Notes Towards Day 25: Of What Use is Ahab's Wife to Us?

Notes Towards Day 25 of Food for Thought:
Of What Use is Ahab's Wife to Us?

I. Coursekeeping
class evals, plus writing metaphors and suggestions for next year...
signing up for your group conferences
signing up for your presentation groups
printing off your forum comments:
log in, type /exchange/mycomments
request "printer friendly version" (@ top) and print!
questions re: any of above and/or final collaborative papers?

II. Finishing our selection of Naslund's novel
(Chs. 38-54, pp. 209-253)

write what (you imagine) comes after....

III. Your reactions to/relation with the character,
the novel, the question of cannibalism? And how
the novel functions as finale to our course?

leigh: if I can take one thing from this class, it is to make my own informed decisions from the choices available and that is exactly what Una did in the novel.

Yellow: "oh god, not another girl dressing up as a boy."

mmg: she falls into the stereotype of every woman that does not like her limited existence and wants to escape it....I realise that this book is befitting a course that is named 'The Omnivore's Dilemma', for isn't it the unlimited choices that lie in front of us, omnivore's give us power, but also causes us immense anxiety? In the novel, Kit's dementia proves the latter point.

cjewett: the whole girl-dressing-up-like-a-boy-to-get-on-a-ship is such a cliche to me....She can't choose her own life partly because she can't change her biological gender....therefore restricted on completely living a free life, especailly as a sailor. In this way, the novel was a good finale to the class. It incorporated canabalism and that aspect of choice (the desperate, raw side of choice) and incorporated free will (or lack there of).

emily: It seemed to me like just another one of those books about a woman trying to prove herself in a world of men or thinking she was the first woman to do whatever she "chooses"....yet she cannot control what happens to her, no matter what she chooses....she is not able to make the world as she chooses, rather, her choices lead to the reality of her own world.

ihe: It's more interesting than Prodigal Summer...because it’s more unpredictable...a kind of freshness.... I can see the whole course coming together with this book.

mcchen: I thought this novel was a nice finale to this course about choice because it touches on so many aspects of choice such as whether or not we have a "free will" in this world, as well as choice of loyalties and choice of accepting new ideas.

hwiencek: I'm starting to see that even in my own daily monotonous life everything is about choice. Though some things seem like habit or necessity there is always choice involved. (I am probably very late in realizing this...) However, one type of "choice" I don't think we really have discussed in class is the idea of loyalty....It seemed to me that Una almost feels responsible for Kit and thus chooses to stay with him....we didn't necessarily focus on the reasons behind choices rather than the impact of our choices....in my recollection very few of the...texts focused on the why....maybe being more aware of why we make a decision (or want to act a certain way) will help us be more conscientious choosers.

lwscott: This novel does a good job of showing how people's circumstances drastically effect their choices.

aybala50: The book shows the fight between the physical need and the psychological strain.

SaraO: This novel is the indulgence, or the choice of the author to create a totally new story out of what she saw there. It is the execution of all of the choice we discussed...

Shoshi: most girls, myself included, had their rebellious stage in their teens...I identify with her need for freedom.

stephkim: I always saw this class as a discussion of choice....Ahab's Wife does involve a lot of choice, but another book could've focused more on the reasons behind the choice, whether than Una simply acting on her instincts.

Sarah?

IV. Reading notes from pp. 209-253:
what kind of world is this? (lawful, full of chance?)
how much control does Una have over what happens to her?

211: fear of cannibals: would not be persuaded
capitulation of power
212: do not want to remember their faces
zagging with infinity
214: Giles noble (will not lie)
should have feared the cannibal within
215: chance of the coin flip: law of the world we live in
dreaming incorporates ouside sounds
218: abstract goodness--> doom
reality of memory
220: what's measured measured by what measures
arrow of time reversible in dreams
221: island of childhood
222: disregard the glory
self as starfish; mussel
224-5: lot of boy, death of father
226: could still read and be a cannibal
230: did not want to see in their eyes a
reflection of what we had done together
231: cult of pride among survivors
trace thread back to a knot
233: pardon/no string too short to save
235: Icarus
236: individual drops dissolve @ death
belief makes things happen
239: Captain's death an answer to Christianity?
240: forgiveness?
241: arrogant ladder of reasons
suffered for--> value lives
243: falling or letting go?
248: Theory of Impossibility of Impossibility=all possible
252: most interesting person ever