I need Help Again

[Maljackson]

Hi guys. I would like to thank sitiram and scherezede for their helpful insights into the metaphor. Thanks... it really helped.

This time ive been asked to either focus on a short story writer and write a piece on their work or compare two short stories in terms of structure, themes, symbolism and son on.

Here are my choices

Shirley Jacksons The lottery

Yellow Wallpaper Charlotte Gilman Perkins

Metamorphosis- Kafka

The snowstorm -pushkin

The day we got drunk on cake- William Trevor

The off shore pirates- F scott Fitzgerald

Out of these stories which ones do you suggest would be better to compare. If u know anything about them that is.

Many thanks.

Maljackson

[Sitaram]

You have started me thinking about comparisons of authors. Let us speak for a while about authors and comparisons in general, and get in a literary comparison mood.

Milan Kundera, in "The Art of the Novel" makes a wonderful comparison between Cervantes, "Don Quixote," and Kafka, "The Castle." Kundera claims that the two authors mark the beginning and end of an entire era, characterized in its beginning by a wonderful freedom to sally forth to a neighboring kingdom and choose one's enemies and adventures, and charaterized in its end by a nightmarish absence of freedom in the prison of a totalitarian bureaucracy where one's 'adventure' is not self-imposed but surrounds one, uninvited, and robs one of all freedom and choice, and even the individuality of a name (the protagonist of the Castle is simply "K").

Here is a WONDERFUL site for you to dig into on Kafka, AND it is geared towards the student writing a paper.

http://www.kafka.org/



«He has the feeling that merely by being alive he is blocking his own
way. From this sense of hindrance, in turn, he deduces the proof that
he is alive» - Kafka (Aphorisms)

http://www.kafka.org/index.php?help

I have been receiving such requests by email so often that I can hardly
keep ignoring them. However, I really do not have the time to help all
young people who need suggestions on how to get something written
about some work by Kafka.

As concerning one of Kafka's most known stories, «The
Metamorphosis», I prepared a Special Issue which can be opened by
clicking on the left navigation bar. In general, what I can do is suggest
here some books about Kafka and his work, but I strongly recommend
reading his novels and stories first and most of all. You will enjoy
them, and writing about him will no longer be a boring dirty job.

http://www.kafka.org/index.php?issue_metamorphosis


Special issue: The Metamorphosis.

English Translations, Essays, Student Papers



Essay Topics for Kafka's Metamorphosis

1. Comment on the significance of the title "The Metamorphosis."

2. Construct an interpretation of The Metamorphosis based on your account of why Gregor Samsa "found himself in his bed transformed into a monstrous vermin."

3. What role do the boarders play in The Metamorphosis?

4. Compare the metamorphosis of Gregor Samsa with the awakening of Edna Pontellier.

5. Can Freud's notions of Eros and the death instinct illuminate Gregor's plight?


Gregor Samsa as Functional Deviant. A Hypothetical Interpretation by
Friedrich Nietzsche

http://www.kafka.org/index.php?id=191,208,0,0,1,0




(This is an hypothetical conjecture of what Nietzsche might say)

(excerpt):

Suppose all that you have always valued in your lives was shown to
you to be: illusion. What would it be like to turn truth on her head?
To have your precious beliefs, maxims, platitudes, and traditions
inverted and distorted beyond recognition? To suddenly realize that
what is good, is bad; what is beauty, is foul; what is virtue, vice?


What if all your points of reference were to shift: North becomes
South; black becomes white; deviant becomes saint; saint
becomes deviant.

Suppose that this transformation--a metamorphosis of perception
were to come to you -- and you alone. Suddenly you awake -- and
in utter solitude -- you discover that the world is its opposite.

Two realities strike you all at once: One, you define yourself in
terms of your values. With your values now reversed, so too are
you reversed: you are a roach! Two, what you have become is
apparent to everyone else.

Gregor Samsa has burrowed his way out of the value set that
defined his social setting. The metamorphosis was inevitable. Look
at where his values were anchored: servant to the needs of an
oppressive boss in order to meet the needs of an exploitive family.

So, he ceases to serve. With new values opposing those of the
family, the employer, and society at large, Gregor emerges as a
deviant. He has entered the world of the despised.

Never forget, my friends, that "truth" is in the eye of the beholder. In
Gregor's world the despised and the beloved are reversed.

