Wuthering Heights Essay Prompts
Choose one of the following and be brilliant: Prompt A: In many works of literature, past events can affect, positively or negatively, the present actions, attitudes, or values of a character. In Wuthering Heights, a character must contend with some aspect of the past, either personal or societal. Write an essay in which you show how the character’s relationship to the past contributes to the meaning of the work as a whole. Do not merely summarize the plot. Prompt B: Morally ambiguous characters—characters whose behavior discourages readers from identifying them as purely evil or purely good—are at the heart of many works of literature. Choose a novel or play in which a morally ambiguous character plays a pivotal role. Then write an essay in which you explain how the character can be described as morally ambiguous and why his or her moral ambiguity is significant to the work as a whole. Avoid mere plot summary.
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My Oedipus Complex by Frank O’Connor
Father was in the army all through the war – the first war, I mean – so, up to the age of five, I never saw much of him, and what I saw did not worry me. Sometimes I woke and there was a big figure in khaki peering down at me in the candlelight. Sometimes in the early morning I heard the slamming of the front door and the clatter of nailed boots down the cobbles of the lane. These were Father’s entrances and exits. Like Santa Claus he came and went mysteriously. In fact, I rather liked his visits, though it was an uncomfortable squeeze between Mother and him when I got into the big bed in the early morning. He smoked, which gave him a pleasant musty smell, and shaved, an operation of astounding interest. Each time he left a trail of souvenirs – model tanks and Gurkha knives with handles made of bullet cases, and German helmets and cap badges and button sticks, and all sorts of military equipment – carefully stowed away in a long box on top of the wardrobe, in case they ever came in handy. There was a bit of the magpie about Father; he expected everything to come in handy. When his back was turned, Mother let me get a chair and rummage through his treasures. She didn’t seem to think so highly of them as he did. The war was the most peaceful period of my life. The window of my attic faced southeast. My mother had curtained it, but that had small effect. I always woke with the first light and, with all the responsibilities of the previous day melted, feeling myself rather like the sun, ready to illumine and rejoice. Life never seemed so simple and clear and full of possibilities as then. I put my feet out from under the clothes – I called them Mrs. Left and Mrs. Right – and invented dramatic situations for them in which they discussed the problems of the day. At least Mrs. Right did; she was very demonstrative, but I hadn’t the same control of Mrs. Left, so she mostly contented herself with nodding agreement. They discussed what Mother and I should do during the day, what Santa Claus should give a fellow for Christmas, and what steps should be taken to brighten the home. There was that little matter of the baby, for instance. Mother and I could never agree about that. Ours was the only house in the terrace without a new baby, and Mother said we couldn’t afford one till Father came back from the war because they cost seventeen and six. That showed how simple she was. The Geneys up the road had a baby, and everyone knew they couldn’t afford seventeen and six. It was probably a cheap baby, and Mother wanted something really good, but I felt she was too exclusive. The Geneys’ baby would have done us fine. Having settled my plans for the day, I got up, put a chair under the attic window, and lifted the frame high enough to stick out my head. The window overlooked the front gardens of the terrace behind ours, and beyond these it looked over a deep valley to the tall, red brick houses terraced up the opposite hillside, which were all still in shadow, while those at our side of the valley were all lit up, though with long strange shadows that made them seem unfamiliar; rigid and painted. After that I went into Mother’s room and climbed into the big bed. She woke and I began to tell her of my schemes. By this time, though I never seemed to have noticed it, I was petrified in my nightshirt, and I thawed as I talked until, the last frost melted, I fell asleep beside her and woke again only when I heard her below in the kitchen, making the breakfast. After breakfast we went into town; heard Mass at St. Augustine’s and said a prayer for Father, and did the shopping. If the afternoon was fine we either went for a walk in the country or a visit to Mother’s great friend in the convent, Mother Saint Dominic. Mother had them all praying for Father, and every night, going to bed, I asked God to send him back safe from the war to us. Little, indeed, did I know what I was praying for! One morning, I got into the big bed, and there, sure enough, was Father in his usual Santa Claus manner, but later, instead of uniform, he put on his best blue suit, and Mother was as pleased as anything. I saw nothing to be pleased