1.1 Connecting: Entering Into a Literary
Experience
When you allow reading to unlock your imagination, your connection also sets the stage for
intellectual engagement. It allows the experience of reading literature to include the pursuit of
ideas and knowledge. Your literary experience—as the title of this book suggests—can become a
personal journey, a quest for meaning. But connections to literature don't have to begin with
deep intellectual quests. The stories themselves, those that strike a human chord, provide the
greatest opportunity for connection.
From ancient times, in every culture, humans have told stories to explain their world, to honor
people, to celebrate achievements, and to communicate human values. Stories are still essential
in our lives: We share them with our children, look to them for entertainment, and read them
because at the core of our being there's a powerful curiosity about human relationships and how
to cope in the world in which we find ourselves.
This means you are already wired to explore literature. And the most immediate connection is
through story. Allowing yourself to be drawn into a story—whether it's told by someone, printed
in a book, or performed—unlocks your innate abilities to empathize, to laugh, to inquire, to
learn, to wonder. Connecting with literature also allows you to reflect on the significance of
common human experiences in your life.
For example, if you know what it's like to send your child off to school for the first time and
remember how you felt when this happened, your connection to the emotions that Rachel Hadas,
poet and former professor at Rutgers University, packs into "The Red Hat" will be instantaneous.
Her poem captures the anxiety and disequilibrium parents feel when watching their young
children drawn away from them to enter school and a world away from home. When the
watching parent is described in the poem as one whose "heart stretches, elastic in its love and
fear," you can feel those emotions because you have experienced them. And no one has to
explain what "wavering in the eddies of change" means—you've lived through that
uncomfortable experience when home seems strangely empty, routine is broken, and you are
forced to accept that your child will not always be with you.
The Inclusion of "The Red Hat"
Wayne Clugston, author of Journey Into Literature, discusses his reasons for including "The Red
Hat" in this textbook.
Critical Thinking Questions
•
•
What are the underlying emotions present in "The Red Hat"?
How do these emotions allow you to connect with the parents in the story? Do the
emotions connect in any way to your own life and experiences?
The Red Hat
Rachel Hadas (1994)
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or Chrome.
It started before Christmas. Now our son
officially walks to school alone.
Semi-alone, it's accurate to say:
5
I or his father track him on the way.
He walks up on the east side of West End,
we on the west side. Glances can extend
(and do) across the street; not eye contact.
Already ties are feelings and not fact.
10
Straus Park is where these parallel paths part;
he goes alone from there. The watcher's heart
stretches, elastic in its love and fear,
toward him as we see him disappear,
striding briskly. Where two weeks ago,
15
holding a hand, he'd dawdle, dreamy, slow,
he now is hustled forward by the pull
of something far more powerful than school.
The mornings we turn back to are no more
than forty minutes longer than before,
20
but they feel vastly different—flimsy, strange,
wavering in the eddies of this change,
empty, unanchored, perilously light
since the red hat vanished from our sight.
Rachel Hadas, "The Red Hat" from Halfway Down the Hall: New and Selected Poems © 1998
by Rachel Hadas. Reprinted by permission of Wesleyan University Press.
So, this introduction to literature begins by asking you simply to read a short story and a poem.
Each represents a separate literary genre, or category, but both present an experience that is
likely familiar to you. Each feeds human feelings and emotions. Your task is to read both
selections for pleasure and enjoyment. You do not need to consider depth of meaning or think
about delving into complex criticism. These challenges will come in later chapters. You are
asked just to observe the people and life activities that these pieces of literature present. Such a
perspective for reading, as writer Anne Lamott (1995) argues, can be both a source of delight and
renewal:
When writers . . . make us laugh about ourselves or life, our buoyancy is restored. We are given a
shot at dancing with, or at least clapping along with, the absurdity of life, instead of being
squashed by it over and over again. It's like singing on a boat during a terrible storm at sea. You
can't stop the raging storm, but singing can change the hearts and spirits of the people who are
together on that ship. (p. 237)
As you read these selections, imagine you are meeting the people presented in them; observe
their behavior; be aware of your feelings. Then, think about how each person's behavior is
different from what you expected, or from what it should be. When you do this, you will see
discrepancies. Some of them will delight you, some may be exaggerated, and some may remind
you of a personal experience. Especially, be aware of the subtle humor that unusual or
unexpected human behavior creates. The authors featured in this chapter present people in this
gentle manner—not attempting to analyze their behavior in a formal way, but to observe it with a
smile.
A Story
•
"A & P": This short narrative by John Updike is a coming-of-age story in which a 19year-old boy working in a grocery store faces a situation that produces significant
personal insight and growth. Its dramatic moments are typical of those we associate with
a young person's shift in perspective from innocence to experience, from idealism to
realism, or from ignorance to knowledge.
A Poem
•
"Oranges": Gary Soto's poem is built around a universal human dilemma that can take
you by surprise time and time again. It occurs in those circumstances where you realize
that you will fail (or appear naïve) unless through sheer personal resourcefulness you can
find a way out. No doubt you've had this experience, and hopefully your response was as
effective as this young boy's.
Our Use of Explanatory Notes
Throughout the book, literary selections will often be accompanied by explanatory notes and
comments printed in the margins. These annotations are not intended to interfere with your
interpretation of the selection involved; rather, they are included to emphasize and illuminate
specific literary concepts and techniques that make the particular selection effective. In many
cases, the notes will assist you in understanding content as well.
© Francine Fleischer/Corbis
John Updike (1932–2009)
In his growing-up years in small-town Pennsylvania, John Updike developed a keen awareness
of the ways religious faith (as a coalescing element) was being replaced by materialistic culture
in America. Through his novels, essays, and poems, Updike elegantly explored reasons for this
cultural shift, always probing with unrestrained curiosity. He once said, "I want to write books
that unlock the traffic jam in everybody's head." His short stories and novels often reflect life and
changing relationships in communities where he lived in Pennsylvania and Massachusetts. He
was awarded the Pulitzer Prize twice for the last two novels in his famous Rabbit series, which
included Rabbit, Run; Rabbit Redux; Rabbit Is Rich; and Rabbit at Rest.
A & P1
John Updike (1962)
In walks these three girls in nothing but bathing suits. I'm in the
third check-out slot, with my back to the door, so I don't see them
until they're over by the bread. The one that caught my eye first
was the one in the plaid green two-piece. She was a chunky kid,
with a good tan and a sweet broad soft-looking can with those
two crescents of white just under it, where the sun never seems to
hit, at the top of the backs of her legs. I stood there with my hand
on a box of HiHo crackers trying to remember if I rang it up or not.
I ring it up again and the customer starts giving me hell. She's one
of these cash-register-watchers, a witch about fifty with rouge
on her cheekbones and no eyebrows, and I know it made her day
to trip me up. She'd been watching cash registers forty years and
probably never seen a mistake before.
By the time I got her feathers smoothed and her goodies into a
bag—she gives me a little snort in passing, if she'd been born at
the right time they would have burned her over in Salem—by the
time I get her on her way the girls had circled around the bread
and were coming back, without a pushcart, back my way along
the counters, in the aisle between the check-outs and the Special
bins. They didn't even have shoes on. There was this chunky one,
with the two-piece—it was bright green and the seams on the bra
were still sharp and her belly was still pretty pale so I guessed she
just got it (the suit)—there was this one, with one of those chubby
berry-faces, the lips all bunched together under her nose, this
one, and a tall one, with black hair that hadn't quite frizzed right,
and one of these sunburns right across under the eyes, and a chin
that was too long—you know, the kind of girl other girls think is
very "striking" and "attractive" but never quite makes it, as they
very well know, which is why they like her so much—and then
the third one, that wasn't quite so tall. She was the queen. She
kind of led them, the other two peeking around and making their
shoulders round. She didn't look around, not this queen, she just
walked straight on slowly, on these long white prima donna legs.
She came down a little hard on her heels, as if she didn't walk in
her bare feet that much, putting down her heels and then letting
the weight move along to her toes as if she was testing the floor
with every step, putting a little deliberate extra action into it. You
never know for sure how girls' minds work (do you really think it's
a mind in there or just a little buzz like a bee in a glass jar?) but
you got the idea she had talked the other two into coming in here
with her, and now she was showing them how to do it, walk slow
and hold yourself straight.
She had on a kind of dirty-pink-beige maybe, I don't know—
bathing suit with a little nubble all over it and, what got me,
the straps were down. They were off her shoulders looped loose
around the cool tops of her arms, and I guess as a result the suit
had slipped a little on her, so all around the top of the cloth there
was this shining rim. If it hadn't been there you wouldn't have
known there could have been anything whiter than those shoulders.
With the straps pushed off, there was nothing between the
top of the suit and the top of her head except just her, this clean
bare plane of the top of her chest down from the shoulder bones
like a dented sheet of metal tilted in the light. I mean, it was more
than pretty.
She had sort of oaky hair that the sun and salt had bleached, done
up in a bun that was unravelling, and a kind of prim face. Walking
into the A & P with your straps down, I suppose it's the only kind
of face you can have. She held her head so high her neck, coming
up out of those white shoulders, looked kind of stretched, but I
didn't mind. The longer her neck was, the more of her there was.
She must have felt in the corner of her eye me and over my
shoulder Stokesie in the second slot watching, but she didn't tip.