Franz Kafka is a new thinker -- one of that breed I spoke to you
about 100 years ago. Gregor Samsa is his agent. Never forget my
brilliant words about such men in Beyond Good and Evil: "The
philosopher, being of necessity a man of tomorrow and the day
after tomorrow, has always found himself, and had to find himself,
in contradiction to his today: his enemy was ever the ideal of today
(Section 212, BGE)."

So, I Friedrich, will now tell you what my philosophic friend Franz
finds so fascinating about Gregor the bug!

...

"Gregor Samsa woke up one morning changed into a monstrous
vermin:" Really? You think so? "Gregor's eyes turned to the
window, and the overcast weather---completely depressed him." If
you suddenly found yourself in Gregor's shoes--six shoes to be
exact--would the weather be your first concern?


...

Remember my words: "He shall be greatest who can be lonliest,
the most concealed, the most deviant, the human being beyond
good and evil, the master of his virtues, he that is overrich in will.
Precisely this shall be called greatness; being capable of being as
manifold as whole, as ample as full. (BGE 212)"




Lecture on "The Metamorphosis" by Vladimir Nabokov

http://www.kafka.org/index.php?id=191,209,0,0,1,0

TAKING ART SERIOUSLY



Of course, no matter how keenly, how admirably, a story, a piece of music, a picture is discussed and analyzed, there will be minds that remain blank and spines that remain unkindled. "To take upon us the mystery of things"—what King Lear so wistfully says for himself and for Cordelia—this is also my suggestion for everyone who takes art seriously. A poor man is robbed of his overcoat (Gogol's "The Greatcoat," or more correctly "The Carrick"); another poor fellow is turned into a beetle (Kafka's "The Metamorphosis)—so what?

...

Where there is beauty there is pity for the simple reason that beauty must die: beauty always dies, the manner dies with the matter, the world dies with the individual.

If Kafka's "The Metamorphosis" strikes anyone as something more than an entomological fantasy, then I congratulate him on having joined the ranks of good and great readers.





Kafka: Die Verwandlung (1912)

El kafkiano caso de la Verwandlung que Borges jamás tradujo. By

Fernando Sorrentino

«Macht er sich einen Narren aus uns?» by Friedgard Thoma

The Metamorphosis. By G.S. Trujillo (English version)

The Metamorphosis. By G.S. Trujillo (Spanish version)

Some thoughts about The Metamorphosis. By B. Herzog

The Metamorphosis: A Strange, Strange Book

An Essay On 'The Metamorphosis'

The Dependence and Freedom of Kafka's 'Metamorphosis'

Franz Kafka’s personal life reflected in the Metamorphosis

An Explanation of The Metamorphosis

A For Apple

[Sitaram]

I AM PUTTING THIS NEXT QUOTE from the above Nietzsche-like essay BY ITSELF in order to highlight it in your attention and ask that you compare it with my post in the Religion Texts Forum, regarding Orthodoxy and Heresy,

http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3958

where it states that, curiously, it is often the HERESY (or deviance) which comes first and then INSPIRES the formulation of an ORTHODOXY to combat it and refute it.




Society is an association of institutions held together by a set of
artificial values. You like to call them "truths." I say they are masks -
- but never mind. Your prestige in your society is measured by the
degree to which you choose to conform to its values. When you
conform you are close to the norm. If you deviate from the norm,
you are a deviant. But beware. Deviation is met with indignation.
But deviation and deviants are essential for your survival.

Here's where I, Friedrich, come in. You see no one knows where
the norm is! Why? There is no truth! The deviant defines the norm
for you. The norm is established with reference to the deviant. In a
world without crime you would have to invent crime. Oh, I know
how much you 90's people rail against crime and justice and
criminals--I read your electronic musings--but believe me, without
crime you would be lost souls with no reference to good or
evil...dare I say you would be beyond good and evil?

In your society your deviant subgroups become isolated from the
main group because you insist judging everything the deviant does
as a further manifestation or proof of the deviance. In fact the label
itself defines the deviant individual.

Because individuals so defined tend to become isolated and
alienated from your main culture, individuals with common
"deviant" characteristics define their own separate sub-cultures.
These sub-cultures in turn may differentiate too, generating their
own versions of deviance within deviance and new sub-sub-
cultures form.

Remember that the cohesion of your society depends on these
deviant groups as reliable points of reference. The more firmly you
believe in the "truth" of their deviance, the more faith you have in
the steadiness of your "values." Because you define deviance in
terms of masks--you call them moral principles (one ought not to
deviate), deviant individuals and the subcultures to which they
belong can and often do become targets for social oppression. You
despise them, but you cannot exist without them.