about, because, out of uniform, Father was altogether less interesting, but she only beamed, and explained that our prayers had been answered, and off we went to Mass to thank God for having brought Father safely home. The irony of it! That very day when he came in to dinner he took off his boots and put on his slippers, donned the dirty old cap he wore about the house to save him from colds, crossed his legs, and began to talk gravely to Mother, who looked anxious. Naturally, I disliked her looking anxious, because it destroyed her good looks, so I interrupted him. "Just a moment, Larry!" she said gently. This was only what she said when we had boring visitors, so I attached no importance to it and went on talking. "Do be quiet, Larry!" she said impatiently. "Don’t you hear me talking to Daddy?" This was the first time I had heard those ominous words, "talking to Daddy," and I couldn’t help feeling that if this was how God answered prayers, he couldn’t listen to them very attentively. "Why are you talking to Daddy?" I asked with as great a show of indifference as I could muster. "Because Daddy and I have business to discuss. Now, don’t interrupt again!" In the afternoon, at Mother’s request, Father took me for a walk. This time we went into town instead of out in the country, and I thought at first, in my usual optimistic way, that it might be an improvement. It was nothing of the sort. Father and I had quite different notions of a walk in town. He had no proper interest in trams, ships, and horses, and the only thing that seemed to divert him was talking to fellows as old as himself. When I wanted to stop he simply went on, dragging me behind him by the hand; when he wanted to stop I had no alternative but to do the same. I noticed that it seemed to be a sign that he wanted to stop for a long time whenever he leaned against a wall. The second time I saw him do it I got wild. He seemed to be settling himself forever. I pulled him by the coat and trousers, but, unlike Mother who, if you were too persistent, got into a wax and said: "Larry, if you don’t behave yourself, I’ll give you a good slap," Father had an extraordinary capacity for amiable inattention. I sized him up and wondered would I cry, but he seemed to be too remote to be annoyed even by that. Really, it was like going for a walk with a mountain! He either ignored the wrenching and pummeling entirely, or else glanced down with a grin of amusement from his peak. I had never met anyone so absorbed in himself as he seemed. At teatime, "talking to Daddy" began again, complicated this time by the fact that he had an evening paper, and every few minutes he put it down and told Mother something new out of it. I felt this was foul play. Man for man, I was prepared to compete with him any time for Mother’s attention, but when he had it all made up for him by other people it left me no chance. Several times I tried to change the subject without success. "You must be quiet while Daddy is reading, Larry," Mother said impatiently. It was clear that she either genuinely liked talking to Father better than talking to me, or else that he had some terrible hold on her which made her afraid to admit the truth. "Mummy," I said that night when she was tucking me up, "do you think if I prayed hard God would send Daddy back to the war?" She seemed to think about that for a moment. "No, dear," she said with a smile. "I don’t think He would." "Why wouldn’t He, Mummy?" "Because there isn’t a war any longer, dear." "But, Mummy, couldn’t God make another war, if He liked?" "He wouldn’t like to, dear. It’s not God who makes wars, but bad people." "Oh!" I said. I was disappointed about that. I began to think that God wasn’t quite what He was cracked up to be. Next morning I woke at my usual hour, feeling like a bottle of champagne. I put out my feet and invented a long conversation in which Mrs. Right talked of the trouble she had with her own father till she put him in the Home. I didn’t quite know what the Home was but it sounded the right place for Father. Then I got my chair and stuck my head out of the attic window. Dawn was just breaking, with a guilty air that made me feel I had caught it in the act. My head bursting with stories and schemes, I stumbled in next door, and in the half-darkness scrambled into the big bed. There was no room at Mother’s side so I had to get between her and Father. For the time being I had forgotten about him, and for several minutes I sat bolt upright, racking my brains to know what I could do with him. He was taking up more than his fair share of the bed, and I couldn’t get comfortable, so I gave him several kicks that made him grunt and stretch. He made room all right, though. Mother waked and felt for me. I settled back comfortably in the warmth of the bed with my thumb in my mouth. "Mummy!" I hummed, loudly and contentedly. "Sssh! dear," she whispered. "Don’t wake Daddy!" This was a new development, which threatened to be even more serious than "talking to Daddy." Life without my early-morning conferences was unthinkable. "Why?" I asked severely. "Because poor Daddy is tired." This seemed to me a quite inadequate reason, and I was sickened by the sentimentality