This a blog for Mr. James Cook's eleventh grade honors English class at Gloucester (MA) High School. Remember what Northrup Frye writes in _Fearful Symmetry_, "No one can begin to think straight unless [she or] he has a passionate desire to think and an intense joy in thinking."

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Read Another Monster Book

Monstrous Humanity? Monstrous Culture? Monstrous Nature?
Choose a book from this list & post your choice in the comment box.
Read the book.
While you’re reading write down notes and questions, especially concerning the monsters and the themes related to monstrousness.

Who is the monster or who are the monsters in the book? How do you know? What makes the character a monster? Physical deformity or difference? Inhuman or inhumane behavior? Both? Something else? What is the relationship between physical monstrousness and moral monstrousness in your book? (Some possibilities: Does physical monstrosity mask moral beauty? Does physical monstrosity lead to alienation which leads to monstrous moral choices? Etc.)

What seems to be the cause of the monstrous behavior in your book? (Is it in the monster’s nature as with the Grendel of Beowulf? Is it chosen by the monster as a response to radical alienation and rejection as with the Grendel of Grendel? Is it learned by the monster? Is it taught to the monster?

What seems to be the author’s purpose in portraying a literal monster (or monstrous behavior)? What is the author trying to show about human beings and the human condition?

(l=literal monster: a not-quite-human but human-like beast of some sort or a significantly physically deformed human)
(f=figurative monster: a human who behaves monstrously)

Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, (1999) by David Foster Wallace (f)

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, (1886) by Robert Louis Stevenson (l?/f?)

Metamorphosis, (1915) by Franz Kafka (l)

Frankenstein, (1818) by Mary Shelley (l)

Freddy’s Book
, (1980) by John Gardner (f/l)

The Hunchback of Notre Dame, (1831) by Victor Hugo (l)

In Cold Blood
, (1965) by Truman Capote (f)

Native Son, (1940) by Richard Wright (f)

The Picture of Dorian Gray, (1890) by Oscar Wilde (f/l)

The Tempest
, (1610-11) by William Shakespeare (l)