The leap by louise erdrich questions

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T H E N O RTO N I N T R O D U C T I O N TO

LITERATURE S H O R T E R T W E L F T H E D I T I O N

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T H E N O RTO N I N T RO DU C TIO N TO

LITERATURE S H O R T E R T W E L F T H E D I T I O N

KELLY J. MAYS U N I V E R S I T Y O F N E V A D A , L A S V E G A S

B W . W . N O R T O N & C O M P A N Y N e w Y o r k , L o n d o n

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W. W. Norton & Company has been in de pen dent since its founding in 1923, when William Warder Norton and Mary D. Herter Norton fi rst published lectures delivered at the People’s Institute, the adult education division of New York City’s Cooper Union. The fi rm soon expanded its program beyond the Institute, publishing books by celebrated academics from America and abroad. By mid- century, the two major pillars of Norton’s publishing program— trade books and college texts— were fi rmly established. In the 1950s, the Norton family transferred control of the company to its employees, and today— with a staff of four hundred and a comparable number of trade, college, and professional titles published each year— W. W. Norton & Company stands as the largest and oldest publishing house owned wholly by its employees.

Editor: Spencer Richardson- Jones Project Editor: Christine D’Antonio Associate Editor: Emily Stuart Editorial Assistant: Rachel Taylor Manuscript Editor: Jude Grant Managing Editor, College: Marian Johnson Managing Editor, College Digital Media: Kim Yi Production Manager: Ashley Horna Media Editor: Carly Fraser Doria Assistant Media Editor: Cara Folkman Media Editorial Assistant: Ava Bramson Marketing Manager, Literature: Kimberly Bowers Design Director: Rubina Yeh Book Designer: Jo Anne Metsch Photo Editor: Evan Luberger Photo Research: Julie Tesser Permissions Manager: Megan Schindel Permissions Clearer: Margaret Gorenstein Composition: Westchester Book Group Manufacturing: LSC Communications

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The Library of Congress has cataloged an earlier edition as follows: Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data The Norton Introduction to Lit er a ture / [edited by] Kelly J. Mays, University Of Nevada, Las Vegas. — Shorter Twelfth Edition. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-393-93892-0 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Lit er a ture— Collections. I. Mays, Kelly J., editor. PN6014.N67 2016 808.8— dc23

2015034604

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http://www.wwnorton.com
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v

Contents

Preface for Instructors xxv

Introduction 1

What Is Literature? 1

What Does Literature Do? 3

John Keats, On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer 4 What Are the Genres of Literature? 4

Why Read Literature? 6

Why Study Literature? 8

Fiction FICTION: READING, RESPONDING, WRITING 12

Anonymous, The Elephant in the Village of the Blind 13

READING AND RESPONDING TO FICTION 16

Linda Brewer, 20/20 16 SAMPLE WRITING: Annotation and Notes on “20/20” 17

Marjane Satrapi, The Shabbat (from Persepolis) 20

WRITING ABOUT FICTION 31

Raymond Carver, Cathedral 32 SAMPLE WRITING: Wesley Rupton, Notes on Raymond Carver’s

“Cathedral” 43

SAMPLE WRITING: Wesley Rupton, Response Paper on Raymond Carver’s “Cathedral” 46

SAMPLE WRITING: Bethany Qualls, A Narrator’s Blindness in Raymond Carver’s “Cathedral” 49

TELLING STORIES: AN ALBUM 53

Sherman Alexie, Flight Patterns 54 Grace Paley, A Conversation with My Father 67

AUTHORS ON THEIR WORK: Grace Paley 72

tim o’brien, The Lives of the Dead 72

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UNDERSTANDING THE TEXT 85

1 PLOT 85 Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, The Shroud 87 James Baldwin, Sonny’s Blues 93 Edith Wharton, Roman Fever 115 joyce carol oates, Where Are You Going, Where Have

You Been? 125 AUTHORS ON THEIR WORK: Joyce Carol Oates 137

sample writing: ann warren, The Tragic Plot of “A Rose for Emily” 139

INITIATION STORIES: AN ALBUM 145

Toni Cade Bambara, The Lesson 146 AUTHORS ON THEIR WORK: Toni Cade Bambara 152

Alice Munro, Boys and Girls 152 John Updike, A & P 163

AUTHORS ON THEIR WORK: John Updike 168

James Joyce, Araby 168

2 NARRATION AND POINT OF VIEW 174 Edgar Allan Poe, The Cask of Amontillado 178 Jamaica Kincaid, Girl 184 George Saunders, Puppy 186

AUTHORS ON THEIR WORK: George Saunders 192

jennifer egan, Black Box 193 AUTHORS ON THEIR WORK: Jennifer Egan 216

3 CHARACTER 218 William Faulkner, Barn Burning 225 Toni Morrison, Recitatif 238

AUTHORS ON THEIR WORK: Toni Morrison 252

David Foster Wallace, Good People 253

MONSTERS: AN ALBUM 261

Margaret Atwood, Lusus Naturae 262 Karen Russell, St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves 267 jorge luis borges, The House of Asterion 279

AUTHORS ON THEIR WORK: Jorge Luis Borges 282

4 SETTING 284 Italo Calvino, from Invisible Cities 286 Margaret Mitchell, from Gone with the Wind 286

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Alice Randall, from Wind Done Gone 288 Anton Chekhov, The Lady with the Dog 290 Amy Tan, A Pair of Tickets 302 Judith Ortiz Cofer, Volar 316 william gibson, The Gernsback Continuum 318

AUTHORS ON THEIR WORK: William Gibson 327

SAMPLE WRITING: Steven Matview, How Setting Reflects Emotions in Anton Chekhov’s “The Lady with the Dog” 329

5 SYMBOL AND FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE 334 Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Birth- Mark 339 A. S. Byatt, The Thing in the Forest 351 Edwidge Danticat, A Wall of Fire Rising 366

SAMPLE WRITING: Charles Collins, Symbolism in “The Birth- Mark” and “The Thing in the Forest” 379

6 THEME 383 Aesop, The Two Crabs 383 Stephen Crane, The Open Boat 387 Gabriel García Márquez, A Very Old Man with Enormous

Wings: A Tale for Children 405 Yasunari Kawabata, The Grasshopper and the

Bell Cricket 410 junot díaz, Wildwood 413

CROSS- CULTUR AL ENCOUNTERS: AN ALBUM 431

Bharati Mukherjee, The Management of Grief 432 AUTHORS ON THEIR WORK: Bharati Mukherjee 445

Jhumpa Lahiri, Interpreter of Maladies 446 AUTHORS ON THEIR WORK: Jhumpa Lahiri 461

David Sedaris, Jesus Shaves 462

EXPLORING CONTEXTS 467

7 THE AUTHOR’S WORK AS CONTEXT: FLANNERY O’CONNOR 467

THREE STORIES BY FLANNERY O’CONNOR 470

A Good Man Is Hard to Find 470 Good Country People 481 Everything That Rises Must Converge 495

CONTENTS v ii

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PASSAGES FROM FLANNERY O’CONNOR’S ESSAYS AND LETTERS 506

CRITICAL EXCERPTS 510

Mary Gordon, from Flannery’s Kiss 510 Ann E. Reuman, from Revolting Fictions: Flannery O’Connor’s

Letter to Her Mother 513 Eileen Pollack, from Flannery O’Connor and the New

Criticism 516

8 CULTURAL AND HISTORICAL CONTEXTS: WOMEN IN TURN- OF- THE- CENTURY AMERICA 519

Kate Chopin, The Story of an Hour 523 Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wallpaper 526 Susan Glaspell, A Jury of Her Peers 537

CONTEXTUAL EXCERPTS 554

Charlotte Perkins Gilman, from Similar Cases 554 from Women and Economics 555

Barbara Boyd, from Heart and Home Talks: Politics and Milk 556 Mrs. Arthur Lyttelton, from Women and Their Work 556 Rheta Childe Dorr, from What Eight Million Women Want 557 The New York Times, from Mrs. Delong Acquitted 558 The Washington Post, from The Chances of Divorce 558 Charlotte Perkins Gilman, from Why I Wrote “The Yellow

Wall-paper” 559 The Washington Post, The Rest Cure 559

from Egotism of the Rest Cure 559

9 CRITICAL CONTEXTS: TIM O’BRIEN’S “THE THINGS THEY CARRIED” 562

tim o’brien, The Things They Carried 564

CRITICAL EXCERPTS 577

steven kaplan, The Undying Uncertainty of the Narrator in Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried 577

lorrie n. smith, “The Things Men Do”: The Gendered Subtext in Tim O’Brien’s Esquire Stories 582

susan farrell, Tim O’Brien and Gender: A Defense of The Things They Carried 592

viii CONTENTS

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READING MORE FICTION 599

Ambrose Bierce, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge 599 Ralph Ellison, King of the Bingo Game 605 louise erdrich, Love Medicine 612 william faulkner, A Rose for Emily 628 Ernest Hemingway, Hills Like White Elephants 634 franz kafka, A Hunger Artist 638 Bobbie Ann Mason, Shiloh 645 guy de maupassant, The Jewelry 655 Herman Melville, Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall

Street 661 Eudora Welty, Why I Live at the P.O. 687

Poetry POETRY: READING, RESPONDING, WRITING 698

DEFINING POETRY 699

Lydia Davis, Head, Heart 700 AUTHORS ON THEIR CR AF T: Billy Collins 701

POETIC SUBGENRES AND KINDS 702

Edwin Arlington Robinson, Richard Cory 703 Thomas Hardy, The Ruined Maid 704 William Wordsworth, [I wandered lonely as

a cloud] 705 Frank O’Hara, Poem [Lana Turner has collapsed] 706 Phillis Wheatley, On Being Brought from Africa

to America 707 Emily Dickinson, [The Sky is low— the Clouds are mean] 708 Billy Collins, Divorce 708 Bruce Springsteen, Nebraska 709 Robert Hayden, A Letter from Phillis Wheatley 710

RESPONDING TO POETRY 712

Aphra Behn, On Her Loving Two Equally 712

WRITING ABOUT POETRY 719

SAMPLE WRITING: Names in “On Her Loving Two Equally” 720

SAMPLE WRITING: Multiplying by Dividing in Aphra Behn’s “On Her

Loving Two Equally” 722

CONTENTS ix

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THE ART OF (READING) POETRY: AN ALBUM 727

Emily Dickinson, [I dwell in Possibility—] 727 Archibald MacLeish, Ars Poetica 728 Czeslaw Milosz, Ars Poetica? 729

AUTHORS ON THEIR WORK: Czeslaw Milosz 730

Elizabeth Alexander, Ars Poetica #100: I Believe 730 Marianne Moore, Poetry 731 Julia Alvarez, “Poetry Makes Nothing Happen”? 732 Billy Collins, Introduction to Poetry 733

UNDERSTANDING THE TEXT 735

10 SPEAKER: WHOSE VOICE DO WE HEAR? 735 NARRATIVE POEMS AND THEIR SPEAKERS 735

X. J. Kennedy, In a Prominent Bar in Secaucus One Day 735

SPEAKERS IN THE DRAMATIC MONOLOGUE 737

Robert Browning, Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister 737

THE LYRIC AND ITS SPEAKER 739

Margaret Atwood, Death of a Young Son by Drowning 740 AUTHORS ON THEIR CR AF T: Billy Collins and Sharon Olds 741

William Wordsworth, She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways 742

Dorothy Parker, A Certain Lady 742

POEMS FOR FURTHER STUDY 743

Walt Whitman, [I celebrate myself, and sing myself ] 743 langston hughes, Ballad of the Landlord 744 E. E. Cummings, [next to of course god america i] 745 Gwendolyn Brooks, We Real Cool 745

AUTHORS ON THEIR WORK: Gwendolyn Brooks 746

lucille clifton, cream of wheat 746

EXPLORING GENDER: AN ALBUM 749

Richard Lovelace, Song: To Lucasta, Going to the Wars 750 Mary, Lady Chudleigh, To the Ladies 750 Wilfred Owen, Disabled 751 Elizabeth Bishop, Exchanging Hats 752 David Wagoner, My Father’s Garden 753 Judith Ortiz Cofer, The Changeling 754 Marie Howe, Practicing 755

AUTHORS ON THEIR WORK: Marie Howe 756

x CONTENTS

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Terrance Hayes, Mr. T— 757 Bob Hicok, O my pa- pa 758 stacey waite, The Kind of Man I Am at the DMV 759

11 SITUATION AND SETTING: WHAT HAPPENS? WHERE? WHEN? 761 SITUATION 762

Rita Dove, Daystar 762 Linda Pastan, To a Daughter Leaving Home 762

THE CARPE DIEM POEM 763

John Donne, The Flea 764 Andrew Marvell, To His Coy Mistress 764

SETTING 766

Matthew Arnold, Dover Beach 766

THE OCCASIONAL POEM 767

Martín Espada, Litany at the Tomb of Frederick Douglass 768 AUTHORS ON THEIR WORK: Martín Espada 769

THE AUBADE 769

John Donne, The Good- Morrow 770 Jonathan Swift, A Description of the Morning 770

ONE POEM, MULTIPLE SITUATIONS AND SETTINGS 771

Li- Young Lee, Persimmons 771

ONE SITUATION AND SETTING, MULTIPLE POEMS 773

christopher marlowe, The Passionate Shepherd to His Love 774

sir walter raleigh, The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd 774 anthony hecht, The Dover Bitch 775

POEMS FOR FURTHER STUDY 776

Natasha Trethewey, Pilgrimage 776 kelly cherry, Alzheimer’s 777 mahmoud darwish, Identity Card 778 yehuda amichai, [On Yom Kippur in 1967 . . .] 780 yusef komunyakaa, Tu Do Street 780

AUTHORS ON THEIR WORK: Yusef Komunyakaa 782

HOMELANDS: AN ALBUM 785

Maya Angelou, Africa 785 AUTHORS ON THEIR WORK: Maya Angelou 786

Derek Walcott, A Far Cry from Africa 786 AUTHORS ON THEIR WORK: Derek Walcott 788

CONTENTS xi

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Judith Ortiz Cofer, The Latin Deli: An Ars Poetica 789 Cathy Song, Heaven 790 Agha Shahid Ali, Postcard from Kashmir 791 adrienne su, Escape from the Old Country 792

12 THEME AND TONE 794 TONE 794

W. D. Snodgrass, Leaving the Motel 795 THEME 796

Maxine Kumin, Woodchucks 796 Adrienne Rich, Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers 797

AUTHORS ON THEIR WORK: Adrienne Rich 798

THEME AND CONFLICT 799

adrienne su, On Writing 800 authors on their work: Adrienne Su 801

POEMS FOR FURTHER STUDY 801

William Blake, London 801 Paul Laurence Dunbar, Sympathy 802 W. H. Auden, [Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone] 802 Sharon Olds, Last Night 803 Kay Ryan, Repulsive Theory 804 terrance hayes, Carp Poem 805 c. k. williams, The Economy Rescued by My Mother

Returning to Shop 806 SAMPLE WRITING: Stephen Bordland, Response Paper on

W. H. Auden’s “Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone” 809

FAMILY: AN ALBUM 813

simon j. ortiz, My Father’s Song 813 Robert Hayden, Those Winter Sundays 814 ellen bryant voigt, My Mother 814 martín espada, Of the Threads That Connect the Stars 816 Emily Grosholz, Eden 816 philip larkin, This Be the Verse 817

authors on their work: Philip Larkin 818 Jimmy Santiago Baca, Green Chile 818 paul martinez pompa, The Abuelita Poem 819 charlie smith, The Business 820 Andrew Hudgins, Begotten 821

xii CONTENTS

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13 LANGUAGE: WORD CHOICE AND ORDER 822 PRECISION AND AMBIGUITY 822

Sarah Cleghorn, [The golf links lie so near the mill] 822 martha collins, Lies 823

DENOTATION AND CONNOTATION 823

Walter de la Mare, Slim Cunning Hands 824 Theodore Roethke, My Papa’s Waltz 825

WORD ORDER AND PLACEMENT 825

Sharon Olds, Sex without Love 827 AUTHORS ON THEIR WORK: Sharon Olds 828

POEMS FOR FURTHER STUDY 828

gerard manley hopkins, Pied Beauty 828 William Carlos Williams, The Red Wheelbarrow 829

This Is Just to Say 829 AUTHORS ON THEIR WORK: William Carlos Williams 830

Kay Ryan, Blandeur 831 martha collins, [white paper #24] 831 a. e. stallings, Shoulda, Woulda, Coulda 832

14 VISUAL IMAGERY AND FIGURES OF SPEECH 834 Richard Wilbur, The Beautiful Changes 835 Lynn Powell, Kind of Blue 836

META PHOR 837

William Shakespeare, [That time of year thou mayst in me behold] 837

Linda Pastan, Marks 838

PERSONIFICATION 838

Emily Dickinson, [Because I could not stop for Death—] 839

SIMILE AND ANALOGY 839

Robert Burns, A Red, Red Rose 840 todd boss, My Love for You Is So Embarrassingly 840

ALLUSION 841

amit majmudar, Dothead 842 patricia lockwood, What Is the Zoo for What 842

POEMS FOR FURTHER STUDY 844

William Shakespeare, [Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?] 844

Anonymous, The Twenty- Third Psalm 845 John Donne, [Batter my heart, three- personed God] 845

CONTENTS xiii

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Randall Jarrell, The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner 846 john brehm, Sea of Faith 846

15 SYMBOL 848 THE INVENTED SYMBOL 848

James Dickey, The Leap 849

THE TRADITIONAL SYMBOL 851

Edmund Waller, Song 851 Dorothy Parker, One Perfect Rose 852

THE SYMBOLIC POEM 853

William Blake, The Sick Rose 853

POEMS FOR FURTHER STUDY 854

john keats, Ode to a Nightingale 854 robert frost, The Road Not Taken 856 Howard Nemerov, The Vacuum 857 Adrienne Rich, Diving into the Wreck 858 Roo Borson, After a Death 860 Brian Turner, Jundee Ameriki 860

