African American Literature

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...

Flowers in Mrs. Dalloway

Flowers abound in Mrs. Dalloway . Parts of the plot are flower centric. The book begins with Clarissa going to buy flowers. Later on she reflects on the unique way Sally arranges flowers and how Sally kissed her after picking a flower. Richard brings Clarissa flowers when he comes home. Flowers are also just briefly mentioned throughout the book. When Peter follows a woman to her house his thoughts about Clarissa are interrupted by “The house was one of those flat red houses with hanging flowers of vague impropriety. (…) Well, I’ve had my fun; I’ve had it, he thought, looking up at the swinging basket of pale geraniums.” (53). It’s odd that Peter focuses on the flowers at all, given that his thoughts are mostly consumed by Clarissa and the other woman but it’s also interesting that Peter notes the specific type of flower. Later Peter thinks about Sally and flowers: “Who was it who had done that? (…) Somebody who had written him a long, gushing letter quite lately about...

Ma has to defend herself?!

Having spent half the novel with Ma and Jack in Room, I was at first really shocked by how people criticized Ma and how defensive she had to be. It seemed to me that Ma routinely did superhuman things in Room from creating tons of great activities for Jack while always being patient with him to constantly trying to escape or get rescued to acting in her interactions with Old Nick to get as much of what she needed from him as possible. The scene that angered me the most was the one where Ma did the interview. The interviewer asked a lot of terrible questions, whether they completely ignored what Ma had said previously or showed a total lack of empathy and understand of what Ma had been through, but I’ll transcribe just part of the interview here: “[…] did you ever consider asking your captor to take Jack away?” “Away?” “To leave him outside a hospital, say, so he could be adopted. As you yourself were, very happily, I believe.” I can see Ma swallow. “Why would I have done t...

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