THE FIRST SEVEN YEARS BY BERNARD MALAMUD
Feld, the shoemaker, was annoyed that his helper, Sobel, was so insensitive to his reverie that he wouldn’t for a minute cease his fanatic pounding at the other bench. He gave him a look, but Sobel’s bald head was bent over the last as he worked and he didn’t notice. The shoemaker shrugged and continued to peer through the partly frosted window at near-sighted haze of falling February snow. Neither the shifting white blur outside, nor the sudden deep remembrance of snowy Polish village where he had wasted his youth could turn his thoughts from Max the college boy, (a constant visitor in the mind since early that morning when Feld saw him trudging through the snowdrifts on his way to school) whom he so much respected because of the sacrifices he had made throughout the years – in winter or direst heat – to further his education. An old wish returned to haunt the shoemaker: that he had had a son instead of a daughter, but this blew away in the snow for Feld, if anything, was a practical man. Yet he could not help but contrast the diligence of the boy, who was a peddler’s son, with Miriam’s unconcern for an education. True, she was always with a book in her hand, yet when the opportunity arose for a college education, she had said no she would rather find a job. He had begged her to go, pointing out how many fathers could not afford to send their children to college, but she said she wanted to be independent. As for education, what was it, she asked, but books, which Sobel, who diligently read the classics, would as usual advise her on. Her answer greatly grieved her father. A figure emerged from the snow and the door opened. At the counter the man withdrew from a wet paper bag a pair of battered shoes for repair. Who he was the shoemaker for a moment had no idea, then his heart trembled as he realized, before he had thoroughly discerned the face, that Max himself was standing there, embarrassedly explaining what he wanted done to his old shoes. Though Feld listened eagerly, he couldn’t hear a word, for the opportunity that had burst upon him was deafening. He couldn’t exactly recall when the thought had occurred to him, because it was clear he had more than once considered suggesting to the boy that he go out with Miriam. But he had not dared speak, for if Max said no, how would he face him again? Or suppose Miriam, who harped so often on independence, blew up in anger and shouted at him for his meddling? Still, the chance was too good to let by: all it meant was an introduction. They might long ago have become friends had they happened to meet somewhere, therefore was it not his duty – an obligation – to bring them together, nothing more, a harmless connivance to replace an accidental encounter in the subway, let’s say, or a mutual friend’s introduction in the street? Just let him once see and talk to her and he would for sure be interested. As for Miriam, what possible harm for a working girl in an office, who met only loud-mouthed salesmen and illiterate shipping clerks, to make the acquaintance of a fine scholarly boy? Maybe he would awaken in her a desire to go to college; if not – the shoemaker’s mind at last came to grips with the truth – let her marry and educated man and live a better life. When Max finished describing what he wanted done to his shoes, Feld marked them, both with enormous holes in the soles which he pretended not to notice, with large white-chalk x’s, and the rubber heels, thinned to the nails, he marked with o’s, though it troubled him he might have mixed up the letters. Max inquired the price, and the shoemaker cleared his throat and asked the boy, above Sobel’s insistent hammering, would he please step through the side door there into the hall. Though surprised, Max did as the shoemaker requested, and Feld went in after him. For a minute they were both silent, because Sobel had stopped banging, and it seemed they understood neither was to say anything until the noise began again. When it did, loudly, the shoemaker quickly told Max why he had asked to talk to him. ‘Ever since you went to high school,’ he said, in the dimly-lit hallway, ‘I watched you in the morning go to the subway to school, and I said always to myself, this is a fine boy that he wants so much an education.’ ‘Thanks,’ Max said, nervously alert. He was tall and grotesquely thin, with sharply cut features, particularly a beak-like nose. He was wearing a loose, long slushy overcoat that hung down to his ankles, looking like a rug draped over his bony shoulders, and a soggy, old brown hat, as battered as the shoes he had brought in. ‘I am a business man,’ the shoemaker abruptly said to conceal his embarrassment, ‘so I will explain you right away why I talk to you. I have a girl, my daughter Miriam – she is nineteen – a very nice girl and also so pretty that everybody looks on her when she passes by in the street. She is smart, always with a book, and I thought to myself that a boy like you, and educated boy – I thought maybe you will be interested sometime to meet a girl like this.’ He laughed a bit when he had finished and was tempted to say more but had the good sense not to. Max stared down like a hawk. For an uncomfortable second he was silent, then he asked, ‘Did you say nineteen?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Would it be all right to inquire if you have a picture of her?’ ‘Just a minute.’ The shoemaker went into the store and hastily returned with a snapshot that Max held up to the light. ‘She’s all right,’ he said. Feld waited. ‘And is she sensible – not the flighty kind?’ ‘She is very sensible.’ After another short pause, Max said it was okay with him if he met her. ‘Here is my telephone,’ said the shoemaker, hurriedly handing him a slip of paper. ‘Call her up. She comes home from work six o’clock.’ Max folded the paper and tucked it away into his worn leather wallet. ‘About the shoes,’ he said. ‘How much did you say they will cost me?’ ‘Don’t worry about the price.’ ‘I just like to have an idea.’ ‘A dollar – dollar fifty. A dollar fifty,’ the shoemaker said. At once he felt bad, for he usually charged tow twenty-five for this kind of job. Either he should have asked the regular price or done the work for nothing. Later, as he entered the store, he was startled by a violent clanging and looked up to see Sobel pounding with all his might upon the naked last. It broke, the iron striking the floor and jumping with a thump against the wall, but before the enraged shoemaker could cry out, the assistant had torn his hat and coat from the hook and rushed out in to the snow. So Feld, who had looked forward to anticipating how it would go with his daughter and Max, instead had a great worry on his mind. Without his temperamental helper he was a lost man, especially since it was years now that he had carried the store alone. The shoemaker had for an age suffered from a heart condition that threatened collapse if he dared exert himself. Five years ago, after an attack, it had appeared as though he would have either to sacrifice his business upon the auction block and live on a pittance thereafter, or put himself at the mercy of some unscrupulous employee who would in the end probably ruin him. But just at the moment of his darkest despair, this Polish refugee, Sobel, appeared one night from the street and begged for work. He was a stocky man, poorly dressed, with a bald head that had once been blond, a severely plain face and soft blue eyes prone to tears over the sad books he read, a young man but old – no one would have guessed thirty. Though he confessed he knew nothing of shoemaking, he said he was apt and would work for a very little if Feld taught him the trade. Thinking that with, after all, a landsman, he would have less to fear than from a complete stranger, Feld took him on and within six weeks the refugee rebuilt as good a shoe as he, and not long thereafter expertly ran the business for the thoroughly relieved shoemaker. Feld could trust him with anything and did, frequently going home after an hour or two at the store, leaving all the money in the till, knowing Sobel would guard every cent of it. The amazing thing was that he demanded so little. His wants were few; in money he wasn’t interested – in nothing but books, it seemed – which he one by one lent to Miriam, together with his profuse, queer written comments, manufactured during his lonely rooming house evenings, thick pads of commentary which the shoemaker peered at and twitched his shoulders over as his daughter, from her fourteenth year, read page by sanctified page, as if the word of God were inscribed on them. To protect Sobel, Feld himself had to see that he received more than he asked for. Yet his conscience bothered him for not insisting that the assistant accept a better wage than he was getting, though Feld had honestly told him he could earn a handsome salary if he worked elsewhere, or maybe opened a place of his own. But the assistant answered, somewhat ungraciously, that he was not interested in going elsewhere, and though Feld frequently asked himself what keeps him here? Why does he stay? He finally answered it that the man, no doubt because of his terrible experiences as a refugee, was afraid of the world. After the incident with the broken last, angered by Sobel’s behavior, the shoemaker decided to let him stew for a week in the rooming house, although his own strength was taxed dangerously and the business suffered. However, after several sharp nagging warnings from both his wife and daughter, he went finally in search of Sobel, as he had once before, quite recently, when over some fancied slight – Feld had merely asked him not to give Miriam so many books to read because her eyes were strained and red – the assistant had left the place in a