Not this queen. She kept her eyes moving across the racks, and
stopped, and turned so slow it made my stomach rub the inside
of my apron, and buzzed to the other two, who kind of huddled
against her for relief, and they all three of them went up the cat
-and-dog-food-breakfast-cereal-macaroni-rice-raisins-seasoningsspreads-spaghetti-soft drinks-crackers-and-cookies aisle. From
the third slot I look straight up this aisle to the meat counter,
and I watched them all the way. The fat one with the tan sort of
fumbled with the cookies, but on second thought she put the
5
packages back. The sheep pushing their carts down the aisle—the
girls were walking against the usual traffic (not that we have oneway signs or anything)—were pretty hilarious. You could see them,
when Queenie's white shoulders dawned on them, kind of jerk, or
hop, or hiccup, but their eyes snapped back to their own baskets
and on they pushed. I bet you could set off dynamite in an A &
P and the people would by and large keep reaching and checking
oatmeal off their lists and muttering "Let me see, there was
a third thing, began with A, asparagus, no, ah, yes, applesauce!"
or whatever it is they do mutter. But there was no doubt, this
jiggled them. A few house-slaves in pin curlers even looked around
after pushing their carts past to make sure what they had seen
was correct.
You know, it's one thing to have a girl in a bathing suit down on
the beach, where what with the glare nobody can look at each
other much anyway, and another thing in the cool of the A & P,
under the fluorescent lights, against all those stacked packages,
with her feet paddling along naked over our checkerboard greenand-cream rubber-tile floor.
"Oh Daddy," Stokesie said beside me. "I feel so faint."
"Darling," I said. "Hold me tight." Stokesie's married, with two
babies chalked up on his fuselage already, but as far as I can tell
that's the only difference. He's twenty-two, and I was nineteen
this April.
"Is it done?" he asks, the responsible married man finding his
voice. I forgot to say he thinks he's going to be manager some
sunny day, maybe in 1990 when it's called the Great Alexandrov
and Petrooshki Tea Company or something.
What he meant was, our town is five miles from a beach, with a
big summer colony out on the Point, but we're right in the middle
of town, and the women generally put on a shirt or shorts or
something before they get out of the car into the street. And anyway
these are usually women with six children and varicose veins
mapping their legs and nobody, including them, could care less.
As I say, we're right in the middle of town, and if you stand at our
front doors you can see two banks and the Congregational church
and the newspaper store and three real-estate offices and about
twenty-seven old free-loaders tearing up Central Street because
the sewer broke again. It's not as if we're on the Cape; we're north
of Boston and there's people in this town haven't seen the ocean
for twenty years.
10
The girls had reached the meat counter and were asking McMahon
something. He pointed, they pointed, and they shuffled out of
sight behind a pyramid of Diet Delight peaches. All that was left
for us to see was old McMahon patting his mouth and looking
after them sizing up their joints. Poor kids, I began to feel sorry for
them, they couldn't help it.
Now here comes the sad part of the story, at least my family says
it's sad but I don't think it's sad myself. The store's pretty empty,
it being Thursday afternoon, so there was nothing much to do
except lean on the register and wait for the girls to show up again.
The whole store was like a pinball machine and I didn't know
which tunnel they'd come out of. After a while they come around
out of the far aisle, around the light bulbs, records at discount of
the Caribbean Six or Tony Martin Sings or some such gunk you
wonder they waste the wax on, six packs of candy bars, and plastic
toys done up in cellophane that fall apart when a kid looks at
them anyway. Around they come, Queenie still leading the way,
and holding a little gray jar in her hand. Slots Three through Seven
are unmanned and I could see her wondering between Stokes and
me, but Stokesie with his usual luck draws an old party in baggy
gray pants who stumbles up with four giant cans of pineapple
i juice (what do these bums do with all that pineapple juice? I've
often asked myself) so the girls come to me. Queenie puts down
the jar and I take it into my fingers icy cold. Kingfish Fancy Herring
Snacks in Pure Sour Cream: 49¢. Now her hands are empty, not a
ring or a bracelet, bare as God made them, and I wonder where
the money's coming from. Still with that prim look she lifts a
folded dollar bill out of the hollow at the center of her nubbled
pink top. The jar went heavy in my hand. Really, I thought that was
so cute.
Then everybody's luck begins to run out. Lengel comes in from
haggling with a truck full of cabbages on the lot and is about to
scuttle into that door marked MANAGER behind which he hides
all day when the girls touch his eye. Lengel's pretty dreary, teaches
Sunday school and the rest, but he doesn't miss that much. He
comes over and says, "Girls, this isn't the beach."
Queenie blushes, though maybe it's just a brush of sunburn I was
noticing for the first time, now that she was so close. "My mother
asked me to pick up a jar of herring snacks."
i
Her voice kind of startled me, the way voices do when you see
the people first, coming out so flat and dumb yet kind of tony,
15
too, the way it ticked over "pick up" and "snacks." All of a sudden
I slid right down her voice into her living room. Her father and
the other men were standing around in ice-cream coats and bow
ties and the women were in sandals picking up herring snacks on
toothpicks off a big plate and they were all holding drinks the
color of water with olives and sprigs of mint in them. When my
parents have somebody over they get lemonade and if it's a real
racy affair Schlitz in tall glasses with "They'll Do It Every Time" cartoons
stencilled on.
"That's all right," Lengel said. "But this isn't the beach." His
repeating this struck me as funny, as if it had just occurred to him,
and he had been thinking all these years the A & P was a great big
dune and he was the head lifeguard. He didn't like my smiling—as
I say he doesn't miss much—but he concentrates on giving the girls
that sad Sunday-school-superintendent stare.
Queenie's blush is no sunburn now, and the plump one in plaid,
that I liked better from the back—a really sweet can—pipes up,
"We weren't doing any shopping. We just came in for the one
thing."
"That makes no difference," Lengel tells her, and I could see from
the way his eyes went that he hadn't noticed she was wearing a
two-piece before. "We want you decently dressed when you come
in here."
"We are decent," Queenie says suddenly, her lower lip pushing,
getting sore now that she remembers her place, a place from
which the crowd that runs the A & P must look pretty crummy.
Fancy Herring Snacks flashed in her very blue eyes.
"Girls, I don't want to argue with you. After this come in here with
your shoulders covered. It's our policy." He turns his back. That's
policy for you. Policy is what the kingpins want. What the others
want is juvenile delinquency.
20
All this while, the customers had been showing up with their carts
but, you know, sheep, seeing a scene, they had all bunched up
on Stokesie, who shook open a paper bag as gently as peeling a
peach, not wanting to miss a word. I could feel in the silence everybody
getting nervous, most of all Lengel, who asks me, "Sammy,
have you rung up this purchase?"
I thought and said "No" but it wasn't about that I was thinking. I
go through the punches, 4, 9, GROC, TOT — it's more complicated
than you think, and after you do it often enough, it begins to
make a little song, that you hear words to, in my case "Hello (bing)
there, you (gung) hap-py pee-pul (splat)"—the
splat being the drawer flying out. I uncrease the bill, tenderly as you may imagine,
it just having come from between the two smoothest scoops of
vanilla I had ever known were there, and pass a half and a penny
into her narrow pink palm, and nestle the herrings in a bag and
twist its neck and hand it over, all the time thinking.
The girls, and who'd blame them, are in a hurry to get out, so I say
"I quit" to Lengel quick enough for them to hear, hoping they'll
stop and watch me, their unsuspected hero.
They keep right on going, into the electric eye; the door flies open
and they flicker across the lot to their car, Queenie and Plaid and
Big Tall Goony-Goony (not that as raw material she was so bad),
leaving me with Lengel and a kink in his eyebrow.
i
"Did you say something, Sammy?"
25
"I said I quit."
"I thought you did."
"You didn't have to embarrass them."
"It was they who were embarrassing us."
I started to say something that came out "Fiddle-de-doo." It's a
saying of my grandmother's, and I know she would have been
pleased.
"I don't think you know what you're saying," Lengel said.
"I know you don't," I said. "But I do." I pull the bow at the back of
my apron and start shrugging it off my shoulders. A couple customers
that had been heading for my slot begin to knock against
each other, like scared pigs in a chute.
Lengel sighs and begins to look very patient and old and gray. He's
been a friend of my parents for years. "Sammy, you don't want to
do this to your Mom and Dad," he tells me. It's true, I don't. But
it seems to me that once you begin a gesture it's fatal not to go
through with it. I fold the apron, "Sammy" stitched in red on the
pocket, and put it on the counter, and drop the bow tie on top
of it. The bow tie is theirs, if you've ever wondered. "You'll feel
30
this for the rest of your life," Lengel says, and I know that's true,
too, but remembering how he made that pretty girl blush makes
me so scrunchy inside I punch the No Sale tab and the machine
whirs "pee-pul" and the drawer splats out. One advantage to this
scene taking place in summer, I can follow this up with a clean
exit, there's no fumbling around getting your coat and galoshes, I
just saunter into the electric eye in my white shirt that my mother
ironed the night before, and the door heaves itself open, and outside
the sunshine is skating around on the asphalt.
I look around for my girls, but they're gone, of course. There
wasn't anybody but some young married screaming with her children
about some candy they didn't get by the door of a powderblue Falcon station wagon. Looking back in the big windows, over
i the bags of peat moss and aluminum lawn furniture stacked on
35
the pavement, I could see Lengel in my place in the slot, checking
the sheep through. His face was dark gray and his back stiff, as if
he'd just had an injection of iron, and my stomach kind of fell as I
felt how hard the world was going to be to me hereafter.
"A & P," from Pigeon Feathers and Other Stories by John Updike, copyright © 1962 and
renewed 1990 by John Updike. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of the Knopf
Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Random House LLC. All rights reserved.
____________
1
"A & P," The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company, was a supermarket widely known for
most of the last century, especially in the eastern United States. At the height of its success, it
was the country's largest food retailer.
John Updike's Narrative Techniques
An interview with John Updike on his narrative technique, and a reading of A & P from the
author.
Critical Thinking Questions
•
•
Updike mentions that a good story often includes a beginning that piques the reader's
interest, and/or a zinger ending. How does his story A & P do this, and can you think of
another story you have read that does so?
Updike implies that a person of any age can be a great writer, and that one writes with the
unique life experience that one has at any given time. Do you agree that a young writer
can be just as effective as an older writer? Why or why not?
