For Wednesday: Okorafor, Binti, pp. 9-56

 “All fiction is metaphor.  Science fiction is metaphor.  What sets it apart from older forms of fiction seems to be its use of metaphors, drawn from certain great dominants of our contemporary life" (Ursula K. Le Guin)

Answer TWO of the following:  

Q1: Binti goes the Oomza Uni against her parents’ wishes, as her mother tells her, “There is a reason why our people do not go to that university…You go to that school and you become its slave” (14). What do you think she means by that, and how might it explain why she’s the first person of her tribe to study there?

Q2: Somewhat related to the above, Binti tells us that the Himba “prefer to explore the universe by traveling inward, as opposed to outward” (21). How might this explain her family’s occupation, and why she was chosen to study there in the first place? (also, what other book in class does this statement remind you of??)

Q3: What is the significance of the otjitze, and why is it such a precious commodity to Binti? And why, when the Meduse wants some of it, does she reflect, “I couldn’t give all my otjitze to this Meduse; this was my culture” (49)?

Q4: How might the humans vs. Meduse conflict in the book be a uniquely science-fiction metaphor for some aspect of our own world and its conflicts? Remember that, as we discussed in class on Monday, all science fiction is metaphor…the future, space, aliens, and technology, are all different perspectives of looking at our own world. Why do you think she chose to examine it like this?

For Wednesday: Narayan, The Ramayana, Chapters 6-9

NOTE: These will be our last set of Ramayana questions; we'll have our next writing exam on Friday, which will cover the last few chapters (they're pretty short). 

Answer TWO of the following: 

Q1: There’s a famous passage from The Bhagavad Gita which reads, “work which is done with a confused mind, without considering what may follow, or one’s own powers, or the harm done to others, or one’s own loss, is a work of darkness.” How might this passage illustrate a specific passage in Chs.5-7? In other words, how might we read The Ramayana as a specifically religious text where the plot/characters are merely illustrating spiritual values?

Q2: When Rama attacks Vali from behind a bush, delivering a fatal blow, Vali asks, “When strong men commit crimes, they become heroic deeds?” (101). How does Rama defend himself against claims of injustice against Vali and a betrayal of his own code? Has he committed a selfish act, one based on “impure knowledge”? Or is Vali’s way of understanding this act limited?

Q3: How might the character of Hanuman—though a monkey—embody many key Hindu beliefs about individual identity and duty? ALSO, why might we look on him as the true hero (in the more Western sense) of the epic? Note, too, that in some versions of the poem, Hanuman is almost as important as Rama!

Q4: In Chapter 9, Ravana’s youngest brother urges Ravana to see through the illusion of men and monkeys, and so realize that the gods are tricking him. The best thing he can do is to “release the goddess you have imprisoned. And that will prove to be the most meritorious achievement of your career” (127). Why do you think releasing Sita would be seen as “meritorious” or even “good,” considering all the evil he’s already committed? Why does one good deed wash away all his previous sins—and even more, overshadow all of his previous achievements?

For Monday (after break): Narayan, The Ramayana, Chapters 3-5

NOTE: The Critical Paper assignment is in the post below this one.

Answer TWO of the following:

Q1: Narayan is not an academic writer, but a novelist who is considered the “grandfather of the India novel.” Because of this, he’s having some fun with his adaptation of the great epic, rather than striving for a strict, no-nonsense translation. This allows him more latitude to interpret the story and add his own interpolations and glosses. Where does he do this in Chs. 3 and 4, and how does it add to the story—esp. for a modern Western audience?

Q2: In Chapter 3, Rama claims that “A word given is like an arrow, it goes forward. You cannot recall it midway” (54). What situation is he responding to here, and how does this underline the fundamental concept of dharma (which translates to “the essential order of things, an integrity and harmony in the universe and in the affairs of life that cannot be disturbed without courting chaos”)? 

Q3: What role do women seem to play in The Ramayana? From Sita, to Kayeki, to the demon Soorpanaka, they all share certain characteristics and emerge as very distinct characters (maybe more so than the men). As Western readers, do we read these portrayals as somewhat misogynist (anti-women)? Or are they merely playing the roles required of them in this culture? Do they relate at all to other women in the myths of Western tradition (Circe, Penelope, Calypso, etc.)?

Q4: In Chapter 5, Narayan writes, “The fates were at work and this was to be a crucial moment in their lives. Normally, Rama would have questioned Sita’s fancy, but today he blindly accepted her demand” (82). How should we read this passage? Did the gods intervene and make Rama “weak,” or is this Rama’s humanity showing through? Can everything in the book be explained away by karma?

Critical Paper #1: Heroes and Monsters (due April 1st!--no joke!)

“There really is no Western counterpart in either the Hellenic or Hebraic tradition to the influence that this originally secular story, transmitted orally through many centuries, has exerted over millions of people…The Ramayana continues to have a profound emotional and psychological resonance for Indians” (Pankaj Mishra, Introduction to Narayan’s The Ramayana)

INTRO: The stories in both Narayan’s version of The Ramayana and Hearn’s Japanese Ghost Stories are relatively familiar stories of heroes and monsters, which we can find in hundreds of movies and comic books. And yet these stories have survived their historical moment and have literally become myths: they are told and re-told in books, films, TV shows, comic books, etc. The heroes of these tales, such as Rama and Hanuman, have become cultural heroes and religious figures in their own right. And the monsters, such as Jinniki and Yuki-Onna, have terrorized entire generations of children too scared to go to sleep. They are like Mt. Fuji or the Taj Mahal—a living embodiment of the culture and all who speak its language.