AUTHORS ON THEIR WORK: Brian Turner 861

sharon olds, Bruise Ghazal 862

16 THE SOUNDS OF POETRY 863 RHYME 863

ONOMATOPOEIA, ALLITERATION, ASSONANCE, AND

CONSONANCE 865

alexander pope, from The Rape of the Lock 866 SOUND POEMS 866

Helen Chasin, The Word Plum 867 Kenneth Fearing, Dirge 867 Alexander Pope, Sound and Sense 868

POETIC METER 871

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Metrical Feet 873 Anonymous, [There was a young girl from St. Paul] 875 Alfred, Lord Tennyson, from The Charge of the

Light Brigade 875 jane taylor, The Star 876 anne bradstreet, To My Dear and Loving Husband 877 jessie pope, The Call 877 wilfred owen, Dulce et Decorum Est 878

xiv CONTENTS

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POEMS FOR FURTHER STUDY 879

William Shakespeare, [Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore] 879

GeraRd Manley Hopkins, Spring and Fall 880 walt whitman, Beat! Beat! Drums! 880 kevin young, Ode to Pork 881

WORD AND MUSIC: AN ALBUM 885

Thomas Campion, When to Her Lute Corinna Sings 885 Anonymous, Sir Patrick Spens 886 dudley randall, Ballad of Birmingham 887 Augustus Montague Toplady, A Prayer, Living

and Dying 888 Robert Hayden, Homage to the Empress of the Blues 889 Michael Harper, Dear John, Dear Coltrane 890 bob dylan, The Times They Are A- Changin’ 891 linda pastan, Listening to Bob Dylan, 2005 892 Mos Def, Hip Hop 893 jose b. gonzalez, Elvis in the Inner City 895

17 INTERNAL STRUCTURE 897 DIVIDING POEMS INTO “PARTS” 897

Pat Mora, Sonrisas 897

INTERNAL VERSUS EXTERNAL OR FORMAL “PARTS” 899

Galway Kinnell, Blackberry Eating 899

LYRICS AS INTERNAL DRAMAS 899

Seamus Heaney, Punishment 900 Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Frost at Midnight 902 Sharon Olds, The Victims 904

MAKING ARGUMENTS ABOUT STRUCTURE 905

POEMS WITHOUT “PARTS” 905

Walt Whitman, I Hear America Singing 905

POEMS FOR FURTHER STUDY 906

William Shakespeare, [Th’ expense of spirit in a waste of shame] 906

Percy Bysshe Shelley, Ode to the West Wind 907 Philip Larkin, Church Going 909

AUTHORS ON THEIR WORK: Philip Larkin 911 katie ford, Still- Life 912

CONTENTS xv

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kevin young, Greening 912 SAMPLE WRITING: Lindsay Gibson, Philip Larkin’s

“Church Going” 914

18 EXTERNAL FORM 918 STANZAS 918

TRADITIONAL STANZA FORMS 918

richard wilbur, Terza Rima 919 TRADITIONAL VERSE FORMS 920

FIXED FORMS OR FORM- BASED SUBGENRES 921

TRADITIONAL FORMS: POEMS FOR FURTHER STUDY 922

Dylan Thomas, Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night 922 Natasha Trethewey, Myth 923 Elizabeth Bishop, Sestina 923 Ciara Shuttleworth, Sestina 925 E. E. Cummings, [l(a] 926

[Buffalo Bill’s] 926

CONCRETE POETRY 927

George Herbert, Easter Wings 927 May Swenson, Women 928

THE SONNET: AN ALBUM 931

francesco Petrarch, [Upon the breeze she spread her golden hair] 932

Henry Constable, [My lady’s presence makes the roses red] 933 William Shakespeare, [My mistress’ eyes are nothing like

the sun] 933 [Not marble, nor the gilded monuments] 934 [Let me not to the marriage of true minds] 934

John Milton, [When I consider how my light is spent] 935 William Wordsworth, Nuns Fret Not 935 Elizabeth Barrett Browning, How Do I Love Thee? 936 Christina Rossetti, In an Artist’s Studio 936 Edna St. Vincent Millay, [What lips my lips have kissed,

and where, and why] 937 [Women have loved before as I love now] 937 [I, being born a woman and distressed] 937 [I will put Chaos into fourteen lines] 938

Robert Frost, Range- Finding 938 Design 939

xv i CONTENTS

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Gwendolyn Brooks, First Fight. Then Fiddle. 939 Gwen Harwood, In the Park 940 June Jordan, Something Like a Sonnet for Phillis

Miracle Wheatley 940 Billy Collins, Sonnet 941 harryette mullen, Dim Lady 941 sherman alexie, The Facebook Sonnet 942

HAIKU: AN ALBUM 945

Chiyojo, [Whether astringent] 945 Basho, [A village without bells—] 946

[This road —] 946 Buson, [Coolness—] 946

[Listening to the moon] 946 Lafcadio Hearn, [Old pond —] 946 Clara A. Walsh, [An old- time pond] 946 Earl Miner, [The still old pond] 947 Allen Ginsberg, [The old pond] 947 ezra pound, In a Station of the Metro 947 allen ginsberg, [Looking over my shoulder] 947 richard wright, [In the falling snow] 947 Etheridge Knight, from [Eastern guard tower] 948

[The falling snow flakes] 948 [Making jazz swing in] 948 AUTHORS ON THEIR WORK: Etheridge Knight 948

Mark Jarman, Haiku 949 Sonia Sanchez, from 9 Haiku 949 sue standing, Diamond Haiku 949 linda pastan, In the Har- Poen Tea Garden 950

EXPLORING CONTEXTS 952

19 THE AUTHOR’S WORK AS CONTEXT: ADRIENNE RICH 954 POEMS BY ADRIENNE RICH 958

At a Bach Concert 958 Storm Warnings 958 Living in Sin 959 Snapshots of a Daughter- in- Law 959 AUTHORS ON THEIR WORK: Adrienne Rich 963

Planetarium 964 For the Record 965

CONTENTS xv ii

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[My mouth hovers across your breasts] 966 History 966 Transparencies 967 To night No Poetry Will Serve 968

PASSAGES FROM RICH’S ESSAYS 969

from When We Dead Awaken: Writing as Re- Vision 969 from A Communal Poetry 970 from Why I Refused the National Medal for the Arts 971 from Poetry and the Forgotten Future 974 SAMPLE WRITING: Melissa Makolin , Out- Sonneting Shakespeare:

An Examination of Edna St. Vincent Millay’s Use of the Sonnet

Form 981

EMILY DICKINSON: AN ALBUM 987

[Tell all the truth but tell it slant—] 988 [I stepped from Plank to Plank] 988 [Wild Nights—Wild Nights!] 989 [My Life had stood— a Loaded Gun—] 989 [After great pain, a formal feeling comes—] 990 [A narrow Fellow in the Grass] 990 Wendy Cope, Emily Dickinson 991 Hart Crane, To Emily Dickinson 991 Billy Collins, Taking Off Emily Dickinson’s Clothes 992

W. B. YEATS: AN ALBUM 997

The Lake Isle of Innisfree 999 AUTHORS ON THEIR WORK: W. B. Yeats 1000

All Things Can Tempt Me 1000 Easter 1916 1001 The Second Coming 1003 Leda and the Swan 1004 Sailing to Byzantium 1004 W. H. Auden, In Memory of W. B. Yeats 1006

AUTHORS ON THEIR WORK: W. H. Auden 1008

PAT MOR A: AN ALBUM 1013

Elena 1014 Gentle Communion 1015 Mothers and Daughters 1015 La Migra 1016 Ode to Adobe 1017

xviii CONTENTS

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20 THE AUTHOR’S WORK AS CONTEXT: WILLIAM BLAKE’S SONGS OF INNOCENCE AND OF EXPERIENCE 1021

color insert: Facsimile Pages from SONGS OF INNOCENCE AND OF EXPERIENCE faces 1021

WILLIAM BLAKE’S SONGS OF INNOCENCE AND OF EXPERIENCE 1022

songs of innocence, Introduction 1023 The Ecchoing Green 1023 Holy Thursday 1024 The Lamb 1024 The Chimney Sweeper 1025

songs of experience, Introduction 1026 The Tyger 1026 The Garden of Love 1027 The Chimney Sweeper 1027 Holy Thursday 1027

21 CULTURAL AND HISTORICAL CONTEXTS: THE HARLEM RE NAIS SANCE 1031

POEMS OF THE HARLEM RE NAIS SANCE 1040

Arna Bontemps, A Black Man Talks of Reaping 1040 Countee Cullen, Yet Do I Marvel 1041

Saturday’s Child 1041 From the Dark Tower 1042

AngElina Grimké, The Black Finger 1042 Tenebris 1043

Langston Hughes, Harlem 1043 The Weary Blues 1043 The Negro Speaks of Rivers 1044 I, Too 1045

Helene Johnson, Sonnet to a Negro in Harlem 1046 Claude McKay, Harlem Shadows 1046

If We Must Die 1047 The Tropics in New York 1047 The Harlem Dancer 1047 The White House 1048

CONTEXTUAL EXCERPTS 1048

James Weldon Johnson, from the preface to The Book of American Negro Poetry 1048

Alain Locke, from The New Negro 1050 Rudolph Fisher, from The Caucasian Storms Harlem 1054

CONTENTS xix

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W. E. B. Du Bois, from Two Novels 1058 Zora Neale Hurston, How It Feels to Be Colored Me 1059 Langston Hughes, from The Big Sea 1062

SAMPLE WRITING: Irene Morstan, “They’ll See How Beautiful I Am”: “I, Too” and the Harlem Re nais sance 1067

22 CRITICAL CONTEXTS: SYLVIA PLATH’S “DADDY” 1072 Sylvia Plath, Daddy 1073

CRITICAL EXCERPTS 1077

George Steiner, from Dying Is an Art 1077 A. Alvarez, from Sylvia Plath 1080 Irving Howe, from The Plath Celebration: A Partial Dissent 1081 Judith Kroll, from Rituals of Exorcism: “Daddy” 1083 Mary Lynn Broe, from Protean Poetic 1084 Margaret Homans, from A Feminine Tradition 1086 Pamela J. Annas, from A Disturbance in Mirrors 1087 Steven Gould Axelrod, from Sylvia Plath: The Wound

and the Cure of Words 1089 Laura Frost, from “Every Woman Adores a Fascist”:

Feminist Visions of Fascism from Three Guineas to Fear of Flying 1096

READING MORE POETRY 1102

W. H. Auden, Musée des Beaux Arts 1102 Robert Browning, My Last Duchess 1103 Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Kubla Khan 1104 E. E. Cummings, [in Just-] 1105 John Donne, [Death, be not proud] 1106

Song 1107 The Sun Rising 1107 A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning 1108

Paul Laurence Dunbar, We Wear the Mask 1109 T. S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock 1110 Robert Frost, Home Burial 1113

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Eve ning 1116 Seamus Heaney, Digging 1116 Gerard Manley Hopkins, God’s Grandeur 1117

The Windhover 1118 Ben Jonson, On My First Son 1118 John Keats, Ode on a Grecian Urn 1119

To Autumn 1120

xx CONTENTS

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etheridge knight, Hard Rock Returns to Prison from the Hospital for the Criminal Insane 1121

yusef komunyakaa, Facing It 1122 AUTHORS ON THEIR WORK: Yusef Komunyakaa 1123

Linda Pastan, love poem 1123 marge piercy, Barbie Doll 1124 sylvia plath, Lady Lazarus 1125

Morning Song 1127 edgar allan poe, The Raven 1127 ezra pound, The River- Merchant’s Wife: A Letter 1130 Wallace Stevens, Anecdote of the Jar 1131

The Emperor of Ice- Cream 1131 Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Tears, Idle Tears 1132

Ulysses 1132 Walt Whitman, Facing West from California’s Shores 1134

A Noiseless Patient Spider 1134 richard wilbur, Love Calls Us to the Things of

This World 1135 William Carlos Williams, The Dance 1136 William Wordsworth, [The world is too much with us] 1136

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES: POETS 1137

Drama DRAMA: READING, RESPONDING, WRITING 1152

READING DRAMA 1152

Susan Glaspell, Trifles 1155

RESPONDING TO DRAMA 1165

SAMPLE WRITING: Annotation of Trifles 1165 SAMPLE WRITING: Reading Notes 1168

WRITING ABOUT DRAMA 1171

SAMPLE WRITING: jessica zezulka, Trifles Plot Response Paper 1173

SAMPLE WRITING: stephanie orteGa , A Journey of Sisterhood 1175

UNDERSTANDING THE TEXT 1178

23 ELEMENTS OF DRAMA 1178 August Wilson, Fences 1187

CONTENTS xxi

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AUTHORS ON THEIR WORK : August Wilson 1239

quiara alegrÍa hudes, Water by the Spoonful 1239

EXPLORING CONTEXTS 1288

24 THE AUTHOR’S WORK AS CONTEXT: WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 1288

THE LIFE OF SHAKESPEARE: A BIOGRAPHICAL MYSTERY 1288

EXPLORING SHAKESPEARE’S WORK: A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM

AND HAMLET 1290

A Midsummer Night’s Dream 1294 Hamlet 1350

25 CULTURAL AND HISTORICAL CONTEXTS: LORRAINE HANSBERRY’S RAISIN IN THE SUN 1446

Lorraine Hansberry, A Raisin in the Sun 1456 AUTHORS ON THEIR WORK: Lorraine Hansberry 1520

CONTEXTUAL EXCERPTS 1523

Richard Wright, from Twelve Million Black Voices 1523 Robert Gruenberg, from Chicago Fiddles While Trumbull

Park Burns 1527 Gertrude Samuels, from Even More Crucial Than in the

South 1529 Wilma Dykeman and James Stokely, from New Southerner:

The Middle-Class Negro 1532 Martin Luther King, Jr., from Letter from Birmingham

Jail 1534 Robert C. Weaver, from The Negro as an American 1536 Earl E. Thorpe, from Africa in the Thought of Negro

Americans 1540 Phaon Goldman, from The Significance of African Freedom

for the Negro American 1541 Bruce Norris, from Clybourne Park 1544

26 CRITICAL CONTEXTS: SOPHOCLES’S ANTIGONE 1549 Sophocles, Antigone 1551

CRITICAL EXCERPTS 1584

Richard c. Jebb, from The Antigone of Sophocles 1584 Maurice Bowra, from Sophoclean Tragedy 1585 Bernard Knox, from Introduction to Antigone 1587

xxii CONTENTS

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Martha c. Nussbaum, from Sophocles’ Antigone: Conflict, Vision, and Simplification 1594

Philip Holt, from Polis and the Tragedy in the Antigone 1599 SAMPLE WRITING: Jackie Izawa, The Two Faces of Antigone 1609

READING MORE DRAMA 1616

Anton Chekhov, The Cherry Orchard 1616 henrik ibsen, A Doll House 1654 Jane Martin, Two Monologues from Talking With . . . 1704 Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman 1709

AUTHORS ON THEIR WORK: Arthur Miller 1776

Sophocles, Oedipus the King 1777 Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire 1817

WRITING ABOUT LITERATURE 1885

27 BASIC MOVES: PARAPHRASE, SUMMARY, AND DESCRIPTION 1886

28 THE LITERATURE ESSAY 1890

29 THE WRITING PRO CESS 1910

30 THE LITERATURE RESEARCH ESSAY 1923

31 QUOTATION, CITATION, AND DOCUMENTATION 1934

32 SAMPLE RESEARCH ESSAY sarah Roberts , “Only a Girl”? Gendered Initiation in

Alice Munro’s “Boys and Girls” 1961

CRITICAL APPROACHES 1971

GLOSSARY A1

Permissions Acknowledgments A15

Index of Authors A31

Index of Titles and First Lines A37

Index of Literary Terms A45

CONTENTS xxiii

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xxv

Preface for Instructors

Like its pre de ces sors, this Twelfth Edition of The Norton Introduction to Litera- ture offers in a single volume a complete course in reading literature and writing about it. A teaching anthology focused on the actual tasks, challenges, and ques- tions typically faced by students and instructors, The Norton Introduction to Lit- erature offers practical advice to help students transform their fi rst impressions of literary works into fruitful discussions and meaningful critical essays, and it helps students and instructors together tackle the complex questions at the heart of literary study.

The Norton Introduction to Literature has been revised with an eye to provid- ing a book that is as fl exible and as useful as possible—adaptable to many dif- ferent teaching styles and individual preferences—and that also conveys the excitement at the heart of literature itself.

FEATURES OF THE NORTON INTRODUCTION TO LITERATURE

Although this Twelfth Edition contains much that is new or refashioned, the essential features of the text have remained consistent over many editions:

Diverse selections with broad appeal

Because readings are the central component of any literature class, my most important task has been to select a rich array of appealing and challenging liter- ary works. Among the 58 stories, 301 poems, and 12 plays in The Norton Intro- duction to Literature, readers will fi nd selections by well- established and emerging voices alike, representing a broad range of times, places, cultural perspectives, and styles. The readings are excitingly diverse in terms of subject and style as well as authorship and national origin. In selecting and presenting literary texts, my top priorities continue to be quality as well as pedagogical relevance and usefulness. I have integrated the new with the old and the experimental with the canonical, believing that contrast and variety help students recognize and respond to the unique features of any literary work. In this way, I aim to help students and instructors alike approach the unfamiliar by way of the familiar (and vice versa).

Helpful and unobtrusive editorial matter

As always, the instructional material before and after each selection avoids dic- tating any par tic u lar interpretation or response, instead highlighting essential terms and concepts in order to make the literature that follows more accessible to student readers. Questions and writing suggestions help readers apply general

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xxv i PREFACE FOR INSTRUCTORS

concepts to specifi c readings in order to develop, articulate, refi ne, and defend their own responses. As in all Norton anthologies, I have annotated the works with a light hand, seeking to be informative but not interpretive.