CONNECTING: QUESTIONS ABOUT WHAT MADE YOUR READING
WORTHWHILE
1. What allowed you to make an imaginative connection to this story? Was it a recollection
of similar behavior that you previously observed?
2. Some readers see the young man's behavior as foolish; others think it is based on
integrity—he's standing up for what he feels is right. How do you account for his
behavior?
3. Is there evidence in the story to suggest that both Sammy and Lengel have regrets about
their actions?
© Chris Felver/The Bridgeman Art Library
Gary Soto (b. 1952)
Gary Soto was born into a Mexican-American family and grew up in a barrio in Fresno,
California. A popular Chicano writer, he has published several books of poetry, taught at the
University of California, and been a resonant voice for social change, particularly addressing
struggles faced by Spanish-speaking Americans. Several of his books were developed for young
readers, but all draw heavily on his personal experiences and memorable, true-to-life insights.
He's often called "the people's poet."
Oranges
Gary Soto (1995)
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or Chrome.
The first time I walked
With a girl, I was twelve,
i
Cold, and weighted down
With two oranges in my jacket.
December. Frost cracking
Beneath my steps, my breath
i Before me, then gone,
As I walked toward
Her house, the one whose
Porch light burned yellow
Night and day, in any weather.
A dog barked at me, until
She came out pulling
At her gloves, face bright
With rouge. I smiled,
Touched her shoulder, and led
Her down the street, across
A used car lot and a line
Of newly planted trees,
Until we were breathing
Before a drugstore. We
Entered, the tiny bell
Bringing a saleslady
Down a narrow aisle of goods.
I turned to the candies
Tiered like bleachers,
And asked what she wanted—
5
10
15
20
25
30
Light in her eyes, a smile
Starting at the corners
Of her mouth. I fingered
A nickel in my pocket,
And when she lifted a chocolate
That cost a dime,
i I didn't say anything.
I took the nickel from
My pocket, then an orange,
i
And set them quietly on
The counter. When I looked up,
i The lady's eyes met mine,
And held them, knowing
Very well what it was all
About.
35
40
Outside,
45
A few cars hissing past,
Fog hanging like old
Coats between the trees.
I took my girl's hand
In mine for two blocks,
50
Then released it to let
Her unwrap the chocolate.
I peeled my orange
That was so bright against
The gray of December
That, from some distance,
i Someone might have thought
55
I was making a fire in my hands.
From New and Selected Poems © 1995 by Gary Soto. Used with permission of
Chronicle Books LLC, San Francisco. Visit www.ChronicleBooks.com
CONNECTING: QUESTIONS ABOUT WHAT MADE YOUR READING
WORTHWHILE
1. At what point did you feel yourself being drawn into the story this poem tells? Did a
particular experience in your own life, different from the boy's, draw you into the story?
2. Oranges are identified three times in the poem: in the boy's pocket, on the store counter,
and in the boy's hands. What does each of these instances contribute to the story?
3. What feelings or emotions are you most aware of when you connect imaginatively to
"Oranges" and to "A & P"?
2.1 Writing About What You Read
In our opening chapter, we observed that enjoying literature begins with the depth of connection
you make with the imaginary world that a piece of literature creates. The purpose of this chapter
is to look at a range of literary experiences and to describe what is involved in responding to
them in meaningful ways. Responding is a personal activity that allows you to reflect on your
experiences and to gain valuable insights about the human condition; responding can also be a
structured analytical process that requires use of literary tools and techniques. Responding
requires active mental engagement: exploring ideas, forming conclusions, and, ultimately,
critiquing what you have read as objectively as possible.
Because this book is an introduction to literature, it offers a broad range of reading experiences.
Some selections may be familiar, some will introduce you to surprising insights, and others will
engage you in human encounters and life complexities that don't have obvious solutions. The
readings will pull you beyond the scope of popular literature, beyond conventional romances
with happy endings, and beyond detective stories where impossible cases are always solved at
the last moment, allowing the forces of good to succeed. Does exploring more challenging
literature mean that you should never read popular literature, sometimes called "commercial
literature"? No, this approach readily acknowledges the pleasure and delightful escape that such
reading offers, but it also takes you beyond the popular literature horizon, where broader
ventures and more challenging explorations await.
The level of intellectual demands on the reader will vary because writers have very different
purposes when they write. When the events in a story are presented simply and developed in a
straightforward manner without extensive detail, the writer's intentions are likely to be obvious
and easy to understand. But when a writer's primary purpose is hidden or buried in symbols—
when, for example, the author sets out to interpret a puzzling phenomenon or human condition—
the reader will likely need to make careful intellectual inquiry to understand the author's intent.
Framework for Responding to What You Read
As stated previously, reading creates imaginative experiences. It connects you to new
experiences that become meaningful when you allow them to influence your thoughts and
feelings. To make your responses active and engaging, you should ask: Is my reading experience
echoing things that have happened in my life? Is it connecting me to things I've never considered
before? Am I surprised by (or content with) the way it makes me feel? Does it make me think
about a concept or issue that is important to me or to humanity at large?
Also as you read, consider how the writer develops the situations, characters, and emotions that
stand out for you. Analyze them. Then, draw conclusions about what you have read; develop
your interpretation, focusing on how your reading experience relates to your life, ideas, and
values—not just your values, but others' also. Your responses can be organized into three steps:
connecting, considering, and concluding. These steps provide a simple but effective response
framework that you will use throughout this book. See Table 2.1 for explanations of each step.
At first glance, this matrix may suggest that reading should produce neat linear responses in an
intellectual inquiry process that is orderly, almost mechanical. But certainly that is not what
happens when you read literature. Life itself is not that way! When you read a piece of literature
imaginatively and with mental vigor, you are stepping inside it, projecting your perspective
across its landscape. Although the author may provide signposts to follow as you discover what
the literary piece intends, you make your own path. Often, it's a winding one; progress can be
slow. Maybe you miss important details that explain the behavior of an important character, or
you limit the capabilities of a character to the boundaries of your own experience. Or, you might
miss important connections between what is happening and why it's happening, requiring you to
do some rereading. Stop-and-go reading like this can be frustrating, but it also creates learning
opportunities. Expect to do this kind of reading in an introduction to literature course—because
the truest satisfaction in reading comes from exploring, moving from insight to insight.
Table 2.1 Reader's response framework: Connecting, considering, and concluding
Involves allowing feelings, curiosity,
Connecting
Individual link and
aspirations, desire to escape, and associations
(Imaginative
imaginative "entry" into a
with past or present experiences to motivate you
reading)
piece of literature.
to read.
Involves focusing on basic literary elements,
artistic skills, aesthetic features, ideas,
Considering
observations, contexts, and dilemmas that you Personal inquiry, as you
(Analysis)
discover as you read and want to explore in
analyze and think about the
some depth.
content and unique structure
Involves finding your own explanations, making of the literary work.
Concluding
sense of what you are reading, and determining
(Interpretation)
the value of its implications.
The matrix in Table 2.1 provides a starting point in the exploratory process. It will help you
discover insights, appreciate literary techniques, and find significance in your reading.
Throughout this book, many reading selections include a follow-up Response and Reflection
section containing questions based on the matrix. These questions—asking you to connect,
consider, and conclude—are designed to call attention to details and ideas that will deepen your
response.
A Sample Response
Knowing that you will be expected to write about what you read introduces an obligation. It
requires you to read not just for pleasure, but also with specific purpose. When reading for
pleasure, you can allow yourself to be caught up in experiencing a story, poem, or play—simply
enjoying the suspenseful moments and identifying with imagined settings. But reading literature
with a purpose requires you to have something to say about what you've read. It can't be just a
sweeping general statement, such as "That was a great story; it really held my attention." Your
written statement needs to include specific and thoughtful observations that can be supported by
details in the piece of literature you have read. The framework of connecting, considering, and
concluding can be used in developing your written responses, as illustrated in Responding to
Reading: Sample Short-Answer Written Response.
Responding to Reading
Sample Short-Answer Written Response
Question: Is Sammy presented in the story "A & P" as a person whose actions are solidly
established, or as one "coming of age," searching for answers about how to act in the adult
world?
Published in 1961, early in a decade of counterculture and social revolution in America,
Updike's story presents a glimpse into different generational responses to these significant
movements. The story is set north of Boston where people are proud of their Puritan heritage,
which dates back to colonial days and remains firmly established in their culture. Lengel, the
i
store manager, feels compelled to uphold this Puritan ethic when he sees the girls in swimming
suits shopping in his store. He is offended, both by what they are wearing and also by their
casual attitude when pushing social norms. He confronts them, pointing out that store policy
does not permit shoppers to be dressed in swimwear.
Sammy, a 19-year-old, is part of the younger generation that supports social change. He sees
the situation differently,demonstrating how adamantly he opposes Lengel's approach by
quitting his job on the spot. He takes a gallant stand not only to impress the girls, but also to
i
advance the spirit of freedom, excitement, and change introduced by their presence.
Unfortunately, rather than producing heroic, dramatic results, his protest brings only
embarrassing personal consequences.
Sammy quit his job in a voice loud enough for the girls to hear, hoping they would see him "as
their unsuspected hero" (as cited in Clugston, 2014). However, they did not acknowledge him
as they left, and when he got to the store parking lot they were gone. Consequently, he
experiences no external affirmation of his action, no applause for being a hero. But, Sammy
i
gains new insight: he realizes "how hard the world was going to be" (as cited in Clugston,
2014). That is, he begins to understand that his quest for change—stimulated not just by the
girls' entrance but by stifling routines in his work environment—would be an arduous struggle
requiring commitment and persistence over time; achievement of social
change is not driven by spur-of-the moment actions. He shows the strength of this awareness
later when he disagrees with the idea that the A & P incident was a sad one. Sammy disagrees
i because he learned a lot from the experience. He may not have found answers to all the
questions he has about becoming a man, but his self-knowledge and outlook are more
realistically grounded than ever before.
