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Sample Interactive Oral from Mr. Gufford's class (Sorrow of War): BE CREATIVE AND CLEVER!
Is It Story that Makes Us Read &
An Encyclopedia of Every Plot Ever - ARCHETYPAL CRIT
Is It Story that Makes Us Read &
An Encyclopedia of Every Plot Ever - ARCHETYPAL CRIT
The Visit
E-Text of The Visit on Google Drive Q1 folder
The Visit - the translation where his name is Anton Schill
The Visit - the translation by Joel Agee?
Understanding Friedrich Durrenmatt - full book; good at bio and chronology
Durrenmatt's selected essays - Google book
1959 Der Besuch der alten Dame movie
1964 The Visit movie trailer - I've still never seen it; regardless as horrible despite big name actors
2012 college/HS production in German of The Visit
The Visit Teacher Guide - pretty great
The Visit - Wikipedia
Der Besuch der alten Dame translated German page
The Visit - Gradesaver
The Visit - enotes
The Visit by Friedrich Durrenmatt Detailed Book Review – discussion board
THE AUTHOR
Friedrich Durrenmatt photos
Durrenmatt quotes - clearly the best list of his contextual views/theories
Friedrich Dürrenmatt - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
map of Bern, Switzerland
Friedrich Durrenmatt 1/20 - I guess this is a 20 part video biography in German
Friedrich Durrenmatt interview in German from 1969
Durrenmatt Brittanica
Friedrich Durrenmatt – with interviews, essays, etc
Durrenmatt bio with some photos
Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921-1990) – bio
STAGE PRODUCTIONS/PHOTOS
2014? Broadway revival stage photos
Broadway revival FYI
Visit Examines Greed and Revenge - very interesting Chinese production/take on the play
Allusions/Context
Goethe
Faust and Faustian bargains (deals with the devil)
Brahms
Berthold Schwarz
Richard Wagner - and his operas; see late section on Nazi appropriation of his music
Medea (the play/character)
Clotho
The Fates
Lais
Hermione (Mayor's kid)
Zimt allusion seems based on (or refers to) Gustav Klimt
The Merry Widow
Messerschmidt
1 Corinthians 13 AND this link for explanation on love vs charity in versions of this verse
The Prophet Amos and the likely thing the Priest is talking about to Ill on pg 96
Greek Chorus tradition (Man1-4, final scene which is something of an exodus structurally)
FYI on Greek tragedy too
Oberammergau Passion Play - pay attention to the 1934 version
Allusions in The Visit Prezi
Another Allusions in The Visit Prezi
Yet another Allusions in The Visit Prezi
Indirect Allusions & Contextual FYIs:
Lysistrata - a play by Aristophanes
Max Frisch
Bertolt Brecht
Samuel Beckett
Eugene Ionesco
Aristotle's Poetics
Stichomythia
Theater of the Absurd & The Grotesque in Theater & The Macabre in theater - could explore "the gothic" elements from the 19th century and Mary Shelley-esque/Frankenstein qualities to Claire
The grotesque in the theater of Friedrich Durrenmatt
Avante-garde
Deus ex machina
Philosophy of Soren Kierkegaard - might wish to look into Nietzsche
Utilitarianism - rule vs. act versions
Categorical Imperative - look also in Kant (in relation to Alfred Ill maybe)
Humanism (or Humanitarianism or Secular Humanism) - relation to Schoolmaster
Machiavelli - consider him in relation to devious political calculation (or Claire)
1997 Catholic/Pope apology for the Holocaust
Hyperinflation in 1920s Germany (Weimar) - as something of contextual backdrop for the moral vacuum and poverty of Guellen
Operation Tannenbaum
schweizerspende - Swiss post war donations
Swiss neutrality in the world wars - Wiki
Berchtesgaden - note proximity close to Switzerland (and stolen art issues)
The Sinister Face of Neutrality (Swiss in WWII)
The Not So Neutrals of WWII
history-switzerland.geschichte-schweiz.ch/switzerland-neutrality-world-war-ii.html
Nazi plunder
Nazi Gold = The Swiss National Bank, the largest gold distribution centre in continental Europe before the war, was the logical venue through which Nazi Germany could dispose of its gold.[8] During the war, the SNB received $440m in gold from Nazi sources, of which $316m is estimated to have been looted.[9]
Stalinist show trials in 1930s
Women's suffrage in Swtizerland - if you see Claire in some Feminist light
Why didn't the US or allies bomb the Nazi train lines (to concentration camps)?
WATCH for Visit or Assault reasons:
My Nazi Legacy: What Our Fathers Did
Shoah (9+ hours)
The Albert Bomba - Barber of Treblinka story (audio is out of sync, last 5 minutes are good - link it with pg 118-119 in Assault)
The Memory of Justice
Sorrow and the Pity
No Place on Earth
Triumph of the Will
A Film Unfinished (2010)
Hitler's Children
The Rape of Europa & The Monuments Men
I Have Never Forgotten You - The Life and Legacy of Simon Wiesenthal
The Reader
Night and Fog
Europa Europa
Before the Fall
The Resistance Banker (2018) - totally links with The Assault
The Counterfeiters (2007)
The Debt
Run Boy Run 2015 - mostly with The Assault
Inglorious Basterds - mostly for The Assault in terms of what life was like under Nazi occupation
Labyrinth of Lies (2015),
Defiance
The Pledge 2001 - Durrenmatt's anti-detective novel as movie - this is the trailer
Chiraq (links to Lysistrata which was a satire/serio-comic play Durrenmatt admired)
The Lives of Others
Calvary
Dogville
Read for Visit/Assault links =
Brodeck’s report
The Reader (also a movie)
The Lottery - Shirley Jackson short story
Mother Night (also a movie)
THE VISIT by Friedrich Durrenmatt (remember spelling)
Alfred Ill -
“Oh, it’s an old story. I was young, thoughtless.” (37) … pg 39- “My little sorceress! You can’t ask that! It was long ago. Life went on.”
“The town is getting into debt. The greater the debt the higher the standard of living. The higher the standard of living the greater need to kill me.” Pg.50
“They’ve already begun adorning my coffin, Mister Mayor. For me, silence is too dangerous.” (55)
(pg. 56) “I’m scared… They’re hunting me as if I were a wild animal.”
“I made Claire what she is , and I made myself what I am, a failing shopkeeper with a bad name… I can’t help myself and I can’t help any of you, anymore.” P.76
“It’s all my own work, the Eunuchs, the Butler, the coffin, the million.” (76)
page 81- “You must judge me, now. I shall accept your judgment, whatever it may be. For me, it will be justice; what it will be for you, I do not know. God grant you find your judgment justified. You may kill me, I will not complain and I will not protest, nor will I defend myself. But I cannot spare you the task of the trial.”
“Impressive, when you go into the shadows and then out again into the light.” (pp 82)
“It’s a beautiful country in a soft twilight. I feel I’m seeing it today for the first time.” 83
– p. 96 “Pray for Guellen.” (last words)
Claire Zachanassian –
pg 22 “Can you wink a blind eye to things from time to time?”
“Clara, are you all artificial?” (said by Ill) (pp 31) … Page 31: “It’s artificial too. Ivory.” “I’m unkillable.” (31)
“Everything can be bought.” – page 36
“I can afford it. A million for Guellen if someone kills Alfred Ill. Life went on, and I’ve forgotten nothing Ill.” P38-39
page 39- “I’ll wait.”
“I own those too. And all the factories…the entire township…I had my agents buy the whole ramshackle lot and shut every business down. Your hopes were lunacy, your perseverance pointless, and your self-sacrifice foolish; you’re lives have been a useless waste…” (Pg. 66)
“It was winter, long ago, when I left this little town, in a schoolgirl sailor suit and long red plaits, pregnant with only a short while to go, and the townsfolk sniggering at me. I sat in the Hamburg Express and shivered; but as I watched the silhouette of Petersens’ Barn sinking away on the other side of the frost-flowers, I swore a vow to myself, I would come back again, one day. I’ve come back now. Now it’s me imposing the conditions. Me driving the bargain.” 66
And I’m paying. Guellen for a murder, a boom for a body. (67)
“The world turned me into a whore. I shall turn the world into a brothel.” P 67
“With financial resources like mine you can afford a new world order.” p.67
“You see, they have developed a sense of ideals after all.” (85)
“You only have husbands for daily purposes, they shouldn’t be useful” (page 86)
pg. 88 “You will remain there. A dead man beside a stone idol. Your love died many years ago. But my love could not die. Neither could it live. It grew into an evil thing, like me, like the pallid mushrooms in this wood, and the blind, twisted features of the roots, all overgrown by my golden millions.”
Schoolmaster -
“I’ve been correcting the Guellen school-children’s Latin and Greek exercises for more than two decades, Mister Mayor, but let me tell you, Sir, I only learned what horror is one hour ago. That old lady in Black robes getting off the train was a gruesome vision. Like one of the Fates; she made me think of an avenging Greek goddess. Her name shouldn’t be Claire it should be Clotho. I could suspect her spinning destiny’s webs herself.”
“We’ve come to discuss the Ill affair” page 64
page 64- “madam we’re still loyal to our western principles.” … “We’re only human” … “Madam, we are not poor; we are merely forgotten.” (65)
“We, and this entire little township with us, have hung on all these endless years because of a single hope: the hope that Guellen would rise again, in all its ancient grandeur, and the untold wealth in our native soil be once again exploited.” 65
“Madam Zachanassian! You’re a woman whose love has been wounded. You make me think of a heroine from antiquity: of Medea. We feel for you, deeply; we understand; but because we do, we are inspired to prove you further: cast away those evil thoughts of revenge, don’t try us until we break.” Page 66
“Help these poor, weak yet worthy people lead a slightly more dignified life. Let your feeling for humanity prevail!” (pg. 67)
“Guellen is planning a monstrous deed!” p.73
“The truth, Ill. I’m telling the gentlemen of the Press the truth. Like an archangel I’m telling them, in forceful ringing tones. Because I’m a humanist, a lover of the ancient Greeks, an admirer of Plato.” (73)
Page 74: “Humanitarianism has to sit down. By all means – if you’re going to betray truth as well.”
“I wanted to help you. But they shouted me down, and you didn’t want my help either. Ah, Ill. What kind of people are we? The infamous million is burning up our hearts. Pull yourself together, fight for your life. You haven’t any more time to lose” (Pg. 76)
“They will kill you. I’ve known it from the beginning, and you’ve known it too for a long time, even if no one else in Guellen wants to admit it. The temptation is too great and our poverty is too wretched. But I know something else. I shall take part in it. I can feel myself slowly becoming a murderer. My faith in humanity is powerless to stop it. I too am scared, Ill, just as you have been scared. And finally I know that one day an old lady will come for us too, and then what happened to you will also happen to us, but soon, perhaps in a few hours, I shall have lost that knowledge.” (p. 77)
“Put it on my account” (page 77)
“O people of Guellen! Such is the bitter truth! We have connived at injustice!” – page 91
(91) “Nor am I blind to the fact that poverty is the root of much evil, nay, of great hardship.”
“Grace can only be accorded those who hunger after grace” p 92 … Now, in God’s name, we must take our ideals seriously, even unto death. (92)
Mayor -
“Love of justice. Not bad. It always works. But I think we’d better leave out that bit about the police.” (pg 15)
“Gentleman we must drink a special toast to Ill- a man who is doing all a man can do to better out lot. To out most popular citizen-to my successor!” p 27
“…people far and wide were moved to wonder at your love of justice, at your sense of generosity.” (page 34)
“Justice can’t be bought.” P.36
“Madam Zachanassian: you forget, this is Europe. You forget, we are not savages. In the name of all citizens of Guellen, I reject your offer; and I reject it in the name of humanity. We would rather have poverty than blood on our hands.” (39)
“No one wants to kill you.” … “If you’re unable to place any trust in our community, I regret it for your sakes. I didn’t expect such a nihilistic attitude from you. After all, we do live under the rule of the Law.’ (54)
“God knows, the lady isn’t acting so unreasonably. You did bribe two kids to commit perjury and fling a young girl into the lower depths.” (54)
“You ought to be thankful we’re spreading a cloak of forgetfulness over the whole nasty business” page 55
“In such a case, Ill, would you then submit to the judgment? Since the Press will be present.” (p.79)
“But isn’t it your duty, as a man of honour, to draw your own conclusions and make an end of your life? If only out of public spirit, and your love for your native town. You’re well aware of our wretched privations, the misery here, and the hungry children…” pg – 81
page 81- “Pity. You’re missing a chance to redeem yourself and be a more or less decent human being. I might have known it was too much to ask you.”
“Died of joy” (97)
Priest
Pg.56 “The doors of the Church are open to all”
page 57- “because you once betrayed a young girl for money, many years ago, do you believe the people will betray you now for money? You impute your own nature to others. All too naturally.”
“You are your own hell” page 57 …. “All they’re doing is affirming life, that’s all they’re doing, affirming life.” (57).
“Go the way of repentance, or the world will relight the fires of your terror again and again. It is the only way. No other way is open to us” page 57
“The Guellen bells are tolling, tolling for treachery” (58). …. “We are all weak, believers and unbelievers.” P 58
Page 58: “Flee! … Lead us not into temptation with your presense.”
(96) “Now, Ill, your hardest hour is at hand… (helpless) I’ll pray for you.”
Pg. 96, “God have mercy upon us.”
Policeman
page 26: “Not much fun patrolling in this dump.”
“We would only have a case of incitement to murder if the proposal to murder you were meant seriously. So much is obvious.” p 48
page 49- “Illogical. You can’t be threatened by a proposal, only by the execution of the proposal.”
(50) “Nobody’s threatening you. (Begins loading rifle)”
The police are here to enforce respect for the law, to maintain order and protect the individual. (51)
“You’ve been drinking too much brandy. There. Now it’s loaded. Set your mind at rest.”
“You’re imagining things”
“Get up, you bastard.” – page 96
One from Man 1-4
One from Man 1-4 – “We are trees…” pg 27
“We’ll stick by you. We’ll stick by our Ill.” p 44
Man Two – (46) “You can get anything you want with money (spits).”
"All stick together. It's life or death" (70) - man one
One from Man 2 “Smart. Very smart you didn’t shoot your mouth. No one would believe what a bastard like you said anyway.”
Husband VIII—“I have problems, too…Small towns get me down.” (55)
Blind Pair – “We’re blind, we’re blind.“
First Reporter: “You gotta have Realism for a punch. Give me that homicidal weapon here. Your client takes the axe, weighs it in his hand, he puts an appraising expression on his face, while you lean across the counter, you’re discussing it with him… More natural folks, more relaxed.” 75
Alfred Ill -
“Oh, it’s an old story. I was young, thoughtless.” (37) … pg 39- “My little sorceress! You can’t ask that! It was long ago. Life went on.”
“The town is getting into debt. The greater the debt the higher the standard of living. The higher the standard of living the greater need to kill me.” Pg.50
“They’ve already begun adorning my coffin, Mister Mayor. For me, silence is too dangerous.” (55)
(pg. 56) “I’m scared… They’re hunting me as if I were a wild animal.”
“I made Claire what she is , and I made myself what I am, a failing shopkeeper with a bad name… I can’t help myself and I can’t help any of you, anymore.” P.76
“It’s all my own work, the Eunuchs, the Butler, the coffin, the million.” (76)
page 81- “You must judge me, now. I shall accept your judgment, whatever it may be. For me, it will be justice; what it will be for you, I do not know. God grant you find your judgment justified. You may kill me, I will not complain and I will not protest, nor will I defend myself. But I cannot spare you the task of the trial.”
“Impressive, when you go into the shadows and then out again into the light.” (pp 82)
“It’s a beautiful country in a soft twilight. I feel I’m seeing it today for the first time.” 83
– p. 96 “Pray for Guellen.” (last words)
Claire Zachanassian –
pg 22 “Can you wink a blind eye to things from time to time?”
“Clara, are you all artificial?” (said by Ill) (pp 31) … Page 31: “It’s artificial too. Ivory.” “I’m unkillable.” (31)
“Everything can be bought.” – page 36
“I can afford it. A million for Guellen if someone kills Alfred Ill. Life went on, and I’ve forgotten nothing Ill.” P38-39
page 39- “I’ll wait.”
