Magwitch materializes

Look over chapter 39 once more, with special attention to the atmospheric way Dickens sets the scene for the dramatic re-entry of the convict and the revelation of the source of Pip's expectations. Like a theatrical director he orchestrates sights, sounds and lighting to create the utmost tension and foreboding in the reader as well as his protagonist.

For this blog, consider Dickens the writer as much as you do his story. This is the last chapter of part two, and most certainly comprised an installment of the serialized novel. The stakes were high, therefore, and he rose to the occasion. Don't indulge in an orgy of flattery, but comment on what most strikes you about the opening 30 paragraphs or so of the chapter leading up to Pip's realization: diction, tone, pacing, etc.

October 22nd post: The two Christmas dinners

Re-read the passage in Chapter III that describes the convict eating his dinner from the paragraph that begins “I was soon at the battery…” through the paragraph that begins “I had often watched a large dog of ours eating his food…”.

Contrast this picture of the convict’s repast to the Chapter IV account of the Gargery family’s Christmas dinner with Uncle Pumblechook, Mr. Wopsle, and the Hubbles—from the paragraph that begins “We were to have a superb dinner…” to the end of the chapter, when the anticipation builds for Pumblechook’s pork pie (and Pip's dread builds with it). What ironies—among other things—can you find?

Essay Prompts for Friday, October 16th

Here are a pair of prompts for Friday. You may take your choice of either:

According to critic Northrop Frye, “Tragic heroes are so much the highest points in their human landscape that they seem the inevitable conductors of the power about them, great trees more likely to be struck by lightning than a clump of grass. Conductors may of course be instruments as well as victims of the divine lightning. Show how Oedipus, as a tragic hero, functions as an instrument of the suffering of others as well as himself and how this suffering contributes to the tragic vision of the work as a whole.

Over the entrance to the temple at Delphi are inscribed these words: “Know thyself.” Defend the statement that Oedipus is a classic example of the man whose central problem is that he does not know himself.

The ground rules are these: you may use as resources the text any notes you've made, and any or all of the critical essays we've studied. If you wish to use the time before Friday to outline an essay, by all means do so.

A word of warning: use only the resources you need—don't clutter your mind with too much stuff. The play itself is the one essential source.

Response to essays

By now you should have read the two essays on Oedipus Tyrannus by S.M. Adams and Robert Cohen. They do not align with each other in many respects: Cohen has a point to make about the relevancy of Sophocles's work to the 20th century concept of absurdism. His reference to Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot makes clear his familiarity with what came to be known as the Theatre of the Absurd, a post WWII phenomenon of plays written by (says Encyclopedia Britannica)…

"…certain European and American dramatists of the 1950s and early ‘60s who agreed with the Existentialist philosopher Albert Camus’s assessment, in his essay “The Myth of Sisyphus” (1942), that the human situation is essentially absurd, devoid of purpose."

I hope this explanation clears up any confusion you might feel about Cohen's use of the word "absurd." His is a different view on the nature of Oedipus's role as tragic hero than the one that Adams presents. How you react to them very much depends on your own perspective. Which of the two writers expressed for you the most stimulating and revealing ideas and insights. Were any of your own ideas overturned? Did you learn anything about Oedipus, or about interpreting Oedipus, that might affect your own future writing?

That's the blog post for Monday and Wednesday. It will remain open until Tuesday night.