2.2 How Use of Persona Affects Your
Response to Literature
If there's a nameplate on your desk at work, it's possible for someone who passes by to get a
sense of who you are just by looking at your desk, noticing how things are arranged, glancing at
the design of your coffee cup, and so on. If these items could speak, the observer could learn a
lot more about you, of course. A piece of literature is somewhat like that desk: The author's name
is on it, and you can discover things about the author when you read. But there's a difference.
Unlike inboxes and coffee cups, the characters in stories and poems and plays can speak. As they
do, they may represent what the author thinks, or they may be "speaking for themselves"—
representing views that are different from the author's. In other words, it's important to
understand an author's use of persona.
Persona in "The Road Not Taken"
In Latin, persona means "mask." When it is used in literature, persona refers to the person who
is the narrator in a story or the speaker in a poem. In other words, the main voice in a work of
fiction or poetry is usually not the author's voice, although it may reflect the author's views. The
main voice comes from the person the author created to narrate or speak. In most cases, this
speaker is a character in the story or the poem, but sometimes a persona can be an outside voice,
a speaker who is looking at the action but is not part of it.
Look carefully at the student's analysis in the box following Robert Frost's famous poem "The
Road Not Taken." The analysis identifies the persona (speaker) as a person who is approaching
decision making thoughtfully, but this person is not necessarily Robert Frost.
Also note Frost's use of symbol in the poem. A symbol is an object, person, or action that
conveys two meanings: its literal meaning and something it stands for. In "The Road Not
Taken," Frost presents the literal image of two roads. But he suggests that they stand for
something other than what their literal meaning conveys: They represent (symbolize) life's
pathways on which our day-by-day experiences unfold.
Robert Frost (1874–1963)
© Bettmann/CORBIS
Robert Frost was born in San Francisco. At age 11, he moved with his family to New England.
He attended both Dartmouth College and Harvard but did not graduate. After an unsuccessful
attempt at farming, he and his wife moved to England in 1912. There, with encouragement from
poet Ezra Pound, he published his first two collections of poems, A Boy's Will and North of
Boston. He returned to the United States in 1915 as a popular poet and was even more celebrated
in the years that followed, winning the Pulitzer Prize for his works four times. He was sought
after as an artist in residence at universities in New England and wrote candidly about the poetic
process. His lyrical style and masterful use of ordinary language and rural settings made his
poetry delightful. Building on delight, he engaged in ironic inquiry to give expression to complex
ideas and questions that define the human spirit.
The Road Not Taken
Robert Frost (1916)
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Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
5
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
10
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
15
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
20
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
"The Road Not Taken" from the book THE POETRY OF ROBERT FROST edited by Edward
Connery Lathem. Copyright © 1923, 1969 by Henry Holt and Company, copyright © 1951 by
Robert Frost. Reprinted by permission of Henry Holt and Company, LLC. Users are warned that
this Selection is protected under copyright laws and downloading is strictly prohibited. The right
to reproduce or transfer the Selection via any medium must be secured from Henry Holt and
Company, LLC.
SAMPLE RESPONSE AND REFLECTION QUESTIONS
The following questions are reflective of those you will encounter throughout the remainder of
this textbook. The sample answers provided are examples of how you might respond to these
questions.
Connecting (Imaginative reading)
Q. What allowed you to connect to the poem?
A. I was able to connect to this poem immediately because I'd often heard the title quoted in
public speeches. Then, I became interested in seeing if I could figure out why the idea of "the
road not taken" is so often mentioned in speeches.
Considering (Analysis)
Q. What do you know about the speaker in this poem?
A. The speaker is a serious, thoughtful person, and could be either a woman or a man. There is
no precise indication of the speaker's age, but the last line of the poem suggests that the person is
reflective, thinking not just about a present decision but about future consequences as well. Even
though stanza 2 suggests the choice could have gone either way—both roads were a lot alike—
the speaker chose the one "less traveled by" and is willing to accept whatever the choice will
bring, knowing that choosing the other road for future travel is not possible. It is clear, also, that
the speaker is reflecting on a choice related to a significant life decision that involves
commitment and integrity, and is not merely selecting a road in the woods.
Concluding (Interpretation)
Q. What do the comments "telling this with a sigh" (line 16) and "that has made all the
difference" (line 20) reveal about life choices?
A. I've concluded that the poem emphasizes the ambiguity associated with life choices. From
what I already knew about the poem, I thought it dealt simply with making a challenging ("less
traveled by") choice. However, I now see that it reflects not just on the motive for choosing, but
also on the nature of choice making. There appears to be delight, at least satisfaction, on the part
of the speaker at the beginning of the poem, but the "sigh" mentioned at the end suggests that the
choice was more complex than it appeared: It may have even resulted in personal regret.
Consequently, the poem reveals the nature of decision making, implying that, at best, it's a fuzzy
process with ambiguous aspects—both at the moment a choice is made and afterwards. In this
way, the poem makes a wise observation and explores important life knowledge.
Your Turn
Try using the literary response framework connecting, considering, concluding to explore
meaning in Kate Chopin's "The Story of an Hour." In this brief narrative, there is not a lot of
action, but you can gain important insights about the action—and the story's outcome—by
paying close attention to what the main character, Mrs. Mallard, is thinking.
Kate Chopin (1850ñ1904)
Missouri History Museum, St. Louis
Chopin was born in St. Louis (her birth name was Katherine O'Flaherty), one of five children—
the only one to live beyond age 25. After attending Catholic schools, she married Oscar Chopin,
a cotton broker, and moved to New Orleans. When he died 12 years later, she was left to raise
their six children. Various journals, including Atlantic Monthly and Vogue, published her short
stories. One of her novels, The Awakening, was controversial because it acknowledged a
woman's strength in spite of her adulterous life. Chopin's writings expressed her personal quest
for freedom and contributed to the rise of feminism.
The Story of an Hour
Kate Chopin (1894)
Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break to
her as gently as possible the news of her husband's death.
It was her sister Josephine who told her, in broken sentences; veiled hints that revealed in half
concealing. Her husband's friend Richards was there, too, near her. It was he who had been in
the newspaper office when intelligence of the railroad disaster was received, with Brently
Mallard's name leading the list of "killed." He had only taken time to assure himself of its
truth by a second telegram, and had hastened to forestall any less careful, less tender friend in
bearing the sad message.
She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to
accept its significance. She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister's arms.
When the storm of grief had spent itself she went away to her room alone. She would have no
one follow.
There stood, facing the open window, a comfortable, roomy armchair. Into this she sank,
pressed down by a physical exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her
soul.
She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with
the new spring life. The delicious breath of rain was in the air. In the street below a peddler
was crying his wares. The notes of a distant song which some one was singing reached her
faintly, and countless sparrows were twittering in the eaves.
There were patches of blue sky showing here and there through the clouds that had met and
piled one above the other in the west facing her window.
She sat with her head thrown back upon the cushion of the chair, quite motionless, except
when a sob came up into her throat and shook her, as a child who has cried itself to sleep
continues to sob in its dreams.
She was young, with a fair, calm face, whose lines bespoke repression and even a certain
strength. But now there was a dull stare in her eyes, whose gaze was fixed away off yonder on
5
one of those patches of blue sky. It was not a glance of reflection, but rather indicated a
suspension of intelligent thought.
There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully. What was it? She
did not know; it was too subtle and elusive to name. But she felt it, creeping out of the sky,
reaching toward her through the sounds, the scents, the color that filled the air.
Now her bosom rose and fell tumultuously. She was beginning to recognize this thing that
was approaching to possess her, and she was striving to beat it back with her will—as
powerless as her two white slender hands would have been.
When she abandoned herself a little whispered word escaped her slightly parted lips. She said
it over and over under her breath: "free, free, free!" The vacant stare and the look of terror that
had followed it went from her eyes. They stayed keen and bright. Her pulses beat fast, and the
coursing blood warmed and relaxed every inch of her body.
She did not stop to ask if it were or were not a monstrous joy that held her. A clear and
exalted perception enabled her to dismiss the suggestion as trivial.
10
She knew that she would weep again when she saw the kind, tender hands folded in death; the
face that had never looked save with love upon her, fixed and gray and dead. But she saw
beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to come that would belong to her
absolutely. And she opened and spread her arms out to them in welcome.
There would be no one to live for her during those coming years; she would live for herself.
There would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and
women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature. A kind
intention or a cruel intention made the act seem no less a crime as she looked upon it in that
brief moment of illumination.
And yet she had loved him—sometimes. Often she had not. What did it matter! What could
love, the unsolved mystery, count for in the face of this possession of self-assertion which she
suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her being!
"Free! Body and soul free!" she kept whispering.
Josephine was kneeling before the closed door with her lips to the keyhole, imploring for
admission. "Louise, open the door! I beg; open the door—you will make yourself ill. What
are you doing, Louise? For heaven's sake open the door."
15
"Go away. I am not making myself ill." No; she was drinking in a very elixir of life through
that open window.
Her fancy was running riot along those days ahead of her. Spring days, and summer days, and
all sorts of days that would be her own. She breathed a quick prayer that life might be long. It
was only yesterday she had thought with a shudder that life might be long.
She arose at length and opened the door to her sister's importunities. There was a feverish
20
triumph in her eyes, and she carried herself unwittingly like a goddess of Victory. She clasped
her sister's waist, and together they descended the stairs. Richards stood waiting for them at
the bottom.
Some one was opening the front door with a latchkey. It was Brently Mallard who entered, a
little travel-stained, composedly carrying his grip-sack and umbrella. He had been far from
the scene of the accident, and did not even know that there had been one. He stood amazed at
Josephine's piercing cry; at Richards' quick motion to screen himself from the view of his
wife.
But Richards was too late.
