Category Archives: assignments

“I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. I do not think that they will sing to me.” (Line 124, 125)

Prufrock portrays himself as a middle-aged man by telling us that he has bald spots in his hair. Although he is not young, he still knows how to carry himself elegantly. It appears that he is attracted to a beautiful woman, but his insecurities that have gotten the better of him are holding him back from expressing his feelings to her. I feel like the ‘Mermaids’ are being used to depict a fantasy or imaginary world he has in which he can appreciate them from afar, but he fears that even if he gathers to get close to them, they will see him how he sees himself. The ‘Mermaids’ are like that woman, he fears that if he tells her how he feels about her, she will reject him, so he admires her from a distance.

https://youtu.be/gnLjdtreu1k  (4:18-4:40)

1. Kafka, The Metamorphosis:. This week’s reading is one of my favorites!!!  You can find “The Metamorphosis” in Vol. F of your anthology.   Please join our Zoom on Wednesday prepared to share your thoughts about what this mysterious text is all about.
2. Choose two of the questions listed below to respond to, and share your responses in a separate blog post.  For each response, please be sure to provide concrete textual evidence to support and illustrate your ideas.  Responses should be shared by Wednesday, May 5th.

1. 1. How is Gregor’s family transformed in the wake of his metamorphosis?
   2. Do you think that Gregor is more powerful BEFORE or AFTER his metamorphosis?  Explain your response.
   3. Discuss the theme of food and eating. What role does it play in “The Metamorphosis”?
   4. At the end of the second section of the story, Gregor’s father pelts him with apples.  What do you think this episode is about?
   5. Gregor emerges from his room one last time when he hears his sister playing her violin for the lodgers.  What is the significance of this scene? What meaning does music hold for Gregor here?
   6. Ultimately, what do you think Gregor’s metamorphosis means?  What does it mean to be transformed into a giant bug?
   7. Explain your understanding of Gregor’s death.  How/why does he ultimately die?
   8. Look at the final paragraph of the story. How does it shape or alter our understanding of the text?

3. Essay #2 – In a separate post, I have shared your final essay assignment.  Please read the post carefully, and use the “Comments” feature on that post to share an observation, question, or concern about this assignment.  We will have a chance to discuss the assignment during our class on Wednesday.  Note that the first step in this assignment is coming up with your own essay topic, which must fall loosely within the broad parameters of individual vs. society I outlined in the prompt.  Email me your proposed topic in the form of a question no later than Friday, May 7th.

4. Office Hours – Sign up to meet with me HERE.

The lines that I am analyzing is “For I have known them all already, known them all: Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;”. The line numbers are 49 through 51. The literal meaning of this passage is how is he all alone and he has to figure out how to spend his time all alone. He has to deal with his emotions and his feelings. His feelings are dealing with isolation and lack of taking his own decision. I choose this passage because the stanzas stand out and they show his feelings of isolation. The words I had to look up is inadequacy. Inadequacy means the state or quality of being inadequate; lack of the quantity or quality required.

As promised, I have recorded a short lecture about Literary Modernism, our next unit.  Hopefully, this will give you a fuller picture of what is going on in intellectual history in the early 20th century and how that might affect the kind of artistic work being created.

Please watch the video using this LINK as well as the Passcode: ?Ste%H1r

Once you have watched the video, please make a comment on this post, sharing one observation that made an impression on you from the lecture or one thought that you have in response to it.  Please share your comments by Wednesday, April 28th.

As I was reading “Punishment” by Rabindranath Tagore I realized how similar the story of Chandara was to Hedda in “Hedda Gabler” by Henrick Ibsen.  Chandara in “Punishment” was portrayed as a very strong woman who was well kept than Radha. She never seemed to fear anyone including her own husband, even when he threatened to break all the bones in her body if he ever catches her going to the ghat alone, yet she was fearless and responded back telling him that “the bones will mend”.  When Chandara’s husband asked her to take blame for Radha’s muder even though it was done by his brother, she accepted it quietly without saying a word, she chose to remain silent about what happened until the end when she was told that her husband would like to see her, but her response was “to hell with him”.  Similarly, to Chandara Hedda was described as a well maintained, elegant woman who was also stubborn till the very end of her story. After finding out that Eilert was murdered using one of Hedda’s pistols, the judge made sure Hedda knew that he was doing her a favor by keeping silent. Towards the end, the judge tried to practice his command over her “Oh, we’re going to have some good times together, the two of us” that’s when Hedda took one of her pistols and shot herself. Both were controlled by men and wanted freedom from their lives. Miserable as their life was, they both achieved freedom by death.