“I own those too. And all the factories…the entire township…I had my agents buy the whole ramshackle lot and shut every business down. Your hopes were lunacy, your perseverance pointless, and your self-sacrifice foolish; you’re lives have been a useless waste…” (Pg. 66)
“It was winter, long ago, when I left this little town, in a schoolgirl sailor suit and long red plaits, pregnant with only a short while to go, and the townsfolk sniggering at me. I sat in the Hamburg Express and shivered; but as I watched the silhouette of Petersens’ Barn sinking away on the other side of the frost-flowers, I swore a vow to myself, I would come back again, one day. I’ve come back now. Now it’s me imposing the conditions. Me driving the bargain.” 66
And I’m paying. Guellen for a murder, a boom for a body. (67)
“The world turned me into a whore. I shall turn the world into a brothel.” P 67
“With financial resources like mine you can afford a new world order.” p.67
“You see, they have developed a sense of ideals after all.” (85)
“You only have husbands for daily purposes, they shouldn’t be useful” (page 86)
pg. 88 “You will remain there. A dead man beside a stone idol. Your love died many years ago. But my love could not die. Neither could it live. It grew into an evil thing, like me, like the pallid mushrooms in this wood, and the blind, twisted features of the roots, all overgrown by my golden millions.”
Schoolmaster -
“I’ve been correcting the Guellen school-children’s Latin and Greek exercises for more than two decades, Mister Mayor, but let me tell you, Sir, I only learned what horror is one hour ago. That old lady in Black robes getting off the train was a gruesome vision. Like one of the Fates; she made me think of an avenging Greek goddess. Her name shouldn’t be Claire it should be Clotho. I could suspect her spinning destiny’s webs herself.”
“We’ve come to discuss the Ill affair” page 64
page 64- “madam we’re still loyal to our western principles.” … “We’re only human” … “Madam, we are not poor; we are merely forgotten.” (65)
“We, and this entire little township with us, have hung on all these endless years because of a single hope: the hope that Guellen would rise again, in all its ancient grandeur, and the untold wealth in our native soil be once again exploited.” 65
“Madam Zachanassian! You’re a woman whose love has been wounded. You make me think of a heroine from antiquity: of Medea. We feel for you, deeply; we understand; but because we do, we are inspired to prove you further: cast away those evil thoughts of revenge, don’t try us until we break.” Page 66
“Help these poor, weak yet worthy people lead a slightly more dignified life. Let your feeling for humanity prevail!” (pg. 67)
“Guellen is planning a monstrous deed!” p.73
“The truth, Ill. I’m telling the gentlemen of the Press the truth. Like an archangel I’m telling them, in forceful ringing tones. Because I’m a humanist, a lover of the ancient Greeks, an admirer of Plato.” (73)
Page 74: “Humanitarianism has to sit down. By all means – if you’re going to betray truth as well.”
“I wanted to help you. But they shouted me down, and you didn’t want my help either. Ah, Ill. What kind of people are we? The infamous million is burning up our hearts. Pull yourself together, fight for your life. You haven’t any more time to lose” (Pg. 76)
“They will kill you. I’ve known it from the beginning, and you’ve known it too for a long time, even if no one else in Guellen wants to admit it. The temptation is too great and our poverty is too wretched. But I know something else. I shall take part in it. I can feel myself slowly becoming a murderer. My faith in humanity is powerless to stop it. I too am scared, Ill, just as you have been scared. And finally I know that one day an old lady will come for us too, and then what happened to you will also happen to us, but soon, perhaps in a few hours, I shall have lost that knowledge.” (p. 77)
“Put it on my account” (page 77)
“O people of Guellen! Such is the bitter truth! We have connived at injustice!” – page 91
(91) “Nor am I blind to the fact that poverty is the root of much evil, nay, of great hardship.”
“Grace can only be accorded those who hunger after grace” p 92 … Now, in God’s name, we must take our ideals seriously, even unto death. (92)
Mayor -
“Love of justice. Not bad. It always works. But I think we’d better leave out that bit about the police.” (pg 15)
“Gentleman we must drink a special toast to Ill- a man who is doing all a man can do to better out lot. To out most popular citizen-to my successor!” p 27
“…people far and wide were moved to wonder at your love of justice, at your sense of generosity.” (page 34)
“Justice can’t be bought.” P.36
“Madam Zachanassian: you forget, this is Europe. You forget, we are not savages. In the name of all citizens of Guellen, I reject your offer; and I reject it in the name of humanity. We would rather have poverty than blood on our hands.” (39)
“No one wants to kill you.” … “If you’re unable to place any trust in our community, I regret it for your sakes. I didn’t expect such a nihilistic attitude from you. After all, we do live under the rule of the Law.’ (54)
“God knows, the lady isn’t acting so unreasonably. You did bribe two kids to commit perjury and fling a young girl into the lower depths.” (54)
“You ought to be thankful we’re spreading a cloak of forgetfulness over the whole nasty business” page 55
“In such a case, Ill, would you then submit to the judgment? Since the Press will be present.” (p.79)
“But isn’t it your duty, as a man of honour, to draw your own conclusions and make an end of your life? If only out of public spirit, and your love for your native town. You’re well aware of our wretched privations, the misery here, and the hungry children…” pg – 81
page 81- “Pity. You’re missing a chance to redeem yourself and be a more or less decent human being. I might have known it was too much to ask you.”
“Died of joy” (97)
Priest
Pg.56 “The doors of the Church are open to all”
page 57- “because you once betrayed a young girl for money, many years ago, do you believe the people will betray you now for money? You impute your own nature to others. All too naturally.”
“You are your own hell” page 57 …. “All they’re doing is affirming life, that’s all they’re doing, affirming life.” (57).
“Go the way of repentance, or the world will relight the fires of your terror again and again. It is the only way. No other way is open to us” page 57
“The Guellen bells are tolling, tolling for treachery” (58). …. “We are all weak, believers and unbelievers.” P 58
Page 58: “Flee! … Lead us not into temptation with your presense.”
(96) “Now, Ill, your hardest hour is at hand… (helpless) I’ll pray for you.”
Pg. 96, “God have mercy upon us.”
Policeman
page 26: “Not much fun patrolling in this dump.”
“We would only have a case of incitement to murder if the proposal to murder you were meant seriously. So much is obvious.” p 48
page 49- “Illogical. You can’t be threatened by a proposal, only by the execution of the proposal.”
(50) “Nobody’s threatening you. (Begins loading rifle)”
The police are here to enforce respect for the law, to maintain order and protect the individual. (51)
“You’ve been drinking too much brandy. There. Now it’s loaded. Set your mind at rest.”
“You’re imagining things”
“Get up, you bastard.” – page 96
One from Man 1-4
One from Man 1-4 – “We are trees…” pg 27
“We’ll stick by you. We’ll stick by our Ill.” p 44
Man Two – (46) “You can get anything you want with money (spits).”
"All stick together. It's life or death" (70) - man one
One from Man 2 “Smart. Very smart you didn’t shoot your mouth. No one would believe what a bastard like you said anyway.”
Husband VIII—“I have problems, too…Small towns get me down.” (55)
Blind Pair – “We’re blind, we’re blind.“
First Reporter: “You gotta have Realism for a punch. Give me that homicidal weapon here. Your client takes the axe, weighs it in his hand, he puts an appraising expression on his face, while you lean across the counter, you’re discussing it with him… More natural folks, more relaxed.” 75
Consider watching The Resistance Banker in Netflix on the Van Hall brothers:
The Assault (or also google search: De Aanslag)
how the trauma isn't over yet: Nazi Trials: The Case of Auschwitz Guard Reinhold Hanning - a 2016 case
FYI too : Inside One of the Last Nazi Death Camp Trials
THE FORGER: If I sleep for an hour 30 people will die - some info on French resistance movements (perhaps good to watch with The Counterfeiters 2007 & Schindler's List)
DATABASES
FOR RESEARCH, find your Volusia library card # and go to:http://infotrac.galegroup.com/default/22417_vcpl?db=LitRC
ALSO look into these databases on SCHS Resources for English classes (likely need to be logged onto school network for these:)
JSTOR Mulisch search
PROJECT MUSE Mulisch search
MULISCH BIO
Mulisch wiki
Haarlem, Netherlands
Other Dutch writers “The ‘Three Giants’ of Dutch Literature: Hermans, Reve and Mulisch” = http://theculturetrip.com/europe/the-netherlands/articles/the-three-giants-of-dutch-literature-hermans-reve-and-mulisch/
Quotes of Mulisch: http://www.azquotes.com/author/19369-Harry_Mulisch
Assault quotes
Obituaries
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2010/11/01/books/01mulisch.html
Mulisch obit from The Guardian
Mulisch obit/bio from Telegraph
Another obit
The Books of Harry Mulisch
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/harry-mulisch-novelist-whose-work-was-suffused-with-his-memories-of-the-nazi-occupation-of-the-2141068.html
MISC Videos:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-qniyVF1n4 = In Memoriam to Mulisch
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y33SwP4w42c= Dutch interview with Harry Mulisch
he spoke of his enduring obsession with World War II as a recurring theme in his work. “I don’t just remember it, I am World War II,” he said in a Times interview
“It’s a terrible paradox of the war,” Mr. Mulisch said. “My father took great risks to save my mother and was later condemned as a collaborator.” At the same time, his grandmother died in a gas chamber. He was raised by a housekeeper, he said.
In life, Mulisch was as colouful as his prose. With a Burgessian delight in female flesh, he settled down in 1971 with Sjoerdje Woudenberg, and they had two daughters, and all remained close friends, visiting daily, when he took up in 1989 with Kitty Saal and sired a son.
Harry Mulisch was born in the Netherlands in 1927 of mixed parentage. His mother was Dutch and Jewish and his father gentile and Austro-Hungarian. After his / parent's divorce in 1936, Harry remained with his father. The elder Mulisch's position as a banker and custodian ofJewish property during the Gennan occupation pennitted him to send his ex-wife to safety in the United States but her family perished in the concentration camps. He was imprisoned after the war and visited weekly by his son.
"I've always said: I don't write books. I write an oeuvre in which everything is related." (Mulisch)
ASSAULT and other Mulisch books:
The Assault - wikipedia
The Assault - Google Books
The Assault page on Amazon
Misc overview on the novel
Criminal Case 40/61, the Trial of Adolf Eichmann - Google Books
Online study guides/prezis (probably not the most reliable out of all of the links, but are still useful in simple understandings):
http://www.bookrags.com/studyguide-the-assault/#gsc.tab=0
The Assault IB wikispace study guide
Complete reviews Assault
https://prezi.com/m/6g8g6mezbcl-/the-assault-by-harry-mulisch/
https://prezi.com/m/xmhrrlcj6fom/chance-choice-and-determinism-in-the-assault
MEDIA
The Assault 1987 MOVIE
http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1987/4/23/an-academic-assault-pithe-assaulti-piwritten/
Movie in original Dutch (no dubbing) and no subtitles
in Dutch in memory on Mulisch
in Dutch Mulisch college tour interview
FYI on book cover images from the original Dutch Der Aanslag
Discovery of Heaven (Mulisch book) MOVIE 2001
Neutral Milk Hotel's 1998 album "In The Aeroplane Over the Sea" concept album mostly about Anne Frank - generally viewed as one of the most important albums in the history of indie music
Analysis of the album pt 1 & Analysis of the album pt 2
ALLUSIONS/CONTEXT:
Historical context/timeline for Dutch (WWII era)
A very good Assault prezi on Dutch politics/context issues
Jewish situation in Holland under Nazi occupation
Google search on Dutch resistance in WWII (as a starting point)
Netherlands in WWII wikipedia
Dutch resistance in WWII (the underground) AND Overview on Dutch resistance
Dutch resistance museum website
Dutch citizens resist Nazi occupation, 1940-1945 = http://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/content/dutch-citizens-resist-nazi-occupation-1940-1945
Dutch under Nazi occupation pt2
An impressive case study in Dutch resistance / burial memorials etc
Hidden children and the holocaust
Dutch Jews in Netherlands
Hiding Jews in Holland
Anne Frank timeline
Children in Nazi Germany
US Holocaust museum's part on Netherlands
NOW AND THEN PHOTOS OF HOLLAND (THE MARSHALL PLAN RESTORATION/WHITEWASHING OF THE PAST)
Nazi youth education propaganda
Hitler Youth
Honoring WWII casualties (monuments)
Nuremberg trials
Malmedy massacre - note the trial and aftermath section (if interested in the problem of trying in court WWII crimes)
Rates of trauma spectrum disorders and risks of posttraumatic stress disorder in a sample of orphaned and widowed genocide survivors = https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3402134/
Psychoanalytic Theory & Approaches http://www.apsa.org/content/psychoanalytic-theory-approaches
Can trauma be passed on to future generations?