This all serves an important social function. Let's say you as a
social group adhere to the moral principle, "one ought to behave
within the law." Under such a belief "outlaws" are deviant. Outlaws
are a threat to your security. You form a mental model of what an
outlaw is like: a certain stereotype emerges. Outlaws reveal
themselves by their dress, language, and habits. You and I know
this is not always true about outlaws, but the stereotype provides
some comfort to you. Of course if you are an outlaw and
comfortable as one, adopting the dress, language, and
mannerisms of the stereotype may make you feel at home with
your outlaw peers, and comfortable as a member of an outlaw
subculture. You have exaggerated cultural examples of this in your
portrayals of outlaws: prohibition gangsters, old western movie
villains, Mafia operatives, outlaw motorcycle gangs.

You even use age as a basis for referencing deviation to a norm.
To some extent young people (teens in particular) and very old
people tend to occupy sub-cultural niches in which they feel
comfortable because they have become isolated from the main
social group. Teens and old people do deviate from the norm with
respect to age. But the very label "teen" or "old" carries a whole
catalogue of behavioral expectations for you. You know the
stereotypes: teens are rebellious and careless. Old people are
senile and unreliable. Whether true or not, the behavior, dress and
mannerisms of young and old people are seen by the main group
as further evidence of the stereotype. These age based social
reference points help anchor your social norm: that of the ideal,
reliable and conforming, middle aged conformer. The deviants:
teens and old people in turn tend to cluster within cultural sub-
groups in which they mirror common forms of dress, behavior and
mannerisms.

[Maljackson]

sitaram

im a student at a university in london but im currently in a foreign country.

I kind of understand what they want me to do but if i give you this link can u read it and tell me what u think they want from me for this essay?

i would be very grateful.

all my mates are airheads.

i obviously understand what it wants me to do but your insight might be useful.

[Sitaram]

It sounds to me like you have an ENORMOUS degree of latitude and freedom in choosing your topic and how you shall proceed.

If this is indeed the case, then it occurs to me that I may post for you those links to my site where I discuss various authors and works. You should be able to get many ideas.

I suggest that we lay out a schedule of you shall proceed.

Stage 1 will be YOU reading through various links that we shall provide.

Stage 2, YOU will settle upon an author or authors and some approach, and you will outline your thoughts as to what you will investigate and the goals you hope to achieve.

Stage 3, WE shall deliberate regarding your choice and outline and make suggestions and criticizms.

Stage 4, YOU shall post a rough first draft.


NOW, if there is some objection on anyone's part to do all of this HERE on this forum, well, then you can email me, I shall post this ongoing tutorial at my site, and people shall be free to read it there. But I do think that it is most useful for the many students around the world, who are constantly faced with such assignments, to see the ANATOMY OF AN ESSAY. Such a use of the Internet is really the Internet at it's best!

HERE are some links from my site, to give you some ideas:

The Universal Form (the spatio-temporal montage)
http://toosmallforsupernova.org/page019.htm

An Occurance at Owl Creek Bridge
http://toosmallforsupernova.org/page024.htm

With a Keen Literary Eye
http://toosmallforsupernova.org/page030.htm

Tell Me A Story
http://toosmallforsupernova.org/page021.htm

[Maljackson]

Your help is greatly recieved.

Thank you very much

But i have bad news

I must decide in under 2 hours what i want to do.

I really like the lottery by shirley jackson but i also like the others.

Im in trouble !

i should never of left it so late.

I must submit my chosen topic very soon.

[Sitaram]

Oy Vey !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!

[Maljackson]

lol.

U seem to have dug some very intresting information on kafka's metemorphosis.

In relation to kafka...would it be possible for me to compare him with shirly jackson?

[Sitaram]

OK, lets take a deep breath, calm down, and do some quick thinking.

Since you have procrastinated and got yourself into something of a pickle (as Laurel and Hardy would say) I think you should pick an author that has LOTS of material available on the internet, rather than someone who is more obscure. The reason for making your choice based on available Internet material is that you will have a LOT of help for ideas, by reading through it. As you can see, there is LOTS of material on Kafka. In a way, Kafka is a "writer's writer" since people like Kundera and Nabokov speak of Kafka at great length. On the other hand, there is no shortage of readers who despise Kafka (or are simply indifferent to him).

Well, I hope you have learned a lesson about being proactive and avoiding procrastination. Perhaps those lessons are the most important ones that any student learns in any educational institution. These are the lessons of life.