An introduction to the study of literature

To introduce students to fi ction, poetry, and drama is to open up a complex fi eld of study with a long history. The Introduction addresses many of the questions that students may have about the nature of literature as well as the practice of literary criticism. By exploring some of the most compelling reasons for reading and writing about literature, much of the mystery about matters of method is cleared away, and I provide motivated students with a sense of the issues and opportunities that lie ahead as they study literature. As in earlier editions, I con- tinue to encourage student fascination with par tic u lar authors and their careers, expanding upon the featured “Authors on Their Work” boxes as well as single- author chapters and albums.

Thoughtful guidance for writing about literature

The Twelfth Edition integrates opportunities for student writing at each step of the course, highlighting the mastery of skills for students at every level. “Read- ing, Responding, Writing” sections at the beginning of each genre unit, including a thoroughly revised opener to the poetry unit, offer students concrete advice about how to transform careful reading into productive and insightful writing. Sample questions for each work or about each element (e.g., “Questions about Character”) provide exercises for answering these questions or for applying new concepts to par tic u lar works, and examples of student writing demonstrate how a student’s notes on a story or poem may be developed into a response paper or an or ga nized critical argument. New essays bring the total number of examples of student writing to seventeen.

The constructive, step- by- step approach to the writing pro cess is thoroughly demonstrated in several chapters called “Writing about Literature.” As in the chapters introducing concepts and literary selections, the fi rst steps presented in the writing section are simple and straightforward, outlining the basic formal ele- ments common to essays—thesis, structure, and so on. Following these steps encourages students to approach the essay both as a distinctive genre with its own elements and as an accessible form of writing with a clear purpose. From here, I walk students through the writing pro cess: how to choose a topic, gather evidence, and develop an argument; the methods of writing a research essay; and the mechanics of effective quotation and responsible citation and documentation. New, up- to- date material on using the Internet for research has been included. Also featured is a sample research paper that has been annotated to call attention to important features of good student writing.

Even more resources for student writers are available at the free student website, LitWeb, described below.

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PREFACE FOR INSTRUCTORS xxv ii

A comprehensive approach to the contexts of literature

The Twelfth Edition not only offers expanded resources for interpreting and writing about literature, but it also extends the perspectives from which students can view par tic u lar authors and works. One of the greatest strengths of The Nor- ton Introduction to Literature has been its exploration of the relation between literary texts and a variety of contexts. For several editions, “Author’s Work” and “Critical Contexts” chapters have served as mini- casebooks that contain a wealth of material for in- depth, context- focused reading and writing assignments. Recent editions have also been supplemented with “Cultural Contexts” chapters that explore a cultural moment or setting.

In the Twelfth Edition I have revised and expanded the current context chap- ters and added an entirely new chapter on Tim O’Brien’s seminal story, “The Things They Carried.” Other revised context chapters include an updated chapter on Adrienne Rich, featuring work from her fi nal collection of poetry and essays published shortly before her death, and re- edited excerpts from scholarly essays in the chapter on Sophocles’s Antigone, as well as general revision and updates throughout each context chapter.

The “Critical Approaches” section provides an overview of contemporary crit- ical theory and its terminology and is useful as an introduction, a refresher, or a preparation for further exploration.

A sensible and teachable or ga ni za tion

The accessible format of The Norton Introduction to Literature, which has worked so well for teachers and students for many editions, remains the same. Each genre is approached in three logical steps. Fiction, for example, is introduced by “Fiction: Reading, Responding, Writing,” which treats the purpose and nature of fi ction, the reading experience, and the steps one takes to begin writing about fi ction. This feature is followed by the six- chapter section called “Understanding the Text,” which concentrates on the genre’s key elements. The third section, “Exploring Contexts” suggests ways to embrace a work of literature by considering various literary, temporal, and cultural contexts. “Reading More Fiction,” the fi nal compo- nent in the Fiction section, is a reservoir of additional readings for in de pen dent study or a different approach. The Poetry and Drama sections, in turn, follow exactly the same or gan i za tional format as Fiction.

The book’s arrangement allows movement from narrower to broader frame- works, from simpler to more complex questions and issues, and mirrors the way people read— wanting to learn more as they experience more. At the same time, no chapter or section depends on any other, so that individual teachers can pick and choose which chapters or sections to assign and in what order.

Deep repre sen ta tion of select authors

The Norton Introduction to Literature offers a range of opportunities for in- depth study of noted authors. Author’s Work chapters on Flannery O’Connor, Adri- enne Rich, William Blake, and William Shakespeare in the “Exploring Contexts” sections substantively engage with multiple works by each author, allowing

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xxv iii PREFACE FOR INSTRUCTORS

students to make substantive connections between works from different phases of an author’s career. In addition, “albums” of multiple works by Emily Dickin- son, W. B. Yeats, and Pat Mora allow students to explore on their own a larger sampling of each poet’s work. Other chapters, such as the “Cultural and His- torical Contexts” chapters, explore the historical milieu of such works as Susan Glaspell’s “Jury of Her Peers,” Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpa- per,” and Kate Chopin’s “Story of An Hour,” as well as Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun. “Critical Contexts” chapters in each genre section, including Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried,” Sylvia Plath’s “Daddy,” and Sopho- cles’s Antigone, encourage students to delve deeper into each author’s work after they have sampled the rich and varied tradition of commentary that each author has inspired.

NEW TO THE TWELFTH EDITION

Fifty- two new selections

There are eight new stories, forty- two new poems, and two new plays in this Twelfth Edition of The Norton Introduction to Literature. You will fi nd new selections from pop u lar and canonical writers such as Tim O’Brien, August Wil- son, Toni Cade Bambara, Philip Larkin, Lucille Clifton, Langston Hughes, William Blake, Yusef Komunyakaa, and Jorge Luis Borges, as well as works by exciting new authors such as Junot Díaz, Kevin Young, Patricia Lockwood, Wil- liam Gibson, Jennifer Egan, Charlie Smith, Todd Boss, Adrienne Su, and Quiara Alegría Hudes.

Signifi cantly improved writing pedagogy

Recent editions The Norton Introduction to Literature greatly expanded and improved the resources for student writers, including thorough introductions to each genre in “Reading, Responding, Writing,” broadened online materials, and new student essays. For the Twelfth Edition, the chapters on Writing about Literature have been completely revised to be much more focused on the essen- tials moves of writing and interpretation, as well as much more coverage on the kinds of writing students are most frequently assigned. In addition, four new samples of student writing for different kinds of assignments have been added to the book, bringing the total number of such samples to eigh teen. More generally, throughout the Twelfth Edition I have thoroughly revised the writing prompts and suggestions.

A new Critical Context chapter on Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried”

“The Things They Carried” is among the most widely taught works in introduc- tory literature courses, and, in order to offer a compelling exploration of this story in anthology, a new Critical Context chapter has been built around it. This new chapter offers a incisive, array of scholarly essays on diverse topics related to O’Brien’s work, and will help spur lively classroom discussion and encourage engaging student writing.

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PREFACE FOR INSTRUCTORS xxix

Expanded and revised thematic “albums”

Recognizing that many courses build their reading lists around resonant topics or themes, I have expanded in this Twelfth Edition several topic- oriented clusters of stories and poems. Revised and updated versions of collections like “Cross- Cultural Encounters,” “Initiation Stories,” “Exploring Gender,” and “Music and Lyrics” provide students and instructors with ample opportunity to approach their reading (and the course) through a comparison of varied treatments of a common topic, setting, or subgenre.

STUDENT RESOURCES

LitWeb (digital . wwnorton . com / litweb)

Improved and expanded, this free resource offers tools that help students read and write about literature with skill and understanding:

• New Pause & Practice exercises expand on the “Writing about Literature” chapters and offer additional opportunities to practice effective writing. Seven exercises, each tied to a specifi c writing skill, test students on what they know, provide instruction both text and video for different learning styles, assess students on what they’ve learned, and give them an oppor- tunity to apply newly strengthened skills.

• In- depth workshops feature fi fty- fi ve often- taught works from the text, all rooted in the guidance given in the “Reading, Responding, Writing” chapters.

• Self- grading multiple- choice quizzes on sixty of the most widely taught works offer instant feedback designed to hone students’ close- reading skills

Digital Edition

The Shorter Twelfth Edition of The Norton Introduction to Lit er a ture is now avail- able as an ebook. To preview and purchase visit digital . wwnorton . com / lit12 shorter.

INSTRUCTOR RESOURCES

Instructor’s Manual

This thorough guide offers in- depth discussions of nearly all the works in the anthology as well as teaching suggestions and tips for the writing- intensive litera- ture course.

Coursepacks for learning management systems

Available for all major learning management systems (including Blackboard, Angel, Moodle), this free and customizable resource makes the features of LitWeb and plus the Writing about Literature video series and other material available to instructors within the online framework of their choice.

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xxx PREFACE FOR INSTRUCTORS

Teaching Poetry: A Handbook of Exercises for Large and Small Classes (Allan J. Gedalof, University of Western Ontario)

This practical handbook offers a wide variety of innovative in- class exercises to enliven classroom discussion of poetry. Each of these fl exible teaching exercises includes straightforward step- by- step guidelines and suggestions for variation.

Play DVDs

DVDs of most of the plays in the anthology are available to qualifi ed adopters. Semester- long Netfl ix subscriptions are also available.

To obtain any of these instructional resources, please contact your local Nor- ton representative.

AC KNOW LEDG MENTS

In working on this book, I have been guided by teachers and students in my own and other En glish departments who have used this textbook and responded with comments and suggestions. Thanks to such capable help, I am hopeful that this book will continue to offer a solid and stimulating introduction to the experience of literature.

This project continually reminds me why I follow the vocation of teaching literature, which after all is a communal rather than a solitary calling. Since its inception, The Norton Introduction to Literature has been very much a collabora- tive effort. I am grateful for the opportunity to carry on the work begun by the late Carl Bain and Jerome Beaty, whose student I will always be. And I am equally indebted to my wonderful colleagues Paul Hunter and Alison Booth. Their wisdom and intelligence have had a profound effect on me, and their stamp will endure on this and all future editions of this book. I am thankful to Alison especially for the erudition, savvy, grace, and humor she brought to our partnership.

Thanks also to Jason Snart, of the College of Dupage, for his work preparing the online resources for students. As more and more instructors have integrated online materials into their teaching, users of this book have benefi ted from his experienced insight into teaching writing and literature, as well as his thoughtful development of exercises, quizzes, videos and more. I would also like to thank Carly Fraser Doria, emedia editor for the Twelfth Edition, as well as Kimberly Bowers, marketing manager for both the Eleventh and Twelfth Editions.

In putting together the Twelfth Edition, I have accrued many debts to friends and colleagues and to users of the Eleventh Edition who reached out to point out its mistakes, as well as successes. I am grateful for their generosity and insight, as I also am that of my wise and patient editor, Spencer Richardson- Jones. But I am also peculiarly aware this edition of more enduring and personal debts as well, which I hope it’s not entirely out of place to honor here—to my mother, Lola Mays, who died in the very midst of this book’s making, and to both my sister, Nelda Mays, and my husband and in- house editor, Hugh Jackson, without whom I’m not sure I would have made it through that loss, this book, or anything else. To them, much love, much thanks.

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PREFACE FOR INSTRUCTORS xxxi

The Norton Introduction to Literature continues to thrive because so many teach- ers and students generously take the time to provide valuable feedback and sug- gestions. Thank you to all who have done so. This book is equally your making.

At the beginning of planning for the Twelfth Edition, my editors at Norton solicited the guidance of hundreds of instructors via in- depth reviews and a Web- hosted survey. The response was impressive, bordering on overwhelming; it was also im mensely helpful. Thank you to those provided extensive written com- mentary: Julianne Altenbernd (Cypress College), Troy Appling (Florida Gate- way College), Christina Bisirri (Seminole State College), Jill Channing (Mitchell Community College), Thomas Chester (Ivy Tech), Marcelle Cohen (Valencia College), Patricia Glanville (State College of Florida), Julie Gibson (Greenville Tech), Christina Grant (St. Charles Community College), Lauren Hahn (City Colleges of Chicago), Zachary Hyde (Valencia College), Brenda Jernigan (Meth- odist University), Mary Anne Keefer (Lord Fairfax Community College), Shari Koopman (Valencia College), Jessica Rabin (Anne Arundel Community College), Angela Rasmussen (Spokane Community College), Britnee Shandor (Lanier Tech- nical College), Heidi Sheridan (Ocean County College), Jeff Tix (Wharton Jr. College), Bente Videbaek (Stony Brook University), Patrice Willaims (Northwest Florida State College), and Connie Youngblood (Blinn College).

Thanks also to everyone who responded to the survey online: Sue Abbotson (Rhode Island College), Emory Abbott (Georgia Perimeter

College), Mary Adams (Lincoln College- Normal), Julie Altenbernd (Cypress College), Troy Appling (Florida Gateway College), Marilyn Judith Atlas (Ohio University), Unoma Azuah (Lane College), Diann Baecker (Virginia State Uni- versity), Aaron Barrell (Everett Community College), Craig Barrette (Brescia University), John Bell (American River College), Monica Berlin (Knox College), Mary Anne Bernal (San Antonio College), Jolan Bishop (Southeastern Com- munity College), Randall Blankenship (Valencia College), Margaret Boas (Anne Arundel Community College), Andrew Bodenrader (Manhattanville College), James Borton (Coastal Carolina University), Ethel Bowden (Central Maine Community College), Amy Braziller (Red Rocks Community College), Jason Brown (Herkimer County Community College), Alissa Burger (SUNY Delhi), Michael Burns (Spokane Community College), Ryan Campbell (Front Range Community College), Anna Cancelli (Coastal Carolina Community College), Vanessa Canete- Jurado (Binghamton University), Rebecca Cash (SUNY Adiron- dack), Kevin Cavanaugh (Dutchess Community College), Emily Chamison (Georgia College & State University), Jill Channing (Mitchell Community Col- lege), Thomas Chester (Ivy Tech), Ann Clark (Jefferson Community College), Thomas Coakley (Mount Aloysius College), Susan Cole (Albert Magnus Col- lege), Tera Joy Cole (Idaho State University), Vicki Collins (University of South Carolina Aiken), Jonathan Cook (Durham Technical Community College), Beth Copeland (Methodist University), Bill Corby (Berkshire Community Col- lege), James Crowley (Bridgewater State University), Diane D’Amico (Allegheny College), Susan Dauer (Valencia College), Emily Dial- Driver (Rogers State Uni- versity), Lorraine DiCicco (University of Western Ontario), Christina Devlin (Montgomery College), Jess Domanico (Point University), William Donovan (Idaho State University), Bonnie Dowd (Montclair State University), Douglas

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xxx ii PREFACE FOR INSTRUCTORS

Dowland (Ohio Northern University), Justine Dymond (Springfi eld College), Jason Evans (Prairie State College), Richard Farias (San Antonio College), Karen Feldman (Seminole State College), V. Ferretti (Westmoreland County Com- munity College), Bradley Fest (University of Pittsburgh), Glynn- Ellen Fisichelli (Nassau Community College), Colleen Flanagan (Seminole State College of Flor- ida), Michael Flynn (University of North Dakota), Matthew Fullerty (Chowan University), Robert Galin (University of New Mexico at Gallup), Margaret Gar- dineer (Felician College), Jan Geyer (Hudson Valley Community College), Sea- mus Gibbons (Bergen Community College), Eva Gold (Southeastern Louisiana University), Melissa Green (Ohio University Chillicothe), Frank Gruber (Bergen Community College), Lauren Hahn (City Colleges of Chicago), Rob Hale (West- ern Kentucky University), Nada Halloway (Manhattanville College), Melody Hargraves (St. Johns River State College), Elizabeth Harlan (Northern Virginia Community College), Stephanie Harzewski (University of New Hampshire), Lance Hawvermale (Ranger College), Catherine Heath (Victoria College), Beth Heim de Bera (Rochester Community and Technical College), Natalie Hewitt (Hope International University), Melissa Hoban (Blinn College), Charles Hood (Antelope Valley College), Trish Hopkins (Community College of Vermont), Spring Hyde (Lincoln College), Tammy Jabin (Chemeketa Community College), Kim Jacobs- Beck (University of Cincinnati Clermont College), Brenda Jerrigan (Methodist University), Kathy Johnson (SUNY Cobleskill), Darlene Johnston (Ohio Northern University), Kimberly Kaczorowski (University of Utah), Mary- ellen Keefe (SUNY Maritime College), Mary Anne Keefer (Lord Fairfax Com- munity College), Caroline Kelley (Bergen Community College), Tim Kelley (Northwest- Shoals Community College), Mary Catherine Killany (Robert Mor- ris University), Amy Kolker (Black Hawk College), Beth Kolp (Dutchess Com- munity College), Shari Koopman (Valencia College), Jill Kronstadt (Montgomery College), Liz Langemak (La Salle University), Audrey Lapointe (Cuyamaca College), Dawn Lattin (Idaho State University), Richard Lee (Elon University), Nancy Lee- Jones (Endicott College), Sharon Levy (Northampton Commu- nity College), Erika Lin (George Mason University), Clare Little (Embry- Riddle Aeronautical University), Paulette Longmore (Essex County College), Carol Luther (Pellissippi State Community College), Sean McAuley (North Georgia Technical College), Sheila McAvey (Becker College), Kelli McBride (Seminole State College), Jim McWilliams (Dickinson State University), Vickie Melograno (Atlantic Cape Community College), Agnetta Mendoza (Nashville State Com- munity College), David Merchant (Louisiana Tech University), Edith Miller (Angelina College), Benjamin Mitchell (Georgia College & State University), James Norman (Bridgewater State University), Angelia Northrip- Rivera (Mis- souri State University), James Obertino (University of Central Missouri), Elaine Ostry (SUNY Plattsburg), Michelle Paulsen (Victoria College), Russell Perkin (Saint Mary’s University), Katherine Perry (Georgia Perimeter College), Thomas Pfi ster (Idaho State University), Gemmicka Piper (University of Iowa), Michael Podolny (Onondaga Community College), Wanda Pothier- Hill (Mt. Wachusett Community College), Gregg Pratt (SUNY Adirondack, Wilton Campus), Jona- than Purkiss (Pulaski Technical College), Jessica Rabin (Anne Arundel Com- munity College), Elizabeth Rambo (Campbell University), Angela Rasmussen