How an 1836 famine altered the genes of children generations later
Utilitarian Ethics and Kantian Ethics and War essay
Rule vs Act Utilitarianism and War essay
Netherlands finally apologises for 1947 Indonesia massacre - pg 70
Hungarian Revolution of 1956
Netherlands political parties
History of Netherlands 1900-now
Social Democrats party (sort of); pg 82
Social Democratic Workers' Party (Netherlands)
The Three Musketeers 3
Westinghouse Time Capsules p. 11-12 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westinghouse_Time_Capsules
Japanese bombing of Canton (Rape of Nanking?) in 1937 – pg 12
Anton Mussert - head of Dutch Nazi party - pg13
The National Socialist Movement in Netherlands (aka fascists)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leidse_Rijn = Leidse canal pg 19 end
Spinoza’s Ethics 25
Phoebus Apollo 45
pg 48 - spitfire plane
pg 48 mosquito plane
27 - Lockheed Electra plane
50, 100, 168 - Concertgebouw -- look at these pages & 169, etc for buildings that recur in text, Raashusstraat 184, Museumplein 185
50, 4, 168 - Rijksmuseum
pg 51 Białystok Ghetto
pg 58 ruysdael painting of haarlem
Koestler (60)
pg 73-74 World War II memorials and cemeteries in the Netherlands
Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard 79
The Seventh Seal movie p. 83 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seventh_Seal
Mahler’s Second Symphony p. 83 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._2_(Mahler)
Het Parool (newspaper, pg 89)
Mad Tuesday p. 18, 91 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolle_Dinsdag
WWII Amsterdam by the Anne Frank House - http://www.annefrank.org/en/Subsites/Annes-Amsterdam/Timeline/Occupation/1944/1944/Dolle-Dinsdag-Crazy-Tuesday-German-soldiers-flee/#
91 - Hendrikus Colijn
Stravinsky p. 92 - https://www.britannica.com/biography/Igor-Stravinsky
Provos p. 101 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provo_(movement)
Demosthenes p. 102 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demosthenes
De-Stalinization programs in Russia 104
Vietnamese Liberation Front p. 104 - http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/national-liberation-front-formed
House of Orange (referenced on 106/107 as a sort of fascist mindset)
The Marshall Plan 106
Netherlands funding of the American Revolution 106
Strangers in the Night (Sinatra)
The Beatles
Columbus’s Egg p. 115 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egg_of_Columbus
Queen Wilhelmina of Netherlands 121
Dickens 123
130 Freud (seemingly Oedipal reference)
Joyce/Sartre 131
Ophelia 138
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willy_Lages = Willy Lages 133
List of Nazi war criminals released early from prison
Clemenceau 135
Reichskommissar Seyss-Inquart p. 142 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Seyss-Inquart
The sun god Ra (from Egyptian mythology) - 166, , 177, 184
Job 169 - Job is presented as a good and prosperous family man who is beset with horrendous disasters that take away all that he holds dear, including his offspring, his health, and his property. He struggles to understand his situation and begins a search for the answers to his difficulties
possible 1980s punk / skinhead movement reference - 176 top
181 - consider the lizards as a sort of butterfly effect phenomenom
ANGLO-DUTCH literary translation issues - criticism of our translator
Barbarism and Civilization book review - GOOD TEXT FOR CONTEXT
GREAT ON CONTEXT: A Family Occupation: Children of the War and the Memory of World War II in Dutch Literature of the 1890s https://books.google.com/books?id=OVN9C1DKKaoC&pg=PA55&lpg=PA55&dq=communism+the+assault+mulisch&source=bl&ots=jHAShNrueM&sig=8NHMNzRPuPGT47aLmwNz3qS1cWg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjjhZ3s_bLPAhXMOj4KHQNVArY4FBDoAQgkMAQ#v=onepage&q=communism%20the%20assault%20mulisch&f=false Or (if that link doesn't work) http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt45kctr
Consider contextual/style parallels with Balzac and the Chinese Seamstress, Copenhagen, Unbroken, All Quiet on the Western Front, etc
MARXIST (economic) OR FEMINIST OR SOCIOLOGICAL OR ANTHROPOLOGICAL OR POST-COLONIAL readings of the text
PSYCH STUFF
The Freudian/1950s dominant psychological theories on treatment of trauma (avoidance vs. confrontation)
DUTCH STUFF
The politics in the Netherlands from WWI to WWII (when Netherlands was brought into the war situation, the differences between Belgian, French, Dutch occupation by Nazis)
The history of Nazi occupation of Holland 1945
The story of the WWII Dutch Resistance movements (the Underground; the anti-fascists) and/or the Dutch Nazi Party
The plight of Dutch Jews during occupation (and/or the history of hiding Jews from the Nazis more broadly)
Social Democrats party in Netherlands post-war
Cultural customs in marriage rituals (and/or divorce rates)
Aspects of Dutch music, history, dance, theatre, arts, etc that might be of significance
BIO STUFF
Mulisch’s Nazi collaborator father + Jewish mother
Interviews with Mulisch that reveal his intent
LIT STUFF
How The Assault follows vs. subverts the genre/formulas of detective story/mystery and/or political/psychological thrillers
How The Assault fits into or contrasts with existing Holocaust literature by 1982 (Night, Anne Frank, Viktor Frankel)
Dutch writers of the era and how Mulisch fits in that canon (Gerald Reve, W.F. Hermans) OR which writers came to influence/impact on Mulisch
Relationships of this text to WWII/holocause documentaries/movies (see website, etc)
Characters as reflections of things in the real world
WWII STUFF
Explore the Hitler Youth program (as a way of understanding Fake)
The consequences/process/problems of the Nuremburg Trials post WWII (and the history of Nazi Trials 1980-2016) – and the placement of blame and the execution of justice post-war – and the problems of commuted sentences and early releases of Nazis
Resistance movements of the 1980s and/or the 1980s anti-nuclear war movement in Europe (or the 1980s concerns about Soviet/US nuclear proliferation)
Historically troublesome/debated “monuments” or historical public artifacts in memory of the WWII era (pg74)
The historical legacy of post-genocides (apartheid, Rwanda, Armenia, etc) AND the rise/need for truth and reconciliation commissions
The history of post war programs of national reconciliation
Stories of Nazis who blended into the fabric of post war Europe (or fled prosecution to South America)
The whitewashing of history by Communists/Fascists post WWII
The de-Stalinization of Russia by Nikita Khrushchev
Research into Dutch buildings referenced (pg 50)
Contextual HISTORY ALLUDED TO
Police action in 1947 Indonesia (end 70, 106)
1956 Budapest (revolts in Hungary)
Korea
Vietnam (the VLF)
Japanese concentration camps (pg 152 – and connections to the Unbroken text)
Burma railroads
The Korean War draft
the 1956 anti-communist riots in Amsterdam
the funeral of a famous Resistance leader in 1967
EXPLORE PERCEPTIONS ABOUT THE QUALITY OF THE TRANSLATOR (or alternative translations) – since it seems there are criticism of Claire White
WA Ideas & critical articles:
The Assault's structure and narration (Greek elements)
& Time issues in The Assault
An IB comparative Kokoro & Assault paper on narrative approach creating isolationism in protagonist
General Review of The Assault - some attacks on the quality of the translator
http://www.dbnl.org/tekst/_low001199401_01/_low001199401_01_0033.php
http://caans-acaen.ca/Journal/issues_online/Issue_X_ii_1989/reviews_Mulisch.pdf
https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/493000.pdf
Animals in The Assault: http://caans-acaen.ca/Journal/issues_online/Issue_XIX_ii_1998/PFEFFER.pdf
"Shall We Talk about Light?": Fate and Freedom in Harry Mulisch's "The Assault" http://www.jstor.org/stable/3195050
On Communication: War Stories for a New Generation http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/27559380.pdf
Light & Dark textual examples
WA TOPICS for the assault
TANGIBLE OBJECT & LIT STRATEGY FOCUSED
METAPHORS and their value OR The function of SIMILES!!!!!!!!!!! Into different categories
FORESHADOWING (as a technique in a linear narrative about the past)
Flashbacks that foreshadow
The use of horizontal vs. verticals (tunnels, holes, etc) in imagery and in time dimensions (pg 76, 5) – deep hole 141, depths of the past 144, tunnels 108
The oddity of the treatment/presentation of scenes of violence
Symbols of life in the presence of death
The importance of tangible artifacts and physical proof (The bulldozed/lost house vs. ??) as a means to convey the argument that…
The role of ancient legends/myths/archetypes in the text (Sun Ra, Greeks, etc)
Religious motifs
WEATHER
The imagery/motif of passivity and floating or inbetweenness (pg 154)
Interior vs. exterior spaces (and the role of landscape (and water) in the text)
The literary strategies behind the building of tension/mystery OR Anton as a tool for the building of reader empathy
Ironies/Juxtapositions (between settings/characters/ideas) (such as Fake Jr vs. Cor, Peter vs Anton, etc)
Binary Oppositions (such as love/hate, right/wrong, good/evil, light/dark)
The significance of Kortewegs’ lizards as a means to convey XX (and the denial of conventional symbology – are they Germany/Japan/Italy, are they a metaphor for sacrifice, are they the unknowable…, are they a means for a character to cope with or externalize past psychological trauma, metaphors for captivity/occupation … to assert control in a chaotic world; microcosm vs macrocosm; the desire to create a safe space in a world of destruction; note they are cold-blooded)
The logic of Anton as anesthesiologist (pg98) and drowning imagery and/or pain and narcotics through the text
Physical Illness (or the treating of symptoms vs. causes) as a means of conveying the disease motif or the lingering legacy of the war (note migraines/headaches, Cor’s physical health, etc, pg 124 on incubation periods)
How pathos was built in the text (and for whom) … and perhaps the problem of excessive empathy
Repetitions (of settings, of phrases, of objects) and their underlying logic
Rewriting of the past as a literary element (artificiality/perception vs. the real)
The value of the unquantifiable/artistic in the text (music, poems, the delicate/sensitive)
Aimless walking as a literary element (62, etc)
Necrophilia as a metaphor (121)
The detail focus of episode 1 (by Anton/narrative voice) as a way to foreshadow the more sophisticated methods of avoidance by Anton in episodes 2-5
Animal noises (birds, crickets, etc)
Musical references (human or animal made)
WATER and ripples of water (the “stream” references in the final episode) and boating metaphors (5, 151, etc)
Indulgences (chocolates, cigarettes, alcohol, food, sex, etc) as a means of showing X (such as the dependence or childishness of Anton)
Planes as a means of conveying…
Mirrors as a means of conveying… (or broken glass)
Fire
Symballeton & symbolon pg 14
Bicycles
Ploeg’s gun
Herringbone patterns: the motif of interconnectedness and tight/woven-ness
Blood and lipstick
The metaphor of the volcano (pg55) and other images/motifs of things coming to the surface or built up tension (that bottles up and explodes) – can be tied with the idea of ash (final page, pg 55, etc)
The bloody letter (episode 1)
The multiple contexts of guns as a means to …
Stones/Brick as a means of conveying…
The dice and objects of chance (or childish games) as a means to convey XX (pg 155, 156, etc) - consider gambling as well
STORYTELLING/NARRATIVE BASED
The advantages/limitations of a dominant protagonist focus on story structure [and the need to triangulate truth via minor characters] – OR the role of deliberate ambiguity as a narrative strategy OR the movements between concealment and revelation and their underlying logic by Mulisch
Linearity and Realism as a Narrative style (and what that accomplishes)
The Narrative Approach of limited omniscience and the difficulty of determining intention (or objective truth)
How setting contributes to content/literary argument (funeral scene, Cor Takes’ house setting)
Narrative strategies in the accomplishment of closure
The narrative logic/function (transitional value) of each opening chapter to each episode
The narrative logic in the late location of Karin Korteweg in the text
The logic of the early turning point/traumatic inciting plot event and its effect on plot structure
Childhood innocence as a narrative choice by Mulisch
The methods by which the psychological avoidance of trauma is shown to be problematic (or itself traumatic) in the text. The problem of maintaining ironic detachment or aloofness/indifference (and, related to that, why 1st person wasn’t chosen)
The deceiving/multiple effects of the simple linear narrative (the moving backwards in the process of moving forward in time)
The shifting nature of Anton’s (or the narrator’s) relationship to detail or close observation [Episode 1 with heavy detail focus vs. hazy drifting of later episodes] OR the narrative strategies in episode 1 to convey the childlike perceptions and misperceptions of Anton
Aesthetic distance and cold-blooded (or coolly objective) methodology in narrative approach (as a juxtaposition with the plot/story… in other words a paper on the contrast between form and content)
The unity of time inside each of the episodes (Aristotelian influence on story structure)
Narrow (narrative) focus but wide scope (or social commentary): An examination of the logic of story construction
QUOTE BASED
History as written on the physical body – physical disability, health issues, deformations (clubfoot 60, crooked back 61, etc)
“things don’t vanish” 58 – the legacy and lingering quality of things/the past
“strange indifference” – the impossibility off avoidance/forgetting as shown by …
False equivalences (pg88) and divergent perspectives on a shared objective historical event
“courting danger” 132
“compassion for the pitiless” 135
The residue of a kiss (137)
Living relics 144 (the gun, Fake, Cor, Karin, monuments, etc) – dead but not dead
The problematic honor of keeping your word (147)
“coming to the surface” 167
Resurrections as a metaphor (159, etc)
SCENE BASED
The significance of darkness as a literary choice in the Truus Coster scene
The logic of the cemetery setting, the beach setting, the Italy setting
The achievement of catharsis (emotional purgation) in the final scene (The effectiveness of the final episode/conversation )
CHARACTER BASED
METHODS OF CHARACTERIZATION!!!!!
The tendency/logic behind introducing characters before you arrive at their name (Fake Jr, Schulz)
The characters who occupy the “confidant” role (or those who contribute fragments of the story to the protagonist)
The female characters as….
The elders [generational differences] (Cor Takes, father in law, uncle, etc) and its impact on the perception of truth
The younger generation (at the nuclear protest, his kids, Sandra’s boyfriend, etc) and their role in ?? (demonstrating the need to move on from the past?)
The role/use of stock/stereotypical/archetypal characters (Anton (like Hamlet) as a “man of inaction” contrasted with “man of action” characters)
The revealers (Cor, Karin, Beaumers, etc)
Comparative Evaluation of the value of secondary characters and their indirect punishments from WWII (Beaumers, Fake Jr, Kortewegs, Cor, etc)
Bastiaan – and Anton’s begrudging acceptance of the future
THEME BASED = normally bad
The persistence of memory
Remaining artifacts vs. lost artifacts (and each category’s impact on historical perception or impact on character)
The nuances/complexity/impossibilities of distinguishing innocence and guilt as shown through XX/lit terms
Love/Desire and the problem of emerging sexuality (Anton’s views/feelings for wives vs. Karin or Truus)
The departure/death of the female early in life and its impact on his future relationships with women
The burdens/pain of “knowing” as shown through … (lit terms)
Contemplations on Time
Memory as an unreliable construction
Cryptograms and the literary methods by which the “unknowable” is presented (unbreakable codes)
Forms of pain/trauma/violence (physical, psychological, spiritual, etc)
Language and the difficulty of communication (look into the unsaid/unspoken/secrets or the maintaining of things privately). The presence of silence as a literary strategy
The merits of collaboration vs confrontation
The merits of Certainty vs. doubt as shown through a variety of characters
Ambivalent Dualities
Passive discovery vs. active pursuit (of truth)
The text as a warning to the present (in 1985) and not as a lesson on the past
Melodrama
Activists vs bystanders (and the pro & cons of each role in a historical crisis or after it)
The illusion / deceptiveness of apparent normalcy (of Anton after 1945 and others)
The ethics of using your enemy’s methods (violence/the dark) against them [or the larger issue of situational vs. absolute ethics]
The impossibility of demonization as shown through … (lit techniques)
Things forever lost (death, destruction, lost knowledge, etc)
The idea of metamorphosis (pg124, etc)
Premeditation/deliberateness vs. Senselessness in the determination of severity of the ethical violation (the issue of deliberate collaboration pg 91 and calculated/rational self-interest)
The problem of fanaticism as seen through Fake and Cor (their commonality to juxtapose against the protagonist)
Issues of rationalization and each character’s methods of justification
Treating the symptoms vs. the source
Forgetting as a mechanism for healing (willful amnesia)
Teenage Years as positioned in the text
TANGIBLE OBJECT & LIT STRATEGY FOCUSED
METAPHORS and their value OR The function of SIMILES!!!!!!!!!!! Into different categories
FORESHADOWING (as a technique in a linear narrative about the past)
Flashbacks that foreshadow
The use of horizontal vs. verticals (tunnels, holes, etc) in imagery and in time dimensions (pg 76, 5) – deep hole 141, depths of the past 144, tunnels 108
The oddity of the treatment/presentation of scenes of violence
Symbols of life in the presence of death
The importance of tangible artifacts and physical proof (The bulldozed/lost house vs. ??) as a means to convey the argument that…
The role of ancient legends/myths/archetypes in the text (Sun Ra, Greeks, etc)
Religious motifs
WEATHER
The imagery/motif of passivity and floating or inbetweenness (pg 154)
Interior vs. exterior spaces (and the role of landscape (and water) in the text)
The literary strategies behind the building of tension/mystery OR Anton as a tool for the building of reader empathy
Ironies/Juxtapositions (between settings/characters/ideas) (such as Fake Jr vs. Cor, Peter vs Anton, etc)
Binary Oppositions (such as love/hate, right/wrong, good/evil, light/dark)
The significance of Kortewegs’ lizards as a means to convey XX (and the denial of conventional symbology – are they Germany/Japan/Italy, are they a metaphor for sacrifice, are they the unknowable…, are they a means for a character to cope with or externalize past psychological trauma, metaphors for captivity/occupation … to assert control in a chaotic world; microcosm vs macrocosm; the desire to create a safe space in a world of destruction; note they are cold-blooded)
The logic of Anton as anesthesiologist (pg98) and drowning imagery and/or pain and narcotics through the text
Physical Illness (or the treating of symptoms vs. causes) as a means of conveying the disease motif or the lingering legacy of the war (note migraines/headaches, Cor’s physical health, etc, pg 124 on incubation periods)
How pathos was built in the text (and for whom) … and perhaps the problem of excessive empathy
Repetitions (of settings, of phrases, of objects) and their underlying logic
Rewriting of the past as a literary element (artificiality/perception vs. the real)
The value of the unquantifiable/artistic in the text (music, poems, the delicate/sensitive)
Aimless walking as a literary element (62, etc)
Necrophilia as a metaphor (121)
The detail focus of episode 1 (by Anton/narrative voice) as a way to foreshadow the more sophisticated methods of avoidance by Anton in episodes 2-5
Animal noises (birds, crickets, etc)
Musical references (human or animal made)
WATER and ripples of water (the “stream” references in the final episode) and boating metaphors (5, 151, etc)
Indulgences (chocolates, cigarettes, alcohol, food, sex, etc) as a means of showing X (such as the dependence or childishness of Anton)
Planes as a means of conveying…
Mirrors as a means of conveying… (or broken glass)
Fire
Symballeton & symbolon pg 14
Bicycles
Ploeg’s gun
Herringbone patterns: the motif of interconnectedness and tight/woven-ness
Blood and lipstick
The metaphor of the volcano (pg55) and other images/motifs of things coming to the surface or built up tension (that bottles up and explodes) – can be tied with the idea of ash (final page, pg 55, etc)
The bloody letter (episode 1)
The multiple contexts of guns as a means to …
Stones/Brick as a means of conveying…
The dice and objects of chance (or childish games) as a means to convey XX (pg 155, 156, etc) - consider gambling as well
STORYTELLING/NARRATIVE BASED
The advantages/limitations of a dominant protagonist focus on story structure [and the need to triangulate truth via minor characters] – OR the role of deliberate ambiguity as a narrative strategy OR the movements between concealment and revelation and their underlying logic by Mulisch
Linearity and Realism as a Narrative style (and what that accomplishes)
The Narrative Approach of limited omniscience and the difficulty of determining intention (or objective truth)
How setting contributes to content/literary argument (funeral scene, Cor Takes’ house setting)
Narrative strategies in the accomplishment of closure
The narrative logic/function (transitional value) of each opening chapter to each episode
The narrative logic in the late location of Karin Korteweg in the text
The logic of the early turning point/traumatic inciting plot event and its effect on plot structure
Childhood innocence as a narrative choice by Mulisch
The methods by which the psychological avoidance of trauma is shown to be problematic (or itself traumatic) in the text. The problem of maintaining ironic detachment or aloofness/indifference (and, related to that, why 1st person wasn’t chosen)
The deceiving/multiple effects of the simple linear narrative (the moving backwards in the process of moving forward in time)
The shifting nature of Anton’s (or the narrator’s) relationship to detail or close observation [Episode 1 with heavy detail focus vs. hazy drifting of later episodes] OR the narrative strategies in episode 1 to convey the childlike perceptions and misperceptions of Anton
Aesthetic distance and cold-blooded (or coolly objective) methodology in narrative approach (as a juxtaposition with the plot/story… in other words a paper on the contrast between form and content)
The unity of time inside each of the episodes (Aristotelian influence on story structure)
Narrow (narrative) focus but wide scope (or social commentary): An examination of the logic of story construction
QUOTE BASED
History as written on the physical body – physical disability, health issues, deformations (clubfoot 60, crooked back 61, etc)
“things don’t vanish” 58 – the legacy and lingering quality of things/the past
“strange indifference” – the impossibility off avoidance/forgetting as shown by …
False equivalences (pg88) and divergent perspectives on a shared objective historical event
“courting danger” 132
“compassion for the pitiless” 135
The residue of a kiss (137)
Living relics 144 (the gun, Fake, Cor, Karin, monuments, etc) – dead but not dead
The problematic honor of keeping your word (147)
“coming to the surface” 167
Resurrections as a metaphor (159, etc)
SCENE BASED
The significance of darkness as a literary choice in the Truus Coster scene
The logic of the cemetery setting, the beach setting, the Italy setting
The achievement of catharsis (emotional purgation) in the final scene (The effectiveness of the final episode/conversation )
CHARACTER BASED
METHODS OF CHARACTERIZATION!!!!!