When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease—of joy that kills.
This selection is in the public domain.
RESPONSE AND REFLECTION QUESTIONS
Connecting (Imaginative reading)
How is your interest in this story immediately established? How does Chopin create suspense?
Considering (Analysis)
Locate details in the story that give you a sense of what Mrs. Mallard's relationship with her husband was like. In paragraphs five and six, how does the author's mention of new spring life,
twittering sparrows, and patches of blue sky help you understand Mrs. Mallard's feelings—and
her hopes?
Concluding (Interpretation)
Mrs. Mallard (in paragraphs eight and nine) is experiencing change. She feels that something is
"approaching" her, seeking to "possess her." What do you think she is struggling with? Had she
ever loved her husband?
2.3 What Literature Contributes to Our
Lives
How College Students Can Benefit from Literature
Do you agree with Professor Auger that even if someone doesn't "like" poetry or certain types of
writing, that it is still important to understand them and the importance of their themes? Why or
why not?
Critical Thinking Question
•
Do you agree with Professor Auger that even if someone doesn't "like" poetry or certain
types of writing, that it is still important to understand them and the importance of their
themes? Why or why not?
Through literature, we can explore human experiences deeply and search for meaning. It opens
new worlds, presents new ideas, and stimulates personal change. In these ways, literature
influences each individual differently. Nevertheless, its conventional contributions fall into
widely recognized categories. Here are six of these notable contributions, with a literary example
selected to illustrate each one.
Literature Restores the Past
In many ways, literature reflects historical issues and conditions. Long before stories were
written down, they were passed along through oral traditions. At least eight periods in literary
history can be roughly identified in the development of Western civilization (Wheeler, 2010).
Classical period (8th century BCE to middle of 5th century CE)
Medieval period (about 1,000 years, ending in 15th century)
Renaissance and Reformation period (roughly, 16th to mid-17th century)
Enlightenment or Neoclassical period (mid-17th century through 18th century)
Romantic period (roughly, first half of 19th century)
Victorian period (1832ñ1901)
Modern period (roughly, first half of the 20th century)
Postmodern period (roughly, since end of World War II, 1945)
In all these periods, social, economic, political, and religious traditions greatly influenced
writers. Century after century, their works reflected wars, natural disasters, common events, and
human achievements in cultures they personally knew. So, although we often gain insights about
permanent things from writers, we also get a glimpse of conditions that existed in the passing
moment in which they were writing. Some writers develop works that openly celebrate ideas and
the spirit of their age, describing them in detail and making it easy for readers to visualize past
events and customs. Other writers take an indirect approach with much less description,
requiring readers to read more deeply, to examine behaviors and values in order to get a sense of
life in earlier periods. Either way, works of literature help to restore the past.
For example, Langston Hughes's "Dream Boogie" (1951) lifts up the civil rights quest as a dream
with human significance, "a dream deferred" that would be a long time in coming. In the 1950s,
when Hughes published the poem, most black Americans were not experiencing the fulfillment
of the hopes and dreams that Emancipation (nearly 100 years earlier) had promised. Looking
back, we know that it would be more than a decade before significant change would come, as a
result of non-violent protests under the leadership of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the passage of
civil rights legislation, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965,
and the Fair Housing Act of 1968.
You might say, then, that this piece of literature functions both as Hughes's portrait of an
important human ideal that has not yet been achieved (racial reconciliation), and as a
photograph—a snapshot of the state of that idealistic dream in the United States in the early
1950s. In an earlier essay, Hughes acknowledged,
Most of my poems are racial in theme and treatment, derived from the life I know. In many of
them I try to grasp and hold some of the meanings and rhythms of jazz. . . . [J]azz to me is one of
the inherent expressions of Negro life in America: the eternal tom-tom beating in the Negro
soul—the tom-tom of revolt against weariness in a white world. (Hughes, 1926, p. 694)
Founder of Jazz Poetry
Jazz and blues feature prominantly in the poetry of Langston Hughes. This video explores
Hughes's creation of a new literary form: Jazz Poetry.
Critical Thinking Questions
•
•
In what ways did Langston Hughes's poetry capture the spirit of "jazz"?
Do you think that Hughes poetry would still have been possible without the influence of
jazz music? Why or why not?
Dream Boogie
Langston Hughes (1951)
Good morning, daddy!
Ain't you heard
The boogie-woogie rumble
Of a dream deferred?
Listen closely:
You'll hear their feet
Beating out and beating out a —
You think
It's a happy beat?
Listen to it closely:
Ain't you heard
something underneath
like a —
What did I say?
Sure,
I'm happy!
Take it away!
Hey, pop!
Re-bop!
5
10
15
Mop!
20
Y-e-a-h!
"Dream Boogie" from The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes by Langston Hughes, edited by
Arnold Rampersad with David Roessel, Associate Editor, copyright © 1994 by the Estate of
Langston Hughes. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday
Publishing Group, a division of Random House LLC. All rights reserved. Used by permission of
Harold Ober Associates Incorporated. Copyright © 1994 by the Estate of Langston Hughes.
Literature Stimulates the Imagination
Those who create literature may make some use of literal definitions and factual descriptions, but
the appeal and magic in their works are fashioned by the word pictures, feelings, and exquisite
detail they create, revealing how particular things look in their minds. Writers enable us to see
things clearly, often in new ways that alter previous perceptions. They often use figures of
speech such as similes and metaphors to stimulate our imaginations. Each will be illustrated
more fully in later chapters:
Simile—A direct comparison of two things that are ordinarily not thought to be similar, using
like or as to connect them. In these lines from an 18th-century love song by Robert Burns, a
person's lover is compared to a rose (visual imagery) and to a melody (auditory imagery):
O my Luve's like a red, red rose
That's newly sprung in June;
O my Luve's like the melodie
That's sweetly play'd in tune.
Metaphor—An imaginative comparison of two unlike things, suggesting how each resembles
the other. In the following poem, poet Carl Sandburg compares changing fog patterns to the
silent, subtle movements of a cat:
The Fog
Carl Sandburg (1916)
comes
on little cat feet.
It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.
This selection is in the public domain.
Figures of speech such as similes and metaphors are tools of figurative language, any language
used in a non-literal way to convey images and ideas. For example, Langston Hughes begins the
poem "A Dream Deferred" with the literal question "What happens to a dream deferred?" Then,
he uses explosive figurative language to describe the dream. He asks:
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore—
And then run? (From Hughes, 1994. Used by permission of Harold Ober Associates
Incorporated. Copyright © 1994 by The Estate of Langston Hughes.)
In doing so, Hughes enables us to see things as he imagines them. First, he uses a simile to
compare a deferred dream to a raisin lying in the sun, suggesting that dreams can deteriorate and
ultimately fail; next, he introduces another simile to compare a dream to a festering sore,
suggesting that dreams can aggravate and become destructive.
In "Dream Boogie," Hughes asks readers to imagine the quest for civil rights as a dance
(metaphor): a be-bop, not an elegant waltz. He arranges the flow of words to help us imagine
movement, rhythm, and sounds. He creates fragmentary conversation to allow us to grasp
dimensions of "dream" and "reality." As he explains in his prefatory note in "The Negro Artist
and the Racial Mountain," his writing must reflect change, because he is part of a changing
community. It is a community
marked by conflicting changes, sudden nuances, sharp and impudent interjections, broken
rhythms, and passages sometimes in the manner of the jam session, sometimes the popular song,
punctuated by the riffs, runs, breaks, and distortions of the music of a community in transition.
(Hughes, 1926)
Literature Glorifies the Commonplace
Even though literature often interprets lofty concepts and presents high society with irresistible
glamour, much of its appeal is achieved through faithful treatment of ordinary life experiences.
By dealing with common human interests and basic emotions, literature becomes relevant. For
example, in "I Hear America Singing," Walt Whitman celebrates the diversity of the working
classes in 19th-century America, using familiar images of home and youthful vigor. Individually,
these images reveal an ordinary slice of life, but when combined, they represent America's
democratic spirit—a defining melody inextricably connected to things that are commonplace
rather than esoteric.
I Hear America Singing
Walt Whitman (1860)
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I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,
Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong,
The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,
The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work,
The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand singing on the steamboat
deck,
The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as he stands,
The wood-cutter's song, the ploughboy's on his way in the morning, or at noon intermission or
5
at sundown,
The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of the girl sewing or
washing,
Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else,
The day what belongs to the day at night the party of young fellows, robust, friendly,
10
Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.
This selection is in the public domain.
Literature Evokes Emotions and Links Feeling to Thinking
There is an intimate and mysterious relationship between human emotions and human thought.
Both what we feel (our affective responses) and what we think (our cognitive judgments)
influence our literary experiences, but there is no fixed formula for how to use these separate
domains as we read. So, our literary responses vary, revealing a lot about how each of us sees the
world. Feeling usually comes first as we read. Especially when we experience plays or poetry,
our immediate responses are stimulated by feelings. By purposely arranging word sounds and
visual images, poets fire up feelings and create a powerful emotional awareness that encourages
thought; dramatists choose unique clothing and stage sets to create a captivating perspective on
an idea or concern; every writer develops a particular tone in each work that conveys a specific
attitude toward the subject presented, further deepening emotional responses. All of these
techniques contribute to creating our initial, emotional response to literature.
The feelings and spirit of Jane Kenyon's poem, for example, are conveyed through carefully
crafted auditory and visual imagery: the sand and gravel falling "with a hiss and a thud" and the
cat's "long red fur, the white feathers/between his toes, and his/long, not to say aquiline, nose."
Also, the "blue bowl" is a visual image that creates emotional depth. It suggests the special
relationship that the owners had with their cat. They did more than just provide for the cat; they
fed the cat from a special bowl, "his bowl"—something they considered to be the cat's own
property, something appropriate to bury with the cat. Listen and look for the images that evoke a
sense of loss and strength as well.
