Hey all, hope your break is going well.  This is just a reminder that your conformity/rebellion essays (yep, those from all those months ago) will be due no later than this Monday.  If you have any questions, please shoot me an email or post a comment.  I’m here to help, but it’s time to get them in.

For the rest of you: Keep reading your personal novels; I hope to begin writing by the end of the coming week.  We will discuss the ending of The Stranger on Monday.

We’ve finished up Things Fall Apart and are now moving on to Camus’s The Stranger.  This is an interesting take on the identity theme we’ve been exploring, so I’m excited to see how you like it.

This story is a classic example of existentialist literature (as we discussed in class), so this should be a good representation of the “personal choice” aspect of our breakdown of identity, but we may find otherwise.

We will read to Part Two this weekend (page 59, I believe).  If you have any questions or strokes of insight, please post a comment below.

Here’s the “From the Board” on Things Fall Apart.  Remember, all homework for this session is due this Thursday the 18th.  I won’t accept anything after this.  We will be discussing chapters 4-6 tomorrow.

We’ve had some great discussions the past few days.  If you are still uncertain about a topic, ask Stacie.  She keeps cranking them out then disowning them. 

We decided to finish the book by Tuesday, which seems reasonable.  Don’t rush if you’re feeling behind. Enjoy the book, read a bit every day, and you’ll be fine.

Here again are the board clips (less jumbled this time):

Sherrie presented her idea for synthesizing Ellison’s short story, MLK’s “Letter…,” the novel, and Montaigne’s quotation on conformity.  (Keep us updated!)

The question I put before the class was:  Are they happy?  If so, why?  If not, does it matter?  We went through a list of things in our lives that upset us, then crossed out those that are eliminated in the BNW.  The next question was why is Bernard unhappy initially, and what is the source of Hemholtz’s discontentedness?

If you come up with an idea, want to offer one to the class, have a question, or a general observation, comment below for the good of all.

We had a great discussion today, guys!  Here are my notes.  The screencast thing didn’t work, but here is a copy of my notes, jumbled for your interpretative pleasure:

(Click on the pics to make them printable/legible.  Well, larger, anyway.)