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PREFACE FOR INSTRUCTORS xxxiii

(Spokane Community College), Rhonda Ray (East Stroudsburg University), Janet Red Feather (Normandale Community College), Joan Reeves (Northeast Ala- bama Community College), Matthias Regan (North Central College), Eliza- beth Rescher (Richard Bland College), Stephanie Roberts (Georgia Military College), Paul Robichaud (Albert Magnus College), Nancy Roche (University of Utah), Mary Rohrer- Dann (Pennsylvania State University), Michael Rottnick (Ellsworth Community College), Scott Rudd (Monroe Community College), Ernest Rufl eth (Louisiana Tech University), Frank Rusciano (Rider University), Michael Sarabia (University of Iowa), Susan Scheckel (Stony Brook Univer- sity), Lori Schroeder (Knox College), Britnee Shandor (Lanier Technical Col- lege), Jolie Sheffer (Bowling Green State University), Olympia Sibley, (Blinn College), Christine Sizemore (Spelman College), Chris Small (New Hampshire Technical Institute), Katherine Smit (Housatonic Community College), Whit- ney Smith (Miami University), Jason Snart (College of Dupage), John Snider (Montana State University- Northern), Shannon Stewart (Costal Carolina Uni- versity), Susan St. Peters (Riverside City College), Michael Stubbs (Idaho State University), Patrice Suggs (Craven Community College), Joseph Sullivan (Mari- etta College), Heidi L. Sura (Kirtland Community College), David Susman (York County Community College), Fred Svoboda (University of Michigan), Taryne Taylor (University of Iowa), Nancy Thompson (Community College of Vermont), Rita Treutel (University of Alabama at Birmingham), Keja Valens (Salem State University), Diana Vecchio (Widener University), Bente Videbaek (Stony Brook University), Donna Waldron (Campbell University), Kent Walker (Brock Uni- versity), Brandi Wallace (Wallace Community College), Valerie Wallace (City Colleges of Chicago), Maureen Walters (Vance- Granville Community College), Megan Walsh (St. Bonaventure University), Kimberly Ward (Campbell Univer- sity), Catherine Welter (University of New Hampshire), Jeff Westover (Boise State University), Kathy Whitaker (East Georgia State College), Bruce Wigutow (Farmingdale State College), Jessica Wilkie (Monroe Community College), Leigh Williams (Dutchess Community College), Jenny Williams (Spartanburg Community College), Patrice Williams (Northwest Florida State College), Greg- ory Wilson (St. John’s University), Mark WIlson (Southwestern Oregon Com- munity College), Rita Wisdom (Tarrant County College), Martha Witt (William Paterson University), Robert Wiznura (Grant MacEwan University), Jarrell Wright (University of Pittsburgh), Kelly Yacobucci (SUNY Cobleskill), Kidane Yohannes (Burlington County College), Brian Yost (Texas A&M University), Connie Youngblood (Blinn College), Susan Youngs (Southern New Hampshire University), and Jason Ziebart (Central Carolina Community College).

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T H E N O RTO N I N T R O D U C T I O N TO

LITERATURE S H O R T E R T W E L F T H E D I T I O N

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1

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Introduction

In the opening chapters of Charles Dickens’s novel Hard Times (1854), the aptly named Thomas Gradgrind warns the teachers and pupils at his “model” school to avoid using their imaginations. “Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life,” exclaims Mr. Gradgrind. To press his point, Mr. Gradgrind asks “girl number twenty,” Sissy Jupe, the daughter of a circus performer, to defi ne a horse. When she cannot, Gradgrind turns to Bitzer, a pale, spiritless boy who “looked as though, if he were cut, he would bleed white.” A “model” stu- dent of this “model” school, Bitzer gives exactly the kind of defi nition to satisfy Mr. Gradgrind:

Quadruped. Graminivorous. Forty teeth, namely, twenty- four grinders, four eye- teeth, and twelve incisive. Sheds coat in spring; in marshy countries, sheds hoofs.

Anyone who has any sense of what a horse is rebels against Bitzer’s lifeless pic- ture of that animal and against the “Gradgrind” view of reality. As these fi rst scenes of Hard Times lead us to expect, in the course of the novel the fact- grinding Mr. Gradgrind learns that human beings cannot live on facts alone; that it is dangerous to stunt the faculties of imagination and feeling; that, in the words of one of the novel’s more lovable characters, “People must be amused.” Through the downfall of an exaggerated enemy of the imagination, Dickens reminds us why we like and even need to read literature.

WHAT IS LITERATURE?

But what is literature? Before you opened this book, you probably could guess that it would contain the sorts of stories, poems, and plays you have encountered in En glish classes or in the literature section of a library or bookstore. But why are some written works called literature whereas others are not? And who gets to decide? The American Heritage Dictionary of the En glish Language offers a num- ber of defi nitions for the word literature, one of which is “imaginative or creative writing, especially of recognized artistic value.” In this book, we adopt a version of that defi nition by focusing on fi ctional stories, poems, and plays— the three major kinds (or genres) of “imaginative or creative writing” that form the heart of litera- ture as it has been taught in schools and universities for over a century. Many of the works we have chosen to include are already ones “of recognized artistic value” and thus belong to what scholars call the canon, a select, if much- debated and ever- evolving, list of the most highly and widely esteemed works. Though quite a few of the literary texts we include are simply too new to have earned that status, they, too, have already drawn praise, and some have even generated controversy.

Certainly it helps to bear in mind what others have thought of a literary work. Yet one of this book’s primary goals is to get you to think for yourself, as well as communicate with others, about what “imaginative writing” and “artistic value” are or might be and thus about what counts as literature. What makes a story or poem different from an essay, a newspaper editorial, or a technical manual? For

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that matter, what makes a published, canonical story like Herman Melville’s Bartleby, the Scrivener both like and unlike the sorts of stories we tell each other every day? What about so- called oral literature, such as the fables and folk- tales that circulated by word of mouth for hundreds of years before they were ever written down? Or published works such as comic strips and graphic novels that rely little, if at all, on the written word? Or Harlequin romances, tele vi sion shows, and the stories you collaborate in making when you play a video game? Likewise, how is Shakespeare’s poem My mistress’s eyes are nothing like the sun both like and unlike a verse you might fi nd in a Hallmark card or even a jingle in a mouthwash commercial?

Today, literature departments offer courses in many of these forms of expres- sion, expanding the realm of literature far beyond the limits of the dictionary defi nition. An essay, a song lyric, a screenplay, a supermarket romance, a novel by Toni Morrison or William Faulkner, and a poem by Walt Whitman or Emily Dickinson— each may be read and interpreted in literary ways that yield insight and plea sure. What makes the literary way of reading different from pragmatic reading is, as scholar Louise Rosenblatt explains, that it does not focus “on what will remain [. . .] after the reading— the information to be acquired, the logical solution to a problem, the actions to be carried out,” but rather on “what happens

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during [. . .] reading.” The difference between pragmatic and literary reading, in other words, resembles the difference between a journey that is only about reach- ing a destination and one that is just as much about fully experiencing the ride.

In the pages of this book, you will fi nd cartoons, an excerpt from a graphic novel, song lyrics, folktales, and stories and plays that have spawned movies. Through this inclusiveness, we do not intend to suggest that there are no distinctions among these various forms of expression or between a good story, poem, or play and a bad one; rather, we want to get you thinking, talking, and writing both about what the key differences and similarities among these forms are and what makes one work a better example of its genre than another. Sharpening your skills at these peculiarly intensive and responsive sorts of reading and interpretation is a primary purpose of this book and of most literature courses.

Another goal of inclusiveness is simply to remind you that literature doesn’t just belong in a textbook or a classroom, even if textbooks and classrooms are essential means for expanding your knowledge of the literary terrain and of the concepts and techniques essential to thoroughly enjoying and understanding a broad range of literary forms. You may or may not be the kind of person who always takes a novel when you go to the beach or secretly writes a poem about your experience when you get back home. You may or may not have taken a literature course (or courses) before. Yet you already have a good deal of literary experience and even expertise, as well as much more to discover about literature. A major aim of this book is to make you more conscious of how and to what end you might use the tools you already possess and to add many new ones to your tool belt.

WHAT DOES LITERATURE DO?

One quality that may well differentiate stories, poems, and plays from other kinds of writing is that they help us move beyond and probe beneath abstractions by giv- ing us concrete, vivid particulars. Rather than talking about things, they bring them to life for us by representing experience, and so they become an experience for us— one that engages our emotions, our imagination, and all of our senses, as well as our intellects. As the British poet and critic Matthew Arnold put it more than a century ago, “The interpretations of science do not give us this intimate sense of objects as the interpretations of poetry give it; they appeal to a limited fac- ulty, and not to the whole man. It is not Linnaeus [. . .] who gives us the true sense of animals, or water, or plants, who seizes their secret for us, who makes us par- ticipate in their life; it is Shakespeare [. . .] Wordsworth [. . .] Keats.”

To test Arnold’s theory, compare the American Heritage Dictionary’s rather dry defi nition of literature with the following poem, in which John Keats describes his fi rst encounter with a specifi c literary work— George Chapman’s translation of the Iliad and the Odyssey, two epics by the ancient Greek poet Homer.

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JOH N KE ATS On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer1

Much have I traveled in the realms of gold, And many goodly states and kingdoms seen; Round many western islands have I been Which bards in fealty to Apollo2 hold.

5 Oft of one wide expanse had I been told That deep- browed Homer ruled as his demesne; Yet did I never breathe its pure serene3

Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold: Then felt I like some watcher of the skies

10 When a new planet swims into his ken;4

Or like stout Cortez5 when with ea gle eyes He stared at the Pacifi c— and all his men Looked at each other with a wild surmise— Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

1816

Keats makes us see literature as a “wide expanse” by greatly developing this meta- phor and complementing it with similes likening reading to the sighting of a “new planet” and the fi rst glimpse of an undiscovered ocean. More important, he shows us what literature means and why it matters by allowing us to share with him the subjective experience of reading and the complex sensations it inspires— the diz- zying exhilaration of discovery; the sense of power, accomplishment, and pride that comes of achieving something diffi cult; the wonder we feel in those rare moments when a much- anticipated experience turns out to be even greater than we had imagined it would be.

It isn’t the defi nitions of words alone that bring this experience to life for us as we read Keats’s poem, but also their sensual qualities— the way the words look, sound, and even feel in our mouths because of the par tic u lar way they are put together on the page. The sensation of excitement— of a racing heart and mind— is reproduced in us as we read the poem. For example, notice how the lines in the middle run into each other, but then Keats forces us to slow down at the poem’s end— stopped short by that dash and comma in the poem’s fi nal lines, just as Cortez and his men are when they reach the edge of the known world and peer into what lies beyond.

WHAT ARE THE GENRES OF LITERATURE?

The conversation that is literature, as well as the conversation about literature, invites all comers, requiring neither a visa nor a special license of any kind. Yet literary studies, like all disciplines, has developed its own terminology and its own

1. George Chapman’s were among the most famous Re nais sance translations of Homer; he completed his Iliad in 1611, his Odyssey in 1616. Keats wrote the sonnet after being led to Chapman by a former teacher and reading the Iliad all night long. 2. Greek god of poetry and music. Fealty: literally, the loyalty owed by a vassal to his feudal lord. 3. Atmosphere. 4. Range of vision; awareness. 5. Actually, Balboa; he fi rst viewed the Pacifi c from Darien, in Panama.

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systems of classifi cation. Helping you understand and effectively use both is a major focus of this book; especially important terms appear in bold throughout and are defi ned in a glossary at the back.

Some essential literary terms are common, everyday words used in a special way in the conversation about literature. A case in point, perhaps, is the term literary criticism, as well as the closely related term literary critic. Despite the usual con- notations of the word criticism, literary criticism is called criticism not because it is negative or corrective but rather because those who write criticism ask searching, analytical, “critical” questions about the works they read. Literary criticism is both the pro cess of interpreting and commenting on literature and the result of that pro cess. If you write an essay on the play Hamlet, the poetry of John Keats, or the development of the short story in the 1990s, you engage in literary criticism, and by writing the essay, you’ve become a literary critic.

Similarly, when we classify works of literature, we use terms that may be famil- iar to you but have specifi c meanings in a literary context. All academic disci- plines have systems of classifi cation, or taxonomies, as well as jargon. Biologists, for example, classify all organisms into a series of ever- smaller, more specifi c cat- egories: kingdom, phylum or division, class, order, family, genus, and species. Clas- sifi cation and comparison are just as essential in the study of literature. We expect a poem to work in a certain way, for example, when we know from the outset that it is a poem and not, say, a factual news report or a short story. And— whether consciously or not— we compare it, as we read, to other poems we’ve read in the past. If we know, further, that the poem was fi rst published in eighteenth- century Japan, we expect it to work differently from one that appeared in the latest New Yorker. Indeed, we often choose what to read, just as we choose what movie to see, based on the “class” or “order” of book or movie we like or what we are in the mood for that day— horror or comedy, action or science fi ction.

As these examples suggest, we generally tend to categorize literary works in two ways: (1) on the basis of contextual factors, especially historical and cultural context— that is, when, by whom, and where it was produced (as in nineteenth- century literature, the literature of the Harlem Re nais sance, American literature, or African American literature)— and (2) on the basis of formal textual features. For the latter type of classifi cation, the one we focus on in this book, the key term is genre, which simply means, as the Oxford En glish Dictionary tells us, “A par tic u lar style or category of works of art; esp. a type of literary work characterized by a par- tic u lar form, style, or purpose.”

Applied rigorously, genre refers to the largest categories around which this book is organized—fi ction, poetry, and drama (as well as nonfi ction prose). The word subgenre applies to smaller divisions within a genre, and the word kind to divisions within a subgenre. Subgenres of fi ction include the novel, the novella, and the short story. Kinds of novels, in turn, include things like the bildungsro- man or the epistolary novel. Similarly, important subgenres of nonfi ction include the essay, as well as biography and autobiography; a memoir is a par tic u lar kind of autobiography, and so on.

However, the terms of literary criticism are not so fi xed or so consistently, rig- orously used as biologists’ are. You will often see the word genre applied both much more narrowly— referring to the novel, for example, or even to a kind of novel such as the epistolary novel or the historical novel.

The way we classify a work depends on which aspects of its form or style we concentrate on, and categories may overlap. When we divide fi ction, for example,

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into the subgenres novel, novella, and short story, we take the length of the works as the salient aspect. (Novels are much longer than short stories.) But other fi ctional subgenres— detective fi ction, gothic fi ction, historical fi ction, science fi ction, and even romance— are based on the types of plots, characters, settings, and so on that are customarily featured in these works. These latter categories may include works from all the other, length- based categories. There are, after all, gothic novels (think Stephenie Meyer), as well as gothic short stories (think Edgar Allan Poe).

A few genres even cut across the boundaries dividing poetry, fi ction, drama, and nonfi ction. A prime example is satire— any literary work (whether poem, play, fi ction, or nonfi ction) “in which prevailing vices and follies are held up to ridicule” (Oxford En glish Dictionary). Examples of satire include poems such as Alexander Pope’s Dunciad (1728); plays, movies, and tele vi sion shows, from Molière’s Tar- tuffe (1664) to Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove (1964) to South Park and The Daily Show; works of fi ction like Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels (1726) and Voltaire’s Candide (1759); and works of nonfi ction such as Swift’s “A Modest Pro- posal” (1729) and Ambrose Bierce’s The Dev il’s Dictionary (1906). Three other major genres that cross the borders between fi ction, poetry, drama, and nonfi ction are parody, pastoral, and romance.

Individual works can thus belong simultaneously to multiple generic categories or observe some conventions of a genre without being an example of that genre in any simple or straightforward way. The Old En glish poem Beowulf is an epic and, because it’s written in verse, a poem. Yet because (like all epics) it narrates a story, it is also a work of fi ction in the more general sense of that term.

Given this complexity, the system of literary genres can be puzzling, especially to the uninitiated. Used well, however, classifi cation schemes are among the most essential and effective tools we use to understand and enjoy just about everything, including literature.

WHY READ LITERATURE?

Because there has never been and never will be absolute, lasting agreement about where exactly the boundaries between one literary genre and another should be drawn or even about what counts as literature at all, it might be more useful from the outset to focus on why we look at par tic u lar forms of expression.

Over the ages, people have sometimes dismissed all literature or at least certain genres as a luxury, a frivolous pastime, even a sinful indulgence. Plato famously banned poetry from his ideal republic on the grounds that it tells beautiful lies that “feed and water our passions” rather than our reason. Thousands of years later, the infl uential eighteenth- century phi los o pher Jeremy Bentham decried the “magic art” of literature as doing a good deal of “mischief” by “stimulating our passions” and “exciting our prejudices.” One of Bentham’s contemporaries— a minister— blamed the rise of immorality, irreligion, and even prostitution on the increasing popularity of that par tic u lar brand of literature called the novel.

Today, many Americans express their sense of literature’s insignifi cance by simply not reading it: The 2004 government report Reading at Risk indicates that less than half of U.S. adults read imaginative literature, with the sharpest declines occurring among the youn gest age groups. Even if they very much enjoy reading on their own, many contemporary U.S. college students nonetheless hesitate to study or major in literature for fear that their degree won’t provide them with marketable credentials, knowledge, or skills.

