Final Exam (35% of final grade) ! Thursday, March 19th from 4:00 6:00 p.m. in our regular classroom (HICF 100M) ! Bring an unmarked Blue Book

Transcription

1 Final Exam (35% of final grade)! Thursday, March 19th from 4:00 6:00 p.m. in our regular classroom (HICF 100M)! Bring an unmarked Blue Book! The exam will be cumulative, addressing both the readings and lecture content for the entirety of the course.! Review the texts, especially passages we have discussed in class (available for review on the Powerpoints in the Lecture Notes on the course website).! Review organizing concepts (modernism, self-fashioning, etc.), genres (roman à clef, Künstlerroman, manifesto, etc.), formal devices (free indirect discourse, dialogism, painterly prose, stream of consciousness, ekphrasis, prolepsis, etc.), and theoretical terms (primitivism, Orientalism, surrealism, etc.).! Exam will consist of multiple-choice questions, identifications, short answer questions, and an essay on a major theme from the class.! Office hours on Tuesday, March 17 from 1 3 p.m. (HIB 205)

2 Two Serious Ladies (1943) Jane Bowles s only novel (novella), published when she was only 26 years old.

3 Do dreams serve a symbolic role in the narrative of Two Serious Ladies? At this moment Mrs. Copperfield was strongly reminded of a dream that had recurred often during her life. She was being chased up a short hill by a dog. At the top of the hill there stood a few pine trees and a mannequin about eight feet high. She approached the mannequin and discovered her to be fashioned out of flesh, but without life. Her dress was of black velvet, and tapered to a very narrow width at the hem. Mrs. Copperfield wrapped one of the mannequin s arms tightly around her own waist. She was startled by the thickness of the arm and very pleased. The mannequin s other arm she bent upward from the elbow with her free hand. Then the mannequin began to sway backwards and forwards. Mrs. Copperfield clung all the more tightly to the mannequin and together they fell off the top of the hill and continued rolling for quite a distance until they landed on a little walk, where they remained locked in each other s arms. Mrs. Copperfield loved this part of the dream best; and the fact that all the way down the hill the mannequin acted as a buffer between herself and the broken bottles and little stones over which they fell gave her particular satisfaction. (97-8)

4 Intentionality and happiness Mrs. Copperfield started to tremble after the girl had closed the door behind her. She trembled so violently that she shook the bed. She was suffering as much as she had ever suffered before, because she was going to do what she wanted to do. But it would not make her happy. She did not have the courage to stop from doing what she wanted to do. She knew that it would not make her happy, because only the dreams of crazy people come true. She though that she was only interested in duplicating a dream, but in doing so she necessarily became the complete victim of a nightmare. (107) This was even gloomier than Miss Gamelon had expected it would be, since she hadn t much imagination, and reality was often more frightening to her than her wildest dreams. (112)

5 Mr. Copperfield s letter to his wife (110-1)... When you think someone is going ahead, make sure that he is not really standing still. In order to go ahead, you must leave things behind which most people are unwilling to do. Your first pain, you carry it with you like a lodestone in your breast because all tenderness will come from there. You must carry it with you through your whole life but you must not circle around it. You must give up the search for those symbols which only serve to hide its face from you. You will have the illusion that they are disparate and manifold but they are always the same. If you are only interested in a bearable life, perhaps this letter does not concern you. For God s sake, a ship leaving port is still a wonderful thing to see. (Bowles 111)

6 Perception and vague affect Well, said the old man, lifting his arm and making a vague gesture which included the river and the sky, you can see where it is impossible to know anything. Miss Goering looked around her and it seemed to her that there could be nothing hidden from their eyes, but at the same time she believed what the old man said to her. She felt both ashamed and uneasy. (134)

7 The political discussion between Christina, Dick, and Bernice (141-3) [Dick says]... We are living in a period when personal happiness means very little because the individual has very few moments left. It is wise to destroy yourself first; at least to keep only a part of you which can be of use to a big group of people. If you don t do this you lose sight of objective reality and so forth, and you fall plunk into the middle of a mysticism which right now would be a waste of time. You are right, Dickie, said Bernice, but sometimes I would love to be waited on in a beautiful room. Sometimes I think it would be nice to be a bourgeois. (She said the word bourgeois, Miss Goering noticed, as though she had just learned it. (142)

8 The political discussion between Christina, Dick, and Bernice (141-3) [ ]You are fighting their present position on this earth, to which they are all grimly attached. Our race, as you know, is not torpid. They are grim because they still believe the earth is flat and that they are likely to fall off it at any minute. That is why they hold on so hard to the middle. That is, to all the ideals by which they have always lived. You cannot confront men who are still fighting the dark and all the dragons, with a new future. Well, well, said Dick. what should I do then? Just remember, said Miss Goering, that a revolution won is an adult who must kill his childhood once and for all. (142-3)

9 Arnold s father and multiple personalities "You see," he [Arnold s father] said to Miss Goering, "you see what a new leaf I have really turned over; I think we understand each other now. You mustn't ever think that people have only one nature. Everything I said to you the other night was wrong." "Oh," said Miss Goering, a little dismayed. "Yes, I now interested in being an entirely new personality as different from my former self as A is from Z. This has been a lovely beginning. It augurs well, as they say. (121)

10 Multiple personalities and travel I don t see why you find it so interesting and intellectual to seek out a new city, said Arnold, cupping his chin in his hand and looking at her fixedly. Because I believe the hardest thing for me to do is really move from one thing to another, partly, said Miss Goering. Spiritually, said Arnold, trying to speak in a more sociable tone, spiritually I am making little journeys and changing my entire nature every six months. I don t believe it for a minute, said Miss Goering. No, no, it is true. Also I can tell you that I think it is absolutely nonsense to move physically from one place to another. All places are more or less alike. (158)

11 Andy and Miss Goering s first conversation [ ]This is the nearest thing I could find to a penal island, so it suits me; it suits me fine. (146) Did you tell your sweetheart what was getting on your nerves? asked Miss Goering, trying to hurry him up a bit. I didn t tell her because I wanted the buildings to stay in place for her and I wanted the stars to be over her head and not cockeyed I wanted her to be able to walk in the park and feed the birdies in years to come with some other fine human being hanging onto her arm. I didn t want her to have to lock something up inside her and look out at the world through a nailed window. It was not long before I went to bed with Belle and got myself a beautiful case of syphilis, which I spent the next two years curing. I took to bowling along about then and I finally left my mother s house and my work and came out to No-man s Land. [ ] (151)

12 Andy and Miss Goering s breakup You re crazy, said Andy. You re crazy and monstrous really. Monstrous. You are committing a monstrous act. Well, said Miss Goering, perhaps my maneuvers do seem a little strange, but I have thought for a long time now that often, so very often, heroes who believe themselves to be monsters because they are so far removed from other men turn around much later and see really monstrous acts being committed in the name of something mediocre. Lunatic! Andy yelled from his knees. You re not even a Christian!

13 Andy and Miss Goering s breakup You re crazy, said Andy. You re crazy and monstrous really. Monstrous. You are committing a monstrous act. Well, said Miss Goering, perhaps my maneuvers do seem a little strange, but I have thought for a long time now that often, so very often, heroes who believe themselves to be monsters because they are so far removed from other men turn around much later and see really monstrous acts being committed in the name of something mediocre. Lunatic! Andy yelled from his knees. You re not even a Christian!

14 Acts of violence [ ]But the beauty of me is that I am only a step from desperation all the time and I am one of the few people I know who could perform an act of violence with the greatest of ease. She waved her hand over her head. Acts of violence are generally performed with ease, said Miss Goering. (199)