The tendency/logic behind introducing characters before you arrive at their name (Fake Jr, Schulz)
The characters who occupy the “confidant” role (or those who contribute fragments of the story to the protagonist)
The female characters as….
The elders [generational differences] (Cor Takes, father in law, uncle, etc) and its impact on the perception of truth
The younger generation (at the nuclear protest, his kids, Sandra’s boyfriend, etc) and their role in ?? (demonstrating the need to move on from the past?)
The role/use of stock/stereotypical/archetypal characters (Anton (like Hamlet) as a “man of inaction” contrasted with “man of action” characters)
The revealers (Cor, Karin, Beaumers, etc)
Comparative Evaluation of the value of secondary characters and their indirect punishments from WWII (Beaumers, Fake Jr, Kortewegs, Cor, etc)
Bastiaan – and Anton’s begrudging acceptance of the future
THEME BASED = normally bad
The persistence of memory
Remaining artifacts vs. lost artifacts (and each category’s impact on historical perception or impact on character)
The nuances/complexity/impossibilities of distinguishing innocence and guilt as shown through XX/lit terms
Love/Desire and the problem of emerging sexuality (Anton’s views/feelings for wives vs. Karin or Truus)
The departure/death of the female early in life and its impact on his future relationships with women
The burdens/pain of “knowing” as shown through … (lit terms)
Contemplations on Time
Memory as an unreliable construction
Cryptograms and the literary methods by which the “unknowable” is presented (unbreakable codes)
Forms of pain/trauma/violence (physical, psychological, spiritual, etc)
Language and the difficulty of communication (look into the unsaid/unspoken/secrets or the maintaining of things privately). The presence of silence as a literary strategy
The merits of collaboration vs confrontation
The merits of Certainty vs. doubt as shown through a variety of characters
Ambivalent Dualities
Passive discovery vs. active pursuit (of truth)
The text as a warning to the present (in 1985) and not as a lesson on the past
Melodrama
Activists vs bystanders (and the pro & cons of each role in a historical crisis or after it)
The illusion / deceptiveness of apparent normalcy (of Anton after 1945 and others)
The ethics of using your enemy’s methods (violence/the dark) against them [or the larger issue of situational vs. absolute ethics]
The impossibility of demonization as shown through … (lit techniques)
Things forever lost (death, destruction, lost knowledge, etc)
The idea of metamorphosis (pg124, etc)
Premeditation/deliberateness vs. Senselessness in the determination of severity of the ethical violation (the issue of deliberate collaboration pg 91 and calculated/rational self-interest)
The problem of fanaticism as seen through Fake and Cor (their commonality to juxtapose against the protagonist)
Issues of rationalization and each character’s methods of justification
Treating the symptoms vs. the source
Forgetting as a mechanism for healing (willful amnesia)
Teenage Years as positioned in the text
- The Assault is written in a realistic prose style laced with mythic, historic, and symbolic overtones.
- Critics praise Mulisch’s fiction for its psychological probing, humane sensibility, and keen awareness of the cruel side of human nature.
- The Assault is a morality tale, a dark fable about design and accident, strength and weakness, and the ways in which guilt and innocence can overlap and intermingle.
- According to the author himself, The Assault contains a number of autobiographical elements.His mother was Jewish, and her family was killed by Nazis.His father was a collaborator with the Nazis and was subsequently jailed.Mulisch claims that the ambivalent duality of his childhood loyalties has influenced much of his work.
- the urge to get at the truth about them is what gives The Assault its narrative thrust.
- It is a parable of war, whose guilts and neuroses reach well into the present.
- Certainly in the Netherlands, the book raised again, at a deeply personal level, the problem of national reconciliation…
- Who was guilty?
Who was ultimately responsible for his mother’s and father’s and brother’s brutal and pointless deaths?
The Germans?
The resistance fighters who murdered a police bully— a willing Nazi tool— when most of the rest of Europe was already liberated?
Or the hidden Jews, for whose protection the body was dumped in front of the narrator’s house rather than one of the other villas?
And why move the body at all?
- At one level, Anton’s life itself becomes a metaphor for it closes the door on the trauma of the war while living out its ubiquitous and far-reaching consequences.
- Shortly after the book was published, Mulisch, speaking at a party held in London to launch his novel, referred to the shooting of the Nazi collaborator, Fake Ploeg, and its immediate consequence as “this accident.”
- He had meant to say “incident” and quickly corrected himself, but the slip was revealing and quite in keeping with the idea from which he said the book originally grew, an idea which came to him in a kind of vision— a vivid mental picture of four detached houses on the side of a canal.
- Within this image, Mulisch discovered the essential elements of his plot and a succinct summary of his most abstract as well as his most domestic themes.
- Four houses, containing four separate family destinies, and representing four equal chances in the game of life.Outside one of them—he one where his protagonist would live— the cosmic dice would roll to a standstill.
- A great release of dramatic and descriptive energy occurs in the first 60 pages, which establish and then destroy Anton Steenwijk’s childhood world.
- “All the rest,” as the book acknowledges, “is aftermath—the cloud of ash that rises into the stratosphere
- from the volcano, circles around the earth, and continues to rain down on all its continents for years.”
- Do we have our backs to the past while facing the future, or our backs to the future facing the past?
- Mulisch’s achievement is to make us concerned with the actions of his Dutch characters on that night of terror and, at the end, to persuade us that the potential of evil as great as that of the Nazis still exists in our world of nuclear armaments and of leaders of demonstrations against them.
Link to Easter 1916 (stone stanza and stone of the heart with Fake’s stone 85-93)
Link to “doubt is not a pleasant condition but certainty is an absurd one prompt
Text strands to track
Title references = mid 51, mid & late57, 120, 167, 112
Daydreams/flashbacks = 17/18, end 68, end 116, 125, 127, 129, 90 flea market paragraph, end 108, end 169, mid 184
Politics = 60, end 81 to 82 (and pessimism), mid 89, Provos 103 and top 101, top 117
Aimless walking = 62, (drifting = 154, 171) (link with stream motif 172, 184)
“Courting danger” & and ominous feeling = top 2 lines of 72, lower 75, end 79, mid 125, top 132, mid 154
Trauma written on the body = club foot 60, crooked back 61, migranes, illness 154, his mother’s tooth and clove (top half 10, mid15), bottom half 30 = nazi scar; calluses on Fake end 84, top 109 or end 110 Cor’s face, 129, top 134, mid 154, end 162, top 174
DO A GOOGLE BOOK SEARCH: Vomit 48, 58, 79, 106, 111, top 121, 49 Anton vomits
Dice 19, 52, 155, 156 /horseshoes 10, 56/gambling / Pech = bad luck end 13
Sand and dunes = 38 top (foreshadows), beach scene 125-128?, shot in the dunes end 161, 129
Animal noises = 156
Religion = crucifx 65, end 87, mid 134 (many more are out there)
Vertical/horizontal metaphors = tunnel 108, deep hole 141, depths of the past 144, standstill pg 5, 76, depths/floating pg 76,
Water + boating references = 5 – top and bottom (with the motorboat wakes), 151, quay 3, black water 32, LAST LINE 75, 125
Living relics: end 98, top 143 gun, top 157, man who stepped out of another century (top 5), mother as “eternal” pg 22, Mr Beaumer, pg 94 end,
Vs. things becoming lost/invisible = the key top pg 21, the father’s silhouette pg 21 & top 22, top 63 tooth, 159 “unable to recreate”
Vs. memorials 73-74
Unspoken / The unknowable = 6, 18, end 62, 179
NOTE: Starts cold (January) ends warm/comfortable
Windows and mirrors = shattered mirror 24 & mid 27, 94, 97
Soot/ash = mid 29, end 185, 55 top
Clothes = hand me down 10, the cut Nazi uniform 46
London 98, Padua 152, Sienna/Tuscany (Italy) 152, Athens 99 = outward ripples: the movement to foreign settings for an Anton who had never been past Amsterdam in ep.1
LOVE= 38, 39, 90-92, 97, 9, 140, 113, 129-130,
MISC PAGES
Top half 5 + 76, top 151 (and things out of their era = pg 94 and step out of another century pg 5)
11-12= Why reference to outer space time capsules and the origins of civilization, the year 6938
X Mid 14 (translation)
Mid 18, antons empathy for fake jr; secrets kept by Anton, Mr Bos; link to mid 93
Compare 19 and 182-183 = body dragging
“wide eyes” 21 = the power and significance of observation/seeing by Anton
End 23 (inaction in crisis)
Top 27 – consider the car from which he watches as a sort of terrarium (lizards); link to top 48 - why give Anton a boyish fascination with planes - pg 82 paper planes metaphor; pg 181
End 29 house burning
A 2nd reading of pg 32-40 (start with 31 “thanks to you”; blood perfume end 32, link to 139 and end 143-145
Compare end 38 + 113 top & bottom 112
Mid 42 – naked Nazis as human beings/ordinary
Top 47 *
Contrast bottom 48 to lack of detail with family deaths in ep1 (which are sound driven mostly/only)
55+185
Top half 57
Mid 60 (SS who joined the army)
End 68 – 70
73, 113 top , 160
End 75 – 76
Mid 79 (divorce metaphors)
End 80
Compare pg 84 to the end of the text / riots *
85-93 = the stove LINK with gun/bicycle/map/photo with Cor Takes (the signif of physical objects on climatic scenes)
Top 100, end 100
End 117
Mid 119
118-119 = LINK WITH SHOAH MOVIE CLIP of the barber
Top + Mid 124 (keeping silent)
127
End 128
129-130 – link Saskia + Truus (mid 138-top139)
Top 136 (violence by the resistance); link mid 142; link also to Cor’s setting end 136-137, mid 133 & lipstick mid137
Last line 140
End143
Mid 146 and top 93 – fires in Cor and Fake scene
Visits to Carefree = 158, 63, ep.1
160, 59, ep. 1 (ortskommandant?); 184, 185, 168, 50, 169 = recurring buildings
Truus’ love – 161, 39, 140?, mid 162
157-158 deaths
Why do pg 162 scene (but not one with his own family)
164-167 link to 60 (Gerrit Jan)
Top 168
Bastiaan (170)
174 – note no children and bad health
Top 175 + end 68
Link 176 with Karin, end 88 with Fake, mid 144 or 111 with Cor (tense dialogue/accusations)
& Mid 118 + end 90 – parallel Cor + Fake in that Anton must be careful in discussion
177-180 = who was punished worst?
184 + 172 = stream / passive action / water motif
Link to “doubt is not a pleasant condition but certainty is an absurd one prompt
Text strands to track
Title references = mid 51, mid & late57, 120, 167, 112
Daydreams/flashbacks = 17/18, end 68, end 116, 125, 127, 129, 90 flea market paragraph, end 108, end 169, mid 184
Politics = 60, end 81 to 82 (and pessimism), mid 89, Provos 103 and top 101, top 117
Aimless walking = 62, (drifting = 154, 171) (link with stream motif 172, 184)
“Courting danger” & and ominous feeling = top 2 lines of 72, lower 75, end 79, mid 125, top 132, mid 154
Trauma written on the body = club foot 60, crooked back 61, migranes, illness 154, his mother’s tooth and clove (top half 10, mid15), bottom half 30 = nazi scar; calluses on Fake end 84, top 109 or end 110 Cor’s face, 129, top 134, mid 154, end 162, top 174
DO A GOOGLE BOOK SEARCH: Vomit 48, 58, 79, 106, 111, top 121, 49 Anton vomits
Dice 19, 52, 155, 156 /horseshoes 10, 56/gambling / Pech = bad luck end 13
Sand and dunes = 38 top (foreshadows), beach scene 125-128?, shot in the dunes end 161, 129
Animal noises = 156
Religion = crucifx 65, end 87, mid 134 (many more are out there)
Vertical/horizontal metaphors = tunnel 108, deep hole 141, depths of the past 144, standstill pg 5, 76, depths/floating pg 76,
Water + boating references = 5 – top and bottom (with the motorboat wakes), 151, quay 3, black water 32, LAST LINE 75, 125
Living relics: end 98, top 143 gun, top 157, man who stepped out of another century (top 5), mother as “eternal” pg 22, Mr Beaumer, pg 94 end,
Vs. things becoming lost/invisible = the key top pg 21, the father’s silhouette pg 21 & top 22, top 63 tooth, 159 “unable to recreate”
Vs. memorials 73-74
Unspoken / The unknowable = 6, 18, end 62, 179
NOTE: Starts cold (January) ends warm/comfortable
Windows and mirrors = shattered mirror 24 & mid 27, 94, 97
Soot/ash = mid 29, end 185, 55 top
Clothes = hand me down 10, the cut Nazi uniform 46
London 98, Padua 152, Sienna/Tuscany (Italy) 152, Athens 99 = outward ripples: the movement to foreign settings for an Anton who had never been past Amsterdam in ep.1
LOVE= 38, 39, 90-92, 97, 9, 140, 113, 129-130,
MISC PAGES
Top half 5 + 76, top 151 (and things out of their era = pg 94 and step out of another century pg 5)
11-12= Why reference to outer space time capsules and the origins of civilization, the year 6938
X Mid 14 (translation)
Mid 18, antons empathy for fake jr; secrets kept by Anton, Mr Bos; link to mid 93
Compare 19 and 182-183 = body dragging
“wide eyes” 21 = the power and significance of observation/seeing by Anton
End 23 (inaction in crisis)
Top 27 – consider the car from which he watches as a sort of terrarium (lizards); link to top 48 - why give Anton a boyish fascination with planes - pg 82 paper planes metaphor; pg 181
End 29 house burning
A 2nd reading of pg 32-40 (start with 31 “thanks to you”; blood perfume end 32, link to 139 and end 143-145
Compare end 38 + 113 top & bottom 112
Mid 42 – naked Nazis as human beings/ordinary
Top 47 *
Contrast bottom 48 to lack of detail with family deaths in ep1 (which are sound driven mostly/only)
55+185
Top half 57
Mid 60 (SS who joined the army)
End 68 – 70
73, 113 top , 160
End 75 – 76
Mid 79 (divorce metaphors)
End 80
Compare pg 84 to the end of the text / riots *
85-93 = the stove LINK with gun/bicycle/map/photo with Cor Takes (the signif of physical objects on climatic scenes)
Top 100, end 100
End 117
Mid 119
118-119 = LINK WITH SHOAH MOVIE CLIP of the barber
Top + Mid 124 (keeping silent)
127
End 128
129-130 – link Saskia + Truus (mid 138-top139)
Top 136 (violence by the resistance); link mid 142; link also to Cor’s setting end 136-137, mid 133 & lipstick mid137
Last line 140
End143
Mid 146 and top 93 – fires in Cor and Fake scene
Visits to Carefree = 158, 63, ep.1
160, 59, ep. 1 (ortskommandant?); 184, 185, 168, 50, 169 = recurring buildings
Truus’ love – 161, 39, 140?, mid 162
157-158 deaths
Why do pg 162 scene (but not one with his own family)
164-167 link to 60 (Gerrit Jan)
Top 168
Bastiaan (170)
174 – note no children and bad health
Top 175 + end 68
Link 176 with Karin, end 88 with Fake, mid 144 or 111 with Cor (tense dialogue/accusations)
& Mid 118 + end 90 – parallel Cor + Fake in that Anton must be careful in discussion
177-180 = who was punished worst?