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Yet the enormous success of The Hunger Games trilogy and the proliferation of reading groups are only two of many signs that millions of people continue to fi nd both reading literature and discussing it with others to be enjoyable, meaningful, even essential activities. En glish thrives as a major at most colleges and universi- ties, almost all of which require undergraduates majoring in other areas to take at least one course in literature. (Perhaps that’s why you are reading this book!) Schools of medicine, law, and business are today more likely to require their stu- dents to take literature courses than they were in past de cades, and they continue to welcome literature majors as applicants, as do many corporations. So why do so many people read and study literature, and why do schools encourage and even require students to do so? Even if we know what literature is, what does it do for us? What is its value?

There are, of course, as many answers to such questions as there are readers. For centuries, a standard answer has been simply that imaginative literature provides a unique brand of “instruction and delight.” John Keats’s On Looking into Chapman’s Homer illustrates some of the many forms such delight can take. Some kinds of imaginative writing offer us the delight of immediate escape, but imaginative writing that is more diffi cult to read and understand than a Harry Potter or Twilight novel offers escape of a different and potentially more instruc- tive sort, liberating us from the confi nes of our own time, place, and social milieu, as well as our habitual ways of thinking, feeling, and looking at the world. In this way, a story, poem, or play can satisfy our desire for broader experience— including the sorts of experience we might be unable or unwilling to endure in real life. We can learn what it might be like to grow up on a Canadian fox farm or to clean ashtrays in the Singapore airport. We can travel back into the past, experienc- ing war from the perspective of a soldier watching his comrade die or of prisoners suffering in a Nazi labor camp. We can journey into the future or into universes governed by entirely different rules than our own. Perhaps we yearn for such knowl- edge because we can best come to understand our own identities and outlooks by leaping over the boundaries that separate us from other selves and worlds.

Keats’s friend and fellow poet Percy Bysshe Shelley argued that literature increases a person’s ability to make such leaps, to “imagine intensely and compre- hensively” and “put himself in the place of another and of many othe[r]” people in order “to be greatly good.” Shelley meant “good” in a moral sense, reasoning that the ability both to accurately imagine and to truly feel the human consequences of our actions is the key to ethical behavior. But universities and professional schools today also defi ne this “good” in distinctly pragmatic ways. In virtually any career you choose, you will need to interact positively and productively with both coworkers and clients, and in today’s increasingly globalized world, you will need to learn to deal effectively and empathetically with people vastly different from yourself. At the very least, literature written by people from various backgrounds and depict- ing various places, times, experiences, and feelings will give you some under- standing of how others’ lives and worldviews may differ from your own— or how they may be very much the same.

Similarly, our rapidly changing world and economy require intellectual fl exibil- ity, adaptability, and ingenuity, making ever more essential the human knowledge, general skills, and habits of mind developed through the study of literature. Litera- ture explores issues and questions relevant in any walk of life. Yet rather than offer- ing us neat or comforting solutions and answers, literature enables us to experience diffi cult situations and human conundrums in all their complexity and to look at

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them from various points of view. In so doing, it invites us sometimes to question conventional thinking and sometimes to see its wisdom, even as it helps us imag- ine altogether new possibilities.

Finally, literature awakens us to the richness and complexity of language— our primary tool for engaging with, understanding, and shaping the world around us. As we read more and more, seeing how different writers use language to help us feel their joy, pain, love, rage, or laughter, we begin to recognize the vast range of possibilities for self- expression. Writing and discussion in turn give us invaluable practice in discovering, expressing, and defending our own nuanced, often contra- dictory thoughts about both literature and life. The study of literature enhances our command of language and our sensitivity to its effects and meanings in every form or medium, providing interpretation and communication skills especially cru- cial in our information age. By learning to appreciate and articulate what the language of a story, poem, a play, or an essay does to us and by considering how it affects others, we also learn much about what we can do with language.

What We Do With Literature: Three Tips

1. Take a literary work on its own terms. Adjust to the work; don’t make the work adjust to you. Be prepared to hear things you do not want to hear. Not all works are about your ideas, nor will they always present emotions you want to feel. But be tolerant and listen to the work fi rst; later you can explore the ways you do or don’t agree with it.

2. Assume there is a reason for everything. Writers do make mistakes, but when a work shows some degree of verbal control it is usually safest to assume that the writer chose each word carefully; if the choice seems peculiar, you may be missing something. Try to account for everything in a work, see what kind of sense you can make of it, and fi gure out a coherent pattern that explains the text as it stands.

3. Remember that literary texts exist in time, and times change. Not only the meanings of words, but whole ways of looking at the universe vary in differ- ent ages. Consciousness of time works two ways: Your knowledge of history provides a context for reading the work, and the work may modify your notion of a par tic u lar age.

WHY STUDY LITERATURE?

You may already feel the power and plea sure to be gained from a sustained encounter with challenging reading. Then why not simply enjoy it in solitude, on your own free time? Why take a course in literature? Literary study, like all disci- plines, has developed its own terminology and its own techniques. Some knowl- edge and understanding of both can greatly enhance our personal appreciation of literature and our conversations with others about it. Literature also has a context and a history, and learning something about them can make all the difference in the amount and kind of plea sure and insight you derive from literature. By read- ing and discussing different genres of literature, as well as works from varied times and places, you may well come to appreciate and even love works that you might never have discovered or chosen to read on your own or that you might have dis- liked or misunderstood if you did.

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INTRODUCTION 9

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Most important, writing about works of literature and discussing them with your teachers and other students will give you practice in analyzing literature in greater depth and in considering alternative views of both the works themselves and the situations and problems the works explore. A clear understanding of the aims and designs of a story, poem, or play never falls like a bolt from the blue. Instead, it emerges from a pro cess that involves trying to put into words how and why this work had such an effect on you and, just as important, responding to what others say or write about it. Literature itself is a vast, ongoing, ever- evolving con- versation in which we most fully participate when we enter into actual conversa- tion with others.

As you engage in this conversation, you will notice that interpretation is always variable, always open to discussion. A great diversity of interpretations might sug- gest that the discussion is pointless. On the contrary, that’s when the discussion gets most interesting. Because there is no single, straight, paved road to an under- standing of a literary text, you can explore a variety of blazed trails and less- traveled paths. In sharing your own interpretations, tested against your peers’ responses and guided by your instructor’s or other critics’ expertise, you will hone your skills at both interpretation and communication. After the intricate and interactive pro cess of interpretation, you will fi nd that the work has changed when you read it again. What we do with literature alters what it does to us.

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FICTION

James Baldwin

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FICTION Reading, Responding, Writing

Stories are a part of daily life in every culture. Stories are what we tell when we return from vacation or survive an accident or illness. They help us make sense of growing up or growing old, of a hurricane or a war, of the country and world we live in. In conversations, a story may be invited by the listener (“What did you do last night?”) or initiated by the teller (“Guess what I saw when I was driving home!”). We assume such stories are true, or at least that they are meant to describe an experience honestly. Of course, many of the stories we encoun- ter daily, from jokes to online games to tele vi sion sitcoms to novels and fi lms, are intended to be fi ction— that is, stories or narratives about imaginary persons and events. Every story, however, whether a news story, sworn testimony, idle gossip, or a fairy tale, is always a version of events told from a par tic u lar perspective (or several), and it may be incomplete, biased, or just plain made up. As we listen to others’ stories, we keep alert to the details, which make the stories rich and enter- taining. But we also need to spend considerable time and energy making sure that we accurately interpret what we hear: We ask ourselves who is telling the story, why the story is being told, and whether we have all the information we need to understand it fully.

Even newspaper articles, which are supposed to tell true stories— the facts of what actually happened— may be open to such interpretation. Take as an example the following article, which appeared in the New York Times on January 1, 1920:

The report’s appearance in a reliable newspaper; its identifi cation of date, loca- tion, and other information; and the legalistic adjectives “accused” and “alleged”

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The Elephant in the Village of the Blind 13

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suggest that it strives to be accurate and objective. But given the distance between us and the events described here, it’s also easy to imagine this chain of events being recounted in a play, murder mystery, Hollywood fi lm, or televised trial. In other words, this news story is still fundamentally a story. Note that certain points of view are better represented than others and certain details are highlighted, as might be the case in a novel or short story. The news item is based almost entirely on what Kate Uhl asserts, and even the subtitle, “Woman Becomes Desperate,” plays up the “dramatic sequel to the woman’s dilemma.” We don’t know what Mervin Uhl said when he allegedly accused his wife and turned her out of the house, and Bryan Pownall, the murdered man, never had a chance to defend himself. Presumably, the article reports accurately the husband’s accusation of adultery and the wife’s accu- sation of rape, but we have no way of knowing whose accusations are true.

Our everyday interpretation of the stories we hear from various sources— including other people, tele vi sion, newspapers, and advertisements— has much in common with the interpretation of short stories such as those in this anthology. In fact, you’ll probably discover that the pro cesses of reading, responding to, and writ- ing about stories are already somewhat familiar to you. Most readers already know, for instance, that they should pay close attention to seemingly trivial details; they should ask questions and fi nd out more about any matters of fact that seem myste- rious, odd, or unclear. Most readers are well aware that words can have several meanings and that there are alternative ways to tell a story. How would someone else have told the story? What are the storyteller’s perspective and motives? What is the context of the tale— for instance, when is it supposed to have taken place and what was the occasion of telling it? These and other questions from our expe- rience of everyday storytelling are equally relevant in reading fi ction. Similarly, we can usually tell in reading a story or hearing it whether it is supposed to make us laugh, shock us, or provoke some other response.

TELL ING STOR IE S: INTER PR E TATION

Everyone has a unique story to tell. In fact, many stories are about this difference or divergence among people’s interpretations of reality. A number of the stories in this anthology explore issues of storytelling and interpretation.

Consider a well- known tale, “The Blind Men and the Elephant,” a Buddhist story over two thousand years old. Like other stories that have been transmitted orally, this one exists in many versions. Here’s one way of telling it:

The Elephant in the Village of the Blind

Once there was a village high in the mountains in which everyone was born blind. One day a traveler arrived from far away with many fi ne things to sell and many tales to tell. The villagers asked, “How did you travel so far and so high carry ing so much?” The traveler said, “On my elephant.” “What is an elephant?” the villagers asked, having never even heard of such an animal in their remote mountain village. “See for yourself,” the traveler replied.

The elders of the village were a little afraid of the strange- smelling creature that took up so much space in the middle of the village square. They could hear

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14 FICTION: READING, RESPONDING, WRITING

it breathing and munching on hay, and feel its slow, swaying movements dis- turbing the air around them. First one elder reached out and felt its fl apping ear. “An elephant is soft but tough, and fl exible, like a leather fan.” Another grasped its back leg. “An elephant is a rough, hairy pillar.” An old woman took hold of a tusk and gasped, “An elephant is a cool, smooth staff.” A young girl seized the tail and declared, “An elephant is a fringed rope.” A boy took hold of the trunk and announced, “An elephant is a water pipe.” Soon others were stroking its sides, which were furrowed like a dry plowed fi eld, and others determined that its head was an overturned washing tub attached to the water pipe.

At fi rst each villager argued with the others on the defi nition of the elephant, as the traveler watched in silence. Two elders were about to come to blows about a fan that could not possibly be a pillar. Meanwhile the elephant patiently enjoyed the investigations as the cries of curiosity and angry debate mixed in the afternoon sun. Soon someone suggested that a list could be made of all the parts: the elephant had four pillars, one tub, two fans, a water pipe, and two staffs, and was covered in tough, hairy leather or dried mud. Four young mothers, sitting on a bench and comparing impressions, realized that the elephant was in fact an enormous, gentle ox with a stretched nose. The traveler agreed, adding only that it was also a powerful draft horse and that if they bought some of his wares for a good price he would be sure to come that way again in the new year.

• • •

The different versions of such a tale, like the different descriptions of the ele- phant, alter its meaning. Changing any aspect of the story will inevitably change how it works and what it means to the listener or reader. For example, most ver- sions of this story feature not an entire village of blind people (as this version does), but a small group of blind men who claim to be wiser than their sighted neighbors. These blind men quarrel endlessly because none of them can see; none can put together all the evidence of all their senses or all the elephant’s various parts to create a whole. Such traditional versions of the story criticize people who are too proud of what they think they know; these versions imply that sighted people would know better what an elephant is. However, other versions of the tale, like the one above, are set in an imaginary “country” of the blind. This setting changes the emphasis of the story from the errors of a few blind wise men to the value and the insuffi ciency of any one person’s perspective. For though it’s clear that the various members of the community in this version will never agree entirely on one interpretation of (or story about) the elephant, they do not let themselves get bogged down in endless dispute. Instead they compare and combine their various stories and “readings” in order to form a more satisfying, holistic under- standing of the wonder in their midst. Similarly, listening to others’ different inter- pretations of stories, based on their different perspectives, can enhance your experience of a work of literature and your skill in responding to new works.

Just as stories vary depending on who is telling them, so their meaning varies depending on who is responding to them. In the elephant story, the villagers pay attention to what the tail or the ear feels like, and then they draw on comparisons to what they already know. But ultimately, the individual interpretations of the elephant depend on what previous experiences each villager brings to bear (of pillars, water

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pipes, oxen, and dried mud, for example), and also on where (quite literally) he or she stands in relation to the elephant. In the same way, readers participate in re- creating a story as they interpret it. When you read a story for the fi rst time, your response will be informed by other stories you have heard and read as well as your expectations for this kind of story. To grapple with what is new in any story, start by observing one part at a time and gradually trying to understand how those parts work together to form a whole. As you make sense of each new piece of the picture, you adjust your expectations about what is yet to come. When you have read and grasped it as fully as possible, you may share your interpretation with other readers, discussing different ways of seeing the story. Finally, you might express your refl ec- tive understanding in writing— in a sense, telling your story about the work.

Questions about the Elements of Fiction

• Expectations: What do you expect? ° from the title? from the fi rst sentence or paragraph? ° after the fi rst events or interactions of characters? ° as the confl ict is resolved?

• What happens in the story? (See ch. 1.) ° Do the characters or the situation change from the beginning to the end? ° Can you summarize the plot? Is it a recognizable kind or genre of story?

• How is the story narrated? (See ch. 2.) ° Is the narrator identifi ed as a character? ° Is it narrated in the past or present tense? ° Is it narrated in the fi rst, second, or third person? ° Do you know what every character is thinking, or only some characters,

or none? • Who are the characters? (See ch. 3.)

° Who is the protagonist(s) (hero, heroine)? ° Who is the antagonist(s) (villain, opponent, obstacle)? ° Who are the other characters? What is their role in the story? ° Do your expectations change with those of the characters, or do you

know more or less than each of the characters? • What is the setting of the story? (See ch. 4.)

° When does the story take place? ° Where does it take place? ° Does the story move from one setting to another? Does it move in one

direction only or back and forth in time and place? • What do you notice about how the story is written?

° What is the style of the prose? Are the sentences and the vocabulary simple or complex?

° Are there any images, fi gures of speech or symbols? (See ch. 5.) ° What is the tone or mood? Does the reader feel sad, amused, worried,

curious? • What does the story mean? Can you express its theme or themes? (See ch. 6.)

° Answers to these big questions may be found in many instances in your answers to the previous questions. The story’s meaning or theme depends on all its features.

FICTION: READING, RESPONDING, WRITING 15

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READING AND RESPONDING TO FICTION

When imaginary events are acted out onstage or onscreen, our experience of those events is that of being a witness to them. In contrast, prose fi ction, whether oral or written, is relayed to us by someone. Reading it is more like hearing what hap- pened after the fact than witnessing it before our very eyes. The teller, or narra- tor, of fi ction addresses a listener or reader, often referred to as the audience. How much or how little we know about the characters and what they say or do depends on what a narrator tells us.

You should read a story attentively, just as you would listen attentively to some- one telling a story out loud. This means limiting distractions and interruptions; you should take a break from social networking and obtrusive music. Literary prose, as well as poetry, works with the sounds as well as meanings of words, just as fi lm works with music and sound as well as images. Be prepared to mark up the text and to make notes.

While reading and writing, you should always have a good college- level diction- ary on hand so that you can look up any unfamiliar terms. In the era of the Inter- net it’s especially easy to learn more about any word or concept, and doing so can help enrich your reading and writing. Another excellent resource is the Oxford En glish Dictionary, available in the reference section of most academic libraries or on their websites, which reveals the wide range of meanings words have had over time. Words in En glish always have a long story to tell because over the centuries so many languages have contributed to our current vocabulary. It’s not uncommon for meanings to overlap or even reverse themselves.

The following short short story is a contemporary work. As in The Elephant in the Village of the Blind, this narrator gives us a minimal amount of informa- tion, merely observing the characters’ different perceptions and interpretations of things they see during a cross- country car trip. As you read the story, pay attention to your expectations, drawing on your personal experience as well as such clues as the title; the characters’ opinions, behavior, and speech; specifi cs of setting (time and place); and any repetitions or changes. When and how does the story begin to challenge and change your initial expectations? You can use the questions above to guide your reading of any story and help you focus on some of its important features.

LINDA BREWER 20/20

B y the time they reached Indiana, Bill realized that Ruthie, his driving com-panion, was incapable of theoretical debate. She drove okay, she went halves on gas, etc., but she refused to argue. She didn’t seem to know how. Bill was used to East Coast women who disputed everything he said, every step of the way. Ruthie stuck to simple observation, like “Look, cows.” He chalked it up to the fact that she was from rural Ohio and thrilled to death to be anywhere else.

She didn’t mind driving into the setting sun. The third eve ning out, Bill rested his eyes while she cruised along making the occasional announcement.

“Indian paintbrush. A golden ea gle.”

16 FICTION: READING, RESPONDING, WRITING

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Miles later he frowned. There was no Indian paintbrush, that he knew of, near Chicago.