Whatever choice you make, you must live with it. Do let us know. You promptly vanished into thin air after our last tutorial session. It amazes me that young people can be so indifferent when such opportunities for help and learning are available to them on the internet.

[Maljackson]

sitaram

do you know anything about the other writers i posted?

[Sitaram]

One may compare Santa Claus with Zeus. Many things are possible. As St. Paul said, "all things are possible, but not all things are profitable" (or something like that).

I must become familar with Shirley (heavens no, not in the carnal sense, in the LITERARY sense!)

You know, your name does not have to be Sitaram for you to use google.com

http://www.mostweb.cc/Classics/Jackson/

An Essay on "The Lottery"

http://www.netwood.net/~kosenko/jackson.html




http://www.netwood.net/~kosenko/jackson.html

(excerpt):

A survey of what little has been written about "The Lottery" reveals two general critical attitudes: first, that it is about man's ineradicable primitive aggressivity, or what Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren call his "all-too-human tendency to seize upon a scapegoat"; second, that it describes man's victimization by, in Helen Nebeker's words, "unexamined and unchanging traditions which he could easily change if he only realized their implications."5 Missing from both of these approaches, however, is a careful analysis of the abundance of social detail that links the lottery to the ordinary social practices of the village. No mere "irrational" tradition, the lottery is an ideological mechanism. It serves to reinforce the village's hierarchical social order by instilling the villages with an unconscious fear that if they resist this order they might be selected in the next lottery. In the process of creating this fear, it also reproduces the ideology necessary for the smooth functioning of that social order, despite its inherent inequities. What is surprising in the work of an author who has never been identified as a Marxist is that this social order and ideology are essentially capitalist.

[Maljackson]

Are u suggesting i concentrate solely on kafka?

Do i even need to compare?

So many questions are going through my mind

[Sitaram]

hmmm.... what you are saying is that the paper which you posted which outlines the requirements of your assignment is not clear to you. I read through it very quickly. I shall go back and re-read it. But at first glance, it looks like you can concentrate on only one author, if you so choose. If you choose to compare TWO authors, why then, you double your work and your difficulty, and judging by your past track record with procrastination and, well, shall we simply say a lack of inspiration and leave it at that?

Who was it who said something about "desparate times call for desparate measures."

Don't bite off more than you can chew....

Also, keep in mind, that I am on line with three different messengers, if you should need something more real time. Though whatever we do together, I would like it to go somewhere on the net so that it may help as many others as possible.

[Sitaram]

I also hope you realize, by now, that I constantly edit my posts, to add more ideas, so it is worth your while to "reload" the link and re-read. In general, it is a good idea to re-read things, to gain a better understanding.

[Sitaram]

GOOD LORD! As I re-read your assignment, it says you can even write YOUR OWN short story, accompanied by your analysis of the story! Why are you hung up on the notion that it is necessary to COMPARE two stories/authors?

[Sitaram]

http://www.kafka.org/index.php?id=191,209,0,0,1,0



"The Carrick," "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," and "The Metamorphosis": all three are commonly called fantasies. From my point of view, any outstanding work of art is a fantasy insofar as it reflects the unique world of a unique individual. But when people call these three stories fantasies, they merely imply that the stories depart in their subject matter from what is commonly called reality. Let us therefore examine what reality is, in order to discover in what manner and to what extent so-called fantasies depart from so-called reality.

Let us take three types of men walking through the same landscape. Number One is a city man on a well-deserved vacation. Number Two is a professional botanist. Number Three is a local farmer. Number One, the city man, is what is called a realistic, commonsensical, matter-of-fact type: he sees trees as trees and knows from his map that the road he is following is a nice new road leading to Newton, where there is a nice eating place recommended to him by a friend in his office. The botanist looks around and sees his environment in the very exact terms of plant life, precise biological and classified units such as specific trees and grasses, flowers and ferns, and for him, this is reality; to him the world of the stolid tourist (who cannot distinguish an oak from an elm) seems a fantastic, vague, dreamy, never-never world. Finally the world of the local farmer differs from the two others in that his world is intensely emotional and personal since he has been born and bred there, and knows every trail and individual tree, and every shadow from every tree across every trail, all in warm connection with his everyday work, and his childhood, and a thousand small things and patterns which the other two—the humdrum tourist and the botanical taxonomist—simply cannot know in the given place at the given time. Our farmer will not know the relation of the surrounding vegetation to a botanical conception of the world, and the botanist will know nothing of any importance to him about that barn or that old field or that old house under its cottonwoods, which are afloat, as it were, in a medium of personal memories for one who was born there.