184 + 172 = stream / passive action / water motif
Kokoro
2010 translation version (Penguin Classics on Google Books) of Kokoro - doesn't have the entire book to search
e-copy of the novel (click next to get to the next section/chapter)
Soseki project - Kokoro - seems to the be a e-version of the novel (in original Japanese)
SOSEKI / AUTHOR CONTEXT:
Natsume Soseki wiki
Google BOOKS Natsume Soseki
Soseki book - login to Gale with Volusia library card, go to Table of Contents and then click on desired chapters
Soseki overview links
Soseki in London (critical essay)
Soseki intro from Japanese Embassy in UK
Soseki museum in London
The "onsen" retreat that transformed Soseki
Soseki and loneliness
Soseki and his Discontents
Soseki: Greatest Novelist in Modern Japan
Natsume Soseki and male identity crisis
The World of Natsume Sôseki by Takehisa Iijima, - on JSTOR
The Evil and the Ordinary in Sōseki's Fiction - on JSTOR
- his death, his health
- his prior novels
- his time in England; his time as a teacher
- his influence on future Japanese writers
Soseki quotations
Soseki quotes pt2
Kokoro famous quotations
HISTORICAL CONTEXT:
Meiji period
& Meiji Restoration
Videos on Meiji Period - likely need to login with Volusia library card (or go through the library system)
Meiji Restoration and Modernization
Meiji overview
Meiji overview for visitors to Japan
Meiji Period in History
Government of Meiji Japan
TOKUGAWA PERIOD AND MEIJI RESTORATION
The Meiji Restoration Era, 1868-1889
The Meiji Restoration: Roots of Modern Japan
www.scaruffi.com/politics/japanese.html = Timeline of Japan
Imperial Japan: Industrialization and Expansion (1890-1930)
Taishō period (1912-1926)
Shōwa period (1926-1989)
FYI: Edo/Tokugawa Period (1603-1868)
Edo (history of Tokyo before it was named Tokyo) OR the history of Tokyo
The Empire of Japan (1868-1947)
Modernization in Japan and the Ukiyo-e
Japanese women of the Meiji era: https://andrewy12.wordpress.com/2010/05/29/japanese-women-of-the-meiji-era/
Women of Meiji Japan and western Fashion: http://www.edwardianpromenade.com/fashion/women-of-meiji-japan/
Meiji Period: http://jordanahjilljessiesarah.weebly.com/social-change.html
Life for Japanese Women: http://lifeofwomenjapan.weebly.com/meiji-restoration.html
What did emperor Meiji do to modernize Japanese?: https://www.quora.com/History-What-did-Emperor-Meiji-do-to-modernize-Japan
Russo-Japanese War: http://aboutjapan.japansociety.org/content.cfm/the_russo-japanese_war
(top pg 104)
soseki’s “Kokoro” and Japan’s Modernization
Kokoro: The “Heart” of the Meiji Social Experience
Emperor Meiji - end pg 91
Video/photos of Emperor's funeral
General Nogi
Suicidal Honor: General Nogi
Admiral Togo
Perry's Black Ships
Commodore Perry and Japan
Gunboat Diplomacy
Sino-Japanese War 1894
Russo-Japanese War 1904
Japan's annexation of Korea in 1910
JAPANESE CULTURAL CONTEXT / CUSTOMS / CEREMONIES / GEOGRAPHY, ETC
Anthony Bourdain: Japan with Masa episode, Season 8 ep 6) - I liked it
Japan map on Google Maps (look for Kamakura, Hakone, etc)
Zoshigaya Cemetery
Soseki's burial site in Zoshigaya cemetery
Zoshigaya cemetery
Ueno Park
Kamakura
Ryokan
The Fall of the Samurai in Late Tokugawa Japan
Satsuma Rebellion
Bushido
Intro to the Bushido Code: 8 virtues of the samurai
Japan's National Diet (government) & Politics of Japan
"Sensei" explained
Buddhism
Shinto
Hongan churches & the Shinsu sect pg 164
Confucius - top 188
- Shinto Religion in Meiji Era http://www.museevirtuel.ca/edu/ViewLoitLo.do;jsessionid=5D811C85D1F9BF97875C41887C3E9E27? method=preview&id=12976&lang=EN
- Religion in Japan https://owlcation.com/humanities/Religion-in-Modern-Japan or http://spice.fsi.stanford.edu/docs/japanese_religions (filial piety + duty under Confucianism, also Shinto + Buddhism)
- Japanese Family http://www.columbia.edu/cu/weai/exeas/resources/pdf/japanese-family-imamura.pdf
- Buddhism in Japan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism_in_Japan or (during Meiji era specifically) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haibutsu_kishaku (Satsuma loses all Buddhist temples during reformation)
- Shinshu Buddhism http://seattlebetsuin.org/index.php/jodo-shinshu/
- Rural vs Urban Japan http://thediplomat.com/2014/02/japans-rural-urban-divide/
- Meiji Modernization of Japan http://www.lehigh.edu/~rfw1/courses/1999/spring/ir163/Papers/pdf/shs3.pdf
Junshi - VITAL
Seppuku or Hara-kiri
Suicide in Japan
Watanabe Kazan - referenced on pg247
Japanese funeral
Japanese funeral customs
Giri (the idea of duty in Japanese culture) - top87
Oyo-koko (filial piety) - footnote pg107
www.jasna.org/persuasions/on-line/vol30no2/amano.html = sokuten kyoshi (from article: Sōseki’s Transformation of the Austenian Novel: From the Novel of Manners to the Psychological Novel)
jiko-hon-i = self-centered
Ikebana (history of Japanese flower arrangement as a cultural practice) - pg132, 184, etc
Koto (music instrument) - pg 147, 184
Japanese inheritance customs
pg190
The history of Buddhist ascetics (192-193)
Japanese superstitions
Maid traditions (top 59)
the Go game (pg49)
Ryokan (traditional Japanese hotels)
Egoism
Tea in Japan
japanese cultural etiquette
10 japanese customs you must know
the japanese tea ceremony: (if interested perhaps read Thousand Cranes novel)
Meiji/Japanese architecture
Japanese architecture: Meiji
JAPANESE CULTURAL TRANSITION: MEIJI ARCHITECTURE AND THE EFFECT OF CROSS-CULTURAL EXCHANGE WITH THE WEST
8 standards of Japanese beauty
Women in Meiji Japan: Exploring the Underclass of Japanese Industrialization
Japanese aesthetics
Wabi-sabi
Dualism (the idea of a body / soul or mind split) - pg 176 top
NOVEL CONTEXT AND LIT CRIT ON KOKORO:
Kokoro the novel (wiki)
Kokoro study guide/overview
Gradesaver Kokoro
Bookrags Kokoro
KOKORO BY NATSUME SOSEKI
Kokoro overview
Framing the Self. The Philosophical Dimensions of Human Nature in Kokoro - on JSTOR
The Implications of Soseki's Kokoro - on JSTOR
Kokoro and `the Spirit of Meiji' - on JSTOR
The Psychopathic Self: Kokoro
Self Identity and Modernity in Kokoro
Soseki’s Kokoro as a Cross-Cultural Study
Chaos and Order in the works of Soseki - OR on JSTOR HERE
An Introduction to the Later Novels of Natsume Soseki - on JSTOR
Kokoro (Barnes & Noble Digital Library) Hints and Echoes of Japanese Inner Life. - 1896 essays, not actually about the book
Shizu name meaning
LITERARY CONTEXT / INTRO TO JAPANESE LIT:
Japanese Literature
The "I" novel / Shosetsu / Shishōsetsu
The "I" novel - Brittanica
Rituals of Self-revelation: Shishōsetsu as Literary Genre
The Psychological Novel
Soseki and he Psychological Novel - go to pg 308 or chap8
Psychological Novel FYI with some links to Soseki - start pg75
Japanese Modernist Literature
Japanese Modern Lit from 1868
Intro to Japanese Lit post Soseki
Soseki and the revolution of Japanese Modernist Lit
Soseki and Shakespeare
Suicide as a feature in Modern Japanese Lit
Literary Modernism
Modernism in Literature: Characteristics
List of Modernist Authors
List of 59 (best?) Modernist Novels/Lit
FYI on links between Kokoro and Heart of Darkness (Conrad)
Compare to Kokoro/Sensei: TS Eliot's "The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock"
Complicit Fictions: Modern Japanese Prose narrative
Accomplices of Silence. The Modern Japanese Novel - READ HERE - on JSTOR - OR GOOGLE BOOKS VERSION HERE
Topographies of Japanese Modernism
Text and City; Essays on Japanese Modernity
Daring to break the rules: Japan’s first modern novelists
Modern Japanese Writers and the Nature of Literature
The Columbia Anthology of Modern Japanese Literature
Anthology of Japanese Literature: From Earliest Era to Mid-19th Century
Donald Keene, ed.Grove Press, 1955
Columbia Anthology of Modern Japanese Literature: From Restoration to Occupation, 1868-1945, The
J. Thomas RimerColumbia University Press, 2007
Van C. Gessel, eds.
Columbia Anthology of Modern Japanese Literature: From 1945 to the Present, The
J. Thomas RimerColumbia University Press, 2007
Van C. Gessel, eds.
Contemporary Japanese Literature: An Anthology of Fiction, Film, and other Writing Since 1945.
Howard Hibbett, ed.Cheng & Tsui, 2005
Modern Japanese Literature: From 1868 to the Present Day
Donald Keene, ed.Grove Press, 1994
Traditional Japanese Literature: An Anthology: Beginnings to 1600
Haruo Shirane, ed.Columbia University Press, 2007
Cultural Institutions of the Novel
How, if at all, did the serialization of novels in the 1800s affect plot structure and character development?
Narrative Theory Overview
Elements of Fiction
The Frame Story
What Are the Effects of a Frame Narrative?
List of Narrative Techniques
The story within a story
Epistle (Section 3)
In Conrad’s novel, Heart of Darkness, there are two narrators; one is the anonymous passenger traveling on a pleasure ship, listening to the story of Marlowe, while the second is Marlowe himself. The first narrator, on the behalf of other four passengers, uses first person plural. Marlowe, on the other hand, narrates his story in first person, describing whatever he has seen and experienced. This provides a commentary on the entire story, acting as a frame story.
Function of Frame Story: This literary technique uses embedded narratives, which provide readers with a context about the main narrative. Frame story leads the readers from the first story to the other one. This is a sort of guidance, which establishes the context for an embedded narrative, helping the writer to create a context how a narrative needs to be interpreted. It also offers multiple perspectives to the readers within a story as well as about the story. These multiple perspectives give the readers more information about the characters regarding their feelings, thoughts and motivations.
What Are the Characteristics of Modern Japanese Literature? Marked by a strong and intentional break with tradition and the nation-centered and group orientation values. This break included a strong reaction against established religious, political, and social views. Feminism, individualism, internationalism, liberalism, and proletarianism emerged during this period. Belief that the world is created in the act of perceiving it; that is, the world is what we say it is. There is no such thing as absolute truth. All things are relative. No connection with history or institutions. Their experience is that of alienation, loss, and despair. Championship of the individual and celebration of inner strength. Life is unordered and incomplete. Concerned with the sub-conscious. New literary forms and styles; for example, the I-Novel (first-person point of view), an autobiographical confessional type of narration, emerges in 1906.
Philosophical Context
Japanese philosophy
Ethical Egoism (Soseki mostly is condemning modern egoism) (note egoist = pg 115)
EDUCATION History in Japan:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_education_in_Japan#Meiji_period = History of Education in Meiji period
Education policy during Meiji period
Education in Japan - past and present
The History of Modern Japanese Education: Project MUSE
Educational Reform in Japan (19th c.)