of her "poor Daddy." I never liked that sort of gush; it always struck me as insincere. "Oh!" I said lightly. Then in my most winning tone: "Do you know where I want to go with you today, Mummy?" "No, dear," she sighed. "I want to go down the Glen and fish for thornybacks with my new net, and then I want to go out to the Fox and Hounds, and –" "Don’t-wake-Daddy!" she hissed angrily, clapping her hand across my mouth. But it was too late. He was awake, or nearly so. He grunted and reached for the matches. Then he stared incredulously at his watch. "Like a cup of tea, dear?" asked Mother in a meek, hushed voice I had never heard her use before. It sounded almost as though she were afraid. "Tea?" he exclaimed indignantly. "Do you know what the time is?" "And after that I want to go up the Rathcooney Road," I said loudly, afraid I’d forget something in all those interruptions. "Go to sleep at once, Larry!" she said sharply. I began to snivel. I couldn’t concentrate, the way that pair went on, and smothering my early-morning schemes was like burying a family from the cradle. Father said nothing, but lit his pipe and sucked it, looking out into the shadows without minding Mother or me. I knew he was mad. Every time I made a remark Mother hushed me irritably. I was mortified. I felt it wasn’t fair; there was even something sinister in it. Every time I had pointed out to her the waste of making two beds when we could both sleep in one, she had told me it was healthier like that, and now here was this man, this stranger, sleeping with her without the least regard for her health! He got up early and made tea, but though he brought Mother a cup he brought none for me. "Mummy," I shouted, "I want a cup of tea, too." "Yes, dear," she said patiently. "You can drink from Mummy’s saucer." That settled it. Either Father or I would have to leave the house. I didn’t want to drink from Mother’s saucer; I wanted to be treated as an equal in my own home, so, just to spite her, I drank it all and left none for her. She took that quietly, too. But that night when she was putting me to bed she said gently: "Larry, I want you to promise me something." "What is it?" I asked. "Not to come in and disturb poor Daddy in the morning. Promise?" "Poor Daddy" again! I was becoming suspicious of everything involving that quite impossible man. "Why?" I asked. "Because poor Daddy is worried and tired and he doesn’t sleep well." "Why doesn’t he, Mummy?" "Well, you know, don’t you, that while he was at the war Mummy got the pennies from the post office?" "From Miss MacCarthy?" "That’s right. But now, you see, Miss MacCarthy hasn’t any more pennies, so Daddy must go out and find us some. You know what would happen if he couldn’t?" "No," I said, "tell us." "Well, I think we might have to go out and beg for them like the poor old woman on Fridays. We wouldn’t like that, would we?" "No," I agreed. "We wouldn’t." "So you’ll promise not to come in and wake him?" "Promise." Mind you, I meant that. I knew pennies were a serious matter, and I was all against having to go out and beg like the old woman on Fridays. Mother laid out all my toys in a complete ring round the bed so that, whatever way I got out, I was bound to fall over one of them. When I woke I remembered my promise all right. I got up and sat on the floor and played – for hours, it seemed to me. Then I got my chair and looked out the attic window for more hours. I wished it was time for Father to wake; I wished someone would make me a cup of tea. I didn’t feel in the least like the sun; instead, I was bored and so very, very cold! I simply longed for the warmth and depth of the big feather bed. At last I could stand it no longer. I went into the next room. As there was still no room at Mother’s side I climbed over her and she woke with a start. "Larry," she whispered, gripping my arm very tightly, "what did you promise?" "But I did, Mummy," I wailed, caught in the very act. "I was quiet for ever so long." "Oh, dear, and you’re perished!" she said sadly, feeling me all over. "Now, if I let you stay will you promise not to talk?" "But I want to talk, Mummy," I wailed. "That has nothing to do with it," she said with a firmness that was new to me. "Daddy wants to sleep. Now, do you understand that?" I understood it only too well. I wanted to talk, he wanted to sleep – whose house was it, anyway? "Mummy," I said with equal firmness, "I think it would be healthier for Daddy to sleep in his own bed." That seemed to stagger her, because she said nothing for a while. "Now, once for all," she went on, "you’re to be perfectly quiet or go back to your own bed. Which is it to be?" The injustice of it got me down. I had convicted her out of her own mouth of inconsistency and unreasonableness, and she hadn’t even attempted to reply. Full of spite, I gave Father a kick, which she didn’t notice but which made him grunt and open his eyes in alarm. "What time is it?" he asked in a panic-stricken voice, not looking at Mother but at the door, as if he saw someone there. "It’s early yet," she replied soothingly. "It’s only the child. Go to sleep again.... Now, Larry," she added, getting out of bed, "you’ve wakened Daddy and you