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Surfacing 2

Surfacing 2. Gendered Identities and Fragmented Bodies in Nature Focus: chaps 13-14. Main Issues. Main Issues: Quest for Lost Identities (Home and the Past)  Her Fragmentary Selves Gendered Identities in patriarchal society  Fragmented Bodies & Animals

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Surfacing 2

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  1. Surfacing 2 Gendered Identities and Fragmented Bodies in Nature Focus: chaps 13-14

  2. Main Issues • Main Issues: • Quest for Lost Identities (Home and the Past)  Her Fragmentary Selves • Gendered Identities in patriarchal society  Fragmented Bodies & Animals • Nature and Humans’ Roles in Nature  Fragmented Bodies in Nature • For Next Week

  3. Quest for Lost Identities (Home and the Past: 1. Lost Father) • Suspense built by her ‘fear’ of the father; e.g. Chap 7 (p. 59) “What I’m afraid of is my father, hidden on the island somewhere and attracted by the light perhaps, looming up at the window like a huge moth; or, if he’s still lucid, asking her who she is and ordering her out of his house. . . .” • Chap 12: “It was no longer his death but my own that concerned me” (p. 107)

  4. Quest for Lost Identities (Home and the Past: 2. Approaching the Past) • The past is ‘present’— e.g. 1. fence marriage; 2. chap 6 (p. 49) “Except for the bikini and the color of her hair, she could be me at sixteen. . . Joe and David, . . . Might be my brother and my father.” 2. Searching through scrapbooks and family albums; chap 10 (p. 91) • All illustrations of ladies but not herself; • A lot of Easter eggs. “No monsters, no wars, no explosions, no heroism.”

  5. Quest for Lost Identities (Home and the Past: 2. Approaching the Past) 3. Gradual revelation of the truth about her abortion Clue: chap 8 "I have to be more careful about my memories, I have to be sure they're my own" (70). Chap 5 -- 'remembers' her 'husband,' marriage and divorce, "like an amputation, you survive but there's less of you" (39) Chap 10 --Joe's proposal;remembers her 'wedding'; sees herself as an invalid. Chap 12 – her broken selves.  Chap 17 – dives and faces the real past

  6. Quest for Lost Identities (Home and the Past: 3. Childhood and Self-Alienation) Childhood & Sunday School – Chap 6: trying to conform and be a Christian; Chap 8: quitting Sunday School; isolation from the other children End of Chap 12 (p. 108): family album “myself in stiff dresses, crinolines and tulle, layered like store birthday cakes; I was civilized at last, the finished product.” “After the formal dresses I disappeared; no wedding pictures, . . .”

  7. Quest for Lost Identities (Home and the Past: 4. ‘Marriage’ and Broken Selves) Chaps 1 – 4: homecoming with a strong sense of alienation: Chap 3: memory of her brother’s drowning; Chap 4: Upon arriving home, she 'remembers' her baby and marriage. Chap 5: marriage and divorce, "like an amputation, you survive but there's less of you" (39)The baby: "I have to behave as though it doesn't exist, . . . it was taken away from me. . . . A section of my own life, sliced off from me. . . , my own flesh cancelled" (45)

  8. Lost Identities = Broken Bodies e.g. 1 Chaps 12: pp. 108-109 “I didn’t know when it had happened. . . .but after that I’d allowed myself to be cut in two. Woman sawn apart ina wooden crate, wearing a bathing suit, smiling, a trick done with mirrors, I read it in a comic book; only with me there had been an accident and I came apart. The other half, the one locked away, was the only one that could live; I was the wrong half, detached, terminal. I was nothing but a head, or, no, something minor like a severed thumb; numb.”

  9. Lost Identities = Broken Bodies e.g. 2 Chaps 9 (p. 75) “The trouble is all in the knob at the top of our bodies. I’m not against the body or the head either: only the neck, which created the illusion that they are separate. . . .” What does the illusive separation of the head and the body mean here?

  10. Lost Identities = Broken Bodies e.g. 3 Chaps 13 -14 Questions for close analysis: • What does she fear and needs rescue from at night? (Chap 13 p. 112 --); • How does David treat women’s and animals’ bodies? (Chap 14 pp. 120-21)

  11. Gendered Identities in patriarchal society I. Anna and David: Chap 10 pp. 89-90 David, a sexist, gives compliment half-heartedly and makes sexist comments on ‘her’ ass casually. Chap 11 (pp. 98-99)—David as a womanizer; “He said it’s being honest. What a turd. When I get mad he says I’m jealous and possessive. . .he says jealousy is bourgeois, it’s a leftover from the property ethic. . .but really it’s to show me he cdan do it and get away with it. . . . “

  12. Gendered Identities in patriarchal society • Anna and David: 1. What do you think about the discussion of Women’s Lib on pp. 112-13 --David: 1) failure to understand their causes, 2) fear of their power --the narrator: ‘ought to’ be superior, but actually not. -- stereotypes in society 2. And the relationships between Anna and David? (123) David– bossy only to hide his inner depletion.

  13. Gendered Identities in patriarchal society II. The narrator and Joe: Chap 5: Joe’s nightmare; Chap 10: Joe's proposal; Chap 10: “When you can’t tell the difference between your own pleasure and your pain then you’re an addict. I did that, I fed him unlimited supplies of nothing, he wasn’t ready for it, . . .” (84) Chap 12: Joe’s question: “Do you love me?”(p. 107) “It was the language again, I couldn’t use it because it wasn’t mine.”

  14. Gendered Identities in patriarchal society II. The narrator and Joe: How can we characterize Joe? (pp. 111; 125) --weak; in need of the narrator’s participation in his self-love. But the latter is too preoccupied with her past to love. -- can feel and is not violent “’The truth is,’ he said bitterly, ‘you think my work is crap, you think I’m a loser and I’m not worth it.’ His face contorted, it was pain: I envied him.” (p. 107)

  15. Nature & Fragmented Bodies in Nature • Are there any passages you like in these two chapters? • Chap 13 p. 110 vs. p. 114 (the power company); p. 116; p. 118; • How does the narrator respond to the scene of the dead heron? How does David respond to it? (chap 14) • p. 118, human destruction/possession of things which they cannot possess alive; • David – Random Samples – choice of the strange and exotic without sympathy or understanding. P. 1

  16. Nature & Fragmented Bodies in Nature • How does the narrator ‘live’ in Nature? • Sun-time; • Natural toilet; p. 119 • Alert for possible dangers (e.g. 119; 125) • Feels alive – p. 114

  17. For Next Week • Chap 15: the 'Americans' turn out to be from Toronto p. 129 • "The trouble some people have being German," she says in reference to the Nazi atrocities, "I have being human" (p. 131) • Chaps 16 – 18 – • exploitation and power struggle between the two pairs get intensified; • The narrator dives and faces her past.

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