10. , i ions II. Comprehension Checking Quest . ad a c of Why do you think the man who tells the co Salou Dante on him - “the pages of Dante which he ne more than ever”? h? What is the connection between Dante and deat! ? me Which of Dante’s words are being recalled in the text? Try tc interpret them. : Bean Why does the narrator imagine the universe of Dante like a watch”? Whar kind of “voice” does the dying person have? What clements or, as the narrator calls them, “omens”, “portents”, “messages of the outer darkness” foreshadow the old woman's imminent death? Describe the light of the moon. In what way does it create a certain atmosphere? At what moment of the day does the woman Pass away? Why do you find it meaningful? < What is pathetic and pitiful about death, in the writers view? The man who tells the story experiences feelings of loss, isolation, strangeness, sadness and Pity. What are the causes of WS Scanned with CamScannerhis feelings nd what insights into human condition he they | reveal as envisioned by the narrator’s mind? Make use of some relevant instances such as: > “he was so cold and numb” (paragraph 7) > “the street outside was empty of people and traffic. ‘There was no one alive in the world but himself.” (paragraph 4) > “he was shaken as if by an earthquake of pathos and pity” (paragraph 10) ~ “St was this which more than anything made him cry, to think of what the log once had been, a suffering body, a girl growing up and marrying and bearing children. It was so strange that the log could have been that. It was so strange that the log had once wore dresses chequered like a draughtsboard, that it had called him into dinner, that it had been sleepless at nights thinking of the future.” (paragraph 9) Can you find out in the text any instances similar to those quoted here? 11. Is he ‘a character-narrator or is there a split difference between the two roles? Give reasons. 12. Comment upon the implications, the connotations and the closural impetus of the sentences: - “Death was not dignified” (paragraph 6) - “There was no one alive in the world but himself” (paragraph 4) - “At this time, poetry is powerless (...). ‘The copy of Dante seemed to have fallen into an abyss.” (paragraph 7) _ >. “The landscape outside the window was not a human landscape. The body on the bed was not human.” (paragraph 7) - “The log was concerned only with itself.” (paragraph 10) - What connection is there between the ewortslion Outside and Dante’s work? Scanned with CamScannerMan S ye Ga marble, into flowers made are CONSEqUENCes of subconsct HT. Comments and Questions for Analysis aud Interpretation oe ee following Poctic images and metaphors in terms of Cee i What is their symbolism? What mental ae une { ney Suggest? In what way are they relevant to ying? (Vehicle - the literal meaning of a word used Serene Tenor - the subject to which a metaphor refers). he unintelligible pattern woven by the complex snow flakes in the moonlight” (paragraph 12) “the other light” (paragraph 6) Solien as thar from a dead planet” (paragraph 2) a sick glare”, “a hollow glarc” (paragraph 2) “an almost abstract light” (paragraph 2) “he felt as if he were in a boat and she were in the dark water around it” (paragraph 3) (the dead body is) a “log”, “blank as a stone” (paragraph 6) the clectric fire was deep and raw red” (paragraph 5) “a visored head” (at the workshop outside) (paragraph 11) (the workshop outside) “He walked over the window and saw men with helmets bending over pure white flame. The blue flashes were cold and quecr as if they came from another world” (paragraph 11) : “And in front of it he saw the drifting flakes of snow, He looked down at the Dante with his bruised face and felt the hammer blows slamming the lincs together making a universe, 4 holding a world together where people shouted out of a blue light.” (paragraph 11) : “And the hammer scemed to be beating the log into a vase, into of blue rock, into the hardest of me : metaphors.” (paragraph 11) aS oe According to Sigmund ffreud, the “uncanny and the seu a ious repressions. The uncanny 117 Scanned with CamScannerstate of anxiety brought about by the return of “the repressed” that should have remained buried, yet it has emerged » from one's subconscious mind. Fundamental fears mbolic “clothing” whose is in fact subconsciously “unbidden’ and anxicties re-cmerge disguised in sy meaning, though apparently ignored, well-known. Most people feel as “uncanny” anything connected to death (bodies, furerals ctc,). ‘The uncanny makes the familiar look strange and alien, bringing to light what we have so carefully buried in our minds, in order to be able to live. The double, which appears in many fantastic and “oneiric” writings, is the uncanny “messenger” of death. We carry death (the “double”) in our bodies, we are a strange union of immortal and mortal, of soul and body. In the following paragrap! “double” and after having identi h, pursue the implication of the fied the uncanny elements in the character’s dream, try to interpret them by using free associations they bring to your mind. (Bear in mind that the personal symbolism of a writer is always integrated consciously or subconsciously into the larger, archetypal symbolism of the culture to which he ): “He seemed to be on a space ship hanging upside down and seeing coming towards him another space ship shaped like a medieval helmet in all that azure. On board the space ship there was at least one man encased in a black rubber suit, but he could not see the face. The man was busy either with the rope which he would fling to him or with a gun which he might fire at him. ‘The figure seemed squat and alien like that of an Eskimo.” (paragraph 5) 3, The critic Eileen Baldeshwiler upholds that there are.two basic kinds of short story: “the epical” and “the lyrical.” Read the two definitions and give. reasons for your including this story in one “class” or another: co Bpical short-stories are marked by “external action developed syllogistically through characters fabricated mainly to 8.fonverd plot, culminating in a decisive ending that sometitnes affords an universal insight, and expressed in the setviceably language of prose realism.” Tjrica’_ short-stories “concentrate on internal changes, mood and feelings, ut ing a variety of structural patterns depending on the shape of the emotion itself, they rely for the Most part on the open ending and are expressed in the condensed, evocative, often figured language of the poem.” Ifyou agree that “Lyrical writing absorbs action altogether and refashions it as a Pattern of imagery”, support the statement with examples in the text. Some writers are “mitror-writers”, others tend to be “window- writers.” In which category would you include Ian Crichton Smith in The Dying? Or does he see his own face reflected in the window-pane? Do you find any moments of revelation in The Dying? Is there any religious strain in the final revelation? According to Susan Lohafer, “the ending may jolt us into Pereciving something fundamental about what we have been reading.” Such endings are also emblematic: “the reader may be brought to an awareness of ramified implications. We do not feel that the obscure has been made plain. Mystery is not confusion; it is the outline of wonder.” Do you consider the ending of the short-story emblematic in Susan Loh not? Is it an open ending? Is it well foreshadowed? Try to decipher its symbolism. Is it archetypal? Comment on your feasons, IV. Topics for Optional Activity and Writing 1. Read and compare descriptions of a dying episode i other literary works, such as Katherine Anne Pere Jilting of Granny Weatherall or Leon Tolstoy's The Death of Ian lich, etc. ‘ 2 ve) “Scanned with CamScannerow Susan Lohater says: “readers of short fiction are the most end-conscious of readers, And short fiction is the most end-conscious of forms.” Do you apres with hes? Why (not)? The same critic upholds that “the paradigmatic time-span of a short-story is the twenty-four hours” (unlike the novel which may last indefinitely). Has this “time-span” got anything to do with the inner intensity of living of the characters or with the importance of a Ptoper ending for the short-story? What other differences do you find between a novel and a short-story? Scanned with CamScanner