EWRT 1C Class 25

A man walked in the house. He was about to hang up his coat when he heard his wife say, "No John! Don't do it!" There was a shot and the woman was dead. There was a police officer, a doctor, and a lawyer standing next to her. The woman's husband knew that the police officer did it. But how did the husband know?

AGENDAEssay 2 Due Before Class Today!  Novella Discussion:

Finish The Metamorphosis Theoretical Approaches Questions

Begin Night Historical Context Summary QHQs

Who can offer a summary of

The Metamorphosi

s?

Let me ask you!

Review: Summary Chapter One

Gregor Samson goes to bed one night and wakes up, late for work, as a cockroach. We learn that Gregor is a traveling salesman. He hates his job but feels obligated to perform it because of his parents. They are indebted to his boss, and because of their advanced age it is left to Gregor to fulfill their debt. He spends day after day at this work, consumed yet unfulfilled. He has not missed a day of work in five years.

Summary Chapter 2Chapter 2 starts the day after Gregor undergoes his metamorphosis. The first hints of loneliness overtake him when neither his sister nor his parents come to visit him. However, his loneliness is replaced by elation when his sister Grete makes an effort to visit him. Despite Gregor’s drastic change, Grete’s compassion for Gregor remains.

Summary Chapter Three

The final chapter of The Metamorphosis commences with a pitiful description of the wounded Gregor. For over a month, Gregor has limped about, dragging his insect body around the scarce space of his cramped room, trying to disregard the rotting apple, still undeniably and painfully embedded into his back. The only consolation is the fact that Gregor’s family is no longer afraid of him due to his weak condition. So, Gregor is allowed a view into the living room where he can watch his family and think of the life he could have lived.

Group Discussion

1.Discussion Questions

2.Theoretical ApproachesNew Criticism

Psychoanalytic Theory

Trauma TheoryFeminist Theory

Questions from Section 1

1. Discuss the details Kafka uses to establish Gregor’s life before his metamorphosis into an insect. How do these familiar details and objects define Gregor’s character and life?

2. The relationship between Gregor and his father is at the core of the story. Describe this relationship both before and after Gregor’s metamorphosis.

3. Much of this part of the story, focuses on Gregor’s inner life. Describe Gregor’s private thoughts and emotions; use psychoanalytic theory to discuss his attitudes toward his family and outside world.

Questions from Section 2

1. Grete’s character undergoes a dramatic change in section 2. Trace the changes that highlight the changes in her attitude, character, and personality. Can feminist theory help explain her behavior?

2. Gregor refuses to part with the picture of the woman wrapped in furs on the wall. Why is it important? Explain its symbolic meaning.

3. In section 2 of the story, Gregor’s sense of guilt is highlighted. Use Psychoanalytic theory to explain Gregor’s guilt. Consider how his lingering guilt affects his state of mind and his feelings toward his family.

Questions from Section 3

1. Discuss the three bearded lodgers. What is their purpose in the story?

2. It is clear from the outset of Part 3 that Gregor is dying. How much of his physical decline is his own doing, and how much of it is caused by outside factors?

3. Contrast Gregor’s state of mind at the beginning of this section to right before his death. What incidents or events cause a change in Gregor’s attitude and thinking? Are Gregor’s thoughts rational and clear, or are they blurred and irrational?

The Metamorphosis QHQs

Question: The relationship between Gregor and his father is at the core of the story. Describe this relationship both before and after Gregor’s metamorphosis.

New CriticismPsychoanalytic TheoryTrauma Theory

Feminist Theory

How might you apply these to this text?

Historical Context: Night

Night takes place in Romania, Poland, and Germany during WW II (1939-1945)

This war, sparked by German aggression, had its roots in the ending of an earlier war. With Germany’s defeat in WWI, the nation was left with a broken government. a severely limited military, shattered industry and transportation, and an economy sinking under the strain of war debts. Many Germans were humiliated and demoralizedThe Nazi party (The National Socialist German Workers Party) came to power in late 1920s. The party aimed to restore German pride.

Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler, the party leader,

spoke at rallies of Germany’s long military tradition, its national character, and its entitlement to greatness. To explain Germany’s fallen state, Hitler blamed the Jews and others he said were not “true” Germans.

Soon after he took control, he took away German Jew’s citizenship and right to work, barred Jews from public schools and gathering places, made it so they could no longer marry non-Jews, and he attacked their homes and businesses frequently.

He defined Jews as those with at least one Jewish grandparent, whether or not they observed their religion

The people he “targeted” were imprisoned in ghettos, where they were often starved or murdered

.

It is believed that eleven million people were killed by the Nazis. These included political opponents (particularly Communists), Slavs, gypsies, mentally and/or physically disabled, homosexuals, and other "undesirables.” An estimated six million men, women, and children were killed because they were Jews.