huff, an incident which, as usual, came to nothing for he had returned after the shoemaker had talked to him, and taken his seat at the bench. But this time, after Feld had plodded through the snow to Sobel’s house – he had thought of sending Miriam but the idea became repugnant to him – the burly landlady at the door informed him in a nasal voice that Sobel was not at home, and though Feld knew this was a nasty lie, for where had the refugee to go? Still for some reason he was not completely sure of – it may have been the cold and his fatigue – he decided not to insist on seeing him. Instead he went home and hired a new helper. Having settled the matter, though not entirely to his satisfaction, for he had much more to do than before, and so, for example, could no longer lie late in bed mornings because he had to get up to open the store for the new assistant, a speechless, dark man with an irritating rasp as he worked, whom he would not trust with the key as he had Sobel. Furthermore, this one, though able to do a fair repair job, knew nothing of grades of leather or prices, so Feld had to make his own purchases; and every night at closing time it was necessary to count the money in the till and lock up. However, he was not dissatisfied, for he lived much in his thoughts of Max and Miriam. The college boy had called her, and they had arranged a meeting for this coming Friday night. The shoemaker would personally have preferred Saturday, which he felt would make it a date of the first magnitude, but he learned Friday was Miriam’s choice, so he said nothing. The day of the week did not matter. What mattered was the aftermath. Would they like each other and want to be friends? He sighed at all the time that would have to go by before he knew for sure. Often he was tempted to talk to Miriam about the boy, to ask whether she thought she would like his type – he had told her only that he considered Max a nice boy and had suggested he call her – but the one time he tried she snapped at him – justly – how should she know? At last Friday came. Feld was not feeling particularly well so he stayed in bed, and Mrs. Feld thought it better to remain in the bedroom with him when Max called. Miriam received the boy, and her parents could hear their voices, his throaty one, as they talked. Just before leaving Miriam brought Max to the bedroom door and he stood there a minute, a tall, slightly hunched figure wearing a thick, droopy suit, and apparently at ease as he greeted the shoemaker and his wife, which was surely a good sign. And Miriam, although she had worked all day, looked fresh and pretty. She was a large-framed girl with a well-shaped body, and she had a fine open face and soft hair. They made, Feld thought, a first-class couple. Miriam returned after 11:30. Her mother was already asleep, but the shoemaker got out of bed and after locating his bathrobe went into the kitchen, where Miriam, to his surprise, sat at the table, reading. ‘So where did you go?’ Feld asked pleasantly. ‘For a walk,’ she said, not looking up. ‘I advised him,’ Feld said, clearing his throat, ‘he shouldn’t spend so much money.’ ‘I didn’t care.’ The shoemaker boiled up some water for tea and sat down at the table with a cupful and a thick slice of lemon. ‘So how,’ he sighed after a sip, ‘did you enjoy?’ ‘It was all right.’ He was silent. She must have sensed his disappointment, for she added, ‘You can’t really tell much the first time.’ Turning a page, she said that Max had asked for another date. ‘For when?’ ‘Saturday.’ ‘So what did you say?’ ‘What did I say?’ she asked, delaying for a moment – ‘I said yes.’ Afterwards she inquired about Sobel, and Feld, without exactly knowing why, said the assistant had got another job. Miriam said nothing more and began to read. The shoemaker’s conscience did not trouble him; he was satisfied with the Saturday date. During the week, by placing here and there a deft question, he managed to get from Miriam some information about Max. It surprised him to learn that the boy was not studying to be either a doctor or lawyer but was taking a business course leading to a degree in accountancy. Feld was a little disappointed because he thought of accountants as bookkeepers and would have preferred ‘a higher profession’. However, it was not long before he had investigated the subject and discovered that Certified Public Accountants were highly respected people, so he was thoroughly content as Saturday approached. But because Saturday was a busy day, he was much in the store and therefore did not see Max when he came to call for Miriam. From his wife he learned there had been nothing especially revealing about their meeting. Max had rung the bell and Miriam had got her coat and left with him – nothing more. Feld did not probe, for his wife was not particularly observant. Instead, he waited up for Miriam with a newspaper on his lap, which he scarcely looked at so lost was he in thinking of the future. He awoke to find her in the room with him, tiredly removing her hat. Greeting her, he was suddenly inexplicably afraid to ask anything about the evening. But since she volunteered nothing he was at last forced to inquire how she had enjoyed herself. Miriam began something non-committal but apparently changed her mind, for she said after a minute, ‘I was bored.’ When Feld had sufficiently recovered from his anguished disappointment to ask why, she answered without hesitation, ‘Because he’s nothing more than a materialist.’ ‘What means this word?’ ‘He has no soul. He’s only interested in things.’ He considered her statement for a long time but then asked, ‘Will you see him again?’ ‘He didn’t ask.’ ‘Suppose he will ask you?’ ‘I won’t see him.’ He did not argue; however, as the days went by he hoped increasingly she would change her mind. He wished the boy would telephone, because he was sure there was more to him than Miriam, with her inexperienced eye, could discern. But Max didn’t call. As a matter of fact he took a different route to school, no longer passing the shoemaker’s store, and Feld was deeply hurt. Then one afternoon Max came in and asked for his shoes. The shoemaker took them down from the shelf where he had placed them, apart from the other pairs. He had done the work himself and the soles and heels were well built and firm. The shoes had been highly polished and somehow looked better than new. Max’s Adam’s apple went up once when he saw them, and his eyes had little lights in them. ‘How much?’ he asked, without directly looking at the shoemaker. ‘Like I told you before,’ Feld answered sadly. ‘One dollar fifty cents.’ Max handed him two crumpled bills and received in return a newly-minted silver half dollar. He left. Miriam had not been mentioned. That night the shoemaker discovered that his new assistant had been all the while stealing from him, and he suffered a heart attack. Though the attack was very mild, he lay in bed for three weeks. Miriam spoke of going for Sobel, but sick as he was Feld rose in wrath against the idea. Yet in his heart he knew there was no other way, and the first weary day back in the shop thoroughly convinced him, so that night after supper he dragged himself to Sobel’s rooming house. He toiled up the stairs, though he knew it was bad for him, and at the top knocked at the door. Sobel opened it and the shoemaker entered. The room was a small, poor one, with a single window facing the street. It contained a narrow cot, a low table and several stacks of books piled haphazardly around on the floor along the wall, which made him think how queer Sobel was, to be uneducated and read so much. He had once asked him, Sobel, why you read so much? And the assistant could not answer him. Did you ever study in a college someplace? He had asked, but Sobel shook his head. He read, he said, to know. But to know what, the shoemaker demanded, and to know, why? Sobel never explained, which proved he read much because he was queer. Feld sat down to recover his breath. The assistant was resting on his bed with his heavy back to the wall. His shirt and trousers were clean, and his stubby fingers, away from the shoemaker’s bench, were strangely pallid. His face was thin and pale, as if he had been shut in this room since the day he had bolted from the store. ‘So when you will come back to work?’ Feld asked him. To his surprise, Sobel burst out, ‘Never.’ Jumping up, he strode over to the window that looked out upon the miserable street. ‘Why should I come back?’ he cried. ‘I will raise your wages.’ ‘Who cares for your wages!’ The shoemaker, knowing he didn’t care, was at a loss what else to say. ‘What do you want from me, Sobel?’ ‘Nothing.’ ‘I always treated you like you was my son.’ Sobel vehemently denied it. ‘So why you look for strange boys in the street they should go out with Miriam? Why you don’t think of me?’ The shoemaker’s hands and feet turned freezing cold. His voice became so hoarse he couldn’t speak. At last he cleared his throat and croaked, ‘So what has my daughter got to do with a shoemaker thirty-five years old who works for me?’ ‘Why do you think I worked so long for you?’ Sobel cried out. ‘For the stingy wages I sacrificed five years of my life so you could have to eat and drink and where to sleep?’ ‘Then for what?’ shouted the shoemaker. ‘For Miriam,’ he blurted – ‘for her.’ The shoemaker, after a time, managed to say, ‘I pay wages in cash, Sobel,’ and lapsed into silence. Though he was seething with excitement, his mind was coldly clear, and he had to admit to himself he had sensed all along that Sobel felt this way. He had never so much as thought it consciously, but he had felt it and was afraid. ‘Miriam knows?’ he muttered hoarsely. ‘She knows.’ ‘You told her?’ ‘No.’ ‘Then how does she know?’ ‘How does she know?’ Sobel said, ‘because she knows. She knows who I am and what is in my heart.’ Feld had a sudden insight. In some devious way, with his books and commentary, Sobel had given Miriam to understand that he loved her. The shoemaker felt a terrible anger at him for his deceit. ‘Sobel, you are crazy,’ he said bitterly. ‘She will never marry a man so old and ugly like you.’ Sobel turned black with rage. He cursed the shoemaker, but then, though he trembled to hold it in, his eyes filled with tears and he broke into deep sobs. With his back to Feld, he stood at the window, fists clenched, and his shoulders shook with his choked sobbing. Watching him, the shoemaker’s anger diminished. His teeth were on edge with pity for the man, and his eyes grew moist. How strange and sad that a refugee, a grown man, bald and old with his miseries, who had by the skin of his teeth escaped Hitler’s incinerators, should fall in love, when he had got to America, with a girl less than half his age. Day after day, for five years he had sat at his bench, cutting and hammering away, waiting for the girl to become a woman, unable to ease his heart with speech, knowing no protest but desperation. ‘Ugly I didn’t mean,’ he said half aloud. Then he realized that what he had called ugly was not Sobel but Miriam’s life if she married him. He felt for his daughter a strange and gripping sorrow, as if she were already Sobel’s bride, the wife, after all, of a shoemaker, and had in her life no more than her mother had had. And all his dreams for her – why he had slaved and destroyed his heart with anxiety and labor – all these dreams of a better life were dead. The room was quiet. Sobel was standing by the window reading, and it was curious that when he read he looked young. ‘She is only nineteen,’ Feld said brokenly. ‘This is too young yet to get married. Don’t ask her for two years more, till she is twenty-one, then you can talk to her.’ Sobel didn’t answer. Feld rose and left. He went slowly down the stairs but once outside, though it was an icy night and the crisp falling snow whitened the street, he walked with a stronger stride. But the next morning, when the shoemaker arrived, heavy-hearted, to open the store, he saw he needn’t have come, for his assistant was already seated at the last, pounding leather for his love. 1. Of Malamud's characters--Feld, Sobel, Miriam, and Max--which one most comes to life? Which one can you most easily visualize? 2. Malamud's personages, though American, emerge as foreign in slight traces of mannerisms, speech, and attitudes. Cite two examples of behavior you noticed as 'foreign'. 3. Do you feel your reading of Malamud's short story influences you to observe lives sucha s of these characters sympathetically? What are some examples of people in your life who face the same challenges that these characteres do? 4. (a) What lesson about life does Feld learn from the events that he seeks to control? (b) Do you think it was Malamud's point to present such a lesson to the reader, or is it a byproduct of his observations about Jewish ghetto life after WWII? 5. This story parallels a styory from the book of Genesis in at least two diferent ways. Discuss the most obvious parallels of plot and character; then explore the deeper thematic parallels (don't let factors like age or gender blind you to the deeper issues of choice and desirability).
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THE STORY OF THE FLOOD
‘You know the city Shurrupak, it stands on the banks of Euphrates? That city grew old and the gods that were in it were old. There was Anu,-lord of the firmament, their father, and warrior Enlil their counsellor, Ninurta the helper, and Ennugi watcher over canals; and with them also was Ea. In those days the world teemed, the people multiplied, the world bellowed like a wild bull, and the great god was aroused by the clamour. Enlil heard the clamour and he said to the gods in council, "The uproar of mankind is intolerable and sleep is no longer possible by reason of the babel." So the gods agreed to exterminate mankind. Enlil did this, but Ea because of his oath warned me in a dream. He whispered their words to my house of reeds, "Reed-house, reed-house! Wall, O wall, hearken reed-house, wall reflect; O man of Shurrupak, son of Ubara-Tutu; tear down your house and build a boat, abandon possessions and look for life, despise worldly goods and save your soul alive. Tear down your house, I say, and build a boat. These are the measurements of the barque as you shall build her: let hex beam equal her length, let her deck be roofed like the vault that covers the abyss; then take up into the boat the seed of all living creatures." ‘When 1 had understood I said to my lord, "Behold, what you have commanded I will honour and perform, but how shall I answer the people, the city, the elders?" Then Ea opened his mouth and said to me, his servant, "Tell them this: I have learnt that Enlil is wrathful