must go back." This time, for all her quiet air, I knew she meant it, and knew that my principal rights and privileges were as good as lost unless I asserted them at once. As she lifted me, I gave a screech, enough to wake the dead, not to mind Father. He groaned. "That damn child! Doesn’t he ever sleep?" "It’s only a habit, dear," she said quietly, though I could see she was vexed. "Well, it’s time he got out of it," shouted Father, beginning to heave in the bed. He suddenly gathered all the bedclothes about him, turned to the wall, and then looked back over his shoulder with nothing showing only two small, spiteful, dark eyes. The man looked very wicked. To open the bedroom door, Mother had to let me down, and I broke free and dashed for the farthest corner, screeching. Father sat bolt upright in bed. "Shut up, you little puppy," he said in a choking voice. I was so astonished that I stopped screeching. Never, never had anyone spoken to me in that tone before. I looked at him incredulously and saw his face convulsed with rage. It was only then that I fully realized how God had codded me, listening to my prayers for the safe return of this monster. "Shut up, you!" I bawled, beside myself. "What’s that you said?" shouted Father, making a wild leap out of the bed. "Mick, Mick!" cried Mother. "Don’t you see the child isn’t used to you?" "I see he’s better fed than taught," snarled Father, waving his arms wildly. "He wants his bottom smacked." All his previous shouting was as nothing to these obscene words referring to my person. They really made my blood boil. "Smack your own!" I screamed hysterically. "Smack your own! Shut up! Shut up!" At this he lost his patience and let fly at me. He did it with the lack of conviction you’d expect of a man under Mother’s horrified eyes, and it ended up as a mere tap, but the sheer indignity of being struck at all by a stranger, a total stranger who had cajoled his way back from the war into our big bed as a result of my innocent intercession, made me completely dotty. I shrieked and shrieked, and danced in my bare feet, and Father, looking awkward and hairy in nothing but a short gray army shirt, glared down at me like a mountain out for murder. I think it must have been then that I realized he was jealous too. And there stood Mother in her nightdress, looking as if her heart was broken between us. I hoped she felt as she looked. It seemed to me that she deserved it all. From that morning out my life was a hell. Father and I were enemies, open and avowed. We conducted a series of skirmishes against one another, he trying to steal my time with Mother and I his. When she was sitting on my bed, telling me a story, he took to looking for some pair of old boots which he alleged he had left behind him at the beginning of the war. While he talked to Mother I played loudly with my toys to show my total lack of concern. He created a terrible scene one evening when he came in from work and found me at his box, playing with his regimental badges, Gurkha knives and button sticks. Mother got up and took the box from me. "You mustn’t play with Daddy’s toys unless he lets you, Larry," she said severely. "Daddy doesn’t play with yours." For some reason Father looked at her as if she had struck him and then turned away with a scowl. "Those are not toys," he growled, taking down the box again to see had I lifted anything. "Some of those curios are very rare and valuable." But as time went on I saw more and more how he managed to alienate Mother and me. What made it worse was that I couldn’t grasp his method or see what attraction he had for Mother. In every possible way he was less winning than I. He had a common accent and made noises at his tea. I thought for a while that it might be the newspapers she was interested in, so I made up bits of news of my own to read to her. Then I thought it might be the smoking, which I personally thought attractive, and took his pipes and went round the house dribbling into them till he caught me. I even made noises at my tea, but Mother only told me I was disgusting. It all seemed to hinge round that unhealthy habit of sleeping together, so I made a point of dropping into their bedroom and nosing round, talking to myself, so that they wouldn’t know I was watching them, but they were never up to anything that I could see. In the end it beat me. It seemed to depend on being grown-up and giving people rings, and I realized I’d have to wait. But at the same time I wanted him to see that I was only waiting, not giving up the fight. One evening when he was being particularly obnoxious, chattering away well above my head, I let him have it. "Mummy," I said, "do you know what I’m going to do when I grow up?" "No, dear," she replied. "What?" "I’m going to marry you," I said quietly. Father gave a great guffaw out of him, but he didn’t take me in. I knew it must only be pretence. And Mother, in spite of everything, was pleased. I felt she was probably relieved to know that one day Father’s hold on her would be broken. "Won’t that be nice?" she said with a smile. "It’ll be very nice," I said confidently. "Because we’re going to have lots and lots of babies." "That’s right, dear," she