ENGL 231: APOCALYPSE & DYSTOPIA. Cognitive Shift

Transcription

1 ENGL 231: APOCALYPSE & DYSTOPIA Cognitive Shift

2 ARE FOOD AND WATER EQUALLY DIFFICULT TO LOCATE POST-CATACLYSM? FOOD everyone moving about constantly to find food no other goal (241 mid) old woman in girl with dark glasses building now eats meat raw (247 top-mid) no one cooks or boils now, & no salt or oil or seasoning can be found (261 bot) dogs & cats could be cooked, but hunt in packs and defend themselves (252 top) people would now often say, eyes that do not see have a cast-iron stomach, which explains why they eat so much rubbish (263 mid) some eat rancid food; there is talk of having to abandon city for country where cows can be milked, fresh food picked, etc. (321 top)

3 ARE FOOD AND WATER EQUALLY DIFFICULT TO LOCATE POST-CATACLYSM? WATER open mouths wide when it rains, and hold up buckets, bowls, and pans (233 bot) no water in taps; no one can see to operate water towers, pumps, etc. (234 top) water found in doctor s wife s home, in toilet as in bottle (277 mid 278 top) doctor s wife to boy: drink slowly, slowly, and savour it, a glass of water is a marvelous thing, she was not talking to him, she was not talking to anyone, simply communicating to the world what a marvelous thing a glass of water is (277 bot) doctor s wife & women gather water in pots, clean clothes, and clean selves during rainstorm (279 mid 282 bot)

4 DO ANIMALS PRESENT MORE OF A COMFORT OR A THREAT TO THE HUMAN SURVIVORS? dog licks crying face of doctor s wife, and becomes her companion (234 bot 235 mid); they feed the dog (235 bot), who is now of their number. hens have grown accustomed to eating meat, though rabbits haven t yet: animals are like people, they get used to everything in the end (247 mid). dogs now eating human corpses (263 top-mid)

5 DOES THE DOCTOR S WIFE BENEFIT IN ANY SUBSTANTIAL WAY FROM RETAINING HER SIGHT, OR IS HER CONDITION A CURSE? You speak as if you too were blind, said the girl with the dark glasses, In a way I am, I am blind with your blindness, perhaps I might be able to see better if there were more of us who could see... (297 bot). You can still see, I ll see less and less all the time, even though I may not lose my eyesight I shall become more and more blind because I shall have no one to see me... (317 bot). irony: as everyone begins to see again, the doctor s wife feels intense, unbearable loneliness (323 mid-bot).

6 the blindness epidemic s negative impact is irrefutable; does it trigger any personal revelations or epiphanies for the characters living through it? Do you love your husband. Yes, as I love myself, but should I turn blind, if after turning blind I should no longer be the person I was, how would I then be able to go on loving him, and with what love, Before, when we could still see, there were also blind people, Few in comparison, the feelings in use were those of someone who could see, therefore blind people felt with the feelings of others, not as the blind people they were, now, certainly, what is emerging are the real feelings of the blind, and we re still only at the beginning, for the moment we still live on the memory of what we felt, you don t need eyes to know what life has become today... (252 mid-bot).

7 the blindness epidemic s negative impact is irrefutable; does it trigger any personal revelations or epiphanies for the characters living through it? the human body is also an organized system, it lives as long as it keeps organized, and death is only the effect of a disorganization, And how can a society of blind people organize itself in order to survive, By organizing itself, to organize oneself is, in a way, to begin to have eyes. Perhaps you re right, but the experience of this blindness has brought us only death and misery... (296 top).

8 the blindness epidemic s negative impact is irrefutable; does it trigger any personal revelations or epiphanies for the characters living through it? as sight returns: Why did we become blind. I don t know, perhaps one day we ll find out. Do you want me to tell you what I think, Yes, do, I don t think we did go blind, I think we are blind, Blind but seeing, Blind people who can see, but do not see (326 mid-bot).

9 DO THE SOCIAL TIES FORMED BY THE BLIND RESEMBLE THOSE WHICH EXISTED WHEN THEY COULD STILL SEE? other groups gain and lose members as they move (261 top). doctor s wife and other women cleaning clothes in rain: we are the only woman in the world with two eyes and six hands (280 mid). old man does not want to regain sight, because likes things the way they are declares his love for girl with dark glasses, and they decide to begin living as a couple; she admits would not have fallen for him if they were sighted, but commits to him (306 mid 307 mid) and stays with him when everyone s sight returns (324-25).

10 DO THE BLIND SURVIVORS FIND IT EASIER OR MORE DIFFICULT TO DISTINGUISH AMONG MEMORIES, DREAMS, AND WAKING REALITY? blind now free of asylum find memory serves no purpose, for it will merely be able to recall the images of places but not the paths whereby we might get there (217 mid). All this still seems like a dream, the wife of the first blind man said, it is as if I were dreaming that I am blind... (288 bot). the first blind man can t remember the number of where he lived, though wife does: Now then, it s not that I cannot remember, it s gone from my head, he said, that was a bad omen, if we do not even know where we live, if the dream has replaced our memory, where will that road take us... (289 top).