against me, I dare no longer walk in his land nor live in his city; I will go down to the Gulf to dwell with Ea my lord. But on you he will rain down abundance, rare fish and shy wild-fowl, a rich harvest-tide. In the evening the rider of the storm will bring you wheat in torrents." ‘In the first light of dawn all my household gathered round me, the children brought pitch and the men whatever was necessary. On the fifth day I laid the keel and the ribs, then I made fast the planking. The ground-space was one acre, each side of the deck measured one hundred and twenty cubits, making a square. I built six decks below, seven in all, I divided them into nine sections with bulkheads between. I drove in wedges where needed, I saw to the punt poles, and laid in supplies. The carriers brought oil in baskets, I poured pitch into the furnace and asphalt and oil; more oil was consumed in caulking, and more again the master of the boat took into his stores. I slaughtered bullocks for the people and every day I killed sheep. I gave the shipwrights wine to drink as though it were river water, raw wine and red wine and oil and white wine. There was feasting then as -there is at the time of the New Year's festival; I myself anointed my head. On the seventh day the boat was complete. - ’Then was the launching full of difficulty; there was shifting of ballast above and below till two thirds was submerged. I loaded into her all that 1 had of gold and of living things, my family, my kin, the beast of the field both wild and tame, and all the craftsmen. I sent them on board, for the time that Shamash had ordained was already fulfilled when he said, "in the evening, when the rider of the storm sends down the destroying rain, enter the boat and batten her down." The time was fulfilled, the evening came, the rider of the storm sent down the rain. I looked out at the weather and it was terrible, so I too boarded the boat and battened her down. All was now complete, the battening and the caulking; so I handed the tiller to Puzur-Amurri the steersman, with the navigation and the care of the whole boat. ‘With the first light of dawn a black cloud came from the horizon; it thundered within where Adad, lord of the storm was riding. In front over hill and plain Shullat and Hanish, heralds of the storm, led on. Then the gods of the abyss rose up; Nergal pulled out the dams of the nether waters, Ninurta the war-lord threw down the dykes, and the seven judges of hell, the Annunaki, raised their torches, lighting the land with their livid flame. A stupor of despair went up to heaven when the god of the storm turned daylight to darkness, when he smashed the land like a cup. One whole day the tempest raged, gathering fury as .it went, it poured over the people like the tides of battle; a imam could not see his brother nor the people be seen from heaven. Even the gods were terrified at the flood, they fled to the highest heaven, the firmament of Ann; they crouched against the walls, cowering like curs. Then Ishtar the sweet-voiced Queen of Heaven cried out like a woman in travail: "Alas the days -of old are turned to dust because I commanded evil; why did I command thus evil in the council of all the gods? I commanded wars to destroy the people, but are they not my people, for I brought them forth? Now like the spawn of fish they float in the ocean." The great gods of heaven and of hell wept, they covered their mouths. ‘For six days and six nights the winds blew, torrent and tempest and flood overwhelmed the world, tempest and flood raged together like warring hosts. When the seventh day dawned the storm from the south subsided, the sea grew calm, the, flood was stilled; I looked at the face of the world and there was silence, all mankind was turned to clay. The surface of the sea stretched as flat as a roof-top; 1 opened a hatch and the light fell on my face. Then I bowed low, I sat down and I wept, the tears streamed down my face, for on every side was the waste of water. I looked for land in vain, but fourteen leagues distant there appeared a mountain, and there the boat grounded; on the mountain of Nisir the boat held fast, she held fast and did not budge. One day she held, and -a second day on the mountain of Nisir she held fast and did not budge. A third day, and a fourth day she held fast on the mountain and did not budge; a fifth day and a sixth day she held fast on the mountain. When the seventh day dawned I loosed a dove and let her go. She flew away, but finding no resting-place she returned. Then I loosed a swallow, and she flew away but finding no resting-place she returned. I loosed a raven, she saw that the waters had retreated, she ate, she flew around, she cawed, and she did not come back. Then I threw everything open to the four winds, I made a sacrifice and poured out a libation on the mountain top. Seven and again seven cauldrons I set up on their stands, I heaped