Exploring Scarcity and Abundance in Literary Works like 'Salvage the Bones' and 'As I Lay Dying'
The passage delves into the stark portrayal of scarcity in a refrigerator, drawing comparisons between 'Salvage the Bones' and 'As I Lay Dying'. It highlights the thematic similarities between Ward and William Faulkner's works, emphasizing the use of symbolism like water and maternal figures. The text explores the concept of rewriting in literature, exemplified by novels such as 'Wide Sargasso Sea' and 'Foe', and discusses Ward's approach of recycling Faulkner's works to give voice to marginalized characters.
Download Presentation
Please find below an Image/Link to download the presentation.
The content on the website is provided AS IS for your information and personal use only. It may not be sold, licensed, or shared on other websites without obtaining consent from the author. Download presentation by click this link. If you encounter any issues during the download, it is possible that the publisher has removed the file from their server.
E N D
Presentation Transcript
Today Passage re: scarcity in refrigerator Salvage the Bones and As I Lay Dying World of abundance vs. world of scarcity Getting into groups Ways of escape in Salvage the Bones
What did you see in this passage? "There are six eggs in the refrigerator. A few cups of cold rice. Three pieces of bologna. An empty cardboard box from the gas station that holds chicken bones sucked dry. A half gallon of milk. Ketchup and mayonnaise" (189-190).
Ward & William Faulkners As I Lay Dying Both are set in poor, rural Mississippi. Both feature male-dominated families. Both feature an absent mother who is nevertheless a conspicuous ghostly presence and in which rising floodwaters generate the texts key dramatic tensions. Both feature pregnant teenagers, Dewey Dell and Esch Both share motifs (floods and storms; trees) and themes (sexuality and reproduction; maternity; rural poverty). Ward has said she thinks AILD is perfect.
From As I Lay Dying My mother is a fish. Darl says that when we come to the water again I might see her and Dewey Dell said, She's in the box; how could she have got out? She got out through the holes I bored, into the water I said, and when we come to the water again I am going to see her. My mother is not in the box. My mother does not smell like that. My mother is a fish. As I Lay Dying has an experimental style Ward discards this in favor of realism.
Rewriting Jean Rhys s Wide Sargasso Sea (1966) rewrite Charlotte Bronte s Jane Eyre (1847) J. M. Coetzee s Foe (1986) rewrite Robinson Crusoe (1719) China Mi ville Railsea (2012)= rewrites Moby Dick (1851) Linda Hutcheon: such rewriting can be critical --decenter historically dominant voices and to counter a tradition of silence and alleged misrepresentation Problem, though: rewriting may be validated by original text.
Recycling, rather than rewriting? Sine ad Moynihan: argues that instead of rewriting, Ward recycles Faulkner she is not critiquing Faulkner, but using Faulkner to resituate the lives of her poor, marginal characters. Why do you think using Faulkner one of the most praised writers of the twentieth century helps readers see her characters in a new way?
Ward on her use of mythology It infuriates me that the work of white American writers can be universal and lay claim to classic texts, while black and female authors are ghettoized as other. I wanted to align Esch with that classic text, with the universal figure of Medea, the antihero, to claim that tradition as part of my Western literary heritage. The stories I write are particular to my community and my people, which means the details are particular to our circumstances, but the larger story of the survivor, the savage, is essentially a universal, human one.
How does this passage fit into the novel? He hasn t changed a thing here since Mama died: there are small glass candleholders with tall peach candles wedged into them, and two small bunches of fake flowers in squat vases that look like cups that Mama placed at both ends of the dresser. There are pictures of us, Polaroids, which Mama wedged between the glass and the frame of the mirror. There is one picture of her and Daddy standing chest to chest, in a frame. Her hands are on his shoulders, her hair ironed straight and pulled back smooth, her dress cut open in the front so that it shows her collarbone, as dense and burnished and beautiful as a brass doorknob. She smiles without opening her mouth. Daddy doesn t smile at all, but his hands are around her back, and he has that serious, prideful tilt of his head that Skeetah has when he is standing with China at a dogfight, showing her off before the mad scramble, the cutting barks and teeth (134)
Edward Burtynsky Shipbreaking We tend to see ships when they are whole images of them launching, paintings of them in a bay, images of tankers going through the Panama Canal https://www.edwardburtynsky.com/projects/photog raphs/shipbreaking Look at the photos in the Burtynsky series. How would you describe the world that they represent?
Two worlds World of fullness Broken world Intact things Broken things Intact family StB Broken family StB Salvage Repair Savage Reuse New products Garbage Intact buildings Abandoned, ruined buildings Abundance Scarcity New iPhone, computer Discarded or broken iPhone, computer Literature that is still read Literature that was never read, or has become so familiar that it seems old
I am a good writer Very true 4 Less true 3 Somewhat true 2 Not at all true 1 I am good at coordinating others work (making sure people work together, reminding people about deadlines, and so on). Very true 4 Less true 3 Somewhat true 2 Not at all true 1 I am good at reading and analyzing literature Very true 4 Less true 3 Somewhat true 2 Not at all true 1 I am good at editing others work. Very true 4 Less true 3 Somewhat true 2 Not at all true 1
Ways of escaping world StB Basketball Dogfighting Love? [Esch and Manny] Myth [Esch thinking of herself as Medea] What is at stake with China potentially dying/Skeetah losing puppy Randall succeeding at basketball/going to camp/getting drafted Manny rejecting Esch
I try to read the entire mythology book, but I cant. I am stuck in the middle. When I put the book down and wipe my wet face and breathe in my morning breath, ripe to the afternoon under the sheet, this is where I have stopped. Medea kills her brother. In the beginning, she is known by her nephew, who tells the Argonauts about her, for having power, for helping her family, just like I tried to help Skeet on the day China first got sick from the Ivomec. But for Medea, love makes help turn wrong. The author says that there are a couple of different versions of how it happened. One says she lies to her brother and invites him onto the ship with the Argonauts as they were fleeing, and that Jason ambushes him. That she watched her brother die, her own face on his being sliced open like a chicken: pink skin cut to bloody meat. The other version says that she kills her brother herself, that her brother runs away with her and the Argonauts, assuming that he is safe, and that she chops him into bits: liver, gizzard, breast and thigh, and throws each part overboard so that her father, who is chasing them, slows down to pick up each part of his son (154)
