History As Fiction

How does Odysseus feel about his men? Bonus: a lot of questions about class

We’ve discussed a lot to what extent we think Odysseus is a reliable narrator. The main piece of evidence for his reliability is that he includes details about the way he treated his crew that reflect badly on him. Today in class I suggested that he could include these details to make lies seem more realistic and someone suggested that Odysseus probably just truly feels bad about his men’s deaths. But that started me thinking about the weird dynamic of Odysseus’s relationship with his crew so I looked back in the book to see how he talks about his men and their deaths. I presented on book eleven, so I immediately thought of Elpenor. Elpenor certainly seems important to Odysseus since Odysseus mentions him three times: when he first died, when he’s in the underworld, and when he’s actually buried. Odysseus’s attention to Elpenor both in burying him with all the proper rituals and in describing his death in detail in his story shows that Odysseus has some level of affection for him...

Macon and Bigger

We talked briefly in class about how Mansbach references many key works of African American literature and I want to analyze one reference to Native Son by Richard Wright in a bit more detail. This post might be more interesting if you were in the African American Lit class or have read Native Son on your own, but I’ll give brief summaries so hopefully the post is understandable even if you haven’t (although there might be spoilers if you think you will read the books). In the prologue, Macon brags about his news coverage and says “I was hoping someone would call me the white Bigger Thomas, but nobody had the nutsack even though it’s an obvious comparison, what with Bigger being a chauffeur and me being a cabbie. I talked a lot more shit than Bigger ever did, though. And I did what I did on purpose. And I got away.” Bigger Thomas is the main character in Native Son by Richard Wright. In the novel Bigger (a black man) accidentally kills a white woman, tries to run away, and is the...

The Pantasote Top

In describing Coalhouses’s Model T, Doctorow repeatedly mentions the custom pantasote top. When we first meet Coalhouse the narrator mentions the top: “His car shone. The brightwork gleamed. There was a glass windshield and a custom pantasote top” (155). When his car is vandalized by the firemen “the custom pantasote top was slashed to ribbons” (180). When Conklin repairs the car, the end result is “a shining black Model T Ford with a custom pantasote roof” (295). We talked about how the car is a symbol of wealth and status and so the mention of the custom top (a fancy addition) at the end of so many descriptions of the car reminds us of that. But what actually is a pantasote top? When the car is being repaired “The Pantasote Company delivered a top” so from the book we know that it’s a brand name top (295). I also googled pantasote and it appears to be both the name of a company and the name of the particular material the company used to make car tops. ...

Annemily's Blog

Search This Blog