The Blue Bowl
Jane Kenyon (1996)
Like primitives we buried the cat
with his bowl. Bare-handed
we scraped sand and gravel
back into the hole.
i
They fell with a hiss
and thud on his side,
on his long red fur, the white feathers
between his toes, and his
long, not to say aquiline* nose.
5
We stood and brushed each other off.
There are sorrows keener than these.
Silent the rest of the day, we worked,
10
ate, stared, and slept. It stormed
all night; now it clears, and a robin
burbles from a dripping bush
like the neighbor who means well
15
but always says the wrong thing.
Jane Kenyon, "The Blue Bowl," from Collected Poems. Copyright © 2005 by The Estate of Jane
Kenyon. Reprinted with the permission of The Permissions Company, Inc. on behalf of Graywolf
Press, www.graywolfpress.org.
The image of the robin that "burbles" after the storm helps to explain the complexity of human
emotions—emotions that grief can render fragile and less resilient.
Literature Upholds a Vision of the Ideal
Just ask Charlie Brown. If you're familiar with Peanuts cartoons, you'll know that Charlie finds
himself in a frustrating world in which he must overcome his own shortcomings if he's ever to be
as confident as Lucy, as reflective as Linus, as practical as Sally, or as artistic as Schroeder. He
even surmises that Snoopy's life is more ideal than his own. Clearly, he has a lot of winning to
do—not just in baseball or in wooing his redheaded dream girl—but in getting a firm grasp on
the answers he's reaching for related to life itself.
This drive to seek the ideal is central in our human experience. The English poet Robert
Browning considered it to be a human obligation when he observed that our reach should exceed
our grasp as we live and grow, day by day. In his view, life is an experiential quest that requires
us to be continuously seeking—going beyond what we have already grasped. He explores this
idea in a poem about the famous Italian Renaissance painter Andrea Del Sarto, who may have
sacrificed the full expression of his artistic ability in order to please his wife. Browning's view
was that
a man's reach should exceed his grasp
Or what's a heaven for? ("Andrea Del Sarto" 97ñ98)
Writers sense this reach-versus-grasp dilemma very deeply. It defines their creative activity that,
in its broadest sense, is a process of transforming chaos into order. Within this creative process,
writers often present the search for the ideal as a journey toward a desired goal. The journey
depicted is not necessarily pretty and serene; like life itself, it has challenges, violent conflicts,
and failures, as well as high points of exhilaration and moments of knowing.
In the selection below, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, illustrates this quest for the ideal that we all feel
within us. He asks us to consider the classical Greek hero Ulysses, who has returned from his
heroic battles and is feeling constrained by the routine of ordinary life. He, of course, has
grasped a lot of what life offers, but he still wants to reach for more. Here is the adventurous
invitation that Tennyson imagines Ulysses might make to his aging warriors—asking them to
join him on a further journey that would reach beyond what they had already accomplished,
allowing them to grasp a fuller understanding of their strengths and of life's significance.
Excerpt from Ulysses
Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1833)
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or Chrome.
Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
5
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
i It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,*
i And see the great Achilles,* whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are; 10
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
15
This selection is in the public domain.
Literature Explores Significant Human Questions and
Reveals Human Nature
As an example of the significant questions explored in literature, let's look at the underlying
dilemma—the nature of time—that the heroic Ulysses faces in Tennyson's poem. As we do,
think about how this dilemma might relate to your own life. Ulysses is aware of his mortality; he
knows that death is a certainty and getting nearer. He faces the time dilemma that we all
encounter: He can't go back and change the past, and he can't step ahead into the future. Only the
present is available to him—and even as he seizes a moment in the present to express his bold
intentions for a further journey, that moment dissolves into the past. His predicament, to use
literary critic Northrop Frye's modern image, is like being in the caboose of a moving train,
watching the rails recede, each one like a separate moment in his life. Frye pictures time as
something that pulls us backwards (blindly) into the future (1991).
You, no doubt, have thought about the nature of time in relation to events in your life, perhaps
when one you loved died. Maybe things you've read or movies you've seen called your attention
to time's changeless pattern. Literature explores this past-present-future mystery in many ways.
For example, in once-upon-a-time tales like "Sleeping Beauty," fantasy erases time, and the past
becomes the present, which continues endlessly. In tragic dramas like Oedipus the King, fate
presents consequences from past human actions, bringing misery to the present and the future. In
books like The Great Gatsby, which often become popular movies because they touch all of us,
personal dreams that would settle the past and satisfy future hopes are not fully achieved or
remain tantalizingly elusive, making the present frenzied.
These considerations of the nature of time (life-death dilemma) are complex. Similarly, all
significant life questions—those dealing with the nature of justice or love, for example—pose
difficulties. Offering insights into such questions is one of the great contributions of literature.
What we gain from studying literature is not a set of answers to life's hardest questions, but
rather insights into the ways human beings deal with them. A study of literature, in other words,
enables us to glimpse into human nature. It uncovers what lies within us, allowing us to
comprehend and handle puzzling situations and unanswered questions in our own lives. Czechborn writer Franz Kafka believed that this quest for self-discovery is every reader's obligation. In
a letter, he used stark imagery to describe literature's potential for enlightenment:
Altogether, I think we ought to read only books that bite and sting us. . . . What we need are
books that hit us like a most painful misfortune, like the death of someone we loved more than
we love ourselves, that make us feel as though we had been banished to the woods, far from any
human presence, like suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us. That is what I
believe. (Kafka, 158)
Journey into Literature Game: The Land of Poetry
Take a journey to the Land of Poetry to discover more about the authors, poems, and themes
discussed in this chapter.
Point of view, which we will discuss in Chapter 4, refers to who tells the story—how it is
presented to the reader. The most common point of view is called "omniscient." The
"omniscient" narrator is not a character in the story but has access to the thoughts, feelings, and
history of the characters. The omniscient technique in the following story is particularly effective
in allowing the reader to understand the old woman's predicament and how she, and the others,
deal with it.
Alice Walker
© TARA TODRAS-WHITEHLL/AP/Corbis
Best known for her Pulitzer Prizeñwinning novel The Color Purple, Alice Walker was born into
a sharecropper family in 1944 in Eatonton, Georgia. She was an outstanding student, earning a
scholarship to attend Spelman College. She later transferred to Sarah Lawrence College, where
she completed a degree in 1965. Issues of race and gender form the center of her literary work
and her social activism, which included partici- pation in civil rights demonstrations led by
Martin Luther King, Jr. She taught gender studies courses at Wellesley College and began one of
the first gender studies programs in the United States. Her publications include poems, short
stories, and novels. She continues to write, exploring life situations through the eyes of AfricanAmerican women and highlighting the continuing chal-lenges of sexism, racism, and poverty in
American life.
The Welcome Table
Alice Walker (1970)
for sister Clara Ward
I'm going to sit at the Welcome table
Shout my troubles over
Walk and talk with Jesus
Tell God how you treat me
One of these days!
Spiritual
The old woman stood with eyes uplifted in her Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes: high shoes
polished about the tops and toes, a long rusty dress adorned with an old corsage, long
withered, and the remnants of an elegant silk scarf as head rag stained with grease from the
many oily pigtails underneath. Perhaps she had known suffering. There was a dazed and
sleepy look in her aged blue-brown eyes. But for those who searched hastily for "reasons" in
that old tight face, shut now like an ancient door, there was nothing to be read. And so they
gazed nakedly upon their own fear transferred; a fear of the black and the old, a terror of the
unknown as well as of the deeply known. Some of those who saw her there on the church
steps spoke words about her that were hardly fit to be heard, others held their pious peace;
and some felt vague stirrings of pity, small and persistent and hazy, as if she were an old
collie turned out to die.
She was angular and lean and the color of poor gray Georgia earth, beaten by king cotton and
the extreme weather. Her elbows were wrinkled and thick, the skin ashen but durable, like the
bark of old pines. On her face centuries were folded into the circles around one eye, while
around the other, etched and mapped as if for print, ages more threatened again to live. Some
of them there at the church saw the age, the dotage, the missing buttons down the front of her
mildewed black dress. Others saw cooks, chauffeurs, maids, mistresses, children denied or
smothered in the deferential way she held her cheek to the side, toward the ground. Many of
them saw jungle orgies in an evil place, while others were reminded of riotous anarchists
looting and raping in the streets. Those who knew the hesitant creeping up on them of the law,
saw the beginning of the end of the sanctuary of Christian worship, saw the desecration of
Holy Church, and saw an invasion of privacy, which they struggled to believe they still kept.
Still she had come down the road toward the big white church alone. Just herself, an old
forgetful woman, nearly blind with age. Just her and her eyes raised dully to the glittering
cross that crowned the sheer silver steeple. She had walked along the road in a stagger from
her house a half mile away. Perspiration, cold and clammy, stood on her brow and along the
creases by her thin wasted nose. She stopped to calm herself on the wide front steps, not
looking about her as they might have expected her to do, but simply standing quite still,
except for a slight quivering of her throat and tremors that shook her cotton-stockinged legs.
The reverend of the church stopped her pleasantly as she stepped into the vestibule. Did he
say, as they thought he did, kindly, "Auntie, you know this is not your church?" As if one
could choose the wrong one. But no one remembers, for they never spoke of it afterward, and
she brushed past him anyway, as if she had been brushing past him all her life, except this
time she was in a hurry. Inside the church she sat on the very first bench from the back,
gazing with concentration at the stained-glass window over her head. It was cold, even inside
the church, and she was shivering. Everybody could see. They stared at her as they came in
and sat down near the front. It was cold, very cold to them, too; outside the church it was
below freezing and not much above inside. But the sight of her, sitting there somehow
passionately ignoring them, brought them up short, burning.