So here we have three different worlds—three men, ordinary men who have different realities—and, of course, we could bring in a number of other beings: a blind man with a dog, a hunter with a dog, a dog with his man, a painter cruising in quest of a sunset, a girl out of gas— In every case it would be a world completely different from the rest since the most objective words tree, road, flower, sky, barn, thumb, rain have, in each, totally different subjective connotations. Indeed, this subjective life is so strong that it makes an empty and broken shell of the so-called objective existence. The only way back to objective reality is the following one: we can take these several individual worlds, mix them thoroughly together, scoop up a drop of that mixture, and call it objective reality. We may taste in it a particle of madness if a lunatic passed through that locality, or a particle of complete and beautiful nonsense if a man has been looking at a lovely field and imagining upon it a lovely factory producing buttons or bombs; but on the whole these mad particles would be diluted in the drop of objective reality that we hold up to the light in our test tube. Moreover, this objective reality will contain something that transcends optical illusions and laboratory tests. It will have elements of poetry, of lofty emotion, of energy and endeavor (and even here the button king may find his rightful place), of pity, pride, passion—and the craving for a thick steak at the recommended roadside eating place.

So when we say reality, we are really thinking of all this—in one drop—an average sample of a mixture of a million individual realities. And it is in this sense (of human reality) that I use the term reality when placing it against a backdrop, such as the worlds of "The Carrick," "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," and "The Metamorphosis," which are specific fantasies.



==============================

Transit - by Richard Wilbur

A woman I have never seen before
Steps from the darkness of her town-house door
At just the crux of time when she is made
So beautiful that she or time must fade.

What use to claim that as she tugs her gloves
A phantom heraldry of all the loves
Blames from the lintel? That the staggered sun
Forgets in his confusion how to run?

Still, nothing changes as her perfect feet
Click down the walk that issues in the street
Leaving the stations of her body there
As a whip maps the countries of the air.

=============

Parsing Reality for God and Manhole Covers

I will tell you an amusing little story... which relates to the above poem by Richard Wilbur.


He describes his feelings as he watches a very beautiful young woman leave the door of her apartment..


He describes her movements as being like someone who CRACKS A WHIP... and shatters the air around her... (that is how stunningly beautiful he finds her)...."


It is obvious from reading the poem.... that the poets mind is geared towards seeing a beautiful woman..

He does not see anything else..... there may be a beautiful flower... but he does not see

There may be a beautiful moon in the sky.. but he does not notice


There may be a ten dollar bill on the sidewalk by his feet.. but he is unaware.

Here is my point....

REALITY... is many many many things, an INFINITUDE of things.

CONSCIOUSNESS, is a process of data reduction.

If we NOTICED EVERYTHING... we would be TOTALLY OVERWHELMED... our senses would shut down.

Seeing, knowing... involves IGNORING much, and FOCUSING, on what is important to us.


Just as a grammarian will look at a sentence and PARSE IT, divide it into nouns, verbs , adjectives, etc... analizing it

EACH of us PARSES reality... divides,... down to what interest us.


Imagine a beautiful young woman in spiked high heels , walking in the city.

She is PARSING REALITY, to notice all the drainage gratings.

Why? BECAUSE she has SPIKED high heels... and does not want to break them or fall.

so... reality for her BECOMES, in a sense, drainage gratings

but now... along comes a teenager in SNEAKERS...and he only notices her.

The teenager is unaware of the drainage grates, because HE HAS SNEAKERS, NOT high heels, but....

The teenager is PARSING REALITY for sexy behinds.


So, he is staring at her bottom, and she is staring at sidewalk."

Same reality PARSED DIFFERENTLY.. by two different people with TWO DIFFERENT THRISTS (DESIRES, INTERESTS)

From the Srimad Bhagavatam:

Uddhava said, "O Lord, you have explained about all these religious endeavors, they sound so difficult. How will I ever achieve UNION with you, the Lord?"

God answers "If you can simple SEE ME , in every creature, in every person, even the most wicked, in every object, then NO OTHER PUJA (sacrifice) OR PRAYER OR PRACTICE is necessary"

The religious person, does not see drainage grates everywhere, or derriers. No. They parse reality and see GOD everywhere.

[Sitaram]

We few, who write such fantastic notions, are arsonists, attempting to set young minds on fire; not a fire which destroys, but the fire of the mythical Phonix, from which we emerge, anew, reborn.