"A Primer for the Punctuation of Heart Disease," 152
"A Clean, Well-Lighted Place"
"A Good Man is Hard to Find," 353
Directions: You are required to answer only one of the main questions, which will appear in red. This question is due no later than Thursday, Sept. 18. Following the red questions will be other questions, in black, which you should read and think about--they may help you answer the main question. However, you are not required to answer these questions in writing.
Please answer the question as thoughtfully as possible, after reading the lecture. Then post your answer to the English 102 Message Board by the deadline.
If you are registered in Section 7622, you'll use Message Board 1. Click on the button below to visit your Message Board:
If you are registered in Section 7623, you'll use Message Board 2. Click on the button below to visit your Message Board:
Your responses to other students' answers are due by midnight on Saturday, Sept. 20. In order to get the full 20 points, you MUST respond thoughtfully to at least 3 or 4 other people's postings.
Remember: This discussion question is worth a possible 20 points. Late answers will receive 0 points. Points will be assigned according to the thoughtfulness of your answer, not by whether it is "right" or not, since sometimes there is no "right" answer. Just be sure your ideas are supported by the material in the story (see Lecture 1).
"A Primer for the Punctuation of Heart Disease"
How does Foer's unconventional style contribute to the story? How does it detract from it?
- Why does the narrator use symbols, rather than words, to illustrate his ideas?
- Why does Foer write this in essay style, instead of telling a straightforward story?
- What does the narrator reveal about his relationships with his family? His feelings about himself?
- Why does the narrator include the incident about the parking space in this story? What does it reveal about his father? The narrator?
- How does the term "heart disease" have more than one meaning in this story?
- Are we told the setting of the story? Is the setting important?
(See background information just below the questions for this story)
What themes and ideas is Hemingway exploring in this story? How does he use style and symbolism to express these themes?
- Why are the lines of dialogue so brief? Why are the speakers so seldom identified? (For example, Hemingway very rarely uses phrases such as "he said" after a line of dialogue.)
- Hemingway repeats a lot of words and phrases throughout the story; identify some of these words and phrases. What is the purpose of such repetition?
- What do light and darkness symbolize in the story? Shadows? Why does the old waiter feel a "clean, well-lighted place" is preferable to a dirty, noisy bar?
- Is it insomnia that is keeping the old waiter awake? What does he have in common with the old man who tried to kill himself?
- The Spanish word "nada" means "nothing." What word does it replace in the Lord's Prayer (paragraph 76)? Where else do you find the words "nada" or "nothing"?
Note: This story was published in 1933, between World Wars I and II. Hemingway was living in Paris at this time and doing a lot of travelling in Europe. He saw and felt firsthand the effects of World War I and the severe economic and spiritual depression it caused. World War I was one of the bloodiest wars ever fought in Europe; the people of the countries on both sides were drawn in by patriotic propaganda, and their governments told them that the war would be over quickly and would result in huge victories and profits to them. But the war dragged on for four years, at tremendous cost. Europe was destroyed; a whole generation of young men died--nearly one third of all British young men, and nearly three fourths of all French and German young men. The suffering was horrible--and it became apparent that it was not for truth and justice, but for the prestige and profit of the leaders, who were quite willing to sacrifice the lives of their people for their own egotism. On paper, Germany and Austria lost the war, and England and France won. But the Treaty of Versailles, which set the terms for the surrender of Germany and Austria, created, not resolution, but hatred and more suffering, and set the stage for the rise of Hitler and the beginning of World War II.
One of the results of World War I was a loss of faith: people realized they could no longer trust their governments, and in the face of such pointless destruction, many could no longer trust their gods. People began to question every religious and social institution that had bound society together, and many came to the conclusion that no social or religious institution could be trusted--that, in fact, all of it was an illusion, including God.
One school of philosophy that incorporated this view was existentialism. There are different varieties of existentialism, but its basic belief is that there is no God, and therefore, life can have no inherent meaning. We are not put on earth for any purpose--our birth is an accident. There is no grand design to life--it is all chance. There is no order in the universe--it is all chaos. Our religions and our social structures are meant to help us avoid facing that terrifying truth.
But this does not mean that life must be meaningless. It simply means that we, ourselves, must determine what the purpose of our lives is. We must set our own standards and live by them. Thus, our principles and our actions are everything: if we fail to live up to our principles, then life is truly meaningless.
Hemingway subscribed, generally, to this theory. He believed that life was inherently meaningless, and that all we could do was set high standards and adhere to them with dignity--all the while knowing that this dignity is all that keeps us from falling into despair.
There are many ways to interpret this story; how do you interpret its meaning? Explain.
- The grandmother thinks of herself as a lady, and a good Christian woman. Is she? Is she evil?
- How does the grandmother get the family into trouble?
- Is there any foreshadowing of the ending? That is, are there any hints earlier in the story about what might happen to them at the end?
- Is the Misfit polite? Is he evil? Why does he do the things he does?
- Look closely at paragraph 136: Can you explain why the Misfit was suddenly so afraid of the grandmother that he had to shoot her?
- How is the line in paragraph 140 ironic?
Note: Pay close attention to the last paragraph of the introduction to this story, on page 353; how would those ideas apply to the Misfit and the grandmother?