For Friday: Gibran, The Prophet: Try to Finish!

Read as much of the book as you can for Friday's class, finishing it if possible (if not, you can finish over the weekend). In many ways, this is a book that you don't need to finish to appreciate, since it's not about getting to the 'end,' since even at the end the Prophet predicts his return in the body of another woman. Yet like life itself, you never know where you're going to find a hidden treasure, so keep reading! 

Answer TWO of the following:

Q1: Just as the Tao te Ching claims that "he who knows much knows nothing," so the Prophet claims that "You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts." But he seems to go a step further when he claims, "in much of your talking, thinking is half murdered." How can speech murder thought? Why might the very nature of speech/talking/writing be a threat to the very nature (or purpose) of thinking? Could this be another moon/finger scenario? 

Q2: The book talks a lot about the nature of Good and Evil (or Justice and Injustice), and it claims, memorably, that "what is evil but good tortured by its own hunger and thirst? Verily when good is hungry it seeks food even in dark caves, and why it thirsts it drinks even of dead waters." How does this relate to our earlier discussion about victims being guilty of their own crime? Why might evil not be the enemy of good, but its accomplice? 

Q3: The Prophet seems to worry about people who are too keen to observe and enforce laws, whether laws of the state or of morality. Though he's clearly not against laws or morality, what might be wrong with blindly (or dogmatically) enforcing them? Or of using laws to define the nature of what is "good" or "just"?  

Q4: The allegorical frame story comes full circle at the end when the Prophet finally leaves the city and boards his ship. But he makes a final prophecy: "A little while, and my longing shall gather dust and foam for another body. A little while, a moment of rest upon the wind, and another woman shall bear me." This seems to more than hint that he is going to die, but that he will eventually return, reincarnated. How do you interpret this allegory? How might a "prophet" return among the people over and over again, especially once his voice fades in their ears, and his love vanishes from their memory?