said placidly. "I think we’ll have one soon, and then you’ll have plenty of company." I was no end pleased about that because it showed that in spite of the way she gave in to Father she still considered my wishes. Besides, it would put the Geneys in their place. It didn’t turn out like that, though. To begin with, she was very preoccupied – I supposed about where she would get the seventeen and six – and though Father took to staying out late in the evenings it did me no particular good. She stopped taking me for walks, became as touchy as blazes, and smacked me for nothing at all. Sometimes I wished I’d never mentioned the confounded baby – I seemed to have a genius for bringing calamity on myself. And calamity it was! Sonny arrived in the most appalling hulla-baloo – even that much he couldn’t do without a fuss – and from the first moment I disliked him. He was a difficult child – so far as I was concerned he was always difficult – and demanded far too much attention. Mother was simply silly about him, and couldn’t see when he was only showing off. As company he was worse than useless. He slept all day, and I had to go round the house on tiptoe to avoid waking him. It wasn’t any longer a question of not waking Father. The slogan now was "Don’t-wake-Sonny!" I couldn’t understand why the child wouldn’t sleep at the proper time, so whenever Mother’s back was turned I woke him. Sometimes to keep him awake I pinched him as well. Mother caught me at it one day and gave me a most unmerciful flaking. One evening, when Father was coming in from work, I was playing trains in the front garden. I let on not to notice him; instead, I pretended to be talking to myself, and said in a loud voice: "If another bloody baby comes into this house, I’m going out." Father stopped dead and looked at me over his shoulder. "What’s that you said?" he asked sternly. ""I was only talking to myself," I replied, trying to conceal my panic. "It’s private." He turned and went in without a word. Mind you, I intended it as a solemn warning, but its effect was quite different. Father started being quite nice to me. I could understand that, of course. Mother was quite sickening about Sonny. Even at mealtimes she’d get up and gawk at him in the cradle with an idiotic smile, and tell Father to do the same. He was always polite about it, but he looked so puzzled you could see he didn’t know what she was talking about. He complained of the way Sonny cried at night, but she only got cross and said that Sonny never cried except when there was something up with him – which was a flaming lie, because Sonny never had anything up with him, and only cried for attention. It was really painful to see how simpleminded she was. Father wasn’t attractive, but he had a fine intelligence. He saw through Sonny, and now he knew that I saw through him as well. One night I woke with a start. There was someone beside me in the bed. For one wild moment I felt sure it must be Mother, having come to her senses and left Father for good, but then I heard Sonny in convulsions in the next room, and Mother saying: "There! There! There!" and I knew it wasn’t she. It was Father. He was lying beside me, wide-awake, breathing hard and apparently as mad as hell. After a while it came to me what he was mad about. It was his turn now. After turning me out of the big bed, he had been turned out himself. Mother had no consideration now for anyone but that poisonous pup, Sonny. I couldn’t help feeling sorry for Father. I had been through it all myself, and even at that age I was magnanimous. I began to stroke him down and say: "There! There!" He wasn’t exactly responsive. "Aren’t you asleep either?" he snarled. "Ah, come on and put your arm around us, can’t you?" I said, and he did, in a sort of way. Gingerly, I suppose, is how you’d describe it. He was very bony but better than nothing. At Christmas he went out of his way to buy me a really nice model railway. 1. What do you think of the story’s young narrator? At what point could you determine his age? 2. At one point in the story, Larry realizes that he and his father are conducting “a series of skirmishes against one another; nhe was trying to steal my time with Mother and I his.” What details justify Larry’s confusion that his father is really jealous of him? 3. What event finally resolves the conflict between Larry and his father? 4. What is the dramatic irony in Larry’s remarks about the cost of a baby? Find and explain one additional example of dramatic irony in Larry’s comments about sharing his mother with his father? 5. How would you state the theme of the story? Oedipus the King Study Questions
1/3 (Parodos - Ode 1)
2/3 (Scene 2 - Ode 3) 1. (a) Why does Oedipus distrust Kreon? (b) How does Kreon try to prove that he has no interest in being king of Thebes? 2. In terms of plot, what is significant about the exact time when Oedipus comes to the crossroad where he kills the people in the carriage 3. (a) What reasons does Iokaste give for not having faith in prophecy? (b) In terms of their approach to destiny, what do Iokaste and Oedipus have in common? 4. What role does the Chorus play in heightening the dramatic tension of the play?