PROMPT: For this paper, I want you to examine a work of art that you feel is primed to make the jump from fiction to myth in our own society. This work of art should be something MODERN, meaning within the last 50 years. However, it can be anything from a book, a movie, a TV series, a band, etc., but it should be something that has a significant fan base and has characters that are known outside the work itself. Why do you think this work could become a myth? What elements of the characters and the story propel it beyond mere entertainment? When did people start to notice it? Was it always popular, or did some event or re-telling of the story make it transform into something immortal? Also, why did it start here, for example, and not somewhere else; what does it say about our notions of heroes and villains?

REMEMBER: Be sure to relate it to one or both of the works in class, and discuss how your might follow in the example of Rama or another hero in the epic; or, how your villain might be as horrific and uncanny as some of the monsters in Hearn’s stories. If Hearn and Narayan offer the blueprint for literary mythmaking, how might your work be following the prototype?

REQUIREMENTS

• No page limit: that’s up to you. But do your best work rather than the bare minimum. I’ll grade this one a bit harder than your Group Project, since this is all about you (and you can revise it, too).
• Discuss ONE significant work from the last 50 years that you feel is making the jump from entertainment to mythology
• Discuss and QUOTE from one or both works in class to show how it might share many of the same thumbprints of the previous works
• DUE FRIDAY, APRIL 1^st BY 5pm (no class that day: go to the Scissortail Creative Writing Festival instead!)

For Friday: Narayan, The Ramayana, Prologue-Chapter 2

NOTE: In the event that class is cancelled for snow on Friday, we'll pick this up the week after Spring Break. But do try to read it sooner rather than later--and hopefully, for Friday's class! 

Answer TWO of the following:

Q1: What makes Rama a unique hero even within the context of superhuman heroes like Achilles or Hercules? While all are somewhat divine,  how does Rama’s origin make him unique among Western heroes—and difficult to translate into our world/stories? Is it even fair to call him a hero given his unusual pedigree?

Q2: On page 16, Ganga explains to Rama that “Even after the participants have vanished, every inch of earth still retains the impress of all that has gone before. We attain a full understanding only when we are aware of the divine and other associations of every piece of ground we tread on.” Why might this be an important idea in this work, given what you've read so far? 

Q3: The Ramayana places a strong emphasis on duty or dharma, which can be translated as “the essential order of things, an integrity and harmony in the universe and in the affairs of life that cannot be disturbed without courting chaos. Thus it means rightness, justice, goodness, purpose” (Easwaran). Part of dharma is doing one’s duty and keeping’s one word at all costs. How does the story (so far) dramatize the struggle of doing one’s duty and obeying one’s station in life, even when to do so might otherwise seem ‘wrong’? Why is this notion of duty particularly tricky for Western readers?

Q4: Another often-translated Hindu concept is that of karma, which “can be translated as deed or action. The law of karma states that every event it both a cause and an effect. Every act has consequences…and every act, every karma, is also the consequence of some previous karma” (Easwaran). Related to question 3, how does the work dramatize the concept of karma in action? What characters are punished or rewarded according to their karma? Why might this, too, be a difficult concept for Western readers to grasp or appreciate? 

 

For Monday: Hearn, Japanese Ghost Stories & Writing Exam #3

For Monday's class, read the following stories and be sure there's one or two you feel comfortable using to answer Monday's exam response (oh, and bring your book, as always!). 

The Stories: 

* The Story of Mimi-Nashi-Hoichi (another story used in Kwaidan, one that we didn't watch in class; 139-148)

* Mujina (154-155)

* Rokuro-Kubi (156-166)

* Yuki-Onna (the "Woman of the Snows" from Kwaidan: 167-170)

* The Story of Aoyagi (171-179)

* The Dream of Akinosuke (180-185)

Enjoy! See you next week...

For Friday: Hearn, Japanese Ghost Stories, pp.69-125

Remember, you don't have to read every last story in this section, but read as many as you can. If one doesn't seem to grab you, try the next one. But be sure to read several so you get enough variety in the stories, since each one gives insight into different aspects of Japanese culture. 

Answer TWO of the following:

Q1: Why do you think so many of these ghost stories are about love? We talked about this briefly in class on Wednesday, but it seems to be an unique and even obsessive quality of Japanese ghost stories. Why might love be a somewhat taboo subject for the culture (given what we see in these stories), and why might it also be a "fear" of the culture at large? Related to this, why does love seem to haunt so many people in these stories, notably the samurai in "The Reconciliation" (another story that was filmed for Kwaidan). 

Q2: Why do so many of the stories break off before we get a proper conclusion or a sense of what "really happens"? Consider the story "The Corpse Rider," where even the narrator admits, "The conclusion of this story I do not think to be morally satisfying" (78). Why does Hearn write these endings, when he could have easily made them more "morally satisfying"?

Q3: Since the Japanese at this time don't believe in death as a final event or judgement, but merely one of many deaths, how does that change the "fear" of death? What makes the dead scarier (or scarier in a different way) than they would be for us? Or, to ask the question in another way, why might death be much more real for them that it is for us? 

Q4: How does the story "In a Cup of Tea" (p.122) compare to the film version we watched in class (the second story from Kwaidan)? Did the story try to explain or give special insight into the characters and events from the story? Or are they both equally mysterious and uncanny?