The next eve ning, driving, Ruthie said, “I never thought I’d see a Bigfoot in real life.” Bill turned and looked at the side of the road streaming innocently out behind them. Two red spots winked back— refl ectors nailed to a tree stump.

“Ruthie, I’ll drive,” he said. She stopped the car and they changed places in the light of the eve ning star.

“I’m so glad I got to come with you,” Ruthie said. Her eyes were big, blue, and capable of seeing wonderful sights. A white buffalo near Fargo. A UFO above Twin Falls. A handsome genius in the person of Bill himself. This last vision came to her in Spokane and Bill decided to let it ride.

1996

• • •

SAMPLE WRITING: ANNOTATION AND NOTES ON “20/20”

Now re- read the story, along with the brief note one reader made in the margins, based on the questions in the box on page 15. The reader then expanded these annotations into longer, more detailed notes. These notes could be or ga nized and expanded into a response paper on the story. Some of your insights might even form the basis for a longer essay on one of the elements of the story.

5

FICTION: READING, RESPONDING, WRITING 17

20/20

By the time they reached Indiana, Bill realized that Ruthie, his

driving companion, was incapable of theoretical debate. She drove

okay, she went halves on gas, etc., but she refused to argue. She didn’t

seem to know how. Bill was used to East Coast women who disputed

everything he said, every step of the way. Ruthie stuck to simple

observation, like “Look, cows.” He chalked it up to the fact that she

was from rural Ohio and thrilled to death to be anywhere else.

She didn’t mind driving into the setting sun. The third eve ning out,

Bill rested his eyes while she cruised along making the occasional

announcement.

“Indian paintbrush. A golden ea gle.”

Miles later he frowned. There was no Indian paintbrush, that he

knew of, near Chicago.

Like “20/20 hindsight” or perfect vision? Also like the way Bill and Ruthie go 50/50 on the trip, and see things in two different ways.

Bill’s doubts about Ruthie. Is he reliable? Does she “refuse” or not “know how” to argue? What’s her view of him?

Bill’s keeping score; maybe Ruthie’s nicer, or has better eyesight. She notices things.

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Initial Impressions Plot: begins in the middle of action, on a journey. Narration: past tense, third person. Setting: Indiana is a middling, unromantic place.

Paragraph 1 Narration and Character: Bill’s judgments of Ruthie show that he prides himself on arguing about abstract ideas; that he thinks Ruthie must be stupid; that they didn’t know each other well and aren’t suited for a long trip together. Bill is from the unfriendly East Coast; Ruthie, from easy going, dull “rural Ohio.” Style: The casual language—“okay” and “etc.”— sounds like Bill’s voice, but he’s not the narrator. The vague “etc.” hints that Bill isn’t really curious about her. The observation of cows sounds funny, childlike, even stupid. But why does he have to “chalk it up” or keep score?

Paragraph 2 Plot and Character: This is the fi rst specifi c time given in the story, the “third eve ning”: Ruthie surprises the reader and Bill with more than dull “observation.”

Paragraph 4 Style, Character, Setting, and Tone: Dozing in the speeding car, Bill is too late to check out what she says. He frowns (he doesn’t argue) because the plant and the bird can’t be seen in the Midwest. Brewer uses a series of place names to indicate the route of the car. There’s humor in Ruthie’s habit of pointing out bizarre sights.

18 FICTION: READING, RESPONDING, WRITING

The next eve ning, driving, Ruthie said, “I never thought I’d see a

Bigfoot in real life.” Bill turned and looked at the side of the road

streaming innocently out behind them. Two red spots winked back—

refl ectors nailed to a tree stump.

“Ruthie, I’ll drive,” he said. She stopped the car and they changed

places in the light of the eve ning star.

“I’m so glad I got to come with you,” Ruthie said. Her eyes were big,

blue, and capable of seeing wonderful sights. A white buffalo near

Fargo. A UFO above Twin Falls. A handsome genius in the person of

Bill himself. This last vision came to her in Spokane and Bill decided

to let it ride.

Repetition, like a folk tale: 2nd

sunset drive, 3rd time she speaks.

Not much dialogue in story.

Bill’s only speech. Turning point: Bill

sees something he doesn’t already

know.

Repetition, like a joke, in 3 things

Ruthie sees.

Story begins and ends in the middle

of things: “By the time,” “let it ride.”

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R E ADING AN D R E SPON DING TO GR APHIC F IC TION

You may approach any kind of narrative with the same kinds of questions that have been applied to 20/20. Try it on the following chapter of Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis. This best-selling graphic novel, or graphic memoir, originally written in French and now a successful fi lm, relates Satrapi’s own experience as a girl in Iran through her artwork and words. Persepolis begins with a portrait of ten- year- old Satrapi, wearing a black veil, in 1980. The Islamic leaders of Iran had recently imposed religious law, including mandatory head coverings for schoolgirls. On September 22, 1980, Iraq invaded Iran, beginning a confl ict that lasted until 1988, greatly affecting Satrapi’s childhood in Tehran (once known as Persepolis). The Iran- Iraq War was a precursor of the Persian Gulf War of 1990– 91 and the Iraq War, or Second Gulf War, that began in 2003.

This excerpt resembles an illustrated short story, though it is closely based on actual events. How do the images contribute to expectations, narration (here, tell- ing and showing), characterization, plot, setting, style, and themes? Read (and view) with these questions in mind and a pencil in hand. Annotating or taking notes will guide you to a more refl ective response.

Paragraph 5 Character and Setting: Bigfoot is a legendary monster living in Western forests. Is Ruthie’s imagination getting the better of Bill’s logic? “Innocently” personifi es the road, and the refl ectors on the stump wink like the monster; Bill is fi nally looking (though in hindsight). The scenery seems to be playing a joke on him.

Paragraph 6 Plot and Character: Here the characters change places. He wants to drive (is she hallucinating?), but it’s as if she has won. The narration (which has been relying on Bill’s voice and perspective) for the fi rst time notices a romantic detail of scenery that Ruthie doesn’t point out (the eve ning star).

Paragraph 7 Character and Theme: Bill begins to see Ruthie and what she is capable of. What they see is the journey these characters take toward falling in love, in the West where things become unreal. Style: The long “o” sounds and images in “A white buffalo near Fargo. A UFO above Twin Falls” (along with the words Ohio, Chicago, and Spokane) give a feeling for the wildness (notice the Indian place names). The outcome of the story is that they go far to Fargo, see double and fall in love at Twin Falls— see and imagine wonderful things in each other. They end up with perfectly matched vision.

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MARJANE SATRAPI (b. 1969) The Shabbat

As the granddaughter of Nasreddine Shah, the last Quadjar emperor of Iran, Iranian- born Marjane Satrapi is a princess by birth and a self- declared paci- fi st by inclination. Only ten years old at the time of the 1979 Islamist revolution, she was reportedly expelled at age fourteen from her French- language

school after hitting a principal who demanded she stop wearing jewelry. Fearing for her safety, Satrapi’s secularist parents sent her to Vienna, Austria, where she would remain until age eighteen, when she returned to Iran to attend college. After a brief marriage ended in divorce, Satrapi moved to France in 1994, where her graphic memoir, Persepo- lis, was published to great acclaim in 2000. Subsequently translated into numerous languages, it appeared in the United States as Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood (2003) and Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return (2004). A 2007 animated movie version was nominated for an Academy Award in 2008. Satrapi’s other works are Embroideries (2005), which explores Ira ni an women’s views of sex and love through a conversation among Satrapi’s female relatives; Chicken with Plums (2006), which tells the story of both the 1953 CIA- backed Ira ni an coup d’état and the last days of Satrapi’s great- uncle, a musician who committed suicide; and several children’s books.

20 FICTION: READING, RESPONDING, WRITING

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Shabbat: sabbath (Hebrew).

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The Shah: the shah, or king, of Iran was deposed in 1979, the beginning of what was soon known as the Islamic Revolution under the leadership of Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini (1900– 89). An ayatollah is a high- ranking cleric in the Shia branch of Islam to which most Ira ni ans adhere.

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2000

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KEY CONCEPTS

As you read, respond to, and write about fi ction, some key terms and concepts may be useful in comparing or distinguishing different kinds of stories. Stories may be oral rather than written down, and they may be of different lengths. They may be based on true stories or completely invented. They may be written in verse rather than prose, or they may be created in media other than the printed page.

STORY AND NARR ATIVE

Generally speaking, a story is a short account of an incident or series of incidents, whether actual or invented. The word is often used to refer to an entertaining tale of imaginary people and events, but it is also used in phrases like “the story of my life”— suggesting a true account. The term narrative is especially useful as a gen- eral concept for the substance rather than the form of what is told about persons and their actions. A story or a tale is usually short, whereas a narrative may be of any length from a sentence to a series of novels and beyond.

Narratives in Daily Life

Narrative plays an important role in our lives beyond the telling of fi ctional stories. Consider the following:

• Today, sociologists and historians may collect personal narratives to present an account of society and everyday life in a certain time or place.

• Since the 1990s, the practice of narrative medicine has spread as an improved technique of diagnosis and treatment that takes into account the patient’s point of view.

• There is a movement to encourage mediation rather than litigation in divorce cases. A mediator may collaborate with the couple in arriving at a shared perspective on the divorce; in a sense, they try to agree on the story of their marriage and how it ended.

• Some countries have attempted to recover from the trauma of genocidal eth- nic confl ict through offi cial hearings of testimony by victims as well as defen- dants. South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission is an example of this use of stories.

OR AL NARR ATIVE AND TALES

We tend to think of stories in their written form, but many of the stories that we now regard as among the world’s greatest, such as Homer’s Iliad and the Old En glish epic Beowulf, were sung or recited by generations of storytellers before being written down. Just as rumors change shape as they circulate, oral stories tend to be more fl uid than printed stories. Traditionally oral tales such as fairy tales or folktales may endure for a very long time yet take different forms in vari-

FICTION: READING, RESPONDING, WRITING 29

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ous countries and eras. And it’s often diffi cult or impossible to trace such a story back to a single “author” or creator. In a sense, then, an oral story is the creation of a whole community or communities, just as oral storytelling tends to be a more communal event than reading.

Certain recognizable signals set a story or tale apart from common speech and encourage us to pay a different kind of attention. Children know that a story is beginning when they hear or read “Once upon a time . . . ,” and traditional oral storytellers have formal ways to set up a tale, such as Su- num- twee (“listen to me”), as Spokane storytellers say. “And they lived happily ever after,” or simply “The End,” may similarly indicate when the story is over. Such conventions have been adapted since the invention of printing and the spread of literacy.

F IC TION AN D NON FIC TION

The word fi ction comes from the Latin root fi ngere ‘to fashion or form.’ The earli- est defi nitions concern the act of making something artifi cial to imitate something else. In the past two centuries, fi ction has become more narrowly defi ned as “prose narrative about imaginary people and events,” the main meaning of the word as we use it in this anthology.

Genres of Prose Fiction by Length

A novel is a work of prose fi ction of about forty thousand words or more. The form arose in the seventeenth and early eigh teenth centuries as prose romances and adventure tales began to adopt techniques of history and travel narrative as well as memoir, letters, and biography.

A novella is a work of prose fi ction of about seventeen thousand to forty thousand words. The novella form was especially favored between about 1850 and 1950, largely because it can be more tightly controlled and con- centrated than a long novel, while focusing on the inner workings of a character.

A short story is broadly defi ned as anywhere between one thousand and twenty thousand words. One expectation of a short story is that it may be read in a single sitting. The modern short story developed in the mid- nineteenth century, in part because of the growing popularity of magazines.

A short short story, sometimes called “fl ash fi ction” or “micro- fi ction,” is generally not much longer than one thousand words and sometimes much shorter. There have always been very short fi ctions, including parables and fables, but the short short story is an invention of recent de cades.

30 FICTION: READING, RESPONDING, WRITING

In contrast with fi ction, nonfi ction usually refers to factual prose narrative. Some major nonfi ction genres are history, biography, and autobiography. In fi lm, documentaries and “biopics,” or biographical feature fi lms, similarly attempt to

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represent real people, places, and events. The boundary between fi ction and non- fi ction is often blurred today, as it was centuries ago. So- called true crime novels such as Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood (1966) and novelized biographies such as Colm Tóibín’s The Master (2004), about the life of the novelist Henry James, use the techniques of fi ction writing to narrate actual events. Graphic novels, with a format derived from comic books, have become an increasingly pop u lar medium for memoirs. (Two examples are Art Spiegelman’s Maus [1986, 1991] and Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis.) Some Hollywood movies and TV shows dramatize real people in everyday situations or contexts, or real events such as the assassination of Presi- dent John F. Kennedy. In contrast, historical fi ction, developed by Sir Walter Scott around 1815, comprises prose narratives that present history in imaginative ways. Such works of prose fi ction adhere closely to the facts of history and actual lives, just as many “true” life stories are more or less fi ctionalized.

• • •

The fi ction chapters in this volume present a collection of prose works— mostly short stories— almost all of which were printed within the author’s lifetime. Even as you read the short prose fi ction in this book, bear in mind the many ways we encounter stories or narrative in everyday life, and consider the almost limitless variety of forms that fi ction may take.

WRITING ABOUT FICTION

During your fi rst reading of any story, you may want to read without stopping to address each of the questions on page 15. After you have read the whole piece once, re- read it carefully, using the questions as a guide. It’s always interesting to compare your initial reactions with your later ones. In fact, a paper may focus on comparing the expectations of readers (and characters) at the beginning of a story to their later conclusions. Responses to fi ction may come in unpredictable order, so feel free to address the questions as they arise. Looking at how the story is told and what happens to which characters may lead to observations on expectations or setting. Consideration of setting and style can help explain the personalities, actions, mood, and effect of the story, which can lead to well- informed ideas about the meaning of the whole. But any one of the questions, pursued further, can serve as the focus of more formal writing.

Following this chapter are three written responses to Raymond Carver’s short story Cathedral. First, read the story and make notes on any features that you fi nd interesting, important, or confusing. Then look at the notes and response paper by Wesley Rupton and the essay by Bethany Qualls, which show two different ways of writing about “Cathedral.”

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RAYMOND CARVER (1938 – 88) Cathedral

Born in the logging town of Clatskanie, Oregon, to a working- class family, Raymond Carver married at nineteen and had two children by the time he was twenty- one. Despite these early responsibilities and a lifelong struggle with alcoholism, Carver pub- lished his fi rst story in 1961 and graduated from

Humboldt State College in 1963. He published his fi rst book, Near Klamath, a collec- tion of poems, in 1968 and thereafter supported himself with visiting lectureships at the University of California at Berkeley, Syracuse University, and the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, among other institutions. Described by the New York Times as “surely the most infl uential writer of American short stories in the second half of the twentieth century”; credited by others with “reviving what was once thought of as a dying literary form”; and compared to such literary luminaries as Ernest Hemingway, Stephen Crane, and Anton Chekhov, Carver often portrays characters whom one reviewer describes as living, much as Carver long did, “on the edge: of poverty, alcoholic self- destruction, loneli- ness.” The author himself labeled them the sort of “good people,” “doing the best they could,” who “fi lled” America. Dubbed a “minimalist” due to his spare style and low- key plots, Carver himself suffered an early death, of lung cancer, at age fi fty. His major short- story collections include Will You Please Be Quiet, Please? (1976), What We Talk about When We Talk about Love (1983), and the posthumously published Call if You Need Me (2001).

This blind man, an old friend of my wife’s, he was on his way to spend the night. His wife had died. So he was visiting the dead wife’s relatives in Con- necticut. He called my wife from his in- laws’. Arrangements were made. He would come by train, a fi ve- hour trip, and my wife would meet him at the sta- tion. She hadn’t seen him since she worked for him one summer in Seattle ten years ago. But she and the blind man had kept in touch. They made tapes and mailed them back and forth. I wasn’t enthusiastic about his visit. He was no one I knew. And his being blind bothered me. My idea of blindness came from the movies. In the movies, the blind moved slowly and never laughed. Some- times they were led by seeing- eye dogs. A blind man in my house was not something I looked forward to.

That summer in Seattle she had needed a job. She didn’t have any money. The man she was going to marry at the end of the summer was in offi cers’ train- ing school. He didn’t have any money, either. But she was in love with the guy, and he was in love with her, etc. She’d seen something in the paper: help wanted—Reading to Blind Man, and a telephone number. She phoned and went over, was hired on the spot. She’d worked with this blind man all summer.

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She read stuff to him, case studies, reports, that sort of thing. She helped him or ga nize his little offi ce in the county social- service department. They’d become good friends, my wife and the blind man. How do I know these things? She told me. And she told me something else. On her last day in the offi ce, the blind man asked if he could touch her face. She agreed to this. She told me he touched his fi ngers to every part of her face, her nose— even her neck! She never forgot it. She even tried to write a poem about it. She was always trying to write a poem. She wrote a poem or two every year, usually after something really impor- tant had happened to her.

When we fi rst started going out together, she showed me the poem. In the poem, she recalled his fi ngers and the way they had moved around over her face. In the poem, she talked about what she had felt at the time, about what went through her mind when the blind man touched her nose and lips. I can remember I didn’t think much of the poem. Of course, I didn’t tell her that. Maybe I just don’t understand poetry. I admit it’s not the fi rst thing I reach for when I pick up something to read.