3/3 (Scene 4 - Exodos)
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). 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. So what she would love, for tonight? Was getting the pup sold, putting the kids to bed early, and then, Jimmy seeing her as all organized in terms of the pup, they could mess around and afterward lie there making plans, and he could do that laugh/snort thing in her hair again.
Why that laugh/snort meant so much to her she had no freaking idea. It was just one of the weird things about the Wonder That Was Her, ha ha ha. Outside, Bo hopped to his feet, suddenly curious, because (here we go) the lady who’d called had just pulled up? Yep, and in a nice car, too, which meant too bad she’d put “Cheap” in the ad. Abbie squealed, “I love it, Mommy, I want it!,” as the puppy looked up dimly from its shoebox and the lady of the house went trudging away and one-two-three-four plucked up four dog turds from the rug. Well, wow, what a super field trip for the kids, Marie thought, ha ha (the filth, the mildew smell, the dry aquarium holding the single encyclopedia volume, the pasta pot on the bookshelf with an inflatable candy cane inexplicably sticking out of it), and although some might have been disgusted (by the spare tire on the dining-room table, by the way the glum mother dog, the presumed in-house pooper, was dragging its rear over the pile of clothing in the corner, in a sitting position, splay-legged, a moronic look of pleasure on her face), Marie realized (resisting the urge to rush to the sink and wash her hands, in part because the sink had a basketball in it) that what this really was was deeply sad. Please do not touch anything, please do not touch, she said to Josh and Abbie, but just in her head, wanting to give the children a chance to observe her being democratic and accepting, and afterward they could all wash up at the half-remodelled McDonald’s, as long as they just please please kept their hands out of their mouths, and God forbid they should rub their eyes. The phone rang, and the lady of the house plodded into the kitchen, placing the daintily held, paper-towel-wrapped turds on the counter. “Mommy, I want it,” Abbie said. “I will definitely walk him like twice a day,” Josh said. “Don’t say ‘like,’ ” Marie said. “I will definitely walk him twice a day,” Josh said. O.K., then, all right, they would adopt a white-trash dog. Ha ha. They could name it Zeke, buy it a little corncob pipe and a straw hat. She imagined the puppy, having crapped on the rug, looking up at her, going, Cain’t hep it. But no. Had she come from a perfect place? Everything was transmutable. She imagined the puppy grown up, entertaining some friends, speaking to them in a British accent: My family of origin was, um, rather not, shall we say, of the most respectable . . . Ha ha, wow, the mind was amazing, always cranking out these-- Marie stepped to the window and, anthropologically pulling the blind aside, was shocked, so shocked that she dropped the blind and shook her head, as if trying to wake herself, shocked to see a young boy, just a few years younger than Josh, harnessed and chained to a tree, via some sort of doohickey by which—she pulled the blind back again, sure she could not have seen what she thought she had-- When the boy ran, the chain spooled out. He was running now, looking back at her, showing off. When he reached the end of the chain, it jerked and he dropped as if shot. He rose to a sitting position, railed against the chain, whipped it back and forth, crawled to a bowl of water, and, lifting it to his lips, took a drink: a drink from a dog’s bowl. Josh joined her at the window. She let him look. He should know that the world was not all lessons and iguanas and Nintendo. It was also this muddy simple boy tethered like an animal. She remembered coming out of the closet to find her mother’s scattered lingerie and the ditchdigger’s metal hanger full of orange flags. She remembered waiting outside the junior high in the bitter cold, the snow falling harder, as she counted over and over to two hundred, promising herself each time that when she reached two hundred she would begin the long walk back-- God, she would have killed for just one righteous adult to confront her mother, shake her, and say, “You idiot, this is your child, your child you’re—” “So what were you guys thinking of naming him?” the woman said, coming out of the kitchen. The cruelty and ignorance