The young usher, never having turned anyone out of his church before, but not even
considering this job as that (after all, she had no right to be there, certainly), went up to her
and whispered that she should leave. Did he call her "Grandma," as later he seemed to recall
he had? But for those who actually hear such traditional pleasantries and to whom they
actually mean something, "Grandma" was not one, for she did not pay him any attention, just
muttered, "Go 'way," in a weak sharp bothered voice, waving his frozen blond hair and eyes
from near her face.
It was the ladies who finally did what to them had to be done. Daring their burly indecisive
husbands to throw the old colored woman out they made their point. God, mother, country,
earth, church. It involved all that, and well they knew it. Leather bagged and shoed, with good
calfskin gloves to keep out the cold, they looked with contempt at the bootless gray arthritic
hands of the old woman, clenched loosely, restlessly in her lap. Could their husbands expect
them to sit up in church with that? No, no, the husbands were quick to answer and even
quicker to do their duty.
Under the old woman's arms they placed their hard fists (which afterward smelled of decay
5
and musk—the fermenting scent of onionskins and rotting greens). Under the old woman's
arms they raised their fists, flexed their muscular shoulders, and out she flew through the
door, back under the cold blue sky. This done, the wives folded their healthy arms across their
trim middles and felt at once justified and scornful. But none of them said so, for none of
them ever spoke of the incident again. Inside the church it was warmer. They sang, they
prayed. The protection and promise of God's impartial love grew more not less desirable as
the sermon gathered fury and lashed itself out above their penitent heads.
The old woman stood at the top of the steps looking about in bewilderment. She had been
singing in her head. They had interrupted her. Promptly she began to sing again, though this
time a sad song. Suddenly, however, she looked down the long gray highway and saw
something interesting and delightful coming. She started to grin, toothlessly, with short
giggles of joy, jumping about and slapping her hands on her knees. And soon it became
apparent why she was so happy. For coming down the highway at a firm though leisurely
pace was Jesus. He was wearing an immaculate white, long dress trimmed in gold around the
neck and hem, and a red, a bright red, cape. Over his left arm he carried a brilliant blue
blanket. He was wearing sandals and a beard and he had long brown hair parted on the right
side. His eyes, brown, had wrinkles around them as if he smiled or looked at the sun a lot. She
would have known him, recognized him, anywhere. There was a sad but joyful look to his
face, like a candle was glowing behind it, and he walked with sure even steps in her direction,
as if he were walking on the sea. Except that he was not carrying in his arms a baby sheep, he
looked exactly like the picture of him that she had hanging over her bed at home. She had
taken it out of a white lady's Bible while she was working for her. She had looked at that
picture for more years than she could remember, but never once had she really expected to see
him. She squinted her eyes to be sure he wasn't carrying a little sheep in one arm, but he was
not. Ecstatically she began to wave her arms for fear he would miss seeing her, for he walked
looking straight ahead on the shoulder of the highway, and from time to time looking upward
at the sky.
All he said when he got up close to her was "Follow me," and she bounded down to his side
with all the bob and speed of one so old. For every one of his long determined steps she made
two quick ones. They walked along in deep silence for a long time. Finally she started telling
him about how many years she had cooked for them, cleaned for them, nursed them. He
looked at her kindly but in silence. She told him indignantly about how they had grabbed her
when she was singing in her head and not looking, and how they had tossed her out of his
church. A old heifer like me, she said, straightening up next to Jesus, breathing hard. But he
smiled down at her and she felt better instantly and time just seemed to fly by. When they
passed her house, forlorn and sagging, weatherbeaten and patched, by the side of the road, she
did not even notice it, she was so happy to be out walking along the highway with Jesus, she
broke the silence once more to tell Jesus how glad she was that he had come, how she had
often looked at his picture hanging on her wall (she hoped he didn't know she had stolen it)
over her bed, and how she had never expected to see him down here in person. Jesus gave her
one of his beautiful smiles and they walked on. She did not know where they were going;
someplace wonderful, she suspected. The ground was like clouds under their feet, and she felt
10
she could walk forever without becoming the least bit tired. She even began to sing out loud
some of the old spirituals she loved, but she didn't want to annoy Jesus, who looked so
thoughtful, so she quieted down. They walked on, looking straight over the treetops into the
sky, and the smiles that played over her dry wind-cracked face were like first clean ripples
across a stagnant pond. On they walked without stopping.
The people in church never knew what happened to the old woman; they never mentioned her
to one another or to anybody else. Most of them heard sometime later that an old colored
woman fell dead along the highway. Silly as it seemed, it appeared she had walked herself to
death. Many of the black families along the road said they had seen the old lady high-stepping
down the highway; sometimes jabbering in a low insistent voice, sometimes singing,
sometimes merely gesturing excitedly with her hands. Other times silent and smiling, looking
at the sky. She had been alone, they said. Some of them wondered aloud where the old
woman had been going so stoutly that it had worn her heart out. They guessed maybe she had
relatives across the river, some miles away, but none of them really knew.
"The Welcome Table" from In Love & Trouble: Stories of Black Women, copyright © 1973 by
Alice Walker. Reproduced by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All
Rights Reserved. Reprinted by permission of The Joy Harris Literary Agency, Inc.
RESPONSE AND REFLECTION QUESTIONS
Connecting
What allowed you to connect to this story?
Considering
At what points were your feelings heightened because of the omniscient point of view—allowing
you not just to observe action, but also to "see inside" the minds of those involved in the action?
Concluding
Consider the six ways literature contributes to our lives discussed in this chapter. How many of
these can be illustrated by "The Welcome Table"?
A Concluding Exercise: Supporting Your Response to a
Literary Work
Responding to something you have read involves more than simply summarizing the content or
re-stating what happened. As this chapter has shown, responding to literature requires you to
imagine, to think, to reflect, and to make connections to life experiences and human concerns.
Your response will be unique, composed of your personal insights. But, at the same time, your
response must be credibly related to what the writer of the literary work has presented. So you
need to show how particular things in the piece of literature actually support your response.
1. Below are three responses to "The Welcome Table." Each presents a different view of the
old woman and her role in the story. Consider how the selected aspects of the story can
be used to support the response in each case.
"She is old, black and 'different'; she represents the possibility of a servant class stepping out of
line." —Peter S. Hawkins (1994), Listening for God, Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, p. 108.
Support from the Story:
Image describing her appearance: "She was angular and lean and the color of poor gray Georgia
earth, beaten by king cotton and the extreme weather."
Action in the story: She explained, in her imaginary conversation with Jesus, "how many years
she had cooked for them, cleaned for them, and nursed them."
Action in the story: "Others saw cooks, chauffeurs, maids, mistresses, children denied or
smothered in the deferential way she held her cheek to the side, toward the ground."
"This old black woman challenges the very thing that gives them [white women] privilege. Both
they and she are women—but they are white, their only claim to the pedestal on which they so
uneasily stand." —Barbara Christian (1981) "A Study of In Love and Trouble: The Contrary
Women of Alice Walker," The Black Scholar, Vol. 12, No. 2, (March/April 1981), p. 70.
Support from the Story:
Image describing her appearance: "They gazed nakedly upon their own fear transferred; a fear
of the black and the old, a terror of the unknown as well as of the deeply known."
Action in the story: "Leather bagged and shoed, with good calfskin gloves to keep out the cold,
they looked with contempt at the bloodless gray arthritic hands of the old woman, clenched
loosely, restlessly in her lap."
Action in the story: "It was the ladies who finally did what to them had to be done. Daring their
burly indecisive husbands to throw the old colored woman out they made their point."
"The old woman is empowered by an irrepressible spiritual tradition, 'singing in her head,' that
allows her to resist conventions and be hopeful."
Support from the Story:
Image describing her appearance: "In that old tight face, shut now like an ancient door, there
was nothing to be read."
Image describing her appearance: "On her face centuries were folded into the circles around one
eye, while around the other, etched and mapped as if for print, ages more threatened again to
live."
Action in the story: "She told him [Jesus] indignantly about how they had grabbed her when she
was singing in her head and not looking, and how they had tossed her out of his church."
Action in the story: "She even began to sing out loud some of the old spirituals she loved."
The epigraph: Five lines from a spiritual, dedicated to the Gospel singer Clara Ward.
2. Using the "Short-Answer Written Response" model that appears earlier in this chapter,
write your response to "The Welcome Table," and to support your view include
references to specific aspects of the story, like those above.
3.3.1 How Stories Began
4. Your environment and personal experiences influence your response to stories. Whether
you are aware of it or not, the lens through which you envision a story is filtered by
insights you have gained from family traditions, religious beliefs, and critical life issues.
Thus, interpretations of a story vary based on the reader's age, breadth of experience, and
emotional connection. Likewise, interpretations differ from culture to culture. For
example, stories that once grew out of particular political controversies continue to be
told long after the original political context has been forgotten. The familiar nursery
rhyme "Rock-a-bye Baby" is a classic example. In late 17th-century England, when there
was a struggle for political power between Catholics and Protestants, King James II, who
had converted to Catholicism, came to power. The "Rock-a-bye Baby" narrative is
thought to reflect the rumor that the son born to him and the queen was not their child—
but a boy hidden and secretly exchanged, giving them a Catholic heir to the throne—
until, at some point ("when the bough breaks") the truth would be known. The Oxford
Book of Nursery Rhymes provides extensive background information about the stories
that became known as nursery rhymes with the publication of John Newbery's book
Mother Goose's Melody in mid-18th-century England.
6. Nicolas Sebastien Adam/The Bridgeman Art Library/Getty
7. After giving fire to humanity, Prometheus was chained to a rock as punishment by Zeus.
8. The earliest stories in every culture are its myths, anonymous stories through which
primitive people sought to explain the world around them, including the mysteries of
divinity, creation, truth, and death. Literature often retells myths, using them as literary
patterns. Because Greek and Roman myths are the ones most closely related to our
culture, their patterns turn up often in other literature.