11 DO THE BLIND SURVIVORS FIND IT EASIER OR MORE DIFFICULT TO DISTINGUISH AMONG MEMORIES, DREAMS, AND WAKING REALITY? first blind man can t recall number of home where they live, but can remember the floor he lived on (289 top-mid). return to doctor s office: the dream continues, but I don t know what dream it is, whether it is the dream of dreaming which I experienced that day when I dreamt that I was going blind, or the dream of always having been blind and coming, still dreaming, to the surgery in order to be cured of an inflammation of the eyes in which there was no danger of becoming blind... (296 bot). once buried nobody will know the difference, unless somebody remembers them (301 mid). doctor recalls girl with dark glasses wanting to have sex with him, but doctor s wife remembers her husband making the advances, though says she s not jealous she felt sorry for both him and the girl (309 top-mid).

12 WHAT IMPACT DOES THE WHITE EVIL HAVE ON CITIZENS THOUGHTS ABOUT MORALITY, RELIGION, AND GOD? now we are all equal regarding good and evil, please, don t ask me what good and what evil are, we knew what it was each time we had to act when blindness was an exception, what is right and what is wrong are simply different ways of understanding our relationship with the others, not that which we have with ourselves (276 top). the doctor: If I ever regain my sight, I shall look carefully at the eyes of others, as if I were looking into their souls, Their souls, asked the old man with the eyepatch, Or their minds, the name does not matter, it was then that, surprisingly, if we consider that we are dealing with a person without much education, the girl with the dark glasses said, Inside us there is something that has no name, that something is what we are (276 mid). Only God sees us, said the wife of the first blind man, who, despite disappointments and setbacks, clings to the belief that God is not blind, to which the doctor s wife replies, Not even he, the sky is clouded over... (281 top).

13 WHAT IMPACT DOES THE WHITE EVIL HAVE ON CITIZENS THOUGHTS ABOUT MORALITY, RELIGION, AND GOD? without thinking, she called out tot those blind people and to all the blind of this world, She will rise again, note that she did not say She will live again, the matter was not quite that important, although the dictionary is there to confirm, reassure or suggest that we are dealing with complete and absolute synonyms (302 mid, see also 302 bot). questions about eternal life (303 top) church sought as a reliably good place to rest (315 top) the enigma: READ & DISCUSS (319-20, ) sight returning to others: doctor s wife cries: of course, she was happy, my God, it is easy to understand, she cried because all her mental resistance had suddenly drained away, and she was like a new-born baby and this cry was her first and still-unconscious sound (323 mid).

14 HOW DOES THIS CATACLYSM IMPACT THE LANGUAGE, DICTION, AND METAPHORS USED BY THE BLIND SURVIVORS? WORDS (GENERALLY SPEAKING) during rainstorm: At the door to the balcony stood the girl with dark glasses and the wife of the first blind man, we cannot tell what presentiments, what intuition, what inner voices might have roused them, nor do we know how they found their way here, there is no point searching for explanations for the moment, conjectures are free (280 top). Old people cannot do much but their work is not to be despised, That s not the way it goes, All right, instead of old people, it should be children, and instead of despise, it should be disdain, but if sayings are to retain any meaning and to continue to be used they have to adapt to the times (283 bot).

15 HOW DOES THIS CATACLYSM IMPACT THE LANGUAGE, DICTION, AND METAPHORS USED BY THE BLIND SURVIVORS? WORDS (GENERALLY SPEAKING) report of these events, each one of its kind, left the other members of the group aghast and confused, it has to be noted that the doctor s wife, perhaps because words failed her, did not even manage to convey to them the feelings of utter horror she experienced at the basement door... (320 mid). Her second embrace was for the old man with the black eyepatch, now we shall know what words are really worth, the other day we were so moved by the dialogue which led to the splendid commitment by these two... (324 bot, see also 325 top).

16 HOW DOES THIS CATACLYSM IMPACT THE LANGUAGE, DICTION, AND METAPHORS USED BY THE BLIND SURVIVORS? DICTION & PHRASING How old are you, asked the girl with the dark glasses, Getting on for fifty, Like my mother, And her, Her, what, Is she still beautiful, She was more beautiful once, that s what happens to all of us, we were all more beautiful once, You were never more beautiful, said the wife of the first blind man. Words are like that they deceive, they pile up, it seems they do not know where to go, and, suddenly, because of two or three or four that suddenly come out, simple in themselves, a personal pronoun, an adverb, a verb, an adjective, we have the excitement of seeing them come irresistibly to the surface through the skin and the eyes and upsetting the composure of our feelings... (281 bot). adjectives are of no use to us, if a person kills another, for example, it would be better to state this fact openly, directly, and to trust that the horror of the act, in itself, is so shocking that there is no need for us to say it was horrible. Do you mean that we have more words than we need, I mean that we have too few feelings, Or that we have them but have ceased to use the words they express, And so we lose them... (292 top).