For the next-to-last week of class, you will pair up and meet with me for ten minutes to talk through your progress towards the final project. Here is a signup sheet. Every student should sign up for one ten-minute slot, and that’s all the time you have to spend in class the week of 12/4! Use the extra time to get your project into shape.
While we’re on the subject, here’s the template you’ll use for the final project. We will review it this week.
In Ben Lerner’s novel 10:04, we deal with a certain disconnect from the narrator. ben Lerner does this on purpose to kind of keep us on the edge of our seats. We learn so much about this man who is not a fan of wealthy people has a serious health condition and is a very talented writer. we get many snippets into his personality but throughout the entire novel, we never learn his name.
I believe that this could be done for many reasons. It is intentionally vague so that we can choose how to interpret our narrator. We are able to imagine him as somebody that we know, or maybe even ourselves if we were in his situation. The book overall is a bit hard to understand due to the setup and format that Lerner follows. So many parts are left unsaid, and a bit confusing that it is as if it is intentional for us to feel a little confused and out of place. Almost as if we were feeling as confused and lost as the narrator is throughout the novel.
All throughout, it feels as though the book can only get its points across by having the readers completely indulge in the book, such as imagining ourselves, walking alongside the nameless narrator in the streets of New York. Or feeling the eerieness of things starting to change. Since our main character remains nameless, we are able to interpret his feelings and actions, as if they were our own, and not just a character that was made up to represent something else.
Little details like this are so important and give a completely new aspect to a novel. Simply naming a character can cause a complete different interpretation of a novel, giving a name that is from a specific culture, or that can have a special meaning, or a name that could be completely uncommon can make the reader disconnect or completely connect to the book. Which again goes back to the point of the nameless character being able to fulfill everybody’s needs and make the experience of the situation feel that much stronger.
Research question: What is Butler’s conceptualization of social issues in Parable of the Sower, how does she envision the potential catastrophic outcomes, and what alternative social orders does she propose as potential solutions to reduce the social issues?
Agustí, Clara Escoda. “The relationship between community and subjectivity in Octavia E. Butler’s Parable of the Sower.” Extrapolation (pre-2012) 46.3 (2005): 351.
Butler, Octavia E. Parable of the Sower. Headline Book Publishing, 2019.
Govan, S. (2003). THE PARABLE OF THE SOwER AS REnDERED BY OCTAVIA BUTLER: LESSOnS FOR OUR CHAnGInG TImES. Femspec, 4(2), 239. Retrieved from http://proxy.wexler.hunter.cuny.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/parable-sower-as-rendered-octavia-butler-lessons/docview/200166258/se-2
Kouhestani, Maryam. “Environmental and Social Crises: New Perspective on Social and Environmental Injustice in Octavia E. Butler’s Parable of the Sower.” International Journal of Social Science and Humanity 5.10 (2015): 898.