Influence of Westernization on Japanese Education
History of Kumamoto University
2010 translation version (Penguin Classics on Google Books) of Kokoro - doesn't have the entire book to search
e-copy of the novel (click next to get to the next section/chapter)
Soseki project - Kokoro - seems to the be a e-version of the novel (in original Japanese)
SOSEKI / AUTHOR CONTEXT:
Natsume Soseki wiki
Google BOOKS Natsume Soseki
Soseki book - login to Gale with Volusia library card, go to Table of Contents and then click on desired chapters
Soseki overview links
Soseki in London (critical essay)
Soseki intro from Japanese Embassy in UK
Soseki museum in London
The "onsen" retreat that transformed Soseki
Soseki and loneliness
Soseki and his Discontents
Soseki: Greatest Novelist in Modern Japan
Natsume Soseki and male identity crisis
The World of Natsume Sôseki by Takehisa Iijima, - on JSTOR
The Evil and the Ordinary in Sōseki's Fiction - on JSTOR
- his death, his health
- his prior novels
- his time in England; his time as a teacher
- his influence on future Japanese writers
Soseki quotations
Soseki quotes pt2
Kokoro famous quotations
HISTORICAL CONTEXT:
Meiji period
& Meiji Restoration
Videos on Meiji Period - likely need to login with Volusia library card (or go through the library system)
Meiji Restoration and Modernization
Meiji overview
Meiji overview for visitors to Japan
Meiji Period in History
Government of Meiji Japan
TOKUGAWA PERIOD AND MEIJI RESTORATION
The Meiji Restoration Era, 1868-1889
The Meiji Restoration: Roots of Modern Japan
www.scaruffi.com/politics/japanese.html = Timeline of Japan
Imperial Japan: Industrialization and Expansion (1890-1930)
Taishō period (1912-1926)
Shōwa period (1926-1989)
FYI: Edo/Tokugawa Period (1603-1868)
Edo (history of Tokyo before it was named Tokyo) OR the history of Tokyo
The Empire of Japan (1868-1947)
Modernization in Japan and the Ukiyo-e
Japanese women of the Meiji era: https://andrewy12.wordpress.com/2010/05/29/japanese-women-of-the-meiji-era/
Women of Meiji Japan and western Fashion: http://www.edwardianpromenade.com/fashion/women-of-meiji-japan/
Meiji Period: http://jordanahjilljessiesarah.weebly.com/social-change.html
Life for Japanese Women: http://lifeofwomenjapan.weebly.com/meiji-restoration.html
What did emperor Meiji do to modernize Japanese?: https://www.quora.com/History-What-did-Emperor-Meiji-do-to-modernize-Japan
Russo-Japanese War: http://aboutjapan.japansociety.org/content.cfm/the_russo-japanese_war
(top pg 104)
soseki’s “Kokoro” and Japan’s Modernization
Kokoro: The “Heart” of the Meiji Social Experience
Emperor Meiji - end pg 91
Video/photos of Emperor's funeral
General Nogi
Suicidal Honor: General Nogi
Admiral Togo
Perry's Black Ships
Commodore Perry and Japan
Gunboat Diplomacy
Sino-Japanese War 1894
Russo-Japanese War 1904
Japan's annexation of Korea in 1910
JAPANESE CULTURAL CONTEXT / CUSTOMS / CEREMONIES / GEOGRAPHY, ETC
Anthony Bourdain: Japan with Masa episode, Season 8 ep 6) - I liked it
Japan map on Google Maps (look for Kamakura, Hakone, etc)
Zoshigaya Cemetery
Soseki's burial site in Zoshigaya cemetery
Zoshigaya cemetery
Ueno Park
Kamakura
Ryokan
The Fall of the Samurai in Late Tokugawa Japan
Satsuma Rebellion
Bushido
Intro to the Bushido Code: 8 virtues of the samurai
Japan's National Diet (government) & Politics of Japan
"Sensei" explained
Buddhism
Shinto
Hongan churches & the Shinsu sect pg 164
Confucius - top 188
- Shinto Religion in Meiji Era http://www.museevirtuel.ca/edu/ViewLoitLo.do;jsessionid=5D811C85D1F9BF97875C41887C3E9E27? method=preview&id=12976&lang=EN
- Religion in Japan https://owlcation.com/humanities/Religion-in-Modern-Japan or http://spice.fsi.stanford.edu/docs/japanese_religions (filial piety + duty under Confucianism, also Shinto + Buddhism)
- Japanese Family http://www.columbia.edu/cu/weai/exeas/resources/pdf/japanese-family-imamura.pdf
- Buddhism in Japan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism_in_Japan or (during Meiji era specifically) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haibutsu_kishaku (Satsuma loses all Buddhist temples during reformation)
- Shinshu Buddhism http://seattlebetsuin.org/index.php/jodo-shinshu/
- Rural vs Urban Japan http://thediplomat.com/2014/02/japans-rural-urban-divide/
- Meiji Modernization of Japan http://www.lehigh.edu/~rfw1/courses/1999/spring/ir163/Papers/pdf/shs3.pdf
Junshi - VITAL
Seppuku or Hara-kiri
Suicide in Japan
Watanabe Kazan - referenced on pg247
Japanese funeral
Japanese funeral customs
Giri (the idea of duty in Japanese culture) - top87
Oyo-koko (filial piety) - footnote pg107
www.jasna.org/persuasions/on-line/vol30no2/amano.html = sokuten kyoshi (from article: Sōseki’s Transformation of the Austenian Novel: From the Novel of Manners to the Psychological Novel)
jiko-hon-i = self-centered
Ikebana (history of Japanese flower arrangement as a cultural practice) - pg132, 184, etc
Koto (music instrument) - pg 147, 184
Japanese inheritance customs
pg190
The history of Buddhist ascetics (192-193)
Japanese superstitions
Maid traditions (top 59)
the Go game (pg49)
Ryokan (traditional Japanese hotels)
Egoism
Tea in Japan
japanese cultural etiquette
10 japanese customs you must know
the japanese tea ceremony: (if interested perhaps read Thousand Cranes novel)
Meiji/Japanese architecture
Japanese architecture: Meiji
JAPANESE CULTURAL TRANSITION: MEIJI ARCHITECTURE AND THE EFFECT OF CROSS-CULTURAL EXCHANGE WITH THE WEST
8 standards of Japanese beauty
Women in Meiji Japan: Exploring the Underclass of Japanese Industrialization
Japanese aesthetics
Wabi-sabi
Dualism (the idea of a body / soul or mind split) - pg 176 top
NOVEL CONTEXT AND LIT CRIT ON KOKORO:
Kokoro the novel (wiki)
Kokoro study guide/overview
Gradesaver Kokoro
Bookrags Kokoro
KOKORO BY NATSUME SOSEKI
Kokoro overview
Framing the Self. The Philosophical Dimensions of Human Nature in Kokoro - on JSTOR
The Implications of Soseki's Kokoro - on JSTOR
Kokoro and `the Spirit of Meiji' - on JSTOR
The Psychopathic Self: Kokoro
Self Identity and Modernity in Kokoro
Soseki’s Kokoro as a Cross-Cultural Study
Chaos and Order in the works of Soseki - OR on JSTOR HERE
An Introduction to the Later Novels of Natsume Soseki - on JSTOR
Kokoro (Barnes & Noble Digital Library) Hints and Echoes of Japanese Inner Life. - 1896 essays, not actually about the book
Shizu name meaning
LITERARY CONTEXT / INTRO TO JAPANESE LIT:
Japanese Literature
The "I" novel / Shosetsu / Shishōsetsu
The "I" novel - Brittanica
Rituals of Self-revelation: Shishōsetsu as Literary Genre
The Psychological Novel
Soseki and he Psychological Novel - go to pg 308 or chap8
Psychological Novel FYI with some links to Soseki - start pg75
Japanese Modernist Literature
Japanese Modern Lit from 1868
Intro to Japanese Lit post Soseki
Soseki and the revolution of Japanese Modernist Lit
Soseki and Shakespeare
Suicide as a feature in Modern Japanese Lit
Literary Modernism
Modernism in Literature: Characteristics
List of Modernist Authors
List of 59 (best?) Modernist Novels/Lit
FYI on links between Kokoro and Heart of Darkness (Conrad)
Compare to Kokoro/Sensei: TS Eliot's "The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock"
Complicit Fictions: Modern Japanese Prose narrative
Accomplices of Silence. The Modern Japanese Novel - READ HERE - on JSTOR - OR GOOGLE BOOKS VERSION HERE
Topographies of Japanese Modernism
Text and City; Essays on Japanese Modernity
Daring to break the rules: Japan’s first modern novelists
Modern Japanese Writers and the Nature of Literature
The Columbia Anthology of Modern Japanese Literature
Anthology of Japanese Literature: From Earliest Era to Mid-19th Century
Donald Keene, ed.Grove Press, 1955
Columbia Anthology of Modern Japanese Literature: From Restoration to Occupation, 1868-1945, The
J. Thomas RimerColumbia University Press, 2007
Van C. Gessel, eds.
Columbia Anthology of Modern Japanese Literature: From 1945 to the Present, The
J. Thomas RimerColumbia University Press, 2007
Van C. Gessel, eds.
Contemporary Japanese Literature: An Anthology of Fiction, Film, and other Writing Since 1945.
Howard Hibbett, ed.Cheng & Tsui, 2005
Modern Japanese Literature: From 1868 to the Present Day
Donald Keene, ed.Grove Press, 1994
Traditional Japanese Literature: An Anthology: Beginnings to 1600
Haruo Shirane, ed.Columbia University Press, 2007
Cultural Institutions of the Novel
How, if at all, did the serialization of novels in the 1800s affect plot structure and character development?
Narrative Theory Overview
Elements of Fiction
The Frame Story
What Are the Effects of a Frame Narrative?
List of Narrative Techniques
The story within a story
Epistle (Section 3)
In Conrad’s novel, Heart of Darkness, there are two narrators; one is the anonymous passenger traveling on a pleasure ship, listening to the story of Marlowe, while the second is Marlowe himself. The first narrator, on the behalf of other four passengers, uses first person plural. Marlowe, on the other hand, narrates his story in first person, describing whatever he has seen and experienced. This provides a commentary on the entire story, acting as a frame story.
Function of Frame Story: This literary technique uses embedded narratives, which provide readers with a context about the main narrative. Frame story leads the readers from the first story to the other one. This is a sort of guidance, which establishes the context for an embedded narrative, helping the writer to create a context how a narrative needs to be interpreted. It also offers multiple perspectives to the readers within a story as well as about the story. These multiple perspectives give the readers more information about the characters regarding their feelings, thoughts and motivations.
What Are the Characteristics of Modern Japanese Literature? Marked by a strong and intentional break with tradition and the nation-centered and group orientation values. This break included a strong reaction against established religious, political, and social views. Feminism, individualism, internationalism, liberalism, and proletarianism emerged during this period. Belief that the world is created in the act of perceiving it; that is, the world is what we say it is. There is no such thing as absolute truth. All things are relative. No connection with history or institutions. Their experience is that of alienation, loss, and despair. Championship of the individual and celebration of inner strength. Life is unordered and incomplete. Concerned with the sub-conscious. New literary forms and styles; for example, the I-Novel (first-person point of view), an autobiographical confessional type of narration, emerges in 1906.
Philosophical Context
Japanese philosophy
Ethical Egoism (Soseki mostly is condemning modern egoism) (note egoist = pg 115)
EDUCATION History in Japan:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_education_in_Japan#Meiji_period = History of Education in Meiji period
Education policy during Meiji period
Education in Japan - past and present
The History of Modern Japanese Education: Project MUSE
Educational Reform in Japan (19th c.)
Influence of Westernization on Japanese Education
History of Kumamoto University
WA TOPICS
Concrete Literary Objects in-text:
Finances/money/inheritance
Trees/Vegetative Live blooming (vs. dying); possibly seasons (or outdoor walks as a recurring element)
Closeness and separations/gulfs (literal and figurative between people) 32, 40, 94, 114
Noises vs silence
Generational divides
The spoken vs. the unspoken
The role of games/play (90, 49, 201, etc)
The outward vs inner lives of the female characters (3-4+ of them)
Temperatures (hot vs cold)
The role/significance of figurative language choices (mostly metaphor and similes) - research them into categories
Literal vs moral darkness 128
The significance and contrasts between I's father and Sensei's perceptions of the significance of the Meiji era's end and Nogi's death
The recurring language of courage/honor or coward (112, 121, 125, early on, top 201, 216, 226)
"For my wife's sake" (projection or moral rationalization or self-punishment)
"No man is immune to temptation" - comparative analysis amongst characters
Physical objects/clothing as a tool to characterize (hats – mid 90, 191, dirty coat 63, I’s suitcase/trunk in section 2, top 160
Color and/or visual imagery – top 6,
Nature imagery (animals = ) (trees/flowers = top 11, end 12, end 55, top57, mid77, 148 ) (clouds =
Seasonal/narrative time as marked through nature/trees/flowers
Foreshadowing: 74-75, 11, foreshadowing on inheritance mid 114, foreshadowing on social pressures 116, foreshadowing on grave scenes mid 139
Frame narratives & non-linear narrative disclosures & Secrets vs Revelations (the importance of privacy 105) – pg 8 = Sensei is dead, pg 66 inheritance backstory and the novel’s goal for unity of time; mid 24; top25; top 30; top 60
Edited out dialogue / referenced but not shown actions/dialogue – top 7
Rural vs urban settings/tensions (“country people” 79/naïve provincialism 82, end86) – WATCH the shifting language in the young narrator as a sign of his shifting perception on “home” or his increasing biases
& The significance of settings: Tokyo/Kamakura/Zoshigaya cemetary / Hakone / Nikko/ Niigata
The positioning of female characters (15-16, top 20, 87 “like all women”; ): A critique of possible misogyny in the text (by Japanese cultural context/standards) (NOTE: Shizu = “quiet”); contrast I’s mother (“she understood so little”) with Sensei’s wife; end 154; 180, 182, mid 184
Text and subtext (Levels/layers of meaning; Literal vs. suggestive action) [indirectness in the narrative]
Who has conversational control (how characters dictate flow/direction of dialogue as an indication of power structures in the relationship. The issue of leverage in relationships .. “I was forced to bow to him” top 174)
The confidant role (both “I” and Sensei’s wife pg 23)
The misanthrope role/archetype (and its ironies or how the archetype is modified/subverted) – mid 29, 149
Character Foils (Sensei vs. I’s father – end 49, etc)
The role of rhetorical questions in the narrative style
The balancing (or what is learned in) the dialogue vs. the narrative description
Issues of narrative bias (or the limitations of the 1st person narrative approach)
Paradoxes in characters (ex: Sensei as a hermit/recluse who still seeks to reach out the world; mid 88; )
Serialization and the effects of the chapter divisions
Similes and Figurative Language Strategies (and their effects/targets)
Subplots (finance/money 58 and Sensei’s family drama/inheritance 66) (I’s father’s health and Sensei’s repeated interest in it)
Naming (and expectations for such things in a “I”/psychological novel of the Japanese tradition) and the avoidance of formal names (and it as symptomatic of larger issues of DELIBERATE AMBIGUITY)
The logic (and effectiveness for this text’s goals) of limited narrative scope (only 3 significant characters in Sections 1-2 and Section 3)
The authorial significance / importance achieved in the physical distancing of the I and Sensei in his return to his parent’s house/setting
Ironies (end pg 81 about admiration for those who are more critical not complimentary)
The value of narrative misperceptions tied to youth & inexperience (pg 82)
The overt inclusion of historical facts/context and its logic/rationale/effect on shaping the creative story/plot (88, )
Non-visual senses engaged (auditory, gustatory, tactile, olfactory imagery)
The logic behind some of the plot complications postponing his return to Tokyo in section 2
Attempts at bathos (the comic and pathetic, pg 102 top) [and juxtapositions of that with attempts at pathos / catharsis
The value of having some 2nd person references in section 3 (as a narrative strategy which gives the letter approach logic)
Narrative fragmentation (or modular structure) and its modernist logic for use
Setting 147
The deliberate construction of boredom (in section 2) as a narrative tool to heighten power of anticipation (for section 3) [see it as a narrative strategy … somewhat deals with pacing or juxtaposition between the rural (section 2)and the urban (section 1 and 3) settings]
How Soseki has overcome the presumption of narrative bias in the storytelling of section 3 by Sensei (who easily could warp facts)
“Said to myself” – the role of interior dialogue (mid228) & Voices in our ears (final time end 243)
Motifs/Things
Watch Repetitions of terms: 1) heart; 2) modern/contemporary/ Western style, 3) love (mid 28), 4) temptation (62-64), 5) “when I die” (103, etc); 6) coward
Scenes in Libraries/studies
Perspectives of the diploma (value of formal/Western/university vs. informal/Sensei education pg158): 53-55, End 68-69 with the diploma as telescope metaphor (telescope on 135); the lost diploma pg 71, 83, end 28, mid 87, end 95 (the graduation party); Sensei as student end 152, top 158, top 173,
Letters as a recurring feature/motif (47-48, 59, 89, 92 section3, 110, 171, ); Telegrams
Blood motifs/metaphors 50, top 129, 230, 233, 247 & metaphors of the heart (rusty iron 178)
Walks 56, 13,
Illness – end 1, 44, 59, all of section 2,
Chess/games as a larger metaphor (in relationships, power dynamics, role reversals) – 48, end 89
Food/clothing (ice cream): 43-44, 71, 102,111
Parents / Generational Issues – pg2, mid 98,
The significance of physical touch (literal leaning on people = later 48);
Smoking – pg 4, 73,
Water/swimming
Alcohol – 16, top 19
Inward vs. outward expressions of emotion: pg 39
Crying (and outbursts of observable emotion): 18
Light and darkness mid 92
Rationalizations and self-delusions (top 35, 40, mid 46, 85)
Passive aggressiveness & Acts of deliberate cruelty/”purposely rude” 126 as a character trait
The presence/backdrop of death in life (cemetery settings, etc)
How the self (and self perception) is constructed through and by others (and is not an individual/discrete/separate act)
Narrative attempts at the avoidance of sexual dynamics (which would complicate plot) between I and Sensei’s wife
External punishment (formal justice) vs. self-punishment – pg 17 (divine punishment);
Literal and metaphoric boundaries/dividers/separations/gaps/distances; top 40, (NOTE when trains pop up – end79,
Sensei not as hero but as warning of the emptiness that comes with a pursuit/embrace of Western things/modernism (his books
The motif of “secret contempt” (end 81) that characters hold (around 155)
Reconciling the shifting perceptions towards Sensei (frustration vs admiration, etc): Mid 64 (to top 67)
Underlying homoeroticism : Male/male friendship (platonic love/sacrifice) as preparation for romantic love (pg27 top)
Knowing and not knowing (the burdens of knowing) – top 42, ; Intention vs. actuality; attraction vs. unapproachability
Self-Perceptions (self-awareness)
Joyful moments (top 6) JUXTAPOSED AGAINST ?
