Homework Reminder:
1. A range of questions regarding 3 different themes of "Fat"
2. Begin analysing your allocated short story (Powerpoint of the process is linked to the blog on the right)
3. Have a look over the worksheets I handed out, I'll go over them more thoroughly next class.
4. I've also posted a couple of articles from "The Conversation" regarding obesity/body image pressures in modern society.... might be interesting to have a skim read over!
Cheers big ears, enjoy the weekend!
Questions for 'the father': Is the grand moth implying the mother is fat?
ReplyDeleteIs the father adopted?
Why isn't the father also standing around the baby?
"Fat": Does the fat man have a personality disorder?
Why is the name of the girl never disclosed?
Is she pregnant?
And then he thought to cup his palms, so that there would come that roaring, like the wind howling up from a seashell.
ReplyDeleteThis last line is another indicator that Lee Waite is trying to escape from his own reality and displace himself from everything that is going on around him, in his own world. It signifies that he believes that there is a better place out there.
"....And then he thought to cup his palms, so that there would come that roaring, like the wind howling up from a seashell..."
ReplyDeleteLee Waite has a lot of responsibility on his shoulders; he is the husband, the provider & the problem solver to everyone, and he is exhausted. He knows that he will not be able to keep strangers off his property, so he tries to come to a solution which is to lease the land, and take some of the financial pressure off him and his family. Nina, his wife, is ignorant and uneducated, and does not understand what he is trying to do. Lee is frustrated with her lack of understanding and his life in general.
"Father" Questions:
ReplyDelete- Why doesn't the male characters have names?
- Is the character called "Daddy" the real father of the children?
- Why doesn't the grandmother look at 'Daddy' the second time?
"Fat" Questions:
- What is wrong with being fat? - obesity
- Does the large man belong with other people as he refers to himself as 'we'? - Belonging
- Who are kinder - fat people or skinny people? - sterotypes/prejudice
Don't know why "Smoking Kills" is my name. It is from Dieter Tieman. I'm changing the display name . . .
ReplyDelete"And then he thought to cup his palms, so that there would come that roaring, like the wind howling up from a seashell."
ReplyDeleteLee Waite has finally broken as a man with all the pressures around him closing in. He is the only surviving brother/son and the only adult male character in the book which gives a sense of isolation and loneliness within the harsh realities of his world. We can see that Lee has given up as he is about to rent out parts of his land to game hunters. The land seems to have been in his family for many generations and the failure and realisation of not moving forward as a father, a husband, a son, a male, and a Waite finally brings Lee's world into misery.
'And then he thought to cup his palms, so that there would come that roaring, like the wind howling up from a seashell'
ReplyDeleteLee is a masculine figure, and similar to many other male characters in Carvers stories, he bottles his feelings. He has traditional values so he has high expectations of himself. He feels he has failed at a father and a land-owner. This is his lowest point and still at his darkest hour he is incapable of letting his feelings heard, but to cup his hands together signifies that his 'raoring ocean' like pain is now outside of his head and in his palms, ready to be whisked away with the wind. I think this gesture gives him peace of mind, and allows him to enjoy a mindless-like state where all his problems are gone for just a moment.
FAT questions:
ReplyDeleteentrapment: why is the main character in 'Fat' still with Rudy?
self worth: why does the main character let Rudy abuse her?
belonging: why does she feel so comfortable around the fat man?
Prejudice: The characters who work at the restaurant are rude about the fat man. What does this say about society and its view on overweight people?
"And then he thought to cup his palms, so that there would come that roaring, like the wind howling up from a seashell"
ReplyDeleteIn the short story 'Sixty Acres' Lee Wait is a masculine figure in charge of continuing the run the farm, which had been in his family. He kept his feelings to himself and was an isolated character. The last line of the text shows that Lee was intentionally blocking in or out his thoughts and feelings by "shutting his eyes" and "covering his ears". This may portray that he was nervous or overwhelmed about the thought of leasing out the land or that he felt a sense of relief about the offer of money with may help out both him and his family. Within the last line both the feelings of calmness and fear have been displayed, with the "seashell" depicting calmness and "roaring" referring to fear.
THE FATHER QUESTIONS
ReplyDelete1. Why was the Father isolated from the conversation?
2. What did the expression on the Father's face mean?
3. Why didn't the Grandmother look at the Father? Is he really her child?
4. Does the baby really look like "Daddy"?
FAT QUESTIONS
1. Does the storyteller really want to gain weight like the "Fat" man? - desire
2. Can the "Fat" man contol his food intake? - control
3. Does the storyteller feel that she can't escape from her relationship with
Rudy? - entrapment
4. How does the "Fat" man feel about his size and how does he feel about the
reactions of those around him? - sense of belonging
FAT:
ReplyDelete-Why did the fat man refer himself as 'we'?
-What did the woman(main character) think was going to change?
-Why did Rita think she told Rita too much?/ Why does she keep a distance with her?
THE FATHER:
-Why did the didn't the father look like anyone
-What secrets were the father and the grandmother hiding?
-What is the father's role in the family?
'And then he thought to cup his palms, so that there would come that roaring, like the wind howling up from a seashell':
Lee Waite is one of the only masculine figures that appear in this story, and he the role pressures him into behaving how he does. To act strong and represent the family’s ‘man’, is what society tells him, but there is also that personal pressure he puts on himself from the experience of losing two brothers, that he has to be worth the two of them. But because of that pressure of acting masculine, he hides his true self, resulting his disconnection with others and mental isolation. This last line sums up Waite’s character. He acts strong on the outside by doing a manly pose, but all that masculinity is fake. It is only a bluff to hide his true inner self, like the sound of a menacing howling coming from a weak shellfish.
Fat Questions:
ReplyDeleteWhat aspects of the fat man does the narrator find intriguing (and why does she defend him?)?
Why does the "Fat man" refer to himself as more than one person?
Why does the woman tell the story to Rita in such detail?
Why does the "Fat man" make a puffing noise?
Why is the "Fat man" so polite?
Why does the she say "I eat and I eat and I cant gain, but I'd like to gain"?
The Father Questions:
How is the father related to the rest of the family
Why didnt the grandma look back at the father?
Why did Phyllis cry when she said "Why nobody!" (about the father)?
Why were they all looking at the baby at the time? What lead them too? (and why was it the first thing the mother did when she got out of bed?)
On the line "Waiting for what? I'd like to know." Who is the "I" reffering to?
Comment on last line of Sixty Acres:
Lee Waite is crumbling at the thought of dealing with the stresses at hand and his current life
He is thinking about all the presures from other people and how he can deal with them and whether he wants to deal with them and also whether it is right for him to deal with it and what the correct way of going about a task would be. He also has the added pressure of what a masculine figure(His father) or his brothers would have done as he feels he would have to account for them aswell.
why is he thinking it
The purpose of Lee covering his ears like shells was to take him away from the worries and stresses of his current life to a distant place in the mountains where the wind howls or the seaside where seashells can be found and the roar of the ocean is load