Anyway, this man who’d fi rst enjoyed her favors, the offi cer- to- be, he’d been her childhood sweetheart. So okay. I’m saying that at the end of the summer she let the blind man run his hands over her face, said goodbye to him, married her childhood etc., who was now a commissioned offi cer, and she moved away from Seattle. But they’d kept in touch, she and the blind man. She made the fi rst contact after a year or so. She called him up one night from an Air Force base in Alabama. She wanted to talk. They talked. He asked her to send him a tape and tell him about her life. She did this. She sent the tape. On the tape, she told the blind man about her husband and about their life together in the military. She told the blind man she loved her husband but she didn’t like it where they lived and she didn’t like it that he was a part of the military- industrial thing. She told the blind man she’d written a poem and he was in it. She told him that she was writing a poem about what it was like to be an Air Force offi cer’s wife. The poem wasn’t fi nished yet. She was still writing it. The blind man made a tape. He sent her the tape. She made a tape. This went on for years. My wife’s offi cer was posted to one base and then another. She sent tapes from Moody AFB, McGuire, McConnell, and fi nally Travis, near Sacramento, where one night she got to feeling lonely and cut off from people she kept losing in that moving- around life. She got to feeling she couldn’t go it another step. She went in and swallowed all the pills and capsules in the medicine chest and washed them down with a bottle of gin. Then she got into a hot bath and passed out.

But instead of dying, she got sick. She threw up. Her offi cer— why should he have a name? he was the childhood sweetheart, and what more does he want?— came home from somewhere, found her, and called the ambulance. In time, she put it all on a tape and sent the tape to the blind man. Over the years, she put all kinds of stuff on tapes and sent the tapes off lickety- split. Next to writing a poem every year, I think it was her chief means of recreation. On one tape, she told the blind man she’d decided to live away from her offi cer for a time. On another tape, she told him about her divorce. She and I began going out, and of course she told her blind man about it. She told him every-

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thing, or so it seemed to me. Once she asked me if I’d like to hear the latest tape from the blind man. This was a year ago. I was on the tape, she said. So I said okay, I’d listen to it. I got us drinks and we settled down in the living room. We made ready to listen. First she inserted the tape into the player and adjusted a couple of dials. Then she pushed a lever. The tape squeaked and someone began to talk in this loud voice. She lowered the volume. After a few minutes of harmless chitchat, I heard my own name in the mouth of this stranger, this blind man I didn’t even know! And then this: “From all you’ve said about him, I can only conclude—” But we were interrupted, a knock at the door, something, and we didn’t ever get back to the tape. Maybe it was just as well. I’d heard all I wanted to.

Now this same blind man was coming to sleep in my house. “Maybe I could take him bowling,” I said to my wife. She was at the draining

board doing scalloped potatoes. She put down the knife she was using and turned around.

“If you love me,” she said, “you can do this for me. If you don’t love me, okay. But if you had a friend, any friend, and the friend came to visit, I’d make him feel comfortable.” She wiped her hands with the dish towel.

“I don’t have any blind friends,” I said. “You don’t have any friends,” she said. “Period. Besides,” she said, “goddamn

it, his wife’s just died! Don’t you understand that? The man’s lost his wife!” I didn’t answer. She’d told me a little about the blind man’s wife. Her name

was Beulah. Beulah! That’s a name for a colored woman. “Was his wife a Negro?” I asked. “Are you crazy?” my wife said. “Have you just fl ipped or something?” She

picked up a potato. I saw it hit the fl oor, then roll under the stove. “What’s wrong with you?” she said. “Are you drunk?”

“I’m just asking,” I said. Right then my wife fi lled me in with more detail than I cared to know. I

made a drink and sat at the kitchen table to listen. Pieces of the story began to fall into place.

Beulah had gone to work for the blind man the summer after my wife had stopped working for him. Pretty soon Beulah and the blind man had themselves a church wedding. It was a little wedding— who’d want to go to such a wedding in the fi rst place?— just the two of them, plus the minister and the minister’s wife. But it was a church wedding just the same. It was what Beulah had wanted, he’d said. But even then Beulah must have been carry ing the cancer in her glands. After they had been inseparable for eight years— my wife’s word, inseparable— Beulah’s health went into a rapid decline. She died in a Seattle hospital room, the blind man sitting beside the bed and holding on to her hand. They’d married, lived and worked together, slept together— had sex, sure— and then the blind man had to bury her. All this without his having ever seen what the goddamned woman looked like. It was beyond my understanding. Hearing this, I felt sorry for the blind man for a little bit. And then I found myself thinking what a pitiful life this woman must have led. Imagine a woman who could never see herself as she was seen in the eyes of her loved one. A woman who could go on day after day and never receive the smallest compliment from her beloved. A

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woman whose husband could never read the expression on her face, be it misery or something better. Someone who could wear makeup or not— what difference to him? She could, if she wanted, wear green eye- shadow around one eye, a straight pin in her nostril, yellow slacks and purple shoes, no matter. And then to slip off into death, the blind man’s hand on her hand, his blind eyes stream- ing tears— I’m imagining now— her last thought maybe this: that he never even knew what she looked like, and she on an express to the grave. Robert was left with a small insurance policy and half of a twenty- peso Mexican coin. The other half of the coin went into the box with her. Pathetic.

So when the time rolled around, my wife went to the depot to pick him up. With nothing to do but wait— sure, I blamed him for that— I was having a drink and watching the TV when I heard the car pull into the drive. I got up from the sofa with my drink and went to the window to have a look.

I saw my wife laughing as she parked the car. I saw her get out of the car and shut the door. She was still wearing a smile. Just amazing. She went around to the other side of the car to where the blind man was already starting to get out. This blind man, feature this, he was wearing a full beard! A beard on a blind man! Too much, I say. The blind man reached into the back seat and dragged out a suitcase. My wife took his arm, shut the car door, and, talking all the way, moved him down the drive and then up the steps to the front porch. I turned off the TV. I fi nished my drink, rinsed the glass, dried my hands. Then I went to the door.

My wife said, “I want you to meet Robert. Robert, this is my husband. I’ve told you all about him.” She was beaming. She had this blind man by his coat sleeve.

The blind man let go of his suitcase and up came his hand. I took it. He squeezed hard, held my hand, and then he let it go. “I feel like we’ve already met,” he boomed. “Likewise,” I said. I didn’t know what else to say. Then I said, “Welcome. I’ve

heard a lot about you.” We began to move then, a little group, from the porch into the living room, my wife guiding him by the arm. The blind man was carry- ing his suitcase in his other hand. My wife said things like, “To your left here, Robert. That’s right. Now watch it, there’s a chair. That’s it. Sit down right here. This is the sofa. We just bought this sofa two weeks ago.”

I started to say something about the old sofa. I’d liked that old sofa. But I didn’t say anything. Then I wanted to say something else, small- talk, about the scenic ride along the Hudson. How going to New York, you should sit on the right- hand side of the train, and coming from New York, the left- hand side.

“Did you have a good train ride?” I said. “Which side of the train did you sit on, by the way?”

“What a question, which side!” my wife said. “What’s it matter which side?” she said.

“I just asked,” I said. “Right side,” the blind man said. “I hadn’t been on a train in nearly forty years.

Not since I was a kid. With my folks. That’s been a long time. I’d nearly forgotten the sensation. I have winter in my beard now,” he said. “So I’ve been told, any- way. Do I look distinguished, my dear?” the blind man said to my wife.

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“You look distinguished, Robert,” she said. “Robert,” she said. “Robert, it’s just so good to see you.”

My wife fi nally took her eyes off the blind man and looked at me. I had the feeling she didn’t like what she saw. I shrugged.

I’ve never met, or personally known, anyone who was blind. This blind man was late forties, a heavy- set, balding man with stooped shoulders, as if he car- ried a great weight there. He wore brown slacks, brown shoes, a light- brown shirt, a tie, a sports coat. Spiffy. He also had this full beard. But he didn’t use a cane and he didn’t wear dark glasses. I’d always thought dark glasses were a must for the blind. Fact was, I wished he had a pair. At fi rst glance, his eyes looked like anyone else’s eyes. But if you looked close, there was something dif- ferent about them. Too much white in the iris, for one thing, and the pupils seemed to move around in the sockets without his knowing it or being able to stop it. Creepy. As I stared at his face, I saw the left pupil turn in toward his nose while the other made an effort to keep in one place. But it was only an effort, for that eye was on the roam without his knowing it or wanting it to be.

I said, “Let me get you a drink. What’s your plea sure? We have a little of everything. It’s one of our pastimes.”

“Bub, I’m a Scotch man myself,” he said fast enough in this big voice. “Right,” I said. Bub! “Sure you are. I knew it.” He let his fi ngers touch his suitcase, which was sitting alongside the sofa. He

was taking his bearings. I didn’t blame him for that. “I’ll move that up to your room,” my wife said. “No, that’s fi ne,” the blind man said loudly. “It can go up when I go up.” “A little water with the Scotch?” I said. “Very little,” he said. “I knew it,” I said. He said, “Just a tad. The Irish actor, Barry Fitzgerald? I’m like that fellow.

When I drink water, Fitzgerald said, I drink water. When I drink whiskey, I drink whiskey.” My wife laughed. The blind man brought his hand up under his beard. He lifted his beard slowly and let it drop.

I did the drinks, three big glasses of Scotch with a splash of water in each. Then we made ourselves comfortable and talked about Robert’s travels. First the long fl ight from the West Coast to Connecticut, we covered that. Then from Connecti- cut up here by train. We had another drink concerning that leg of the trip.

I remembered having read somewhere that the blind didn’t smoke because, as speculation had it, they couldn’t see the smoke they exhaled. I thought I knew that much and that much only about blind people. But this blind man smoked his cigarette down to the nubbin and then lit another one. This blind man fi lled his ashtray and my wife emptied it.

When we sat down at the table for dinner, we had another drink. My wife heaped Robert’s plate with cube steak, scalloped potatoes, green beans. I but- tered him up two slices of bread. I said, “Here’s bread and butter for you.” I swallowed some of my drink. “Now let us pray,” I said, and the blind man low- ered his head. My wife looked at me, her mouth agape. “Pray the phone won’t ring and the food doesn’t get cold,” I said.

We dug in. We ate everything there was to eat on the table. We ate like there was no tomorrow. We didn’t talk. We ate. We scarfed. We grazed that table. We

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were into serious eating. The blind man had right away located his foods, he knew just where everything was on his plate. I watched with admiration as he used his knife and fork on the meat. He’d cut two pieces of meat, fork the meat into his mouth, and then go all out for the scalloped potatoes, the beans next, and then he’d tear off a hunk of buttered bread and eat that. He’d follow this up with a big drink of milk. It didn’t seem to bother him to use his fi ngers once in a while, either.

We fi nished everything, including half a strawberry pie. For a few moments, we sat as if stunned. Sweat beaded on our faces. Finally, we got up from the table and left the dirty plates. We didn’t look back. We took ourselves into the living room and sank into our places again. Robert and my wife sat on the sofa. I took the big chair. We had us two or three more drinks while they talked about the major things that had come to pass for them in the past ten years. For the most part, I just listened. Now and then I joined in. I didn’t want him to think I’d left the room, and I didn’t want her to think I was feel- ing left out. They talked of things that had happened to them— to them!— these past ten years. I waited in vain to hear my name on my wife’s sweet lips: “And then my dear husband came into my life”— something like that. But I heard nothing of the sort. More talk of Robert. Robert had done a little of everything, it seemed, a regular blind jack- of- all- trades. But most recently he and his wife had had an Amway distributorship, from which, I gathered, they’d earned their living, such as it was. The blind man was also a ham radio opera- tor. He talked in his loud voice about conversations he’d had with fellow oper- ators in Guam, in the Philippines, in Alaska, and even in Tahiti. He said he’d have a lot of friends there if he ever wanted to go visit those places. From time to time, he’d turn his blind face toward me, put his hand under his beard, ask me something. How long had I been in my present position? (Three years.) Did I like my work? (I didn’t.) Was I going to stay with it? (What were the options?) Finally, when I thought he was beginning to run down, I got up and turned on the TV.

My wife looked at me with irritation. She was heading toward a boil. Then she looked at the blind man and said, “Robert, do you have a TV?”

The blind man said, “My dear, I have two TVs. I have a color set and a black- and- white thing, an old relic. It’s funny, but if I turn the TV on, and I’m always turning it on, I turn on the color set. It’s funny, don’t you think?”

I didn’t know what to say to that. I had absolutely nothing to say to that. No opinion. So I watched the news program and tried to listen to what the announcer was saying.

“This is a color TV,” the blind man said. “Don’t ask me how, but I can tell.” “We traded up a while ago,” I said. The blind man had another taste of his drink. He lifted his beard, sniffed it,

and let it fall. He leaned forward on the sofa. He positioned his ashtray on the coffee table, then put the lighter to his cigarette. He leaned back on the sofa and crossed his legs at the ankles.

My wife covered her mouth, and then she yawned. She stretched. She said, “I think I’ll go upstairs and put on my robe. I think I’ll change into something else. Robert, you make yourself comfortable,” she said.

“I’m comfortable,” the blind man said.

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“I want you to feel comfortable in this house,” she said. “I am comfortable,” the blind man said.

After she’d left the room, he and I listened to the weather report and then to the sports roundup. By that time, she’d been gone so long I didn’t know if she was going to come back. I thought she might have gone to bed. I wished she’d come back downstairs. I didn’t want to be left alone with a blind man. I asked him if he wanted another drink, and he said sure. Then I asked if he wanted to smoke some dope with me. I said I’d just rolled a number. I hadn’t, but I planned to do so in about two shakes.

“I’ll try some with you,” he said. “Damn right,” I said. “That’s the stuff.” I got our drinks and sat down on the sofa with him. Then I rolled us two fat

numbers. I lit one and passed it. I brought it to his fi ngers. He took it and inhaled. “Hold it as long as you can,” I said. I could tell he didn’t know the fi rst thing. My wife came back downstairs wearing her pink robe and her pink slippers. “What do I smell?” she said. “We thought we’d have us some cannabis,” I said. My wife gave me a savage look. Then she looked at the blind man and said,

“Robert, I didn’t know you smoked.” He said, “I do now, my dear. There’s a fi rst time for everything. But I don’t

feel anything yet.” “This stuff is pretty mellow,” I said. “This stuff is mild. It’s dope you can

reason with,” I said. “It doesn’t mess you up.” “Not much it doesn’t, bub,” he said, and laughed. My wife sat on the sofa between the blind man and me. I passed her the

number. She took it and toked and then passed it back to me. “Which way is this going?” she said. Then she said, “I shouldn’t be smoking this. I can hardly keep my eyes open as it is. That dinner did me in. I shouldn’t have eaten so much.”

“It was the strawberry pie,” the blind man said. “That’s what did it,” he said, and he laughed his big laugh. Then he shook his head.

“There’s more strawberry pie,” I said. “Do you want some more, Robert?” my wife said. “Maybe in a little while,” he said. We gave our attention to the TV. My wife yawned again. She said, “Your

bed is made up when you feel like going to bed, Robert. I know you must have had a long day. When you’re ready to go to bed, say so.” She pulled his arm. “Robert?”

He came to and said, “I’ve had a real nice time. This beats tapes, doesn’t it?” I said, “Coming at you,” and I put the number between his fi ngers. He

inhaled, held the smoke, and then let it go. It was like he’d been doing it since he was nine years old.

“Thanks, bub,” he said. “But I think this is all for me. I think I’m beginning to feel it,” he said. He held the burning roach out for my wife.

“Same here,” she said. “Ditto. Me, too.” She took the roach and passed it to me. “I may just sit here for a while between you two guys with my eyes closed.

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But don’t let me bother you, okay? Either one of you. If it bothers you, say so. Otherwise, I may just sit here with my eyes closed until you’re ready to go to bed,” she said. “Your bed’s made up, Robert, when you’re ready. It’s right next to our room at the top of the stairs. We’ll show you up when you’re ready. You wake me up now, you guys, if I fall asleep.” She said that and then she closed her eyes and went to sleep.

The news program ended. I got up and changed the channel. I sat back down on the sofa. I wished my wife hadn’t pooped out. Her head lay across the back of the sofa, her mouth open. She’d turned so that her robe had slipped away from her legs, exposing a juicy thigh. I reached to draw her robe back over her, and it was then that I glanced at the blind man. What the hell! I fl ipped the robe open again.

“You say when you want some strawberry pie,” I said. “I will,” he said. I said, “Are you tired? Do you want me to take you up to your bed? Are you

ready to hit the hay?” “Not yet,” he said. “No, I’ll stay up with you, bub. If that’s all right. I’ll stay up

until you’re ready to turn in. We haven’t had a chance to talk. Know what I mean? I feel like me and her monopolized the eve ning.” He lifted his beard and he let it fall. He picked up his cigarettes and his lighter.

“That’s all right,” I said. Then I said, “I’m glad for the company.” And I guess I was. Every night I smoked dope and stayed up as long as I

could before I fell asleep. My wife and I hardly ever went to bed at the same time. When I did go to sleep, I had these dreams. Sometimes I’d wake up from one of them, my heart going crazy.

Something about the church and the Middle Ages was on the TV. Not your run- of- the- mill TV fare. I wanted to watch something else. I turned to the other channels. But there was nothing on them, either. So I turned back to the fi rst channel and apologized.

“Bub, it’s all right,” the blind man said. “It’s fi ne with me. What ever you want to watch is okay. I’m always learning something. Learning never ends. It won’t hurt me to learn something to night. I got ears,” he said.

We didn’t say anything for a time. He was leaning forward with his head turned at me, his right ear aimed in the direction of the set. Very disconcerting. Now and then his eyelids drooped and then they snapped open again. Now and then he put his fi ngers into his beard and tugged, like he was thinking about some- thing he was hearing on the tele vi sion.

On the screen, a group of men wearing cowls was being set upon and tor- mented by men dressed in skeleton costumes and men dressed as dev ils. The men dressed as dev ils wore dev il masks, horns, and long tails. This pageant was part of a pro cession. The En glishman who was narrating the thing said it took place in Spain once a year. I tried to explain to the blind man what was happening.

“Skeletons,” he said. “I know about skeletons,” he said, and he nodded. The TV showed this one cathedral. Then there was a long, slow look at

another one. Finally, the picture switched to the famous one in Paris, with its

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fl ying buttresses and its spires reaching up to the clouds. The camera pulled away to show the whole of the cathedral rising above the skyline.