Conflicting dualities (Sensei’s depth/sadness/wisdom vs. childishness pg13; sad smiles pg15; )
The difficulty of communicating one’s “kokoro” OR deliberately choosing silence over attempts at complex communication likely to result in misunderstanding/misperception 94 … then look to lit techniques to attach to it
Levels on which in-between-ness exists (stuck between 2 worlds: modern/ancient, rural/city, child/adult – end 96)
Lying and willful deception (top98, 106, 166-167
Physical vs. non-physical or non-obvious forms of pain/trauma (end 105, enemas 110-11, 122)
A comparative examination of “terminal cases/fatal diseases” (mid 103) and/or the specter of inevitable impending death and how characters accept/rationalize/avoid it
The importance of privacy (105)
The necessity of struggle (to give life’s achievements meaning) – top 133
Anachronistic gestures (Junshi, etc)
Trains 79, 124,
The past as “property” or physical object (top 128)
The idea/contexts/consequences of “shirking responsibilities” (134)
Art (and ceremony) as a solace/refuge vs. unhealthy dependence on books 180
Piety 154
Self-deception or self-perpetuated falsehood about Okusan
Conviction vs. doubt (end 157)
The idea of being a “slave to convention” 161 on multiple levels
Failures in the attempts to read/know another’s thoughts/intentions
K’s religious philosophies
Increasing violent references/metaphors 186, 188 and/or game/war/competition references (fencing opponent 213)
The irrationality of fear as presented by literary techniques
Dark shadows - end 99-100, mid 118, top 119, mid 128
Books: as weapons against isolation and yet also the cause of isolation
Alienation created by modern humanity
Generational conflict / change / the role of traditions (the ending of an era)
Money
Moral punishments (self imposed or not)
The failure to live up to one’s parents’ wishes
Inability to live up to one’s own standards – mid 107
Consider K as old school/samurai metaphorically killed off by modern selfishness (Sensei)
“Anyone who has no spiritual aspirations is an idiot” – is this an indictment of modern selfishness
What have you learned about the nature of modern Japanese life as a result of reading Kokoro? (The essay might focus, for example, on the nature of human relationships as revealed in the novel; on female or male role expectations; on the manner in which adjustments are made to the influences of modernization and/or Westernization; on the impact in people's lives of the disruption of tradition by changes demanded for purposes of survival in the modern world.)
Concrete Literary Objects in-text:
Finances/money/inheritance
Trees/Vegetative Live blooming (vs. dying); possibly seasons (or outdoor walks as a recurring element)
Closeness and separations/gulfs (literal and figurative between people) 32, 40, 94, 114
Noises vs silence
Generational divides
The spoken vs. the unspoken
The role of games/play (90, 49, 201, etc)
The outward vs inner lives of the female characters (3-4+ of them)
Temperatures (hot vs cold)
The role/significance of figurative language choices (mostly metaphor and similes) - research them into categories
Literal vs moral darkness 128
The significance and contrasts between I's father and Sensei's perceptions of the significance of the Meiji era's end and Nogi's death
The recurring language of courage/honor or coward (112, 121, 125, early on, top 201, 216, 226)
"For my wife's sake" (projection or moral rationalization or self-punishment)
"No man is immune to temptation" - comparative analysis amongst characters
Physical objects/clothing as a tool to characterize (hats – mid 90, 191, dirty coat 63, I’s suitcase/trunk in section 2, top 160
Color and/or visual imagery – top 6,
Nature imagery (animals = ) (trees/flowers = top 11, end 12, end 55, top57, mid77, 148 ) (clouds =
Seasonal/narrative time as marked through nature/trees/flowers
Foreshadowing: 74-75, 11, foreshadowing on inheritance mid 114, foreshadowing on social pressures 116, foreshadowing on grave scenes mid 139
Frame narratives & non-linear narrative disclosures & Secrets vs Revelations (the importance of privacy 105) – pg 8 = Sensei is dead, pg 66 inheritance backstory and the novel’s goal for unity of time; mid 24; top25; top 30; top 60
Edited out dialogue / referenced but not shown actions/dialogue – top 7
Rural vs urban settings/tensions (“country people” 79/naïve provincialism 82, end86) – WATCH the shifting language in the young narrator as a sign of his shifting perception on “home” or his increasing biases
& The significance of settings: Tokyo/Kamakura/Zoshigaya cemetary / Hakone / Nikko/ Niigata
The positioning of female characters (15-16, top 20, 87 “like all women”; ): A critique of possible misogyny in the text (by Japanese cultural context/standards) (NOTE: Shizu = “quiet”); contrast I’s mother (“she understood so little”) with Sensei’s wife; end 154; 180, 182, mid 184
Text and subtext (Levels/layers of meaning; Literal vs. suggestive action) [indirectness in the narrative]
Who has conversational control (how characters dictate flow/direction of dialogue as an indication of power structures in the relationship. The issue of leverage in relationships .. “I was forced to bow to him” top 174)
The confidant role (both “I” and Sensei’s wife pg 23)
The misanthrope role/archetype (and its ironies or how the archetype is modified/subverted) – mid 29, 149
Character Foils (Sensei vs. I’s father – end 49, etc)
The role of rhetorical questions in the narrative style
The balancing (or what is learned in) the dialogue vs. the narrative description
Issues of narrative bias (or the limitations of the 1st person narrative approach)
Paradoxes in characters (ex: Sensei as a hermit/recluse who still seeks to reach out the world; mid 88; )
Serialization and the effects of the chapter divisions
Similes and Figurative Language Strategies (and their effects/targets)
Subplots (finance/money 58 and Sensei’s family drama/inheritance 66) (I’s father’s health and Sensei’s repeated interest in it)
Naming (and expectations for such things in a “I”/psychological novel of the Japanese tradition) and the avoidance of formal names (and it as symptomatic of larger issues of DELIBERATE AMBIGUITY)
The logic (and effectiveness for this text’s goals) of limited narrative scope (only 3 significant characters in Sections 1-2 and Section 3)
The authorial significance / importance achieved in the physical distancing of the I and Sensei in his return to his parent’s house/setting
Ironies (end pg 81 about admiration for those who are more critical not complimentary)
The value of narrative misperceptions tied to youth & inexperience (pg 82)
The overt inclusion of historical facts/context and its logic/rationale/effect on shaping the creative story/plot (88, )
Non-visual senses engaged (auditory, gustatory, tactile, olfactory imagery)
The logic behind some of the plot complications postponing his return to Tokyo in section 2
Attempts at bathos (the comic and pathetic, pg 102 top) [and juxtapositions of that with attempts at pathos / catharsis
The value of having some 2nd person references in section 3 (as a narrative strategy which gives the letter approach logic)
Narrative fragmentation (or modular structure) and its modernist logic for use
Setting 147
The deliberate construction of boredom (in section 2) as a narrative tool to heighten power of anticipation (for section 3) [see it as a narrative strategy … somewhat deals with pacing or juxtaposition between the rural (section 2)and the urban (section 1 and 3) settings]
How Soseki has overcome the presumption of narrative bias in the storytelling of section 3 by Sensei (who easily could warp facts)
“Said to myself” – the role of interior dialogue (mid228) & Voices in our ears (final time end 243)
Motifs/Things
Watch Repetitions of terms: 1) heart; 2) modern/contemporary/ Western style, 3) love (mid 28), 4) temptation (62-64), 5) “when I die” (103, etc); 6) coward
Scenes in Libraries/studies
Perspectives of the diploma (value of formal/Western/university vs. informal/Sensei education pg158): 53-55, End 68-69 with the diploma as telescope metaphor (telescope on 135); the lost diploma pg 71, 83, end 28, mid 87, end 95 (the graduation party); Sensei as student end 152, top 158, top 173,
Letters as a recurring feature/motif (47-48, 59, 89, 92 section3, 110, 171, ); Telegrams
Blood motifs/metaphors 50, top 129, 230, 233, 247 & metaphors of the heart (rusty iron 178)
Walks 56, 13,
Illness – end 1, 44, 59, all of section 2,
Chess/games as a larger metaphor (in relationships, power dynamics, role reversals) – 48, end 89
Food/clothing (ice cream): 43-44, 71, 102,111
Parents / Generational Issues – pg2, mid 98,
The significance of physical touch (literal leaning on people = later 48);
Smoking – pg 4, 73,
Water/swimming
Alcohol – 16, top 19
Inward vs. outward expressions of emotion: pg 39
Crying (and outbursts of observable emotion): 18
Light and darkness mid 92
Rationalizations and self-delusions (top 35, 40, mid 46, 85)
Passive aggressiveness & Acts of deliberate cruelty/”purposely rude” 126 as a character trait
The presence/backdrop of death in life (cemetery settings, etc)
How the self (and self perception) is constructed through and by others (and is not an individual/discrete/separate act)
Narrative attempts at the avoidance of sexual dynamics (which would complicate plot) between I and Sensei’s wife
External punishment (formal justice) vs. self-punishment – pg 17 (divine punishment);
Literal and metaphoric boundaries/dividers/separations/gaps/distances; top 40, (NOTE when trains pop up – end79,
Sensei not as hero but as warning of the emptiness that comes with a pursuit/embrace of Western things/modernism (his books
The motif of “secret contempt” (end 81) that characters hold (around 155)
Reconciling the shifting perceptions towards Sensei (frustration vs admiration, etc): Mid 64 (to top 67)
Underlying homoeroticism : Male/male friendship (platonic love/sacrifice) as preparation for romantic love (pg27 top)
Knowing and not knowing (the burdens of knowing) – top 42, ; Intention vs. actuality; attraction vs. unapproachability
Self-Perceptions (self-awareness)
Joyful moments (top 6) JUXTAPOSED AGAINST ?
Conflicting dualities (Sensei’s depth/sadness/wisdom vs. childishness pg13; sad smiles pg15; )
The difficulty of communicating one’s “kokoro” OR deliberately choosing silence over attempts at complex communication likely to result in misunderstanding/misperception 94 … then look to lit techniques to attach to it
Levels on which in-between-ness exists (stuck between 2 worlds: modern/ancient, rural/city, child/adult – end 96)
Lying and willful deception (top98, 106, 166-167
Physical vs. non-physical or non-obvious forms of pain/trauma (end 105, enemas 110-11, 122)
A comparative examination of “terminal cases/fatal diseases” (mid 103) and/or the specter of inevitable impending death and how characters accept/rationalize/avoid it
The importance of privacy (105)
The necessity of struggle (to give life’s achievements meaning) – top 133
Anachronistic gestures (Junshi, etc)
Trains 79, 124,
The past as “property” or physical object (top 128)
The idea/contexts/consequences of “shirking responsibilities” (134)
Art (and ceremony) as a solace/refuge vs. unhealthy dependence on books 180
Piety 154
Self-deception or self-perpetuated falsehood about Okusan
Conviction vs. doubt (end 157)
The idea of being a “slave to convention” 161 on multiple levels
Failures in the attempts to read/know another’s thoughts/intentions
K’s religious philosophies
Increasing violent references/metaphors 186, 188 and/or game/war/competition references (fencing opponent 213)
The irrationality of fear as presented by literary techniques
Dark shadows - end 99-100, mid 118, top 119, mid 128
Books: as weapons against isolation and yet also the cause of isolation
Alienation created by modern humanity
Generational conflict / change / the role of traditions (the ending of an era)
Money
Moral punishments (self imposed or not)
The failure to live up to one’s parents’ wishes
Inability to live up to one’s own standards – mid 107
Consider K as old school/samurai metaphorically killed off by modern selfishness (Sensei)
“Anyone who has no spiritual aspirations is an idiot” – is this an indictment of modern selfishness
What have you learned about the nature of modern Japanese life as a result of reading Kokoro? (The essay might focus, for example, on the nature of human relationships as revealed in the novel; on female or male role expectations; on the manner in which adjustments are made to the influences of modernization and/or Westernization; on the impact in people's lives of the disruption of tradition by changes demanded for purposes of survival in the modern world.)
Read article titles from Help w/ Part 1 text stuff (for WA ideas)
Reference heart of darkness novel
PAGE NUMBERS TO COVER IN CLASS DISCUSSION
End 10, foreshadow 12
Mid 17
End 19
Top 21; top 22
Foreshadow top 25, 30, top 60 on things below the surface
Guilt in loving 26/27, and sacredness 28
End 28-29 education (and how Sensei is of more educational value than his teachers)
End 31 to the Confucius quote (up the Yangtze)
NOTE western style influence – in dress, etc: the study 33, European tea cup 34, pg69, (top 35 = empty rationalization as consequence of Western style education) - 109 Western style suit
MID 41
44 the pivot to I’s home or to education pg 53 (DISTINGUISH PLOT FROM THESE SUBPLOTS)
BLOOD 50
Note young student is imitating Sensei’s thesis pg 55
Mid 61 philosophy
Mid 64 , top 67– shifting perceptions
Mid 68, top 69 + top 71 diploma [contrast it to the value it has to I’s father mid 82)
Mid 75 – surface/public face vs. private/darker reality (link top pg 60)
End 79 on train – 80
SECTION 2
Father/sensei links: 105, 95, 103, 99-100 (Link different contexts of parents: Sensei’s dead vs I’s vs K’s two parent sets)
Mother = 83, 87, 91, 106, 116, 118-119
Mid 82
88 meiji , mid 91 – mid92; NOGI death 108
Top 94
End 95
Mid 103 terminal cases (link with Sensei – waiting to die)
Footnote end 107
112
Top 114 – why that trait (no brotherly love) (115)
Mid 121 (epistle) to end 122 to mid 123 decision; pg 68
Who do you think will be able to handle the death of the father better: the mother who seems to use traditional logic or the son who uses modern thoughts?
Top 139
End 141
Top 143
End 145-146: intro of Ojosan/Okusan
Ojosan 148 (end 158 male visitor)
Okusan = 150
End 151
End 154
Mid 156 (“I told them everything” versus later)
End 158 + 164 K’s entrance = male visitors
End 159
Top 164
“the true way” idea pg 166, 215
K’s religiousnessness mid 167 (171) & his stoicism lower 173
Top176
Top 177
K and Ojosan’s relationship start 181/182
186-187 – turning point to hatred of K (end 186)
188
190 footnotes + 185-186 = culture and geography
Mid 196
Jealousy and kokoro mid 199
204 = K states his love + 207
213, 214
222
Top 225
228 K death
231
238
240
Top 3 lines of 244
Read mid 245 to end
248 = What are your thoughts on the paradoxical request of the final paragraph of the novel?
Lessons from Sensei, pg 10 on reality of death, pg 13 on the grave; pg 25 on love and guilt in loving; pg 60 on money/inheritance
Clues about K in section 1 = 9, 11, 37
NOTE parallels: K is smarter than & mentor to Sensei AND Sensei is smarter/mentor to I/young student
Go back to section 1 to look to young student’s pity/scorn/feelings for Sensei after his death & what is revealed from Shizu’s conversations in section1
Reference heart of darkness novel
PAGE NUMBERS TO COVER IN CLASS DISCUSSION
End 10, foreshadow 12
Mid 17
End 19
Top 21; top 22
Foreshadow top 25, 30, top 60 on things below the surface
Guilt in loving 26/27, and sacredness 28
End 28-29 education (and how Sensei is of more educational value than his teachers)
End 31 to the Confucius quote (up the Yangtze)
NOTE western style influence – in dress, etc: the study 33, European tea cup 34, pg69, (top 35 = empty rationalization as consequence of Western style education) - 109 Western style suit
MID 41
44 the pivot to I’s home or to education pg 53 (DISTINGUISH PLOT FROM THESE SUBPLOTS)
BLOOD 50
Note young student is imitating Sensei’s thesis pg 55
Mid 61 philosophy
Mid 64 , top 67– shifting perceptions
Mid 68, top 69 + top 71 diploma [contrast it to the value it has to I’s father mid 82)
Mid 75 – surface/public face vs. private/darker reality (link top pg 60)
End 79 on train – 80
SECTION 2
Father/sensei links: 105, 95, 103, 99-100 (Link different contexts of parents: Sensei’s dead vs I’s vs K’s two parent sets)
Mother = 83, 87, 91, 106, 116, 118-119
Mid 82
88 meiji , mid 91 – mid92; NOGI death 108
Top 94
End 95
Mid 103 terminal cases (link with Sensei – waiting to die)
Footnote end 107
112
Top 114 – why that trait (no brotherly love) (115)
Mid 121 (epistle) to end 122 to mid 123 decision; pg 68
Who do you think will be able to handle the death of the father better: the mother who seems to use traditional logic or the son who uses modern thoughts?
Top 139
End 141
Top 143
End 145-146: intro of Ojosan/Okusan
Ojosan 148 (end 158 male visitor)
Okusan = 150
End 151
End 154
Mid 156 (“I told them everything” versus later)
End 158 + 164 K’s entrance = male visitors
End 159
Top 164
“the true way” idea pg 166, 215
K’s religiousnessness mid 167 (171) & his stoicism lower 173
Top176
Top 177
K and Ojosan’s relationship start 181/182
186-187 – turning point to hatred of K (end 186)
188
190 footnotes + 185-186 = culture and geography
Mid 196
Jealousy and kokoro mid 199
204 = K states his love + 207
213, 214
222
Top 225
228 K death
231
238
240
Top 3 lines of 244
Read mid 245 to end
248 = What are your thoughts on the paradoxical request of the final paragraph of the novel?
