maydum refuses to acknowledge as part of who she is, there is Raju's naming his daughter after a Bollywood star, and the worshiping "peasants," from the kitchen to the grounds, who adore Maydum for what they perceive as her celebrity stature. The opulence in which she lives also promotes this concept. But beyond the list of evidence, Maydum reacts like a modern celebrity. She lives in a world protected from the forces which alter and change Raju. Therefore she can play her part and then just as quickly revert back to her Paris-Hilton-party-mode and forget Raju, his family, and their situation.

I fear this same commiditization of celebrity is happening to many of you. Your online Facebook or MySpace profiles promote an atmosphere of celebrity to others, and even your status as seniors make you celebrities to underclassmen who see you as models for how to create themselves, just as Raju sees Maydum as a model for his daughter.

So what are your thoughts on the concept of celebrity? Do you agree with my analogy? Post your ideas here.

READINGS FOR BOOT

The following are the short stories selected for Boot Camp 08-09:

The Secret to Not Getting Stuck by Jay Woodruff
The Red Carpet by Lavanya Sankaran
Araby by James Joyce
A&P by John Updike
Burning Chrome by William Gibson
The Necklace by Guy de Maupaussant
Six Pieces of Severance by Robert Olen Butler
The Library of Babel by Jorge Luis Borges
The Curse by Andre Dubus III
and...
a new piece as yet undecided.

Stuck in a Rut

Every character in this story finds themselves "stuck" in some fashion. Del most of all, for the reader's view of the world is presented through his teenage perceptions.

Although the title comes the coach, Dan Gable, he says: "It's no secret. It's pride and faith and stubborness. That's all. You don't give in. No matter what, you keep going. You don't ever give up. That's it."; we as analytical readers know the meaning must go deeper than this simple statement.

So, what is the secret to not getting stuck? Is there one, or is Woodruff simply playing an ironic joke on his readers?

Initial Post

Short Story Boot Camp is an idea I stole during one of my AP Camp experiences at St. Johnsbury Academy. During a discussion on vertical integration of curricula (vertical teaming) a teacher explained their method for teaching literary analysis to students being "like a private at boot camp: dirty, smelly and exhausting." The image lingered weeks after AP Camp, and I began to formulate my current method of Literary Analysis Boot Camp.

First, we have the five voice lessons which give us a context for analysis: diction, details, imagery, syntax, and tone. Second, we have the four writing dimensions which give us a direction for solid analytical writing: purpose, organization, detail, and voice. Finally, we have the texts, a variety of pieces collected from magazines, anthologies, and short story collections. Put them all together and you get -- Short Story Boot Camp.

Over the course of the next four weeks you will actively read, discuss, analyze, and write on ten selected short stories. Each story is selected with a focus connected to one of the voice lessons. Every class you will spend half the time discussing (45min) and half the time writing (45 min.). All essays are timed and graded using the College Board's Advanced Placement Scoring Guide for English Literature.

The goal of Boot Camp is simple, but varied. Read. Discuss. Write. Critique. Each of your ten essays will be scored, and progress will be monitored over time to guide and foster growth. Get ready to become dirty, smelly and exhausted.