In the short story ‘Punishment’ by Rabindranath Tagore, he illustrates or describes an incident that actually occurs in many places around the world to this day, maybe not to this extent but it does. In this story, the husband, Dukhiram comes home from work tired and exhausted, when he founds out that his wife, Radha has not made any food for him and that instead of serving him with delicious meals, she is replying with sarcasm as to how he didn’t bring home anything to cook so how can she make any food for him. All this probably triggered the misogynist inside him and out of rage, Dukhiram plunges his knife in the head of his wife Radha. Then later on, in the story, the other brother, Chidam wants his wife to take the blame for a crime that his brother committed. I think this all connects to Mary Wollstonecraft excerpt. In that excerpt Wollstonecraft talks about how in that time, it was normal for men to think that women are there just to please men and that if they fail to do so, they shall be disciplined roughly. Wollstonecraft says in the excerpt, in that era, women were merely housewives and most of them were uneducated, the men would go out in the world, get education, make money, generate wealth while the women would stay at home take care of the children, the kitchen and do whatever pleases their husband. The same thing can be seen happening in this story when Dukhiram and Chidam order their wives around and expect them to do whatever pleases them, not caring about how they might have felt. They were selfish and stubborn like the men described in Mary Wollstonecraft’s excerpt. In both, the story and the excerpt, men are seen as independent while women are dependent on them.

In “Punishment” Rabindranath Tagore narrates a story about how a women has to deal with struggles to patriarchy. Chandara is being used and tortured with by her husband and the husband’s brother Dukhirum Rai. The husband told Chandara that he will save him after she tells him about her murder. Chandara is getting blamed for killing the older brother’s wife and the older brother doesn’t want his younger brother to be in jail and have a crime. He blames his wife on the murder of the older brothers wife . The article is related to Du Tenth Sinks The Jewel Box In Anger. Du Tenth and Chandara as ignored by their partner,  and they chose death to show their disappointment of being together with each other. The authors are trying to show that the feeling of sorrow because women’s can’t escape from the control of men’s. Women are being used for as objects and being used for to get the work done. In both of the articles it’s showing that that people died and there are similarities between the two stories.

As I was completing “Punishment” by Rabindranath Tagore, I realized there was a similarity in the style of writing compared to that of Ibsen’s “Hedda Gabler”. The style of writing seemed very detailed which stands out in the era of Literary Realism in the sense that the characters are not “flat” and are described in great detail giving each one a backstory. The description in each character can bring a sense of better understanding to the reader to understand the person and also their actions that play a role in the story. For example, in Ibsen’s story, we see how the main 4 characters were described greatly giving us an imaginary idea of how they look like, how they might dress, and how they might act. Similarly, in Tagore’s short story we see the description of the characters including the sisters in law which also gives us the sense that they do indeed contrast in many senses as they have different attributes. Because these pieces of writings are from the 19^th century we can see that great addition of details in the story as a complementary way of adding more complex and flawed scenes that will intensify the reader by engaging and intriguing which is something we see in both Tagore’s “Punishment” and Ibsen’s “Hedda Gabler”.

Leo Tolstoy’s novella, The Death of Ivan Ilyich carries a valuable lesson for mankind. It elaborates through details about how making a living and creating wealth cannot always be good for you but most of the time in the end it’s all worthless in the eyes of a dying person. He argues that all human beings are eventually going to die, and the wealth and money earned or created will be left in this world but the only thing that would matter is the memories they made with the loved ones or the adventures they went on. Ivan Ilyich surrounded himself with people who were just like him, only ambition being creating money and wealth. So, when he died, the only thing they cared about was that his death created a vacancy and chances of promotion, he did not create bonds with people who would actually miss him or grieve for him, and the people who actually did care about him, he pushed them away and instead went of focusing on his work. Life is too short to be spent in one direction. This story resonates with our society today as well, especially during these times of the pandemic. This pandemic has taught us that your life can take a drastic turn at any point so we should make sure that we enjoy our life as we go and for me personally, to not just spend all my time at work and in school but to go out a little, travel the world while I can. We are always going to make money and have many opportunities at different places but there are memories that can be made before we run out of time. Life is about living, how you live is on you, you can just survive or actually live.