There were times when the En glishman who was telling the thing would shut up, would simply let the camera move around over the cathedrals. Or else the camera would tour the countryside, men in fi elds walking behind oxen. I waited as long as I could. Then I felt I had to say something. I said, “They’re showing the outside of this cathedral now. Gargoyles. Little statues carved to look like monsters. Now I guess they’re in Italy. Yeah, they’re in Italy. There’s paintings on the walls of this one church.”

“Are those fresco paintings, bub?” he asked, and he sipped from his drink. I reached for my glass. But it was empty. I tried to remember what I could

remember. “You’re asking me are those frescoes?” I said. “That’s a good ques- tion. I don’t know.”

The camera moved to a cathedral outside Lisbon. The differences in the Portuguese cathedral compared with the French and Italian were not that great. But they were there. Mostly the interior stuff. Then something occurred to me, and I said, “Something has occurred to me. Do you have any idea what a cathedral is? What they look like, that is? Do you follow me? If somebody says cathedral to you, do you have any notion what they’re talking about? Do you know the difference between that and a Baptist church, say?”

He let the smoke dribble from his mouth. “I know they took hundreds of workers fi fty or a hundred years to build,” he said. “I just heard the man say that, of course. I know generations of the same families worked on a cathedral. I heard him say that, too. The men who began their life’s work on them, they never lived to see the completion of their work. In that wise, bub, they’re no dif- ferent from the rest of us, right?” He laughed. Then his eyelids drooped again. His head nodded. He seemed to be snoozing. Maybe he was imagining himself in Portugal. The TV was showing another cathedral now. This one was in Ger- many. The En glishman’s voice droned on. “Cathedrals,” the blind man said. He sat up and rolled his head back and forth. “If you want the truth, bub, that’s about all I know. What I just said. What I heard him say. But maybe you could describe one to me? I wish you’d do it. I’d like that. If you want to know, I really don’t have a good idea.”

I stared hard at the shot of the cathedral on the TV. How could I even begin to describe it? But say my life depended on it. Say my life was being threatened by an insane guy who said I had to do it or else.

I stared some more at the cathedral before the picture fl ipped off into the countryside. There was no use. I turned to the blind man and said, “To begin with, they’re very tall.” I was looking around the room for clues. “They reach way up. Up and up. Toward the sky. They’re so big, some of them, they have to have these supports. To help hold them up, so to speak. These supports are called buttresses. They remind me of viaducts, for some reason. But maybe you don’t know viaducts, either? Sometimes the cathedrals have dev ils and such carved into the front. Sometimes lords and ladies. Don’t ask me why this is,” I said.

He was nodding. The whole upper part of his body seemed to be moving back and forth.

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RAYMOND CARVER Cathedral 41

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“I’m not doing so good, am I?” I said. He stopped nodding and leaned forward on the edge of the sofa. As he lis-

tened to me, he was running his fi ngers through his beard. I wasn’t getting through to him, I could see that. But he waited for me to go on just the same. He nodded, like he was trying to encourage me. I tried to think what else to say. “They’re really big,” I said. “They’re massive. They’re built of stone. Marble, too, sometimes. In those olden days, when they built cathedrals, men wanted to be close to God. In those olden days, God was an important part of everyone’s life. You could tell this from their cathedral- building. I’m sorry,” I said, “but it looks like that’s the best I can do for you. I’m just no good at it.”

“That’s all right, bub,” the blind man said. “Hey, listen. I hope you don’t mind my asking you. Can I ask you something? Let me ask you a simple question, yes or no. I’m just curious and there’s no offense. You’re my host. But let me ask if you are in any way religious? You don’t mind my asking?”

I shook my head. He couldn’t see that, though. A wink is the same as a nod to a blind man. “I guess I don’t believe in it. In anything. Sometimes it’s hard. You know what I’m saying?”

“Sure, I do,” he said. “Right,” I said. The En glishman was still holding forth. My wife sighed in her sleep. She

drew a long breath and went on with her sleeping. “You’ll have to forgive me,” I said. “But I can’t tell you what a cathedral looks

like. It just isn’t in me to do it. I can’t do any more than I’ve done.” The blind man sat very still, his head down, as he listened to me. I said, “The truth is, cathedrals don’t mean anything special to me. Noth-

ing. Cathedrals. They’re something to look at on late- night TV. That’s all they are.”

It was then that the blind man cleared his throat. He brought something up. He took a handkerchief from his back pocket. Then he said, “I get it, bub. It’s okay. It happens. Don’t worry about it,” he said. “Hey, listen to me. Will you do me a favor? I got an idea. Why don’t you fi nd us some heavy paper? And a pen. We’ll do something. We’ll draw one together. Get us a pen and some heavy paper. Go on, bub, get the stuff,” he said.

So I went upstairs. My legs felt like they didn’t have any strength in them. They felt like they did after I’d done some running. In my wife’s room, I looked around. I found some ballpoints in a little basket on her table. And then I tried to think where to look for the kind of paper he was talking about.

Downstairs, in the kitchen, I found a shopping bag with onion skins in the bottom of the bag. I emptied the bag and shook it. I brought it into the living room and sat down with it near his legs. I moved some things, smoothed the wrinkles from the bag, spread it out on the coffee table.

The blind man got down from the sofa and sat next to me on the carpet. He ran his fi ngers over the paper. He went up and down the sides of the

paper. The edges, even the edges. He fi ngered the corners. “All right,” he said. “All right, let’s do her.” He found my hand, the hand with the pen. He closed his hand over my

hand. “Go ahead, bub, draw,” he said. “Draw. You’ll see. I’ll follow along with

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you. It’ll be okay. Just begin now like I’m telling you. You’ll see. Draw,” the blind man said.

So I began. First I drew a box that looked like a house. It could have been the house I lived in. Then I put a roof on it. At either end of the roof, I drew spires. Crazy.

“Swell,” he said. “Terrifi c. You’re doing fi ne,” he said. “Never thought any- thing like this could happen in your lifetime, did you, bub? Well, it’s a strange life, we all know that. Go on now. Keep it up.”

I put in windows with arches. I drew fl ying buttresses. I hung great doors. I couldn’t stop. The TV station went off the air. I put down the pen and closed and opened my fi ngers. The blind man felt around over the paper. He moved the tips of his fi ngers over the paper, all over what I had drawn, and he nodded.

“Doing fi ne,” the blind man said. I took up the pen again, and he found my hand. I kept at it. I’m no artist. But

I kept drawing just the same. My wife opened up her eyes and gazed at us. She sat up on the sofa, her robe

hanging open. She said, “What are you doing? Tell me, I want to know.” I didn’t answer her. The blind man said, “We’re drawing a cathedral. Me and him are working on

it. Press hard,” he said to me. “That’s right. That’s good,” he said. “Sure. You got it, bub. I can tell. You didn’t think you could. But you can, can’t you? You’re cooking with gas now. You know what I’m saying? We’re going to really have us something here in a minute. How’s the old arm?” he said. “Put some people in there now. What’s a cathedral without people?”

My wife said, “What’s going on? Robert, what are you doing? What’s going on?”

“It’s all right,” he said to her. “Close your eyes now,” the blind man said to me. I did it. I closed them just like he said. “Are they closed?” he said. “Don’t fudge.” “They’re closed,” I said. “Keep them that way,” he said. He said, “Don’t stop now. Draw.” So we kept on with it. His fi ngers rode my fi ngers as my hand went over the

paper. It was like nothing else in my life up to now. Then he said, “I think that’s it. I think you got it,” he said. “Take a look. What

do you think?” But I had my eyes closed. I thought I’d keep them that way for a little longer.

I thought it was something I ought to do. “Well?” he said. “Are you looking?” My eyes were still closed. I was in my house. I knew that. But I didn’t feel

like I was inside anything. “It’s really something,” I said.

1983

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SAMPLE WRITING: READING NOTES

Wesley Rupton wrote the notes below with the “Questions about the Elements of Fiction” in mind (p. 15). As you read these notes, compare them to the notes you took as you read Cathedral. Do Rupton’s notes reveal anything to you that you didn’t notice while reading the story? Did you notice anything he did not, or do you disagree with any of his interpretations?

Notes on Raymond Carver’s “Cathedral” What do you expect?

• Title: The fi rst words are “this blind man,” and those words keep being repeated. Why not call it “The Blind Man” or “The Blind Man’s Visit”?

• The threatening things the husband says made me expect that he would attack the blind man. I thought the wife might leave her husband for the blind man, who has been nicer to her.

• When they talk about going up to bed, and the wife goes to “get comfort- able” and then falls asleep, I thought there was a hint about sex.

What happens in the story?

• Not that much. It is a story about one eve ning in which a husband and wife and their guest drink, have dinner, talk, and then watch TV.

• These people have probably drunk two bottles of hard liquor (how many drinks?) before, during, and after a meal. And then they smoke marijuana.

• In the fi nal scene, the two men try to describe and draw cathedrals that are on the TV show. Why cathedrals? Though it connects with the title.

• The husband seems to have a different attitude at the end: He likes Robert and seems excited about the experience “like nothing else in my life up to now.”

How is the story narrated?

• It’s told in fi rst person and past tense. The husband is the narrator. We never get inside another character’s thoughts. He seems to be telling someone about the incident, fi rst saying the blind man was coming, and then fi lling in the background about his wife and the blind man, and then telling what happens after the guest arrives.

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• The narrator describes people and scenes and summarizes the past; there is dialogue.

• It doesn’t have episodes or chapters, but there are two gaps on the page, before paragraph 57 and before paragraph 88. Maybe time passes here.

Who are the characters?

• Three main characters: husband, wife, and blind man (the blind man’s own wife has just died, and the wife divorced her fi rst husband). I don’t think we ever know the husband’s or wife’s names. The blind man, Rob- ert, calls him “bub,” like “buddy.” They seem to be white, middle- class Americans. The wife is lonely and looking for meaning. The blind man seems sensitive, and he cares about the poetry and tapes.

• The husband is sort of acting out, though mostly in his own mind. Asking “Was his wife a Negro?” sounds like he wants to make fun of black or blind people. His wife asks, “Are you drunk?” and says that he has no friends; I thought he’s an unhappy man who gets drunk and acts “crazy” a lot and that she doesn’t really expect him to be that nice.

• It sounds like these people have plenty of food and things, but aren’t very happy. They all sound smart, but the narrator is ignorant, and he has no religion. All three characters have some bad or ner vous habits (alcohol, cigarettes, drugs; insomnia; suicide attempt; divorce).

What is the setting and time of the story?

• Mostly in the house the eve ning the blind man arrives. But after the intro there’s a kind of fl ashback to the summer in Seattle ten years ago (par. 2). The story about the visit starts again in paragraph 6, and then the wife tells the husband more about the blind man’s marriage— another fl ash- back in paragraph 16. In paragraph 17, “the time rolled around” to the sto- ry’s main event. After that, it’s chronological.

• We don’t know the name of the town, but it seems to be on the U.S. East Coast (fi ve hours by train from Connecticut [par. 1]). It can’t be too long ago or too recent either: They mention trains, audiotapes, color TV, no Internet. No one seems worried about food or health the way they might be today.

• I noticed that travel came up in the story. Part of what drives the wife crazy about her fi rst husband is moving around to different military bases (par. 4). In paragraph 46, Robert tells us about his contact with ham radio operators in places he would like to visit (Guam, Alaska). The TV show takes Robert and the narrator on a tour of France, Italy, and Portugal.

What do you notice about how the story is written?

• The narrator is irritating. He repeats words a lot. He uses ste reo types. He seems to be informally talking to someone, as if he can’t get over it. But then he sometimes uses exaggerated or bored- sounding phrases: “this man who’d fi rst enjoyed her favors,” “So okay. I’m saying . . . married her childhood etc.” (par. 4). His style is almost funny.

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• Things he repeats: Paragraphs 2 and 3: “She told me” (3 times), “he could touch her face . . . he touched his fi ngers to every part of her face . . .” (and later “touched her nose” and “they’d kept in touch”). “She even tried to write a poem . . . always trying to write a poem” (and 4 more times “poem”). The words “talk,” “tape,” “told” are also repeated.

What does the story mean? Can you express its theme or themes?

• The way the narrator learns to get along with the blind man must be important. The narrator is disgusted by blind people at fi rst, and at the end he closes his eyes on purpose.

• I think it makes a difference that the two men imagine and try to draw a cathedral, not a fl ower or an airplane. It’s something made by human beings, and it’s religious. As they mention, the builders of cathedrals don’t live to see them fi nished, but the buildings last for centuries. It’s not like the narrator is saved or becomes a great guy, but he gets past what ever he’s afraid of at night, and he seems inspired for a little while. I don’t know why the wife has to be left out of this, but probably the husband couldn’t open up if he was worrying about how close she is to Robert.

READING NOTES 45

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SAMPLE WRITING: RESPONSE PAPER

A response paper may use a less formal or ga ni za tion and style than a longer, more formal essay, but it should not just be a summary or description of the work. Indeed, a response paper could be a step on the way to a longer essay. You need not form a single thesis or argument, but you should try to develop your ideas and feelings about the story through your writing. The point is to get your thoughts in writing without worrying too much about form and style.

Almost everything in the following response paper comes directly from the notes above, but notice how the writer has combined observations, adding a few direct quo- tations or details from the text to support claims about the story’s effects and mean- ing. For ease of reference, we have altered the citations in this paper to refer to paragraph numbers. Unless your instructor indicates other wise, however, you should always follow convention by instead citing page numbers when writing about fi ction.

Rupton 1

Wesley Rupton Professor Suarez En glish 170 6 January 2017

Response Paper on Raymond Carver’s “Cathedral”

Not much happens in Raymond Carver’s short story “Cathedral,” and at fi rst I wondered what it was about and why it was called “Cathedral.” The narrator, the unnamed husband, seems to be telling someone about the eve ning that Robert, a blind friend of his wife, came to stay at their house, not long after Robert’s own wife has died. After the narrator fi lls us in about his wife’s fi rst marriage and her relationship with the blind man, he describes what the three characters do that eve ning: they drink a lot of alcohol, eat a huge dinner that leaves them “stunned” (par. 46), smoke marijuana, and after the wife falls asleep the two men watch TV. A show about cathedrals leads the husband to try to describe what a cathedral looks like, and then the men try to draw one together. The husband seems to have a different attitude at the end: he likes Robert and seems excited about an experience “like nothing else in my life up to now” (par. 131).

The husband’s way of telling the story is defi nitely important. He is sort of funny, but also irritating. As he makes jokes about ste reo types, you start to

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RESPONSE PAPER 47

Rupton 2

dislike or distrust him. When he hears about Robert’s wife, Beulah, he asks, “Was his wife a Negro?” (par. 12) just because her name sounds like a black woman’s name to him. In three paragraphs, he fl ashes back to the time ten years ago when his wife was the blind man’s assistant and the blind man

asked if he could touch her face. . . . She told me he touched his fi ngers to every part of her face. . . . She even tried to write a poem about it. . . .

. . . In the poem, she recalled his fi ngers . . . over her face. In the poem, she talked about what she had felt . . . when the blind man touched her nose and lips. (pars. 2-3)

The narrator seems to be going over and over the same creepy idea of a man feeling his wife’s face. It seems to disgust him that his wife and the blind man communicated or expressed themselves, perhaps because he seems incapable of doing so. When his wife asks, “Are you drunk?” and says that he has no friends, I got a feeling that the husband is an unhappy man who gets drunk and acts “crazy” a lot and that his wife doesn’t really expect him to be very nice (pars. 8- 13). He’s going to make fun of their guest (asking a blind man to go bowling). The husband is sort of acting out, though he’s mostly rude in his own mind.

There’s nothing heroic or dramatic or even unusual about these people (except that one is blind). The events take place in a house somewhere in an American suburb and not too long ago. Other than the quantity of alcohol and drugs they consume, these people don’t do anything unusual, though the blind man seems strange to the narrator. The ordinary setting and plot make the idea of something as grand and old as a Eu ro pe an cathedral come as a surprise at the end of the story. I wondered if part of the point is that they desperately want to get out of a trap they’re in. I noticed that travel came up in the story. Part of what drove the wife crazy with her fi rst husband was moving around to different military bases (par. 4). In paragraph 46, Robert tells us about his contact with ham radio operators in places he would like to visit (Guam, Alaska). The TV show takes Robert and the narrator on a tour of France, Italy, and Portugal.

The way the narrator changes from disliking the blind man to getting along with him must be important to the meaning of the story. After the wife goes up to “get comfortable,” suggesting that they might go to bed, the story focuses on the two men. Later she falls asleep on the sofa between them, and the narrator decides not to cover up her leg where her robe has fallen open, as if he has stopped being jealous. At this point the narrator decides he is “glad for the company” of his guest (par. 84). The cooperation between the two men is the turning point. The narrator is disgusted by blind people at fi rst, and at the end he closes his eyes on purpose. The two men try to imagine something and build something together, and Robert is coaching the narrator. Robert says, “let’s do her,” and then says, “You’re doing fi ne” (pars. 115, 118; emphasis added). I think it makes a difference that they imagine and draw a cathedral, not a fl ower or a cow or an airplane. It’s something made by human beings, and it’s religious. I don’t

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Rupton 3

think the men are converted to believing in God at the end, but this narrow- minded guy gets past what ever he’s afraid of at night and fi nds some sort of inspiring feeling. I don’t know why the wife has to be left out, but probably the husband couldn’t open up if he was worrying about how close she is to Robert.

The ideas of communicating or being in touch and travel seem connected to me. I think that the husband tries to tell this story about the cathedral the way his wife tried to write a poem. The narrator has had an exciting experience that gets him in touch with something beyond his small house. After drawing the cathedral, the narrator says that he “didn’t feel like I was inside anything” (par. 135). Though I still didn’t like the narrator, I felt more sympathy, and I thought the story showed that even this hostile person could open up.