just radiated from her fat face, with its little smear of lipstick. “I’m afraid we won’t be taking him after all,” Marie said coldly. Such an uproar from Abbie! But Josh—she would have to praise him later, maybe buy him the Italian Loaves Expansion Pak—hissed something to Abbie, and then they were moving out through the trashed kitchen (past some kind of crankshaft on a cookie sheet, past a partial red pepper afloat in a can of green paint) while the lady of the house scuttled after them, saying, wait, wait, they could have it for free, please take it—she really wanted them to have it. No, Marie said, it would not be possible for them to take it at this time, her feeling being that one really shouldn’t possess something if one wasn’t up to properly caring for it. “Oh,” the woman said, slumping in the doorway, the scrambling pup on one shoulder. Out in the Lexus, Abbie began to cry softly, saying, “Really, that was the perfect pup for me.” And it was a nice pup, but Marie was not going to contribute to a situation like this in even the smallest way. Simply was not going to do it. The boy came to the fence. If only she could have said to him, with a single look, Life will not necessarily always be like this. Your life could suddenly blossom into something wonderful. It can happen. It happened to me. But secret looks, looks that conveyed a world of meaning with their subtle blah blah blah—that was all bullshit. What was not bullshit was a call to Child Welfare, where she knew Linda Berling, a very no-nonsense lady who would snatch this poor kid away so fast it would make that fat mother’s thick head spin. Callie shouted, “Bo, back in a sec!,” and, swiping the corn out of the way with her non-pup arm, walked until there was nothing but corn and sky. It was so small it didn’t move when she set it down, just sniffed and tumped over. Well, what did it matter, drowned in a bag or starved in the corn? This way Jimmy wouldn’t have to do it. He had enough to worry about. The boy she’d first met with hair to his waist was now this old man shrunk with worry. As far as the money, she had sixty hidden away. She’d give him twenty of that and go, “The people who bought the pup were super-nice.” Don’t look back, don’t look back, she said in her head as she raced away through the corn. Then she was walking along Teallback Road like a sportwalker, like some lady who walked every night to get slim, except that she was nowhere near slim, she knew that, and she also knew that when sportwalking you did not wear jeans and unlaced hiking boots. Ha ha! She wasn’t stupid. She just made bad choices. She remembered Sister Carol saying, “Callie, you are bright enough but you incline toward that which does not benefit you.” Yep, well, Sister, you got that right, she said to the nun in her mind. But what the hell. What the heck. When things got easier moneywise, she’d get some decent tennis shoes and start walking and get slim. And start night school. Slimmer. Maybe medical technology. She was never going to be really slim. But Jimmy liked her the way she was, and she liked him the way he was, which maybe that’s what love was, liking someone how he was and doing things to help him get even better. Like right now she was helping Jimmy by making his life easier by killing something so he—no. All she was doing was walking, walking away from-- Pushing the words killing puppy out of her head, she put in her head the words beautiful sunny day wow I’m loving this beautiful sunny day so much-- What had she just said? That had been good. Love was liking someone how he was and doing things to help him get better. Like Bo wasn’t perfect, but she loved him how he was and tried to help him get better. If they could keep him safe, maybe he’d mellow out as he got older. If he mellowed out, maybe he could someday have a family. Like there he was now in the yard, sitting quietly, looking at flowers. Tapping with his bat, happy enough. He looked up, waved the bat at her, gave her that smile. Yesterday he’d been stuck in the house, all miserable. He’d ended the day screaming in bed, so frustrated. Today he was looking at flowers. Who was it that thought up that idea, the idea that had made today better than yesterday? Who loved him enough to think that up? Who loved him more than anyone else in the world loved him? Her. She did. ♦ |
AuthorDr. C teaches AP Lit Archives
April 2020
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