up wood and cane and cedar and myrtle. When the gods smelled the sweet savour, they gathered like flies over the sacrifice. Then, at last, Ishtar also came, she lifted her necklace with the jewels of heaven that once Anu had made to please her. "O you gods here present, by the lapis lazuli round my neck I shall remember these days as I remember the jewels of my throat; these last days I shall not forget. Let all the gods gather round the sacrifice, except Enlil. He shall not approach this offering, for without reflection he brought the flood; he consigned my people to destruction." ‘When Enlil had come, when he saw the boat, he was wrath and swelled with anger at the gods, the host of heaven, "Has any of these mortals escaped? Not one was to have survived the destruction." Then the god of the wells and canals Ninurta opened his mouth and said to the warrior Enlil, "Who is there of the gods that can devise without Ea? It is Ea alone who knows all things." Then Ea opened his mouth and spoke to warrior Enlil, "Wisest of gods, hero Enlil, how could you so senselessly bring down the flood? Lay upon the sinner his sin, Lay upon the transgressor his transgression, Punish him a little when he breaks loose, Do not drive him too hard or he perishes, Would that a lion had ravaged mankind Rather than the flood, Would that a wolf had ravaged mankind Rather than the flood, Would that famine had wasted the world Rather than the flood, Would that pestilence had wasted mankind Rather than the flood. It was not I that revealed the secret of the gods; the wise man learned it in a dream. Now take your counsel what shall be done with him." ‘Then Enlil went up into the boat, he took me by the hand and my wife and made us enter the boat and kneel down on either side, he standing between us. He touched our foreheads to bless us saying, "In time past Utnapishtim was a mortal man; henceforth he and his wife shall live in the distance at the mouth of the rivers." Thus it was that the gods took me and placed me here to live in the distance, at the mouth of the rivers.' AP Lit Course Description
Welcome to AP Senior English. This course is designed for high-achieving students who love to read and write. AP Lit differs from AP Language in its focus on fiction, drama, and poetry. After many years, I have got this course just about the way I like it, but I am always experimenting with new activities and material. You can check summer reading lists and view my blog at wheelerhigh.com. I hope this brief overview of the class will give you some idea of what we do. Some texts for this course: Roberts and Zweig — our literature textbook Warriner’s Complete Course — our grammar text Classical Play: Oedipus the King Shakespearean plays — Macbeth and another to be named later 20th-century play — Wit WHAM! The Comic Book Unit -- Watchmen The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay Maus Vol. 1 or Persepolis Vol. 1 BOOM! The End of the World Unit – Endgame The Road Choice of Oryx and Crake / Alas, Babylon / The End of the World News / A Canticle for Liebowitz Truth is Stranger than Fiction Unit Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Phaedrus “Plato’s Pharmakon” Other texts TBA The Senior Project This assignment seems to cause a lot of anxiety, but it should not. Grades on the Senior Project have significantly raised the class average every year. Senior Project documents will be available at wheelerlbrary.com. Grading This course’s grades fall into 6 categories: Formative (30%), Senior Project (25%), Writing (15%), Reading Lit (10%), Vocab & Conventions (5%), Listening/Speaking (5%), and Final Exam (10%). This arrangement is the same for all AP Lit teachers at Wheeler. If there is an SGM, we will deal with that according to county policy. Quizzes will be worth 1 point per question; tests will be worth 3. Formal compositions are worth 100 points. Students may turn them in late at a penalty of 20% as per English Dept. policy. My grade profile is usually half A’s, half B’s, with a handful of lower grades. I do grade updates every week. Student grades are available on Synergy. In matters of grade scale, attendance, and tardies, we will adhere to the policies outlined in the student handbook. Parents should help students understand the importance of complete originality on all written work. Turnitin.com will show plagiarism whether intentional or unintentional. Please feel free to contact me: Jimmy Carter [email protected] www.wheelerhigh.com (click on my name) www.drcsaplit.weebly.com (class blog) College Board Students will register AP Classroom, a new practice resource for the AP Lit test. Students who want to take the AP Lit test in the spring must register at College Board and pay through Total Registration, both of which can be accessed @ wheelerhigh.com. |
AuthorDr. C teaches AP Lit Archives
April 2020
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