Lessons from Sensei, pg 10 on reality of death, pg 13 on the grave; pg 25 on love and guilt in loving; pg 60 on money/inheritance
Clues about K in section 1 = 9, 11, 37
NOTE parallels: K is smarter than & mentor to Sensei AND Sensei is smarter/mentor to I/young student
Go back to section 1 to look to young student’s pity/scorn/feelings for Sensei after his death & what is revealed from Shizu’s conversations in section1
Kokoro Notes
Title – 32, 35
Section 1 + 2 - 1st person POV, through young student, past tense (importance – we know early, but must let it unravel)
Disclosures --- Sensei dead (8)
Lessons
1 – reality of death (10)
2 – grave visits (13)
3 – on love (25)
4 – inheritance and money is evil (60)
Clues on K – 9, 11, 37
IYoung student, youngest child in the family
Swimmer
Not rich
Left alone (existential), pg. 2
Bored
Has sense he knows Sensei (unspoken bond) (4)
Irresistible desire to become close (why?) (12)
Imitates Sensei (with thesis, behavior in the cemetery)
** Somewhat insecure, pg. 7; first filled with disappointment (7)
Wants to find in Sensei what he looks for (what he is lacking) (8)
Something lacking in his life -- he thinks of Sensei (8)
Feels pity for Sensei in retrospect (8)
** No friendship/romance yet with women! (Is Sensei relationship preparation for that?)
* Where are friends his own age?
* Where are his parents in Section 1? father ill, pg 44, kidney disease
inappropriate behavior in the cemetery (10)
desires to comfort Sensei’s wife (when asked to stay with her)
Returns home (46), has older brother and sister
Seems peeved by inconvenience of going home (46)
Leaves family early (50); bored by parents
Working of his thesis (55)
A smoker (57)
First mention of hate for Sensei (64)
Graduate and views on diploma (69) - symbol of the diploma as telescope; treats diploma poorly
Has no real ideas about career – has wish to learn about life (68)
Feels need to show father the diploma (70)
* Feels the helplessness of man
wants to live like Sensei (73)
has greater admiration for Sensei than for his family (81)
family = naïve provincialism
no real respect for his family (WHY IS THIS??)
reads books – but they don’t settle him
refuses teaching job (93) (WHY??)
parents expect his financial independence
education separates him from his parents (IS HE BETTER OFF BECAUSE OF IT?)
not close with his brother (114)
but is drawn closer by some mystic power with father’s dying
father in coma (118)
Letter arrives (119)
Why does he leave at end of Section 1?
Sensei
First seen naked @ beach (3)
Is with non-standard Westerner – does this show Sensei was like author in worldly travels (does experience with the entire world only increase sorrow)
Avoidance of others (5)
Indifferent to his surroundings
Staying in groups of a temple, has few friends (7)
* Sensei stated as dead (past tense) (8)
* Gives unstated warning that he wouldn’t want him as a friend
* Takes flowers to a grave every month (clues – 11)
has fear of being analyzed (14)
quiet (at peace – but a darkness/shadow beneath it), could not fully accept the love of another
married, a “fond enough couple” (17)
WHY DOES HE MOCK HER (17)?
tidy (70), childish (13), lonely, melancholy, a misanthrope (67)
not the man his wife thinks he is (19); goes home for his “wife’s sake” (20)
thinks I will no longer want to visit (15)
aware I came to him for completion, LIKE ROMANCE (26)
graduate of the university (like young student) (22)
places little importance on his diploma (I follows this model)
lives in “complete obscurity”; has undergone change since youth (23)
** major statement (25)
described as mysterious (28); is greater than all I’s teachers (29)
has lost hope and strength since youth (38); cause of his change examined (38)
never been seriously ill (45)
non-entity, self-effacing (49)
** greater force as father than I’s father (50)
gives advice on father’s illness (52); continually asks about the father
suicide mentioned (53); is more humble in his knowledge (54)
calls self old and decrepit (54)
was a rich man once (59) – HOW (is this defined)?
** Any man could become evil (63) – HOW? WHY? (connect with Metamorphosis)
Very vengeful, doesn’t forget past wrongs (65)
Deceived by his family; he never lies (41) – but he did with K experience and marriage
Urinates in public (64)
Described as evasive (67); major passage (68) **
House done in the WESTERN style (69); ASSUMMED he has been to Europe
Turn towards suicide / death talk (76)
Slow to write the letter (97)
Asks for him to come, he can’t (109)
Letter (119); indecisive (110)
Hates to write (irony) (121)
WHY MUST HIS LIFE STORY BE TOLD? WHY TO THE STUDENT? WHAT WILL HE LEARN?
GREAT LINE (95)
At age 20 lost both parents (129)
Was an only son
Raised by uncle
Inheritance talk (140)
Start of roommate (145)
Young lady shows up (148)
Man appears in her room (158)
He is in agony
Relationship is more spiritual than intellectual relationship
At what point is suicide a certainty/reality for him (53)?
K appears (164)
Invited in by Sensei (irony)
Have been friends since childhood
Son of a priest; involved in Christian study
K comes to the house (174)
K has more will power
Sensei feels inferior to K
Love b/w Okusan and K (181)
K and Sensei travel to Boshu (185)
K states his love (204)
K States pain (212)
Sensei states his desire to marry (222)
K told by Obusan of marriage (227)
Statement of suicide (228)
What is the impact of not hearing Sensei referred to by that title in Section 3; what was the effect of him being called that in your impression of him in Section 1 + 2???????
Sensei’s wife (Shizu) (Okusan – see footnote in the letter)
Appears (9)
Beautiful
A necessary part of Sensei’s house (16)
1st conversation in book seen in conflict (16)
no laughter in the house
Desires children (17)– she is unfulfilled, WHY would Sensei choose to have no children?
Argument in marriage (18)
Doesn’t drink
Wants husband happy
IS SHE SUBMISSIVE?
Misunderstands him (19); nature of the marriage explained (21)
Knew him as a student, details (24) DISCUSSION WITH I ALONE**
Love story and tragedy connected (25)
Is mostly a modern woman (35, 37)
Major questions answered (36/7)
Seen as a woman of understanding (39)
* like I, has sincere, sympathetic interest in Sensei
Her predicament – finding out what separates the two of them (40)
Seen as innocent and childish (51)
WHAT WOULD SHE DISCOVER? WHAT WOULD THE EFFECTS BE?
Bashes Sensei’s way of life; idleness (73)
Does what she can to help Sensei
Views of death (75)
Submissive in love issues? (77)
K (The friend)
First mention (41 – by the wife)
Died in college – is this when you connect the grave trips with him; if so, what is left of the mystery??
Connect - Trouble with inheritance after sudden death
Obusan (Okusan’s mother – head of the apartment in Section 3)
Young Student’s BrotherArrives 107; from Kyushu, a busy man (102)
Works hard, far away; first mention (46)
Seen as a kind of animal (114)
Bully (120)
Young Student’s Sister
First mention (46); is with child (102)
Brother in law (her husband) – mostly optimistic (108)
Young Student’s FatherKidney problem, first mention (44)
Does not lean on his son (48) **; plays chess (49) (symbolic)
I compares him to Sensei (49) – similar in that they are non-entities, self effacing
Young Student’s MotherNot modern
Feels will be lonely after father’s death (79)
Tries to treat Sensei nicely through motherly gifts and behavior
Japan/Meiji ConnectionsEmperor first taken ill (88)
Father refers to emperor as “His Majesty,” the son mocks this
Have a similar illness with father; father feels bonded then depressed when he dies
Death occurs (91)
General Nogi death (108)
Younger generation is surprised, think he is insane
Referred again (117)
Connect on Meiji’s death (245) and 246 - through Sensei
Sensei’s parents died together (76)
What about symbolism and lit devices? Why does it lack them?
Title – 32, 35
Section 1 + 2 - 1st person POV, through young student, past tense (importance – we know early, but must let it unravel)
Disclosures --- Sensei dead (8)
Lessons
1 – reality of death (10)
2 – grave visits (13)
3 – on love (25)
4 – inheritance and money is evil (60)
Clues on K – 9, 11, 37
IYoung student, youngest child in the family
Swimmer
Not rich
Left alone (existential), pg. 2
Bored
Has sense he knows Sensei (unspoken bond) (4)
Irresistible desire to become close (why?) (12)
Imitates Sensei (with thesis, behavior in the cemetery)
** Somewhat insecure, pg. 7; first filled with disappointment (7)
Wants to find in Sensei what he looks for (what he is lacking) (8)
Something lacking in his life -- he thinks of Sensei (8)
Feels pity for Sensei in retrospect (8)
** No friendship/romance yet with women! (Is Sensei relationship preparation for that?)
* Where are friends his own age?
* Where are his parents in Section 1? father ill, pg 44, kidney disease
inappropriate behavior in the cemetery (10)
desires to comfort Sensei’s wife (when asked to stay with her)
Returns home (46), has older brother and sister
Seems peeved by inconvenience of going home (46)
Leaves family early (50); bored by parents
Working of his thesis (55)
A smoker (57)
First mention of hate for Sensei (64)
Graduate and views on diploma (69) - symbol of the diploma as telescope; treats diploma poorly
Has no real ideas about career – has wish to learn about life (68)
Feels need to show father the diploma (70)
* Feels the helplessness of man
wants to live like Sensei (73)
has greater admiration for Sensei than for his family (81)
family = naïve provincialism
no real respect for his family (WHY IS THIS??)
reads books – but they don’t settle him
refuses teaching job (93) (WHY??)
parents expect his financial independence
education separates him from his parents (IS HE BETTER OFF BECAUSE OF IT?)
not close with his brother (114)
but is drawn closer by some mystic power with father’s dying
father in coma (118)
Letter arrives (119)
Why does he leave at end of Section 1?
Sensei
First seen naked @ beach (3)
Is with non-standard Westerner – does this show Sensei was like author in worldly travels (does experience with the entire world only increase sorrow)
Avoidance of others (5)
Indifferent to his surroundings
Staying in groups of a temple, has few friends (7)
* Sensei stated as dead (past tense) (8)
* Gives unstated warning that he wouldn’t want him as a friend
* Takes flowers to a grave every month (clues – 11)
has fear of being analyzed (14)
quiet (at peace – but a darkness/shadow beneath it), could not fully accept the love of another
married, a “fond enough couple” (17)
WHY DOES HE MOCK HER (17)?
tidy (70), childish (13), lonely, melancholy, a misanthrope (67)
not the man his wife thinks he is (19); goes home for his “wife’s sake” (20)
thinks I will no longer want to visit (15)
aware I came to him for completion, LIKE ROMANCE (26)
graduate of the university (like young student) (22)
places little importance on his diploma (I follows this model)
lives in “complete obscurity”; has undergone change since youth (23)
** major statement (25)
described as mysterious (28); is greater than all I’s teachers (29)
has lost hope and strength since youth (38); cause of his change examined (38)
never been seriously ill (45)
non-entity, self-effacing (49)
** greater force as father than I’s father (50)
gives advice on father’s illness (52); continually asks about the father
suicide mentioned (53); is more humble in his knowledge (54)
calls self old and decrepit (54)
was a rich man once (59) – HOW (is this defined)?
** Any man could become evil (63) – HOW? WHY? (connect with Metamorphosis)
Very vengeful, doesn’t forget past wrongs (65)
Deceived by his family; he never lies (41) – but he did with K experience and marriage
Urinates in public (64)
Described as evasive (67); major passage (68) **
House done in the WESTERN style (69); ASSUMMED he has been to Europe
Turn towards suicide / death talk (76)
Slow to write the letter (97)
Asks for him to come, he can’t (109)
Letter (119); indecisive (110)
Hates to write (irony) (121)
WHY MUST HIS LIFE STORY BE TOLD? WHY TO THE STUDENT? WHAT WILL HE LEARN?
GREAT LINE (95)
At age 20 lost both parents (129)
Was an only son
Raised by uncle
Inheritance talk (140)
Start of roommate (145)
Young lady shows up (148)
Man appears in her room (158)
He is in agony
Relationship is more spiritual than intellectual relationship
At what point is suicide a certainty/reality for him (53)?
K appears (164)
Invited in by Sensei (irony)
Have been friends since childhood
Son of a priest; involved in Christian study
K comes to the house (174)
K has more will power
Sensei feels inferior to K
Love b/w Okusan and K (181)
K and Sensei travel to Boshu (185)
K states his love (204)
K States pain (212)
Sensei states his desire to marry (222)
K told by Obusan of marriage (227)
Statement of suicide (228)
What is the impact of not hearing Sensei referred to by that title in Section 3; what was the effect of him being called that in your impression of him in Section 1 + 2???????
Sensei’s wife (Shizu) (Okusan – see footnote in the letter)
Appears (9)
Beautiful
A necessary part of Sensei’s house (16)
1st conversation in book seen in conflict (16)
no laughter in the house
Desires children (17)– she is unfulfilled, WHY would Sensei choose to have no children?
Argument in marriage (18)
Doesn’t drink
Wants husband happy
IS SHE SUBMISSIVE?
Misunderstands him (19); nature of the marriage explained (21)
Knew him as a student, details (24) DISCUSSION WITH I ALONE**
Love story and tragedy connected (25)
Is mostly a modern woman (35, 37)
Major questions answered (36/7)
Seen as a woman of understanding (39)
* like I, has sincere, sympathetic interest in Sensei
Her predicament – finding out what separates the two of them (40)
Seen as innocent and childish (51)
WHAT WOULD SHE DISCOVER? WHAT WOULD THE EFFECTS BE?
Bashes Sensei’s way of life; idleness (73)
Does what she can to help Sensei
Views of death (75)
Submissive in love issues? (77)
K (The friend)
First mention (41 – by the wife)
Died in college – is this when you connect the grave trips with him; if so, what is left of the mystery??
Connect - Trouble with inheritance after sudden death
Obusan (Okusan’s mother – head of the apartment in Section 3)
Young Student’s BrotherArrives 107; from Kyushu, a busy man (102)
Works hard, far away; first mention (46)
Seen as a kind of animal (114)
Bully (120)
Young Student’s Sister
First mention (46); is with child (102)
Brother in law (her husband) – mostly optimistic (108)
Young Student’s FatherKidney problem, first mention (44)
Does not lean on his son (48) **; plays chess (49) (symbolic)
I compares him to Sensei (49) – similar in that they are non-entities, self effacing
Young Student’s MotherNot modern
Feels will be lonely after father’s death (79)
Tries to treat Sensei nicely through motherly gifts and behavior
Japan/Meiji ConnectionsEmperor first taken ill (88)
Father refers to emperor as “His Majesty,” the son mocks this
Have a similar illness with father; father feels bonded then depressed when he dies
Death occurs (91)
General Nogi death (108)
Younger generation is surprised, think he is insane
Referred again (117)
Connect on Meiji’s death (245) and 246 - through Sensei
Sensei’s parents died together (76)
What about symbolism and lit devices? Why does it lack them?
Relationships:
1)Sensei and I
2)Sensei and his wife
3)Sensei and K
4)Sensei and his wife’s mother
5)Sensei and Nogi/Emperor as well as I’s father and Nogi/Emperor
6)I and his brother and sister
7)I and his father
8)I and his mother
9)I and Sensei’s wife
10)K and Sensei’s wife
11)K and Sensei’s wife’s mother
12)I’s father and I’s mother
1)Sensei and I
2)Sensei and his wife
3)Sensei and K
4)Sensei and his wife’s mother
5)Sensei and Nogi/Emperor as well as I’s father and Nogi/Emperor
6)I and his brother and sister
7)I and his father
8)I and his mother
9)I and Sensei’s wife
10)K and Sensei’s wife
11)K and Sensei’s wife’s mother
12)I’s father and I’s mother
Kokoro
Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism, volume(s) 2:491-93; 10:330-32, 336-37, 346; 271:163-67, 170, 177-83, 195-96, 212-20, 222-24, 228-32, 254, 263, 267, 291, 294-95, 297, 299, 302-7, 316, 330-31
The Assault
Novels for Students, volume(s) 52: 22-44
De aanslag
Contemporary Literary Criticism, volume(s) 42:289-92; 270:323-33, 336
Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism, volume(s) 2:491-93; 10:330-32, 336-37, 346; 271:163-67, 170, 177-83, 195-96, 212-20, 222-24, 228-32, 254, 263, 267, 291, 294-95, 297, 299, 302-7, 316, 330-31
The Assault
Novels for Students, volume(s) 52: 22-44
De aanslag
Contemporary Literary Criticism, volume(s) 42:289-92; 270:323-33, 336