9. Prometheus had a prominent role in Greek creation mythology. He was a Titan who
enjoyed pleasures that humans lacked. In a bold move, he stole fire from the sun and
brought it to earth as a gift to humanity. Zeus, father of the gods, was offended by this
defiant action. Because he was quarrelling with Prometheus at the time, Zeus arranged a
horrible punishment: Prometheus was chained to a remote rock where an eagle tormented
him constantly by tearing at his liver. Zeus set up conditions for ending the torment, but it
did not happen for a long, long time. This myth addresses the risk that may accompany
efforts to improve human conditions, especially if the action defies the established order
of things.
10. Prometheus has a counterpart in British literature. Matching the pattern of the original
myth to a large extent, novelist Mary Shelley introduces readers to Dr. Victor
Frankenstein, an eccentric scientist who manages to create "new" human life. However,
the man he creates does not possess the kind of human refinements he hoped to achieve.
Instead, his experiment produces a grotesque monster that torments Dr. Frankenstein and
eventually kills members of the doctor's family. In the subtitle of her novel, Shelley
identified Frankenstein as "The Modern Prometheus" (Shelley, 1818). Both Prometheus,
the ancient Titan, and Frankenstein, the modern scientist, saw themselves as champions
of humanity; both acted boldly and risked reversals, which came; and both suffered
lasting pain as a result of their actions.
11. Other early story forms include the legend, the fable, the parable, and the tale. All are
short and, like myths, provide reflections on human experiences. Legends often are
traditions as well as stories. They are rooted in history and have fewer supernatural
aspects than myths do. Fables are stories that often feature animals as characters,
although people and inanimate objects may also play a key role, and always offer a moral
or lesson. Parables also illustrate a moral or lesson, but the details of these stories
carefully parallel those of the situation surrounding the moral. Tales, told in an
uncomplicated manner, are anecdotes about an event.
3.2 Features of the Short Story
The short story, as we know it, is a fictional narrative with a formal design. More stylized than a
simple anecdote or narrative sketch, the short story form was developed in the 19th century. Two
American writers, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Edgar Allan Poe, were highly influential in creating
the short story genre. In 1842, Poe was the first to define the genre formally, calling it an artistic
composition controlled to produce a single unified effect—something he achieved brilliantly in
his stories that explored themes like vengeance and fear of death. Beginning in the 20th century,
short stories tended to focus more and more on real-life situations. In the early 20th century, O.
Henry popularized the surprise ending as a short story technique. You will find one of his stories
in Chapter 4.
Generally, a short story has the following features:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
a plot (a series of actions, events, or developments)
conflict (opposing actions, ideas, and decisions that hold the plot together)
a setting (the place where the action occurs)
a clear time frame (usually a relatively short period of time)
characters (fictional individuals who initiate the action and create the conflict)
a point of view (the particular perspective or slant through which the story is presented)
a theme (the underlying idea that the story illustrates or represents)
particular stylistic features, including tone, irony, and symbolism
Detailed discussion and illustrations of each of these elements are included in the next few
chapters.
Stories also reflect culture. The term culture refers to common characteristics of a group or a
region. Culture is never static; it is a changing phenomenon, constantly reconfigured by human
behavior, language, laws, events, patterns, products, beliefs, and ideals. To put it simply, culture
refers to a way of life, an ethos. Writers often reflect a particular culture through the setting of a
story or the spirit of the characters' lives—providing insight, for example, into Southern culture,
post–World War I culture, or global culture. In this way, stories preserve culture: They freeze
moments in time and create cultural awareness.
As you read "Country Lovers," you are faced with interracial issues, which are explored through
the character development, actions, and personal dilemmas of a privileged white boy and an
ultimately powerless black girl. Notice how the author pulls you into an awareness of the culture
in which the action happens. Also, look for the characteristics of the short story listed above;
each one is important. (A number of common words in the story, such as "labourer" and
"honourable," may appear somewhat unfamiliar because they are spelled using the British and
South African conventions rather than American ones.)
Nadine Gordimer (b. 1923)
© Kurt Krieger/Corbis Entertainment/Corbis
Nadine Gordimer has lived in South Africa since birth and, except for a year spent in university,
has devoted all her adult life to writing—completing 13 novels and 10 short story collections,
works that have been published in 40 languages. Her strong opposition to apartheid, the
socioeconomic system that oppressed the majority black population in South Africa (1940–
1994), is a dominant theme in her writing, with her later works reflecting challenges
accompanying the changing attitudes in the country toward racial relationships. She was awarded
the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1991.
Revelation about Apartheid
In an interview from 1990, Author Nadine Gordimer discussses her gradual realization of how
distorted South African society was—and the educational advantages she had over black
children.
Critical Thinking Questions
•
•
Nadine Gordimer says that she would never have been a writer if she did not have access
to a library as a child. Do you believe that someone can become a writer without library
access? Why or why not?
How has Gordimer's upbringing as a white South African influenced her writing, such as
her story Country Lovers?
Country Lovers
Nadine Gordimer (1975)
A story about forbidden love on a South African farm.
The farm children play together when they are small, but once the white children go away to
school they soon don't play together any more, even in the holidays. Although most of the
black children get some sort of schooling, they drop every year farther behind the grades
passed by the white children; the childish vocabulary, the child's exploration of the
adventurous possibilities
of dam, koppies,1 mealie lands,2 and veld,3—there comes a time
i
when the white children have surpassed these with the vocabulary of boarding-school and
the possibilities of inter-school sports matches and the kind of adventures seen at the
cinema. This usefully coincides with the age of twelve or thirteen; so that by the time early
adolescence is reached, the black children are making along with the bodily changes
common to all, an easy transition to adult forms of address, beginning to call their old
playmates missus and baasie little master.4
i The trouble was Paulus Eysendyck did not seem to realize that Thebedi was now simply one
of the crowd of farm children down at the kraal,5 recognizable in his sisters' old clothes. The
first Christmas holidays after he had gone to boarding-school he brought home for Thebedi a
painted box he had made in his wood-work class. He had to give it to her secretly because he
i had nothing for the other children at the kraal. And she gave him, before he went back to
school, a bracelet she had made of thin brass wire and the grey-and-white beans of the
castor-oil crop his father cultivated. (When they used to play together, she was the one who
had taught Paulus how to make clay oxen for their toy spans.6) There was a craze, even in
the platteland towns like the one where he was at school, for boys to wear elephant-hair and
other bracelets beside their watch-straps; his was admired, friends asked him to get similar
ones for them. He said the natives made them on his father's farm and he would try.
When he was fifteen, six feet tall and tramping round at school dances with the girls from
the "sister" school in the same town; when he had learnt how to tease and flirt and fondle
quite intimately these girls who were the daughters of prosperous farmers like his father;
when he had even met one who, at a wedding he had attended with his parents on a nearby
farm, had let him do with her in a locked storeroom what people did when they made love—
when he was as far from his childhood as all this, he still brought home from a shop in town
i
a red plastic belt and gilt hoop ear-rings for the black girl, Thebedi. She told her father the
missus had given these to her as a reward for some work she had done—it was true she
sometimes was called to help out in the farmhouse. She told the girls in the kraal that she
had a sweetheart nobody knew about, far away, away on another farm, and they giggled, and
teased, and admired her. There was a boy in the kraal called Njabulo who said he wished he
could have brought her a belt and ear-rings.
When the farmer's son was home for the holidays she wandered far from the kraal and her
companions. He went for walks alone. They had not arranged this; it was an urge each
followed independently. He knew it was she, from a long way off. She knew that his dog
would not bark at her. Down at the dried-up river-bed where five or six years ago the
children had caught a leguaan one great day—a creature that combined ideally the size and
ferocious aspect of the crocodile with the harmlessness of the lizard—they squatted side by
side on the earth bank. He told her traveller's tales: about school, about the punishments at
school, particularly, exaggerating both their nature and his indifference to them. He told her
about the town of Middleburg, which she had never seen. She had nothing to tell but she
prompted with many questions, like any good listener. While he talked he twisted and
tugged at the roots of white stinkwood and Cape willow trees that looped out of the eroded
earth around them. It had always been a good spot for children's games, down there hidden
by the mesh of old, ant-eaten trees held in place by vigorous ones, wild asparagus bushing
up between the trunks, and here and there prickly-pear cactus sunken-skinned and bristly,
like an old man's face, keeping alive sapless until the next rainy season. She punctured the
dry hide of a prickly-pear again and again with a sharp stick while she listened. She laughed
a lot at what he told her, sometimes dropping her face on her knees, sharing amusement with
the cool shady earth beneath her bare feet. She put on her pair of shoes—white sandals,
thickly Blanco-ed,7 against the farm dust—when he was on the farm, but these were taken
off and laid aside, at the river-bed.
One summer afternoon when there was water flowing there and it was very hot she waded in
as they used to do when they were children, her dress bunched modestly and tucked into the
legs of her pants. The schoolgirls he went swimming with at dams or pools on neighbouring
farms wore bikinis but the sight of their dazzling bellies and thighs in the sunlight had never 5
made him feel what he felt now when the girl came up the bank and sat beside him, the
drops of water beading off her dark legs the only points of light in the earth-smelling, deep
shade. They were not afraid of one another, they had known one another always; he did with
her what he had done that time in the storeroom at the wedding, and this time it was so
lovely, so lovely, he was surprised . . . and she was surprised by it, too—he could see in her
dark face that was part of the shade, with her big dark eyes, shiny as soft water, watching
him attentively: as she had when they used to huddle over their teams of mud oxen, as she
had when he told her about detention weekends at school.
They went to the river-bed often through those summer holidays. They met just before the
light went, as it does quite quickly, and each returned home with the dark—she to her
mother's hut, he to the farmhouse—in time for the evening meal. He did not tell her about
school or town any more. She did not ask questions any longer...
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