The Nazis forced concentration camp inmates to wear various symbols on their uniforms. The Jews wore a yellow "Jewish Star" (made of two inverted yellow triangles). The homosexual inmates wore an inverted "Pink Triangle.” (In some camps, such as Schirmeck, homosexuals wore blue bars on their uniforms.) This chart from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum's archives depicts the various other groups and their respective colors; such as black for "A-socials" (including lesbians and feminists), purple for Jehovah's Witnesses, red for political prisoners, green for criminal prisoners, brown (maroon) for gypsies.

Night In the spring of 1944, the Nazis entered the Transylvanian village of Sighet, Romania, until then a relatively safe and peaceful enclave in the middle of a war-torn continent. Arriving with orders to exterminate an estimated 600,000 Jews in six weeks or less, Adolf Eichmann, chief of the Gestapo's Jewish section, began making arrangements for a mass deportation program. Among those forced to leave their homes was fifteen-year-old Elie Wiesel, the only son of a grocer and his wife. A serious and devoted student of the Talmud and the mystical teachings of Hasidism and the Cabala, the young man had always assumed he would spend his entire life in Sighet, quietly contemplating the religious texts and helping out in the family's store from time to time. Instead, along with his father, mother, and three sisters, Wiesel was herded onto a train bound for Birkenau, the reception center for the infamous death camp Auschwitz.

Wiesel at age 15http://www.pbs.org/eliewiesel/life/

Genre: Non-fiction; Holocaust autobiography

Type of Work: Memoir (narrative composed from personal experience)

Time Period: 1941-1945 (during WWII)

Setting: story begins in Sighet, Transylvania (now part of Romania) and follows Wiesel to concentration camps in Europe (Auschwitz/Birkenau – modern day Poland) & Germany

Survivors at Buchenwald Concentration Camp remain in their barracks after liberation by Allies on April 16, 1945. Elie Wiesel, the Nobel Prize winning author of Night, is on the second bunk from the bottom, seventh from the left. (Photo : Corbis)

Group Discussion: Main/Significant Characters and

QHQs

Who are the main characters in Night?

Let me ask you!

Main/Significant CharactersMoshe the Beadle: After his deportation, Moshe returns with a

report on the massacre of those deported. The community dismisses him as a madman.

Madame Schächter: On the journey to Auschwitz, she goes out of her mind. At night she shrieks "I can see fire!” The last time she shrieks, everyone looks, and they see the flames of the crematory.

Chlomo Wiesel: Eliezer's father, Chlomo, is a "cultured, rather unsentimental man … more concerned with others than with his own family.” However, while he is in the death camps, he lives to keep his son alive

Eliezer Wiesel: The narrating survivor of the camps is Eliezer, who becomes A-7713.

Franek: The foreman in the electrical warehouse; he terrorizes Eliezer's father when Eliezer refuses to give up his gold crown.

Idek: A Kapo, a prisoner put in charge of a barracks. One Sunday, he takes the prisoners under his charge to the warehouse for the day so he can be with a woman. Eliezer discovers them and is whipped.

QHQ’s: The Story1. Q: Is Moishe the Beadle a real character or is he just an

imaginary person of the narrator?2. Q: What did Moishe mean by his “death” and “coming

back”, (p.7) and then says, I no longer care to live.” If it’s not a suicidal intention, then what is it?

3. Q: Why do the Jews in Sighet ignore the warnings of the dangers to come?

4. Q: In the beginning of the story Moishe the Beadle tells Eliezer that ”Man asks and God replies. But we don’t understand His replies. We cannot understand them. Because they dwell in the depths of our souls and remain there until we die” (5). Why is this important?

QHQ’s: The Story1. Q: What can the simple but illuminating title

“Night” prove about the story or can be summed up because of? Does the darkness that comes with the event of the holocaust serve as the single contributor to the theme and title of no light or is there any other component of the story that foreshadows and elicits fear and/or trauma in the text of Night?

2. Q: What would be the most important metaphor in Night? Sun? Prayer? Moishe the Beadle? Or the fire, the hallucination that Mrs. Schächter sees? What are they representing?

Psych and Trauma Q: Does Wiesel experience regression while imprisoned? Which

symbols represent his return to a former state of life? Q: While interpreting Wiesel’s psychological experience at Auschwitz

and his struggle with disorders, can we as readers consider him a reliable narrator? Why or why not?

Q: In the preface, the narrator explains that “language became an obstacle” for him when he tried to put his experience into words because the words were “[transformed], betrayed and perverted by the [Nazis]”. He explains the concept of “it,” the idea that there are no real words that adequately and accurately captures the traumatic experiences of a Jewish person in the Holocaust. Considering this, is it truly possible for readers to grasp an understanding of the traumatic oppression that these people faced by simply reading about it?

QHQs: Faith1.Q: How is faith, both theological and

personal, significant to the struggle of the main character in Night?

2.Q1: How do concepts of faith and hope change throughout the story’s progression and why are they important to the narrator and his people?